Two things of grave significance have happened today. Two very generous gifts delivered to MMO fans.
The first, Aventurine will give you $5000 if you come up with the coolest DarkFall-related promotional item. That’s $5000 dollars, not potatoes or onions or pink dresses. RL money.
The second, the makers of Allods have really come to their senses and are going to start treating their fans with some respect! They will allow you to pay them JUST $1 for each bag slot you wish to purchase (to hold the countless quest items they fill you up with), allow you to play the end-game at around $15 a month, and have dropped the price of end-game gear (runes) to just under $2000. Not 2000 potatoes onions or pink dresses; dollars. US dollars. Like 400 five dollar footlongs of food dollars. For one rune. Not joking.
The joke is it cost $7000+ before this benevolent change of heart. Yes, $7000. For one. Item. In an MMO. That’s not real. Or great. Or good (it is good for a F2P though!). Oh, and wait until they release the super awesome expansion that makes your previous runes shit, and add new super awesome runes to the cash shop. But you can totally play for free, at least until the patch that bumps all runes up in power (that one is coming soon, and you better believe it’s not coming Blizzard soon), so without them you can’t play but rather log in and get steamrolled. For free. F2P revolution, as awesome today as it was five years ago!
But my plan? Win the DarkFall contest and then spend the 5 grand to be (until the next patch) the most badass gerbil in Allods, right after I light myself on fire so the oncoming traffic will be sure to notice me before ending the stupidity. I would suggest that the runes in Allods also make your character glow, so everyone else online can easily spot the idiot, and then get one-shotted by him. For free!
Hardcore Casual 
I think my comment on Keen’s blog about Allods was something like.. “I’m glad they were able to reduce prices down to an acceptable level of exploitation.”
The scary thing is that people are happy about having negotiated down a more reasonable ass-fucking. I simply prefer to not get ass-fucked at all.
But come on, you can play the generic fantasy level grind for FREE!!! Free dude. Free! It’s only when you get to the one (possibly) decent part of the game do you have to start paying. Now sure, you are going to pay far more than a subscription game and every patch is going to bend you over to gPotato your ass again, but whatever, you got to play the generic fantasy leveling grind for Free! FREE!!! (unless you actually wanted space for all those quest items, or you wanted to travel for no reason other than to waste time faster than running. Got to pay for that ‘content’ too).
“you got to play the generic fantasy leveling grind for Free! ”
That works for me. Never believed in “end games” but I do love to level and I’m about as likely to tire of generic fantasy as I am of bread and butter (I love bread and butter!).
Anyway, I’m pretty sure I can get all the same fun out of Allods that I got in beta, which was a lot, without having to pay a cent. Especially as what I mostly did was take screen shots and so far they aren’t charging for that.
As I said on Beau’s blog, though, isn’t it about time we got back to talking about how good the games are and not endlessly rehashing the same arguments about how we pay for them?
But what Beau and you seem to be missing is that in F2P world, that’s not how it works. Not enough people buying runes? Jack up PvE difficulty and force them to buy. Not enough people buying perfume? Jack up the death penalty until people start shopping. It’s “design to make them spend”, which is a much different approach than “design to keep them playing”. There is a reason beta was so fun, there was no CS looming to get you to spend.
The scary thing is that people are happy about having negotiated down a more reasonable ass-fucking.
I don’t know if that is true or not – but it is damn funny.
Not everyone. I won’t touch that game unless the bags come in much cheaper and respec costs are in line with ROM. When and if that happens, that is all they will get from me too.
No, the content hasn’t changed but space was always an issue. it’s just that I knew they’d sell me a bag so I was fine until they came out with their butt ripping prices. Now I don’t really trust them to manage this game well. But if I can get my bag bigger for less than $1 US a slot (these ppl are on crack) and respec a couple of times without breaking the bank, then they can have that from me, but nothing else.
I nearly spit my Mountain Dew out laughing at the ‘badass gerbil’ transition into playing in traffic while on fire. Bravo!
something about the word “gerbil” makes me laugh uncontrollably.
