MMOBlurbs

DDO Relaunches as free-to-play!

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 11:43:24 -0400

Today, Dungeons and Dragons Online is relaunching as a free-to-play product with options to upgrade to a VIP account for extra perks, and microtransaction support for purchasing character slots, unlocking previously hard to unlock races and classes (such as drow and monks), and adding access to new quests.

The VIP option runs around $15 a month, and includes 10 character slots (as opposed to the free account’s 4), and access to additional content and classes.

I played DDO back when it had first launched, and am happy to say they’ve polished the experience considerably. The controls are still not quite what most MMO gamers will be used to, but are fairly comfortable after a short adjustment period. Character customization is nicely fleshed out in both the appearance and the skills department.

Previously it could be daunting for a new player to try and adapt to D&D rules and come up with a starting build - but they’ve deveoped a “paths” system for all classes where you can choose a preset path which you may later deviate from if you so choose, and they give a very accurate “solo ability” score to let the player know what they should expect for each class and path.

Overall, I am impressed with the changes, though most dungeons I have attempted are old ones that have been slightly retouched in some cases. It should be interesting to see how their new business model pans out.

For more on D&D Online, visit http://www.ddo.com/

Trion World Network hiring PS3 developers

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:44:41 -0400

Looks like the Sy Fy MMO project is going to be on the PS3, if these job postings are correct. Trion is looking for developers who have some PS3 experience for the project, so that sounds like there might be a console version of this game coming out, or perhaps the game is being solely made for the PS3?

Either way, pretty exciting stuff. http://www.trionworld.com/careers.php

Alganon Alert!

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:56:49 -0400

Just some recent Alganon news…

Our public beta starts in September and private beta is going on now! Follow us at @myalganon for the URL of the new sign-up page.

If you don’t want to wait, then register at http://bit.ly/SVxH4 and post at http://bit.ly/sTedx to get on the list now!

We’ve also just posted a couple new items on our website. The latest Community Roundtable focusing on UI questions - http://bit.ly/Lwz3L - and a Dev Blog that discussed “MMO Hype” - http://bit.ly/1VGwg - have been posted!

For more information about Alganon, visit http://www.alganon.com/

EQ2 Goodness from Comic-con

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:05:18 -0400

It’s that time again - Comic-con is here and all manner of geeks, nerds, and gamers have taken over downtown San Diego!

Like any self respecting MMO gamer, when I picked up my comic-con passes, I made a beeline for the exhibition hall to see what new and exciting things were coming! With only an hour before the hall closed, I made sure to stop by the SOE booth to check out what was new and planned for my current MMO flavor of choice - Everquest 2.

Everquest 2 adds a lot of content between expansions, and the most recent content that I’ve come into contact with are the Order of Rime quests in Kunark. The bulk of the quest line is geared toward high level solo players - and the rewards are well worth it! Once you’ve maxxed out your faction with Order of Rime, you’ll get access to faction items including a pretty badass looking mount dubbed an Icemare - an icy version of the nightmare mount. A nice touch - ice crystals appear in the horse’s footprints as it runs, then slowly melt away. The mount does cost 40 platinum - but in the process of getting maxxed out faction with Order of Rime you’ll earn a bit over that through quests and the like - so it is well worth it.

I also heard some great news - the devs have been hard at work on a patch dedicated to Fan Faire suggestions, requests, and bugs! Something I am particularly excited about - you’ll be able to turn old mounts into full-sized plushies to place in your house. Not sure where in your house they’ll fit? Well don’t fret - in the not too distant future there will be an extra room added to all player houses - so current homes will all get a boost in terms of space and item allowances.

Lastly, I got to hear a little bit about the Sentinel’s Fate expansion, currently planned for release in February 2010. The expansion will be reintroducing Odus, the homeland of the Erudites, to EQ2 and for all you decorators out there - there will reportedly be around 400 new furniture items released with everything from opulent to grungy pieces for your homes and guild halls. I also heard about a dungeon in development - there will be a flying airship dungeon that drifts above the continent of Odus which will be largely decorated with the fancy new pieces of furniture! No word on if it will have a plane-of-sky-esque “jump off the zone and land in the water below” - but it was brought up and not entirely written off. Here’s hoping!

