[Because Not Everyone Stays With One Game for 10 Years]

"My simple heresy that I would like to propose for online game development is this: we should be comfortable with customers leaving. For the right reasons, not because we messed up a patch and destroyed all their characters, but because they’ve played the game, they’ve had fun, and they’re done, and ready for our next game. If you believe in what you do, and why you do, it’s not only destructive to your game’s bottom line, but simply wrong to keep them longer than they want to – than they should be there."

Amen.

  I notice this philosophy seems built into many F2P MMOs. These games were not built for people to live a decade+ in (though I'm sure there are people who do). They are, perhaps, the MMORPG version of 'casual games', and their devs seem to be at peace with that pattern of player gain/loss. Some people may call that shallow, but maybe it's a healthier pattern for many players to move on once that novelty is gone for them, rather that stay in one game past burnout and boredom out of some variation of sunk-cost fallacy, being enabled by devs who also seem to think that's what the life cycles of all MMOs should aspire for (though this would also call for people not being fixated on AAA budgets for everything, as well).

[Some Recommended Reading]

Too busy playing games (or being under NDA) to write about them lately, so here's some other worthwhile reads in the meantime:

Why Online Games are Tanking [Gamasutra]
Systems of Control in F2P [Gamasutra]
Exploitative Game Design: Beyond the F2P Debate [Gamasutra]
The Increasingly Twisted World of Promotional Screenshots [Edge]
Writer of SystemShock & Dishonored: 'Videogames Taught Me How to Write' [Polygon]
Why Your Games are Made by Childless 31-Year-Old White Men  [PA Report]

[How Predatory is F2P?]

Another quote from the F2P Ethics panel at GDC:

"We like to think that the ones spending vast sums on these games are sons of Dubai oligarchs, but we have the data to prove that they're not, and that they probably can't afford to spend what they're spending. We're saying our market is suckers - we're going to cast a net that catches as many mentally ill people as we can!" ~Nik Davidson

  Are some cash shops predatory? Yes. Are many sub games skinner-box grinds designed to milk monthly fees? Yes. Are there some people who should probably stay away from any game (sub or F2P), because they can't control themselves (either time or moneywise)? Yes, but whose job is it to police those people, the game company's?

  Should games (or laws) put limits on how much money a player can spend in a F2P per month? What kind of mechanics can drive 'too much' spending (are they the same mechanics that, in a sub game, encourage 'too much playing'?), and how does worrying about people spending large amounts of money conflict with the 'A few big spenders pay for everyone' structure F2P games are built around?

  And what even IS the monetary definition of a 'big spender' in a F2P game? 20$? 1000$? I've heard that only 5-10% on average in any F2P game spend money, and the definition of 'the average big spender' is a lot less than you'd think. But there is still very little public data about this (at least in English) that I could find.

  There's also this fact to consider -- F2P originally arose in Asia because of the extremely high software piracy rate there (in other words, selling a box would be financial suicide), so from the start there has never been a 'baked-in' requirement for a cash shop-model game to be exploitative or a cheaply-designed money pit rather than a quality game. A F2P game can be both a good game and have a fair cash shop.

  There is a real need for legitimate debate about what 'fair' monetization models for F2P/Freemium games are. I think that it's hard to pin down exactly, because no two games (or cash shops) are the same. I think the Western MMO market is still trying to figure this one out.


Related Reading:
F2P is Not Exploitative
Free vs Pay Games [DICE 2011]
$100k Whales: Intro to Chinese Browser Game Design

[F2P Is Not the Problem, and it's Also Not the Solution]

Karen Bryan at Massively posted on 'The Ethics of Gaming', questioning if the fad for F2P over subs that companies are rushing to embrace might be a Bad Idea. As someone who made peace with F2P games years ago, I actually agree with her, but for different reasons:

"In order to succeed, MMOs need players, but over the years there's been much more of an emphasis on how to monetize games and generate even more revenue. Back when the western MMO market was largely subscription-based, the key was to get players signing up and sticking around. It didn't necessarily matter how much you played, just that you kept coming back. And players did come back because they were compelled to, not because they were swayed by marketing."

  It's a fallacy to say the only reasons why people stay with F2P games (though 'F2P games' are far from all the same so they shouldn't be lumped together as if they are) is just because of marketing rather than content quality. This might shock some 'sub zealots', but tons of F2P games are succeeding because PEOPLE LIKE TO PLAY THEM, not because cash shops hold some kind of mind-control power over the 'stupid casuals' (which, let's face it, tends to be the stereotype in many anti-F2P players minds of the sort of person who would play a F2P MMO).

  My worry is that instead of learning the lesson as to WHY so many sub MMOs have failed in the wake of WoW's success, these companies will only come away with 'Subs are no longer popular for some reason, we just need to change our monetization scheme!' rather than the core issue which is PEOPLE DIDN'T FEEL YOUR GAME'S CONTENT IS WORTH BOX+15$ A MONTH. That is the true core of the problem here -- if people aren't willing to stick with a MMO with a monthly fee, it's because they don't feel like it's worth that investment of their time or money, and that is a serious issue that being F2P will not magically solve, and neither will 'slick marketing'.

  Why is Rift (which is far from 'revolutionary') still alive after so many other sub fee games failed all around it? Could it be that the frequency of content updates and quality the service it offers its players is considered by them to be 'valuable' enough to be worth paying a monthly fee for? Is this why WoW succeeds where other games who tried to ape it's 'popular gameplay style' failed -- because it provides CONTENT of sufficient concentration that players feel it's worth 15$? Is the reason why people left SWTOR in droves because they felt that what the game offered at level cap was not worth 15$ a month to be allowed continued access to? What is it about a F2P that makes people WANT to buy stuff in the cash shop? What is it about ANY MMO that makes it compelling to players longterm?

  Simply grabbing onto F2P as the savior (or doom) of MMORPGs is a fallacy. Companies are missing the lessons that the market has tried to teach them, if 'trying a new monetization scheme' is their best idea for how to survive in the current MMO environment.

  Players are not seeing these games as having enough gameplay & content value to justify a sub fee. The reason why many sub MMOs are doing poorly is not simply because those games were using an 'obsolete payment model'. If the latter is what all these 'AAA' studios have come away with as their lesson after seeing years of post-WoW MMO failures, then maybe the genre is in peril after all.


Related Reading:
SWTOR's Failure Was Not 'Random Chance'
Should AAA Game Studios Die?