How any sane person could ever play a Pay to win, excuse me free to play game, especially after the debacle that is allods, is beyond me. I’m a little bit of an mmorpg idealist (i guess) so the FTP model has always been anethema to me anyway, but if this situation doesn’t show you what the FtP model is all about and give you the good sense to never play any FTP game ever again, then nothing will.
For me the reasons gerbils are particularly funny is Eminem’s song Fack.
You can find it on youtube but it’s as NOT SAFE FOR WORK as they come.
I have no desire to defend Allods, since my personal opinion of it couldn’t be much more negative, but..
To speak of that rune and say “they’re selling an item for $2000” is not entirely accurate, as I understand it. It’s more accurate to say that if you buy a colossal quantity of runes and crystals, and combine them all into one single item, as concentrated as the game will allow, the colossal quantity will cost you $2000.
It’s like saying that if you’d wanted to register 40 separate Darkfall accounts so you could do a hilarious epic multiboxing frenzy, it would cost you $2000. Both are true, but neither are something that anyone is likely to do.
(p.s. someone did the maths for enhancing items in Runes of Magic, and I seem to recall hitting the ultimate theoretical limits would cost you several MILLION dollars. For. One. Item.)
One is an in-game item with direct relation to character power and PvP performance (which is the end-game of Allods), the other is buying more copies of the game that you could not play as effectively as one account.
One game is designed (and patched) around the idea of getting you to buy said $2000 item. The other game is designed with the idea that you play ONE character.
This is the same how?
The same insofar as there is no $2000 item. There are cheap individual items that you can buy huge numbers of. It’s like saying “A stack of 8000 vials of perfume costs $2000; therefore, gPotato are selling a $2000 item!”
So a level 10 rune costs how much? Because that is a single item you put in an equipment slot and it gives you X bonus, unlike 800 vials that you can’t stack all at once.
Haha, “I would suggest that the runes in Allods also make your character glow, so everyone else online can easily spot the idiot, and then get one-shotted by him. For free!”
That was brilliant, I concur with the sentiments expressed in this quote. :P
I kinda wish they would make the people glow. I would turn into a hacker so fast… if they have $2000 to blow on that, I’d love to get my hands on whatever other free cash they have!
Seriously though, that sounds like one of those deals that they never expect anyone to actually take them up on, but would be more than happy if someone did.
btw I had been looking forward to some Syncaine sarcasm on this topic most of the day…
I find it hard to believe that Allods isn’t some sort of satire on the whole F2P thing. Its just too bizarre to not be a joke of some sort.
It would be funny, if many of us hadn’t grown so fond of it during BETA. What people fail to see, who criticize those of us complaining about the prices, not you Mandrill, is we are the ones that were willing to pay to support the game. F2P has to have players who pay something. The people that don’t give a rat’s ass either way, weren’t going to buy anything. Some of us were in the CS day one to buy bags and a few little things to help ourselves of course, and the game. F2P doesn’t survive with no purchases. So while it’s all well and sounds good to say, play but don’t pay, games don’t survive on air.
actually i think you have it all wrong. the very high real $$ cost of making runes is GREAT for the freeloaders (like me). Since very few people will spring to deck out their gear with advanced runes, i will not be at a huge competetive disadvange compared to ‘paying’ customers…. come to think of it, maybe that is what Allods wants and the reason they price runes so high?
10 minutes ago I poured a glass of milk. Shortly thereafter I added some Nestle strawberry powder so it didn’t taste so “milky”.
5 minutes ago I sat down and opened up my RSS reader. It wasn’t long before I ran across this latest post of yours.
1 minute ago I shot strawberry milk out my nose while reading your post.
Thank you.
The issue is that some customers are willing to spend huge money to be better than rival players. That’s an issue with players more than games companies.
Personally I’d rather feel like I was beating people on a level playing field.
The next issue is whether people will want to play as cannon fodder in a game that supports buying your way to elitehood.