I will be back at Comic-con on Saturday, and hope to have more updates on other MMOs - new and old. Stay tuned!

Commenting

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:32:49 -0400

Hey everyone,

Tumblr does not support commenting out of the box. I did integrate Disqus commenting, but typically the Tumblr infrastructure is to “reblog” things you like and add your two cents. That doesn’t really work on a group blog like this.

One thing that is annoying about the commenting system I have integrated is that when a comment is made, the author of the original post doesn’t get an alert. I actually get all the alerts, which is only somewhat helpful. So what I’m trying to say is that you should come back and check your post now and then to see if there have been any comments. :)

Hopefully Tumblr integrates some kind of alternative to this eventually.

EQ2 how pretty it is

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:22:06 -0400

I am back, card is installed and sounds like I have placed a hairdryer into my machine. Not that hair dryers are bad, but really why can’t these companies figure out how to make these things quiet.

Back to the question at hand; does it work at the highest setting? Meh! For the most part yes looks great, but really not playable at all, well not if I want to know what is hitting me or what might be wandering toward me and going into a city is completely out of the question. I suppose the age of my cpu, Althlon 64 6000+, is showing itself which isn’t totally surprising.

I am very impressed that the game still hasn’t hit it’s limits on a relativly basic gaming PC. They really weren’t kidding when they said EQ2 was designed for technology we don’t have yet, so it will look great for a lot longer than EQ ever did.

So anyway, experiment done and on a side note subscription cancelled. Really, I need to put every cent I have away toward a surgery, but that is a post for a different blog.

Concerning Deeds (LOTRO)

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:48:19 -0400

Deeds are a facet of LOTRO that get a lot of bad press. “Too grindy” is the most common complaint.

I’m here tonight to speak out on behalf of Deeds. I love ‘em! When I know I’m going to have a busy week, I park a character in an area full of baddies I need to fight for a Deed, and then I can log in when I have 10-15 minutes free and kill a few mobs and know I’m working towards completing the Deed. They make very short play-sessions meaningful.

Also, all that ‘grinding’ comes with a sweet side-effect. Tons of coin and loot found on the mobs you’re fighting.

My advice is to let the Deeds go until the conditions are right for working on them. Don’t approach them like “I need to finish this Deed before I go Quest” because then they will be a chore. Instead use them to fill up pocket-sized game sessions; doing them that way makes them fun!

JD with coke, spare the RMTs

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:31:40 -0400

Thought the $10 Horse was a dilemma? Not worth the cost? Unrealistic prices for a F2P game? I’ve recently been playing Jade Dynasty and currently the cheapest mount is going for $20. Of course you can get a fancy looking mount for $30, or a full outfit to slap onto your avatar for $50 and a full skill reset to go along with that will tick in for $30 a piece.

And yet through all this, the game is suprisingly fun with some refreshing features.

COSMOS Webtools Coming to EVE Online With Winter Expansion

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:08:08 -0400

EVE Online’s real-time skill training, tradeskills and even in-game email practically beg for a suite of external tools that players can use to monitor the situation in New Eden when they can’t actually BE in New Eden.

CCP has announced that their COSMOS social networking/web tools will be released, bit by bit, coinciding with their winter expansion. Many MMOs have web-based community features, but when the release of COSMOS is complete, players will be able to make some in-game changes from the web browser, monitor their in-game email, view character, alliance and corporation information, and probably more.

For more information, check out the EVE Insider.

Mamma Mia!

Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:30:16 -0400

“Bohemian Rhapsody Meets Lord of the Rings Online,” was created by Strondor from Across the Pond! Strondor is a Codemasters player from the United Kingdom, but even the Atlantic Ocean can’t stop the awesomeness that is Queen. LOTRO’s eerily accurate Freddie Mercury rocks out with a trio of orcs, a talking moose head, and some very very frightening thunderbolt and lightning. Mama mia!

Man this reminds me how amazing Freddie was and how much I miss him.

Aion Beta Weekend not for Fileplanet keys

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:50:36 -0400

If you obtained an Aion beta key from Fileplanet back at the start of July, don’t bother patching for this weekend’s beta event. The Fileplanet keys aren’t valid for this weekend.