[Pirate101's Sneak Peek]

  ...Or more like 'Stress Test', going by the throngs of people swarming all over during the 6-hour window the beta was open to the public. Even so, the game was stable and ran fine for me, barring one random 'teleported into space' bug I found when exiting one of the class trainers' rooms.
  I only had the time to play to the point where I received my first ship (level 4), but already I've been charmed by KingsIsle's latest take on their worlds of the Spiral. The naming system alone was pretty entertaining; just hitting 'Random' and seeing how many different piratey names you could get out of it was a lot of fun just by itself. Also, you get to design your own pirate flag along with your appearance! This is the sort of stuff I'm a total sucker for. =P

  KingsIsle has said that Pirate101 is targeted to a slightly older audience than Wizard101, and I do think that there is potential for more complex strategy in combat in P101, going by the little I saw at a early level. Once you engage an enemy, you are presented with a grid of the combat area, and you choose to either move your characters or use abilities across a certain range (basically like simplified RTS units). Once you choose your actions within the allotted time limit, combat will then play out on it's own. Besides straight one-on-one fighting there are also variables such as objects you need to defend for a certain number of turns or other grid objectives that may need to be completed before you can declare victory.

  Unlike Wizard101's card battle system, attacks in P101 are tied to your characters and their 'crew' (NPC party members). Depending on your pirate's class you have access to a set of varying skills, with the option of spending points you earn via leveling to acquire the skills of other classes. This allows you to hybridize your character in multiple ways. The classes you can choose from are Buccaneer as a melee tank, Privateer as group support/healer, Swashbuckler as a stealthy melee dps, Witchdoctor as a debuffer/summoner, and Musketeer as a ranged dps/trapper.

  As you progress you also collect a crew of NPCs that can appear on the board with you, and who have their own skills that you can train. Some crew members are unique to various classes, and complement classes in different ways.  Like in Wizard101, soloing should be viable throughout the whole game, even though grouping is very easy (simply run up to a fighting player to join in; loot and exp is automatically shared fairly).

 Personally, I love turn-based combat (which is one of the reasons I liked Wizard101) and it seems Pirate101 will offer some fun strategy RPG fare for both kids and older players who can appreciate whimsy and lighthearted humor in their games. The animation, art, and storytelling in P101 is very much improved over Wizard101 while still being familiar to folks who've played the earlier game, and is a nice mix of old and new for veteran players.

  The Crowns Shop in P101 appears to be very similar to the one in Wizard101, with mounts, armor, housing, pets, furniture, ships and ship gear (there is also ship combat in the game, though I barely got to try it out), and various buff potions available. In Wizard101, you could get everything you needed without spending real money and I played for nearly 4 years and only ever bought vanity stuff like mounts and housing stuff and never felt I was disadvantaged in any way -- and hopefully that will continue to be the case in Pirate101. One thing I always felt KingsIsle got right in their cash shop was that buying stuff from it always felt fun, rather than being something you were being forced to do in order to properly enjoy the game. As one of the first Western cash shop MMOs, it still amazes me how well they got things right back in 2008 when there are still MMO companies today struggling to figure out how to monetize their games without resorting to being predatory.

  Just like Wizard101, P101 utilizes either a 'monthly-fee plan' or 'buy as you go' system in regards to playing different zones past the newbie area -- for 10$ a month you have free access to everywhere at any time, or else you can buy individual zones for a set (lower) price. For slower/casual players, buying zones as you need them may be a better deal in terms of monthly cost; so technically P101 is more 'Freemium' than 'Free-to-Play'.

  The few hours I had with the game this afternoon went by pretty fast -- so I'm looking forward to Oct. 15th and the official release so I can put some more time into the game. But from what I saw today, Pirate101 looks like it'll be a solid, entertaining game for pirate-fans of all ages.

[MMOldtimers: Adapt or Move On]

  From Inventory Full:

"If MMOs were invented today, does anyone really think they'd set out their stall by asking for a hefty payment up front before you could even see the product, then demand another $15 a month just to keep using the thing you'd payed for? How did that ever work?

Well, it worked for a while because, as Wilhelm says, there was an Implied Social Contract, and, crucially, because the producers and consumers all came from the same culture. That lasted as long as it took for the word to get out that there was serious money to be made. Until WoW, in other words. Which, of course, charges a subscription. Because it can.

That brought in people whose dream was making money, not making worlds. They all tried to ape it and most of them ended up looking like monkeys. What works for WoW hasn't worked for anyone else because no-one really knows why it works for WoW. It shouldn't. It just does.

So here we are, we old-timers, leaning on our fences looking out at the tarmac being laid across the prairie all around us and wondering where the wonder went."

  Several years ago I struggled with being dissatisfied with where MMORPGs were going -- World of Warcraft was my first MMORPG, but I had embraced the ideal and concept of a 'virtual world' and wanted to see that ideal grown and built on, rather than the slew of WoW-clones released in its wake. I played several older games during this period (Horizons and Ryzom) just in time to see both go bankrupt and be largely abandoned to 'life support' status. This made me very discouraged. Games that seemed to want to be worlds were losing, while 'game-y' WoW clones kept coming (and WoW itself chipped away at it's 'World' as well).

  Toward the end of WotLK, I found I was mostly unhappy both with where WoW and most other 'real' (sub-based) MMORPGs were. I took a long break from blogging and became a tourist of F2P games, which I once scorned. And I found many fun, creative games in places I would never have given the slightest chance to before because of their lack of 'worldiness' and small scope. Along the way, I think my expectations normalized and I realized that those dreamy days of the past where people imagined a massive living, breathing, fantasy world as the future of MMORPGs were gone. That was not the future of the genre -- the future was going to be something else, something more 'game-y', and if I wanted to keep playing MMOs I'd have to accept that fact and learn to love them firstly as games, and not worlds.

  For some MMO oldtimers (many of whom's MMORPG histories are far older than mine), the future will be bleak. The new games will not offer anything they want, and if their older 'home' games die so will their desire to play MMOs. But I also think many of us will end up adapting our expectations, and learning to love the games we have instead of always wishing they were something else.


Related Reading:
Every Game is a 3-Monther

[Allods Online: 2 Years Later: Part 2]

[Go to Part 1]

  The first of the major changes I noticed (which was added to the game last year) is a new Tradeable Currency system. Basically, it allows cash shop currency to be sold for ingame gold. However, unlike most games who have this type of system, the exchage rate is set by the game itself rather than by players, based on how much of the tradeable currency (Gem Shards) is in the system at any given time. This automatic price control is an interesting way to keep monopolizing pay-players from price fixing the market. It also allows free players access to the cash shop without spending any real money if they so choose by basically letting them use their ingame gold to buy cash shop items. In the cash shop itself there is a tab that toggles the payment option for items between gPotatoes (the normal pay-currency) and Shards.