It depends of course on how bad playing for free or $15/month or some non-insane rate disadvantages you.
I think there’s a balancing act to be struck and where companies get it right they can find a lot of cannon fodder for their aristocrats to bully.
I can’t even say I wouldn’t play such a game – I’ve played Shattered Galazy for years as non-paying cannon fodder. Free is a pretty big draw in a second choice game.
Wow.
Ok, I’m a huge fan of alternative payment models – ideally ones coupled with subscriptions, so players can choose how they want to pay (as to not bone players who can only play rarely).
I love the concept of F2P games.
But Allod’s is about the poster child for how *not* to do this. If you ever wanted examples of just how to really fuck up a microtransaction game, Allod’s is it.
Just to add some balance to this post:
The model Allods is pursuing is tried and tested in the ex-Soviet Union browser RPGs market. A number of these launched in 2000s (e.g. http://www.combats.ru, http://www.apeha.ru, etc.) have game items worth US$10k up, with fully geared up characters running well into US$100k, as well as requiring regular consumable items spend of US100s (teleports, etc.). You would be surprised how much people are willing to pay up to have custom gear with insane stats for mowing down plebs in PVP :) I know, first hand, that when times were good, these games had multi-million turnover in game items and currency.
Let’s not forget, these are browser RPGs, i.e. some fantasy JPEGs and timed turned-based combat. But boy, were these 10 hour 50×50 online sieges fun or what!
The key difference between Allods launch and these browser games was the introduction of the pay-per-win model. Most of them initially started as totally free games, which quickly attracted massive audiences with payable items introduced a year or so into the gameplay, once people were hooked. Allods producers are being upfront about it, which has its challenges as this post and forum nerd rage demonstrates. Time will tell, whether they were right :)
Its a good reflection on culture (the USSR had a massive disparity between the have and the have-nots), but I don’t think the model will fly here, similar to how Asian grind-fests don’t fair very well in the US/EU.
Unfortunately, I think the model will fly here, which is why the whole is so irritating.
Though obviously you could look at it another way and say AV is exploiting their customers by paying below average marketing rates for some promotional material. Luckily I’m not that cynical to think that!
On another note – trying Darkfall at the moment on EU – I seem to have finished most of what I can do in the first 4-5 hours and still have loads of ‘new player protection’ left. Should I drop the protection now by leaving the starter area or is there any useful use for it (i.e. the best skills I can concentrate improving on without fear of getting ganked?). I’ve already crafted a mount that I can’t use yet…
The last 4-5 hours: Up to you really. If you want to skill up in safety keep it and hit whatever local spawns you can find. Assuming the mobs don’t kill you, you can safely head out with a lot of arrows or casting mats and get a lot of good character growth in. If you are not up for that, break the protection and head out into the rest of the world to see what you can find. And as always, joining a clan is key.
As your guild leader, I do not support our weapon crafter lighting himself on fire and playing in oncoming traffic. If you must though, please kindly deposit your valuables into my personal bag in the clan bank.
In all seriousness, I weep for the soul who spends thousands of dollars on tricking out his gerbil in an online game.
This would require you being online rather than playing toy soldier. PvP run tonight, we need to either hit Ruby with our boat or Darkmoor to poke the hornets nest.
In all seriousness, I weep for the soul who spends thousands of dollars on tricking out his gerbil in an online game.
That statement is gold, Jerry, gold. Thank you for the morning chuckle.
I listened to Vince froth at the mouth at me during work yesterday about why he wasn’t going to get BC2. When I got home last night I was shocked to see him in the channel with the game lol.
I’ll probably be on tonight. If our new toy is fully operational, I would prefer to go back to finish what we started in Ruby to see if we can invoke more rage tells. Only issue is the logistics of getting our guys there since a lot of us are in Yssam atm.
I have a rune marked to Talpec (and need to bind there for some farming anyway), so I can just recall and then friend-port all of you.
You could win a new toy yoda!
BC2 has kept me away from Darkfall the past two weeks- great game!