Mostly a trailer about full voice acting, but check out the...

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:15:32 -0400

Mostly a trailer about full voice acting, but check out the cover system we get a glimpse at somewhere around the 3:45 mark.

Good deal on PlayNC time cards

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:20:00 -0400

GoGamer is running one of its “48 Hour Madness” sales, and one of the items is a 60 Day Timecard for NCSoft games for $18.90 + a couple dollars shipping and handling. Good deal if you’re playing, or planning to play, an NCSoft game sometime. Again, it’s a 48 hour madness sale (though the countdown actually says 90 hours) so you have to act fast!

Virtual Worlds News: QuickStat: Free Realms on the Cusp of 5M...

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:55:00 -0400

Virtual Worlds News: QuickStat: Free Realms on the Cusp of 5M Accounts

Outer Empires - EVE Online like for iPhone?

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:01:00 -0400

Recently a new scifi / space opera MMO for the iphone has been announced. The game focus on resource trading, PVP combat and hauling, and will be available also for PC/MACs as a browser game.

Signup for the beta in their website for http://outer-empires.com/

Get on the List!

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:12:00 -0400

Alganon is an upcoming fantasy-based MMORPG that is about to add many testers to private beta so sign up now at http://bit.ly/SVxH4 and post on our forums at http://bit.ly/sTedx to get on the list for keys. You can find out more about Alganon at http://bit.ly/1MYDOj

pool game at nek castle

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 04:00:00 -0400

Freemium MMOs are a Catalyst for Metaplace World Domination

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:17:00 -0400

a little while ago, i tweeted about freemium mmos ensuring metaplace success. i thought i’d just elaborate on that a bit. the core of what i think? well. lemme tell you: freemium mmos are a catalyst for metaplace world domination.

fidelity and accessibility

in interactive applications, there’s always a trade-off between high fidelity and high accessibility. and before you ask, no. i’m not talking about accessibility in terms of section 508 compliance. i’m talking about how visually and aurally stunning your application is vs. how easy it is to get in and use. let’s look at some examples:

high fidelity, low accessibility

Crytek Engine (how many people can actually run this?)
Fancy Animated Splash Screens (ahh… the old days…)
Designer Portfolios (that is really cool! what is it again?)
Flac Files (really? you can’t hear the difference? rookie.)

high accessibility, low fidelity

facebook (visually stunning boxes of text)
tetris (the 3d! it feels like you’re really there! …oh. nevermind)
twitter (you get 140 characters you can post from anywhere. have fun with that.)
the sims (point. click. drool.)

now, while you might think fidelity is only for snobs and accessibility is pretty much drowning in the unwashed masses, you’d be… well. okay. you’re totally right. that’s basically what they are.

fret not, tho! eventually, in all things where it’s a battle headlined “form vs. function”, there’s AWESUM that eventually arises — the television, the world wide web, the microwave oven, the ipod — it’s awesome ubiquity! yay!

so, now that we’re on the same page as to fidelity and accessibility definitions, lemme get back to my original point: freemium mmos and metaplace. while it may seem like they are worlds apart, they’re actually headed toward the exact same functional point of convergence — high fidelity and highly accessible.

what is metaplace?

so what exactly is metaplace? glad you asked! a lot of people have a common misconception as to what it is. a lot of folks think it’s just a new massively multiplayer online role playing game. nope — it’s so much bigger than that. it’s a two-part, interlocking platform consisting of a) a place where anyone can build their a virtual world and b) the index and name service that glues all the virtual worlds together. we call that second bit “world name service” or wns for short. i’ll get back to wns in a second.

basically the core components of metaplace:

high accessibility - we’re available anywhere flash 9 is available. (and, technically, we can be available anywhere with a net connection)
relatively low fidelity - tho we pretty regularly get 50fps in 2d rendered flash.
highly social - with web being so integral to our strategy, we can easily leverage social networks.
user generated content - there’s always, always, always something fresh to see.
horizontal scaling - our badass server is basically a self-aware, auto-sharding, resource-juggling tower of awesome!

if you look carefully at that list, you’ll see that it all adds up to a slow, horizontal spread as 4 of the 5 pieces kick in. (accessibility, social, server and ugc) what’s missing is a nice, rich 3d client. (luckily for us, once one appears, we’re already running a full 3d simulation on the backend! whew!)