The Shard/Gold Exchange

  One of the things I tend to regularly buy in F2P games are mounts, so this aspect of the cash shop was another new thing for me (since I had stopped playing the game before they were released). The system in Allods Online is a bit unique, in that in addition to being able to acquire multiple different mounts, they can also be leveled up and reskinned. Mounts (and various different skins for them) are available as special event prizes, lottery box items, and stand-alone cash shop purchases. There are also character costume sets and even (for some reason I don't even want to speculate about) an entire tab just for underwear.

Fluffy hats!

  Another interesting mechanic added since the game's release is the Reincarnation system. Basically, after doing a series of quests, high-level players can unlock the ability to create a linked alt (Incarnation) that will share various items and bonuses with their main character. Besides the money-saving aspects of not having to buy new mounts, bag upgrades, etc., both characters can learn one of the abilities from the other's skill set that otherwise their class would not be able to, which opens up some interesting class customization possibilities.

  However, something I discovered as I was playing the game, is that once again there is a cash shop drama brewing, this time around an upcoming addition to the game's Patronage system. To explain: Characters all have a 'Patron Saint' that bestows temporary stat buffs and healing skills when a certain item (Incense) is used. These buffs gain experience through use and can be upgraded to be stronger via quests (up to level 4). The upcoming addition of a fifth level that can only be earned after enough of a certain cash shop item is bought is upsetting many players because the real-money cost for enough items to reach this rank (which appears to be mostly important in endgame PvP) would equal hundreds of dollars. Many people are angry over the 'pay 2 win' aspect of this mechanic, and I can see their perspective. For some reason, even after two years, the cash shop in Allods seems to periodically experiment with a new game mechanic added specifically to force players to spend money. Even though in every past case such mechanics have ended up eventually removed, the bad feelings they inspire linger on.

At level 23, my Patronage Level is 3.

   I have to admit I really don't understand the coercive attitude the Allods devs seem to keep falling back on when their game could be so much more popular if they simply advertised it's strengths (like their really neat Astral Ship content where players sail in search of bosses to fight as well as engage in ship combat with the opposite faction) instead of periodically trying to gouge their most invested players. Time will tell if the game eventually resolves this issue the same way it has fixed it's past monetization mistakes, but even so it's sad to see yet another example of the game's community being upset by a cash shop decision. Making your players feel like they're being taken advantage of is a big FAIL for any F2P game, whether or not that perception is accurate. It's also funny that at the same time when I decide to come back to give Allods another try after hearing about so many good additions to it, that this happens again. =P

Player-crewed Astral Ships can discover new lands and treasures.

  In conclusion: For those who still enjoy a 'classic' quest-based F2P MMORPG, Allods Online delivers a solid PvE experience with lots of nice features and the game does a lot of things well, so I recommend trying it out for those reasons alone. But in the end I'm left rather conflicted -- on one hand there are many things about the game I think are fun, but in a F2P MMO being able to trust that you won't be punished for not paying 'enough' (or at all) is very important, and I don't feel Allods has that trust. Therefore, I can only recommend it for casual/PvE players since I think that most serious min-maxers or PvP-oriented players will end up frustrated at the endgame unless they don't mind paying the costs (in grind and/or money) to reach the top level of performance. The majority of the cash shop is, in my opinion, fair to the casual player who is not too hung up on staying on the bleeding-edge of the power curve.

After two years Allods Online has grown a lot and I really think it's one of the better F2P games out there. It's just a shame that instead of finding a synergy with it's cash shop, it seems to still struggle to find a balance between profit and playability, even after all this time.

Related Reading:
An Allods Online Beginner's Guide

[Allods Online: 2 Years Later: Part 1]

Allods Online was one of those cases of poor F2P monetization decisions on the part of devs ruining what could have been a very good thing. During it's (cash shop-free) beta period, many MMO bloggers praised it's beautiful art design, airship combat and exploration endgame, and solid (if not wildly innovative) gameplay. There were dungeons and PvP, and quests, and the world was done in a familiar yet still enjoyable fantasy style with a Russian twist.

I myself enjoyed the time I spent in Beta, which was up to about level 20, and as Allods was my second foray into F2P MMOs (the first being Mabinogi, whose cash shop I rather liked and which had given me a positive first time F2P experience) I was not overly worried about how things would play out at release as much as some of the folks for whom this was their first try at this new payment model. It seemed as though many longtime sub-model MMO players were giving Allods a try at a time when F2P was still a fairly radical concept, and they were actually enjoying it!

And then release came around, and the cash shop was unveiled, with ludicrously high prices, and blatant 'pay to win' items. And then right after, there were patches to nerf character combat strength and buff death penalties to the point where it was impossible to play unless you were regularly buying items from the shop. PvE was made agonizingly slow for nonpaying players since now it took unreasonably long to kill even one mob unless you had the cash shop buff, and dying would literally leave your stats so reduced from the rez penalty that the game was basically telling players to 'either pay up or log out'. The promising Beta which had engendered so much positive press was exposed as a blatant bait and switch, and many MMO players who were for the first time trying out a F2P game had all their worst fears about the model justified.

Player outcry was immediate, and the hype turned bitterly sour, permanently damaging what I feel could have been one of the first mainstream hit F2P MMOs at that time. The devs basically tripped right out of the starting gate and fell squarely on their faces. The stigma from those first few months after launch has remained ever since, even though the game has apparently been doing fairly well and has released regular content updates and new features even with a reduced playerbase. Allods Online seems to be on a permanently low-key profile nowadays and many folks seem to avoid it because of it's sins from two years ago. But I had heard recently that things had changed in the past year and a half, and that both the cash shop and the game had been adjusted and balanced for some time now, with the hostile game mechanics that tried to punish players into spending money having been discarded long ago. So I decided to hop back in and see what (if anything) had changed in the cash shop since 2010.

[Go to Part 2]

[Interview With a Goldseller]

An oldie (2010) but a goodie, and still relevant to many games today:

Despite the vitriol with which most MMORPG players attack goldfarmers and the whole concept of RMT, the fact is that this market has existed since the birth of the MMO itself and in many ways is actually -enabled- by many of the conventions that oldschool players have held dear since day one (such as monthly fees).

[Pay-to-Win: The Forums Do Not Speak For Your Playerbase]

via Tobold's Blog; a great presentation on one dev company's learning experience regarding Free-to-Play, 'Pay 2 Win', and discovering who their playerbase really is (hint: it's not the majority of people raging on their message boards), and their surprising discoveries about what their players really want.

It's an interesting look into the development of a successful Western F2P model, the lessons they've learned, and the surprising facts revealed by tracking their customers' actual behavior vs paying attention to player-drama on internet forums.

['Free' Actually Means a Lot of Money (For Developers)]

via The Escapist:

"The core gaming audience often seems to disregard such [F2P] games as child's play or not worth their time. I myself am guilty of having been excited about an upcoming MMO only to dismiss it after discovering it was free-to-play. The perception, in America at least, is that if you are giving your game away for free, then it must not be very good.
"What we're trying to do is change the perception out there that free-to-play games are B-games or C-games," Kern said. "We asked ourselves: Why not release a top-quality game under this model? There are free-to-play games out there making hundreds of millions of dollars per year on this model. That is more than enough to support top quality development."

And in the current economic climate (which seems set to continue for quite some time), F2P may very well be what allows many future MMOs to succeed at all. Rather than reducing the  'perceived value' of a game, using a F2P business model could actually increase it (if the game is built around it, rather than adopting it out of last-ditch desperation as most Western games have done). Ever since the 'box + 15$ monthly fee' model was invented, it's been clear that MMO players have never minded spending money to support the games they enjoy (and in the case of games like WoW, they're even willing to drop extra money on top of that monthly fee to get pets/mounts/etc, which actually adds up to spending more than it would cost them to buy those things in the average F2P game!) -- the F2P model only makes options more flexible for those who wish to support their game with cash to do so at their own rate, as well as removing the original monetary 'barrier of entry' that so many MMORPGs built on the traditional model seem unable to get away from. Believe me, MMO gamers do not need their arms twisted to get them to cough up cash if they're having fun in a game, and the cash shop is fair.

I remember back when even offering a Free Trial was something you only saw months after a game was released, as if the devs didn't want to let people see if they even LIKED the game before making them spend 30$+, which seems like more of a gouge than a game that has an optional cash shop that allows you to d/l it and try it for free as long as you want. Successful Western games like World of Tanks, Battlefield: Heroes, Wizard101 and FreeRealms have shown that it's not just an 'Asian thing' for games built around F2P from the very start to work, and work well.

[Eden Eternal Impressions]

Eden Eternal is the latest MMORPG offering from Aeria Games, and has a lot of unique features compared to most of the current F2P market in the U.S. It's very polished and offers many 'quality of life' features that I haven't seen in the other F2Ps I've played, and after participating in the Closed Beta I've come away really impressed so far.

First off, the graphics of the game are in a colorful, hand-drawn cartoony style, down to the 'pencil lines' present around objects (which I've see done before in other F2Ps, but never as seamlessly as in EE). This gives the game's look a very pleasing, distinctive style.

The core gameplay feature is unlimited multiclassing -- you can eventually unlock and switch between every class in the game freely, which eliminates the need for making multiple alts in order to try out different playstyles or group roles. As you level different classes, you unlock 'Certificates' which are items that can be mixed and matched across classes that offer passive bonuses of various kinds. On top of that, each class has it's own skill tree where you can allocate points to further customize your character. I think this is the number one draw the game has, hands down. Bored of being a tank? Transform into a Bard or Thief and try out a whole new build and set of skills! One gameplay aspect that doesn't seem to be in EE is crowd control, instead most classes have aoe abilities and can take on multiple enemies at once, at least for a short while.

Skill tree and Class Certificates

Besides at-will class switching, your appearance ingame is not affected by your gear at all. Instead, each class unlocks various 'Outfits' as they level up, which can then be dyed to your liking with colors that are buyable at low levels ingame, but only available through the Cash Shop once you hit level 25 (though as with most F2Ps, nearly all Cash Shop items are sold in the game's Auction House for ingame money by players as well). The Class Outfits are also nicely detailed and stand on their own just fine if you're the type who doesn't really care what you're wearing.

An unusual 3-person dungeon

The main sources of exp in the game are PvE quests and dungeon-running. If you're the sort who plays MMORPGS in spite of the genre's gameplay (which consists of killing monsters to level and get loot), then there won't be anything thrilling here. But for those of us who enjoy mowing down mobs and accumulating shinies of various types, it's handled very smoothly in EE. The zones are lovingly detailed, even though they are small compared to many other games', and there are a wide variety of different locales. I actually appreciated the 'smaller with more character' approach to zone design, since so many other games boast 'vast worlds' that are mostly barren land without anything interesting to see or find anyway.

One of the social tools EE has that I think is neat, is the Profile system, which takes the old /who mechanic to a new level. You can fill out your profile with various personal info (including general interests) and top it off with a few sentences about whatever you feel like, and enable it to be visible whenever others do a player search on the server. I appreciate the concept of trying to help more likeminded people find each other ingame, and putting some personality into the mechanic. There is also a LFG tool, but it's rather clunky and isn't really used by most people that I've seen (most people ask for groups in Zone chat instead).

Character profile

One thing I almost feel is a drawback, is the speed at which you level (at least up til level 30, which is my current situation). It's very easy to completely outlevel the quests in your current zone, especially if you are doing the simple grind-based 'guild quests' to level up your guild (more on that in a moment). As a completionist, I was actually happy if I died and lost (a small amount of) exp, since the stuff flows like water. With the current level cap being 50, I'm interested in seeing how much slower levels will go as I get closer to it. As it is, leveling goes as a fast clip, with the only restriction on how many classes you want to level simultaneously is time, money to level up class skills, and the bag space to store weapons and accessories for each class when you switch over.

Guilds in EE have levels that influence whether they can have a customized guild emblem or guild town. Guild towns offer the entire server valuable services, as they're the only sources of high level crafting recipes and materials. Guild leaders choose to 'hire' certain vendors for a weekly fee who then are available for anyone who visits that town to use. There are also rare 'traveling merchant' NPCs that appear from time to time with other things to sell. Guilds can set their own tax rates for their wares and services, with the profits from sales going into a guild fund. There is also a guild vault, quest board, and other little town perks available for guildmembers (including the ability to place statues of guildies in the town square). Besides having their own chat channel, the basic guild window also has a Message tab where members can post notes about various things to each other, which is pretty handy. There are future plans for GvG PVP as well, I believe.