then what are we waiting for? that’s pretty simple: a hardware accelerated 3d solution that meets our accessibility needs. there are just too many competing for marketshare right now. as soon as there’s a clear, widely-adopted 3d rendering engine for the web? we’re there! (and no, it’s not o3d or unity or torque yet. it needs to pretty much come pre-installed with the majority of browsers.)

now, back to wns. it enables us to jump around between worlds. basically, any application can just call a common web service and get back connection details on that world - bang! you have world-to-world travel! in fact, here’s an example of what that looks like:

http://api.metaplace.com/api/v0.2/public/game/get/world-name-service/name=MPCentralLive

which returns something like this:

[S_WORLDLIST]|33351|Metaplace Central|game01.metaplace.com|5000|Discover+new+worlds%2C+share+your+vision%2C+change+your+look%2C+or+just+hang+out.|Metaplace|MPCentralLive

as you can see, it tells you where a world is running — server and port — and has a few details on the world itself. a name, short description, world owner, world id, and a url safe world name.

you know what’s really, really cool about that? imagine someday swapping out that domain for something like doomhammer.worldofwarcraft.com. that’s what we’re always talking about when we say things like “Long-term, we see ourselves evolving into a network service provider that handles things search, DNS and other network-level services.”

which is the first part of metaplace ftw — we’ll be ready when freemium mmos join our network. what’s the second part? the freemium mmos being ready to join, of course!

what is a freemium mmo?

let’s start by examining what a typical non-freemium mmo is:

a single world
rich mythology and setting
high-fidelity client
high single-world user concurrency
$15 a month subscription (low, low, low accessibility!)

what’s the difference between that and a freemium mmo? totally depends. had you asked 5 years ago, it’d be a huge difference. these days? it’s just whether it charges a subscription or not. already, the eastern mmos have all converted to fremium. and, with all the older western games like dungeons and dragons online and chronicles of spellborn refactoring to be free-to-play joining the ranks of all the new, built-from-the-ground-up games like atlantica and free realms, it says only one thing:

free-to-play massively multiplayer online games — or freemium mmos — are the future. period. end of story.

i know, i know. you say “hold on, hyperbole boy! you were all like ‘metaplace ftw’ a second ago!”

yup. remember? metaplace is not an mmo. it’s a platform. it’s a network of mmos. so, we’d love, love, love for all the freemium mmos to take over the world. in fact, i’m pretty sure that’s what this post is supposed to point out … uh. sometime.

anyway, here’s how they get there:

while all this “free” love (heh. i said “free love”.) is a great step for accessibility, it’s not the end-all-be-all. they’re only half-way to accessibility. and when i say half-way, i mean they’ve shed the biggest pain point of wide-scale adoption — a subscription. for example, people think world of warcraft’s 10 million subs is awesome… maplestory has 92 million. now, compare even further with wow’s $11 monthly arpu that of maplestory’s estimated $5 monthly arpu.

what do you have? the free game makes about 4x the cash that the largest (by a long, long, long, long, and very sad way) of the subscription mmos makes.

that being said, you can’t win on being free alone. afterall, free is just a price. it just shifts the battle from one kind of “value per scarcity” — value per subscription dollar — to another kind of “value per scarcity” — value per megabyte.

something i haven’t seen written about as a consequence yet of all these free games is client-side capacity. and by client-side capacity, i’m really talking about two things:

physical file storage.
available bandwidth.

you’ve heard the old saying “there’s only so much time in the day” — well that applies to the freemium mmo market too. well. really any “free” market. for web sites that offer free services, it’s more of an attention economy: “there’s only so much of people’s attention.” in “you have to download a massive 6 gig client” freemium mmo land, “there’s only so much bandwidth and hard drive space.”

so while these freemium worlds have shed the biggest hurdle to widespread adoption — the subscription — there’s still the friction point of file size. if you can only try one game a day, you want to make sure it’s really, really the one you want. if you have to plan ahead because it takes 6 hours to download, you have to be exacting with your planned play time with your friends. if you have to decide which game you need to uninstall because you don’t have room for yet another 6 gig client, you will need to figure out which game is thrown out, and because of its size, probably never to be downloaded again.