Desert-themed guild town

 I'm finding I'm enjoying these 'gamelike' MMOs more and more, mostly because I'm burned out of believing the hype endemic in Western MMOs claiming 'immersive, persistant fantasy worlds' which has to my experience NEVER actually panned out. In the end gameplay is king, not lofty ideals about 'immersion', 'photorealism', and complexity which never seems to serve any purpose but add drudgery to the play experience. I like killing monsters will flashy spells, grouping with people to fight bosses, decorating my character, and collecting cool items, and Eden Eternal offers all of those things wrapped up in a colorful package, which makes it a winner for me. And really, why do so many players seem to DEMAND that all MMORPGs be so huge that they can play them for 10 years straight without ever getting bored? Is the common Asian F2P model of designing most games with only a 2 or 3 year shelf-life bad, or does it instead encourage players and developers to try out new things more often? My personal opinion is starting to shift towards the latter.

Eden Eternal is a pretty game with some fun ideas, and worth checking out. After all it's free, so there's no harm in giving it a chance and seeing if it works for you. =)

Pros:
Art style
Switching classes at will
Guild towns
PvE dungeons \ raid bosses
Fast leveling til about lv38 or so
Unique selection of player races to be released in the future
A fair cash shop overall (imo)

Cons:
Smaller scale world and scope
Music is rather meh.
Typical MMORPG gameplay (kill stuff, get loots)
Crafting is time consuming, risky, and expensive
Mostly random color dyes in the Cash Shop
Gets grindy to level once you get around lv40
At higher levels it becomes harder to multi-class without using Cash Shop exp boosts

[Spiral Knights Review]

  The first videogame I really fell in love with was Secret of Mana on the SNES. I remember going over to my friend's house and playing it with her for hours, and being sad that the sequel never game out in the states. It was pretty much the catalyst for my beginnings as a gamer. Since then, I've always had a special affection for Action RPGs. So when I heard about the recently-released FTP Action RPG MMO Spiral Knights, I decided to check it out.

  The simple story behind the game is that a spaceship filled with robot Knights has crashed on a weird planet that is made of giant rotating gears and embedded with the fragments of dozens of different worlds all patchworked together. At the Core of this epic machine is a mysterious power source that the Knights hope to be able to harness in order to repair their ship. However, no teams sent down to investigate have ever returned. So the refugees set up a more aggressive operation to equip and send fighting squads to the center of the planet and discover what's really down there.

Character creation screen -- pretty basic.

  Initial character creation is very simple. You pick two colors for the armor style of your choice, and that's it. Your 'Personal Color' is applied to your floating name as well as to accents on most armor that you'll equip. There are also appearance-only slots for armor sets, so there is some customizability in your appearance beyond just color scheme.

  The basics of the game are easy to pick up -- you start out in an instanced tutorial zone and 'newbie camp' where you can do some easy dungeon runs and figure things out at your own speed before heading to the real world hub of Haven. Once you reach the main world, you receive some basic objectives (there are no real 'quests' per se) and are let loose to explore the Clockworks' dungeons however you like. At this point it's best to experiment with different weapon styles and choose which one you'd like to focus on -- Swords, Guns, or Bombs, or a mixture of these. Fine tuning your gear and weapons to both your own playstyle and the dungeon levels you are planning to enter are the key to success (and fun)!

Crafting window, listing mats and costs required.

  Crafting simply consists of acquiring a recipe for a certain item, and having the right materials to create it (there is also a Crown and Energy cost). Whenever an item is crafted, there is a small chance that it can be a Unique Variant; an item with a special bonus ability or stat. UVs can be either useless or amazing, but the getting the right combination can mean lots of profit if you choose to sell rather than equip it yourself. Crafting materials are abundant drops in dungeons, with different types being linked to certain level themes (for example fire-themed materials are common in fire dungeons).

Fighting in a Beast-themed dungeon.

  The themes of different levels are an important factor in both your armor and weapon choices. Different monsters have varying strengths/weaknesses, so mixing and matching gear to counteract attacks while dealing damage effectively is a necessity. There are no limits to how many different types of armor and weapons you own, an you can switch gear around as needed every few levels, so it pays to have multiple choices at hand. SK purposely goes out of it's way to obfuscate the math behind stats and bonuses in a sort of 'anti-min/maxing' measure which nice, being that I've experienced the other end of the extreme in other games and don't really enjoy it anymore. In other words, you CAN optimize, but not doing so 100% won't totally ruin you, either.

Map of dungeon levels, with grouping options.

  Dungeons are modular, with different levels rotating every few minutes, changing the path of your descent. Aside from the few 'premade' dungeons, players can create new ones by depositing crystal pieces that they find into different hoppers, which then combine to form new levels over time. The actual layouts of the levels are reminiscent of classic Zelda, with keys, locked gates, switches, breakable objects, and simple puzzles interspersing all the hack-and-slash. Using the different terrain to your advantage is a good idea, since some areas can kill you quickly if you just rush in without thinking.
  Grouping (or soloing) is very simple. You can choose to join any existing group already in a dungeon you want to try out, or start your own group. You can lock groups to 'friends only' or even run solo, if you're confident enough. The deeper down you go, the better the rewards and the harder the challenge.

Combining ranged attacks on a cannon.

  The cash shop portion of the game consists of buying Crystal Energy refills, and there are several options available, starting at $2.50 and increasing from there depending how how big of an Energy junkie you are. There is also a Marketplace where players sell their Crystal Energy for  Crowns (the ingame currency), so paying with real cash is not really required. It's also possible to barter Energy with other players. In general, it's feasible to play the game casually without spending any money at all, though folks with a more hardcore approach will have to either spend a few dollars, or plan ahead to maximize efficiency of their Energy use. Otherwise, each player gets 100 free units of Energy every day -- with one unit recharging every 13 minutes.

Buying Energy with ingame money (and vice versa).

  I've heard this game described as having many elements in common with games like Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventure and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. If you are a fan of ARPGs in general, or even just a casual MMO player, I recommend giving Spiral Knights a try.

Related Reading: Interview with SK's lead designer, Nick Popovich.

[Allods Online: Can They Ever Make Us Happy?]

I really feel bad for gPotato and the US Allods Community Managers. Ever since the initial Cash Shop opening, the nerdrage DOESN'T STOP, no matter how much the things that pissed folks off get fixed -- there is always yet another thing that is called 'a slap in the face' and 'this game is gonna die now'. I wonder how long gPotato will keep trying to make these folks happy before giving up? It's just a horrible example of how listening to the playerbase doesn't seem to ever be enough for some people, who will make it their mission to drive people away from the game and make it fail in some kind of 'revenge' for perceived slights.

Timeline:

Closed Beta: No Cash Shop, the GMs and players live in idyliic happiness.
Open Beta: Cash Shop opens, with (admittedly) high prices. THE FORUMS EXPLODE INTO RAGE: "The game is dead now" "gPotato are greedy bastards".
Open Beta Part 2: Cash shop prices are lowered, the playerbase is slightly appeased but is largely still 'betrayed and bitter' and some folks want them reduced even more so aren't happy at all.
Open Beta Part 2: The Fear of Death (penality) mechanic is tweaked to be more severe. THE FORUMS EXPLODE INTO RAGE. "The game is dead now" "gPotato are greedy bastards".
Open Beta Part 3: Fear of Death is removed, Cash Shop items for many items reduced again, a new CS-based death penalty is introduced. FORUMS EXPLODE INTO RAGE: "The game is dead now" "gPotato are greedy bastards".

The negativity from the initial Cash Shop blowup continues on the forums to this day. People post in newbie threads telling them to leave the game, there are dozens of repeat threads complaining about the same thing, bragging about how dead the game is now/is going to be, doom and gloom everywhere to the point of people actively trying to ruin the game's reputation as much as possible (I witnessed one guy in the League capitol telling players to get out of the main square so he could film it being 'empty' and then post it on YouTube to show how badly the game was doing because of the latest patch. This was at 12am PST on a weekday, less than 8 hours after the patch had been released).

And yet, if you actually step back and look at the timeline of events in the U.S. Allods release schedule... I see a company that seems to be trying to get things right -- both their prices in the Cash Shop, and the mechanics that encourage people to use it (AND OF COURSE they want people to use it, the game is not a charity). Do I think they have it right yet? No... I think the current death penality and use of Incense (which gives various buffs and heals when used) still needs tweaking. The Cash Shop needs to be more about fun and fluff items rather than 'gameplay' necessities, as well. But so far the devs and gPotato have been WILLING to adjust things according to feedback, even if they don't get it right the first time. But it seems the forum community is physically incapable of existing in any state besides bitter vindinctiveness against the CMs (who aren't the devs and don't make these changes) and the game itself, which is seriously pathetic (SINCE NOBODY IS FORCING THEM TO SPEND ANY MONEY).

Now, I DO agree that Allods' fixation on continuing to try tying the cash shop into the death penalty (i.e. punishment) over and over is a bad idea, if only because it makes the Cash Shop resented instead of being a more positive aspect of the game. But seeing as how EVERY other time there has been negative feedback over a game design change the devs end up changing those things (even if it's not in ways people like), I do not see why so many players continue to talk as if the devs are their enemy. If anything, they're listening to the players a lot more than MOST F2P devs I know of. You'd think that'd earn them some more slack/respect, but I guess not.

It's true that the playerbase of some games is their own worst enemy -- they'd rather tear a game down and kill it rather than just quitting (or taking a break to wait for changes) and playing something else.

[Ether Saga Online Review Part 3: Gameplay]

[Part 1] [Part 2]


PvP: There are several 'open PvP' and PvE realms on each server. Groups of guilds ('Clans') can make formal Alliances with each other and fight other Alliances for control of specific regions of the game (details about territory wars are here). Winning 'dominance' over a region awards Alliance members special mounts, items, titles, etc. There are generally three or four top Alliances that actively compete per server. Towns and some quest hubs are 'safe zones' where PvP is prohibited. Until you reach level 45, you can't participate in PvP outside of duels, and the more you kill other players, the higher chance you have of dropping items when killed. More details about the PK system are here. Different realms have different PvP and PvE events that occur on them periodically, which are announced gamewide.


Cash Shop: There are typical F2P items in the shop: vanity outfits, inventory expansion items, mounts, and items that improve the chances of successful gear upgrading and pet melding. The Cash Shop mounts range from 10$ to about the same as a Sparklepony, but they only barely travel faster than running. They're mostly a decorative item it seems, and since you can get basic mounts with ingame money (as well as getting ones as quest/PvP rewards), shelling out real-life cash for one isn't really necessary.
Some of the CS prices seem kind of high, at least compared to other F2Ps I've played. My usual budget for a F2P is around 10-15$ a month, which would allow me to get a few convenience or fluff items a month easily, however in ESO stuff like outfits would be much more of a once-in-a-while splurge. So far, the only thing I've felt I HAD to buy was a Mystery Pouch (which is a one slot item that stores crafting materials and such outside of your main bag, which is a big help since bag space is limited).


PvE: There are five main types of quests in the game:
Training Quests (Gold): The 'main storyline' quests, which should be done first.
Fate Quests (Blue): Grind quests, basically. Good for making up the xp you've lost after dying, to hit a certain level to do the next Training Quest, or just want to kill stuff for a while.
Basic Quests: A rotating selection of quests available on bulletin boards in town. Some give special rewards.
Adventure Quests (Yellow): Quests that have to be completed in an instance dungeon.
Ethyr Quests (Green): Quest chains that reward you with a new class spell at the end.

Quest flow is practically nonexistant. Many send you to the same place at different times, different quest chains that cover the same 'storyline' are not grouped together and so you end up backtracking and wandering all over the place a lot. The problem is lessened if you stick to Training Quests as much as possible, but for completionists like me it can be a bit maddening. Positively, there are way more quests than you really need to level and they're generous with exp, so you can easily afford to skip the most inconvenient ones. The irony is that mobs lower their chance to drop items the more you outlevel them, which includes quest drops, so putting off some quests for too long can make them hard to complete if you outgrow the mobs too much. Having a healing pet is vital if you want to solo some quests easily (this may depend on your class; right now I'm playing a Mystic which is not a heavy armor class).


Overworld quests are not hard, and the majority are just grind to be honest. But non-elite mobs die so fast, it really doesn't feel that bad. Some quests give an item as a reward called a 'Possessor', which is basically a bot that you can set up to kill things for you while you chat or whatever. At first I didn't know what to make of a game that has botting built-in as a game mechanic, but for some strange reason it works in ESO. I wonder if the huge number of mobs + Possessors was intended as a way for 'normal' people to be able to compete with goldfarmers and therefore not feel like their game is being ruined by them? I will guiltily admit it's kind of nice to be able to farm stuff overnight while I sleep in real life. Of course, 'Possessing' on a PvP server is something you do at your own risk. You lose 5% of your exp each death, but you don't lose levels and can easily gain it back again.