this means even as a freemium game developer, you still have the typical product constraints of needing to be a) more attractive initially from your packaging and b) stickier than any of your competitors to retain your space on the user’s hard drive. free doesn’t help you in either of those because free is just a price.

just like $1 is a price. just like $100 is a price. and when prices are all equal, the best product for the price (in theory) always wins. and, considering the growing landscape of freemium mmo gaming out there, you guys’ve got your work cut out for them.

oh, and just to add salt to the wound, guess what one of the biggest costs of running an mmo is?

yup. bandwidth.

all those lookie-loo people who try your game? they suck up 6 gigs of transfer from you, play your game for 30 minutes then uninstall it for the next mmo. they’re costing you money — and lots and lots and lots of it. where user bandwidth is fixed cost, your hosted mmo bandwidth is metered. ouch.

so, for a free game, if you’re lucky enough to get attention, you’ve got to convince your users to download and install your 6-gig client and YOU effectively have to pay them to do so because of your bandwidth costs, it just doesn’t paint a rosy picture. i hope your game is fun.

of course, on the bright side, just imagine you’re a subscription-based mmo trying to compete in the same market. ha! good luck!

however, there is a solution! i’m predicting that in the next 18 months, freemium mmo devs are going to start all-out streaming their clients and content to users.

it’s a pretty obvious prediction, i know. they really don’t have a choice. not only does it solve their own bandwidth problem because they only pay for what users use instead of paying to have all that end-game content delivered to someone who’s never gonna make it past level 6, but it solves the user’s problem as well — they can get in there and root around in your game quickly and easily. this reduces player pain and lowers the switching costs of playing your mmo.

and, of course, here’re the two main reasons why having a low switching cost in your mmo is good:

switching to your newer and much more betterer mmo is easy, thus enabling a wider trial audience. painless and easy! you’re a hero!
let’s face it, people will leave because you don’t launch with content they want. wouldn’t it be nice to easily get them back once you have in-place the content they were looking for to begin with?

of course, enabling a wider audience is just the first step in moving from niche to mainstream.

oh, and yes, any service with only a couple hundred thousand users is niche. for example: world of warcraft has 20x the subscriber base of warhammer online. facebook has 20x the active users of world of warcraft. so, next time you’re standing around at an auction house in warhammer online, just look around at the 15 other people there — if it were as popular as facebook, there’d be 6000 people standing there with you instead. as much as i hate to agree with mark jacobs, from a web perspective, your “massive” user-base is tiny, cute and niche.

but that’s what we’re tackling, right? helping to move freemium games from a vertical niche to the horizontal mainstream. so, as you can see, where metaplace is a bottom-up, horizontal service, freemium mmos are a top-down, vertical application — but, we’re meeting in the middle.

the convergence conclusion

so, basically, your typical freemium mmo has the fidelity and metaplace has the user reach. we’re both moving towards that functional nirvana in the middle — high accessibility and reach coupled with a rich interface and high fidelity interactions. that, my friends, is where those mainstream folks like to hang out.

and here’s the question you’re wanting to ask me: if you know exactly what to do in order to move the mmo market to awesomeness and it’s the same awesomeness that metaplace is moving towards, why don’t you work at a “real” mmo?

that’s a really, really easy question to answer. when we both get to this point of functional convergence, which group do you think will have the full weight of the network effect behind it? and which company has the name service setup to just plug the other into said network?

mmmm hmmm. metaplace ftw.

m3mnoch.

Age of Conan May Go Free to Play

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:37:00 -0400

Massively has picked up an article from IncGamers that suggests Age of Conan might get a Free to Play option in the future. While this doesn’t appear to be something that will be put in too soon, there is a president for the company doing so with Anarchy Online.

Why I Love MMOs!

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:37:00 -0400

Being in the industry for so long has made me a little bit jaded at times. But, I have been working on a Google map project with the LOTRO fans on Facebook and it has reminded me why I love it so much. Because MMOs are the one place where people from all different places and all different backkgrounds can come together just to have a good time!

At least now in the middle of PVMP, Roleplaying and Lore “discussions” on the forums I will be able to look at our new map.