Community: Completing Adventure Quests seems to be difficult when you're starting out. There is no global LFG channel or tool, which makes finding groups when you're a newbie pretty hard. There is no global chat unless you're a member of a Clan/Alliance or buy the privilege via the Cash Shop. So for someone just starting out, it can be a bit lonely. Many of the guilds advertising on the official forums have minimum level requirements so it'll be a bit still before I can start shopping for a clan of my own. Until then, I'll have to be content with soloing and trying to make new friends as I meet folks along the way.

The community is helpful on the forums, where it's easy to ask questions and get tips if you're a newbie. Meeting people ingame is harder, but I find that to be the case in most MMOs when you're starting out, especially ones as solo-friendly as ESO. I think if more F2Ps had functional LFG systems ingame it would be a big improvement -- most of the ones I've played have little to no way for people to easily connect with others who need/want a group. Not sure why that is, to be honest. The most populated realms are the PvP ones (Realm 8 in particular), and since you are safe from open PvP until you're level 45, they're a good place to start on if you want to meet people.

Technical Issues: There's also periodic lagging and some minor bugs, though nothing gamebreaking that I've experienced so far. Translation is also bit clunky and inconsistant, but since the story isn't a very important part of the game, it's not a big deal.

Overall, the game's strengths:
Beautiful, colorful world and art design
Pet System
Open PvP (if you're into that sort of thing)
Ability to solo dungeon bosses if you make the right gear
Solo-friendly
Auto-travel (click NPC names in quest log, etc and walk there automatically)
Easy to get into

It's weaknesses:
Grindy quests, which is a shame because the environments are so interesting, you'd think there would be deeper stories around them.
Item enhancement/pet capture attempts fail very often, which eat up mats (and add cost).
Quest drops are affected by the 'anti farming' mechanics
Hard to make ingame money starting out

Ether Saga is not an 'immersive roleplaying world' by any stretch (and it doesn't try to be) but it's still a pretty fun game. It's a 'RPG' in the same way Pokemon is, rather than the way Everquest II (or even WoW) is. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, depending on what you're in the mood for. If you're highly allergic to grind, and want a MUD-based serious RPG, ESO isn't going to fit that bill. But it's a cute little game that's easy to get into and has some fun elements that can get surprisingly deep if you want to get serious about them. If anything, it's worth a try (I'll be sticking with it for awhile, since I'm on yet-another WoW hiatus).

[Ether Saga Online Review Part 2: Pets]

[Part 1 is here]

Since money is pretty tight at low levels (item drops sell for only pennies to NPCs, since the game has a player shop system), some early quests will helpfully give you the basic items you need to start taming monsters. Pets can be used as stat-boosts for their owners as well as buffers/healers and tank/damage roles. Each monster 'family' has different strengths and weaknesses to other families, so knowing what you're going to be going up against helps in deciding which pets you want to use in a given situation.


Monster taming and Melding is one of those things that is simple on the surface, but can get complex if you're aiming for a specific combination of stats. I had a sinking feeling as I remembered how 'selective breeding' for the best stats in Pokemon was a serious obsession of mine, and I think ESO's pet system is similar enough to present a real threat to my free time. =P

Pets have the basic atk/def/etc combat stats, a certain number of skill slots, an elemental affinity (or not), a personality type, and a certain 'growth rate' that affects how much certain stats will grow each time the pet levels, which varies between individual monsters. Since pets can be 'Fused' to a player to serve as a type of stat boost as well as being used as a combat ally, there are different strategies involved in pet Melding depending on what you want to use the final pet for. Since their personality affects stat growth, you want those to match, too. Catching several of a type of monster, sifting through them for the best individuals, and then Melding them together in order to end up with a superior custom pet can be an entire 'endgame' in and of itself. And ON TOP of all that, is that whenever two pets are Melded, there is a chance for an Appearance Mutation to occur, which can result in you getting a monster that's impossible to tame from the wild. There are several guides on the official boards that go deeper into the min/max aspects of Melding, as well.

I'm still too low level (and poor) to get into serious high level pet development, but I'll be experimenting with some simpler aspects to get a better feel for how the system works in the meantime. So far it looks like it could be pretty fun for a former Pokemon addict like me.

Next up: my thoughts on Ether Saga's general gameplay, cash shop, community, and related miscellany.

[Ether Saga Online Review: Part One]

Leala over as Spouse Aggro was talking about how cute this game was, so I ventured over to the official site to check it out. It has tameable combat pets! So I had to give it a try. =P

Ether Saga is a Chinese F2P MMO based on The Journey to the West with a lot of neat little pet features: Pet taming (you can go out into the wilds and capture various monsters), Pet Fusion (where you combine with a pet to gain stat bonuses), and Pet Melding (mixing two pets to create a new pet with improved stats). Plus, there are special items you can get that can allow you to become a monster yourself for a time and benefit from special attributes. Sounds fun!


Character creation is very sparse, but the designs are pretty, so I didn't mind too much. There are three races: humans (Ren), demigods (Shenzu), and animals that were given humanity by the gods (Yaoh). The three are basically identical except for appearance options and starting pets. Based on your character's race/birthday, you get unique skills every 10 levels. I chose a Yaoh as my first character, because of their nifty fox pet.

Upon appearing in the starter zone, the first NPC I met gifted me with a large package of free potions, food, and a present that I can open at level 5. Nice! Plus, the NPCs speak Chinese when you click on them, which I love (the Russian emotes were something I really liked about Allods Online too).

I started exploring the UI, since that's what I always do first in a new game. I found that you can't reduce the UI scale (booo), or adjust/remove chat boxes, which was kind of disappointing since they take up a lot of screen space. But I also found that there's vanity gear slots (woot!) and that I already had a set of 'for show' clothes that I could toggle on and off from the paperdoll window. Also, you can apparently rate other players up and down (from a menu that appears when you click on them), which interesting way of giving public reputation to players. There's apparently PvP and the ability for guilds to control certain zones (going by the global messages I keep seeing) but I have yet to look into that aspect yet. Apparently, killing equally- or higher-leveled players has a chance of dropping loot for the winner, which is interesting. There are also timed server events of various kinds going on regularly, and the game keeps you posted about what's happening in the world at any given time.

The newbie zone quests are really friendly: I got a (pretty!) free armor set, various potions and +XP items, a second pet as a quest reward, and one timed kill quest even gave my 5 levels worth of xp in a single turn-in. One downside for some people may be that the countryside is literally swarming with mobs that repop almost instantly (an attempt to minimize the impact of farmers, perhaps?) -- I actually turned off monster nameplates just so they weren't such an eyesore because really, the game is beautiful to look at. The visuals remind me of The Secret of Mana's artstyle, which I like a lot. Quests are pretty much basic 'kill stuff' types, which I personally don't mind at all (I have a pretty high grind tolerance, especially when the mobs only take like 2 seconds to die). Translation is another thing that's a bit clunky in places, and the storyline is a bit hard to follow, but I doubt there's an epic novel going on here, even in the original language.


Once I hit level 15 (levels have come quickly in the first few hours I've played), I can begin taming wild monsters as pets, which is the main gameplay aspect I want to try out. I'll be focusing on that in part two.

[P2P = Good Game, F2P = Bad Game?]

Gavin (Yogi) over at MMO Voices has written an interesting article rethinking the old stereotype many Pay-to-Play folks have that games can be neatly divided into 'good' and 'bad' based primarily on their payment designs (something that even I was guilty of in the past):

"When I first started playing MMOs I thought of the genre had two distinct sub-genres: P2P and F2P. These two were also conveniently defined also as Good MMO and Bad MMO. F2P always seemed to have less quality, more grinding, and annoying cash shop requirements to make the game fun. Call it my wow fan boy mentality (at the time) or just shrugging off of certain titles in the name of ignorance. However I or you choose to look at it, I threw the blanket statement over all F2P games. They suck.

This thought has begun to change."

He goes on to describe the changes in his life that have led him to appreciate 'having fun' rather than 'beating' a game, and how it's opened up more options in his gaming routine. The paragraph that really has summed up my own change in playstyle is this:

"I came to the conclusion that what used to make me happy while playing games, was no longer viable. Thus started my nomadic gaming style and the focus on enjoying a game rather than ‘beating’ it."

The freedom of F2P becomes clear when one stops trying to 'dominate' a single game and opens up the option of playing other games at the same time at a lower intensity. F2P, with it's choice of not paying until you feel like it, allows people to sample and try more variety in games than the would if they had to pay 50$+monthly fee to get anywhere in each title. It truly is a 'buffet' style experience, and for many people it works quite well and helps stave off the dreaded 'burnout' that happens when your primary MMO becomes more of a job than an enjoyment. I think if more people were open to at least trying out a few of the literally hundreds of different F2P titles out there, they would learn that the old stereotype of 'F2P = bad game' is really completely false. Which is good news for those of us who love MMOs, because there more choice and freedom to play how we want, when we want, and for how much we want with no strings attached.

I think too many MMO players stick to one game exclusively to the point where they burnout completely and begin to hate what they once loved, which I think can be prevented if you're open to trying something new by trying out a F2P MMO now and then. It costs nothing to give them a chance, after all!

[Allods Online First Impressions]

So the Russian Free-to-Play MMORPG Allods Online went into Open Beta on the 16th, and I decided to check it out, since what I'd heard of it before sounded kind of interesting. I've been on more of a 'casual playing' kick since my WoW hiatus, and F2P games like Mabinogi and Wizard101 have been filling my time rather nicely, so I figured I'd give a new one a go.


I have to be honest, one gets a real WoW-vibe when first starting out, simply because the art style of Allods is very 'hand-drawn' as well. The game world is simply beautiful, and very impressive for a F2P game. The soundtrack, however, is pretty generic western fantasy-MMO fare, and pretty forgettable. I know many people often prefer their own soundracks anyway, so that's not a big deal. There are also many similar UI and 'quality of life' mechanics that are the same between both games (like a quest tracker, Auction House, talent trees, etc) but Allods puts it's own mark on these now-familiar aspects that many people consider 'standard' in their MMOs now. One thing I actually did NOT miss was a minimap -- I find that I tend to stare at the little dots on it more than I actually look at the gameworld around me if I have one, so Allod's simple compass and well-marked worldmap were good enough for me. =)


The classes in the game are also a nice mix of familiar roles and archetypes with enough unique spin added to still make them interesting. Add to that the various talent trees and unique racial skill combinations, and you have many diverse customization options for your character.


The game has two PvP factions -- the lighter, fantasy-themed League and the darker steampunk-style Empire, and each has their own unique selection of races. There are two human cultures, a fairy/elf race, the Arisen (zombie cyborgs), Orcs, and the token 'goofy, short race', the Gibberlings (which look like a mix between hamsters and feral kittens). A fun aspect of making a Gibberling character is that you actually end up customizing and naming three individuals who then act as one unit (because Gibberlings as a culture always do things in groups).

The stand-out endgame option that Allods Online has is it's Ship-to-Ship combat in the areas between the allods (world islands). A minimum crew of 6 players controls each ship, with one player manning guns, another navigating, etc. Groups can pilot ships to allods that are inaccessible by any other means, and then explore and accumulate treasure there which they can load into their ship's hold and take back to their home port to earn rewards. However, once in transit, airships can be attacked and robbed by enemy crews, or even destroyed completely, losing all their loot. Therefore, airship exploration and piracy is a viable endgame goal for guilds, as well as the usual fare of PvE raids and PvP.

I've only played for a few days, but I'm very impressed with the level of quality Allods has for a F2P game. The quests are nothing innovative, but I'm having fun exploring and enjoying not feeling pressured to 'get my money's worth' like I do with a P2P game. Allods also doesn't have the problems with empty grinds or lack of content like many other F2Ps. Frankly, I think Allods Online is one of the best free MMOs on the market right now, up there with FreeRealms, Mabinogi, and Wizard101. You get tons of entertainment for free, plus the game runs well and looks fantastic. I think the current Cash Shop items are overpriced (and there are no cool 'fluff' items for sale yet), but since I haven't felt a need to buy anything so far I'm ignoring it for now (I hear that statistically, the majority of F2P players never buy anything, but the small minority that do generate enough revenue for the games to profit anyway).

If you like many of WoW's basic mechanics (or WoW's art style), but want a change of scenery or something a little different, you should check out Allods Online. It's a very polished, solid game with some fun concepts (even if it's not a huge revolutionary step in the genre of MMORPGs), it's worth checking out. =)