Now Turbine emails me all the amazing deals they have going in the cash shop! Awesome!
It took longer to download your trashheap than I spent playing it, but yea, totally email me about buying more garbage, please.
F2P… ALL THE WAY!
Edit: Because I’m a masochist, wtf is a “Companion Mystery Basket”? Its only around for a ‘limited time’ so I need to know soon or I might miss out on something really awesome that I could only get thanks to the wonders of F2P.
Also anyone think 4200 turbine points for some XP Elixers is a good buy? Seems like it right, 4200 turbine points is like what, $5? I mean given how awful DDO is, I think paying Turbine just a little bit of money to play their game less is what the F2P industry calls a win/win?
Hardcore Casual 
The one that pisses me off is the SWOTR email about how my characters will be scheduled for renaming if I don’t log in.
The reason it bugs me is that MMOs are social games where we rarely interact with people beyond the name they have in the MMO.
People I know and people who know me will no longer have a way to identify me, nor will I have the ability to identify them.
Even if you are fortunate enough to still be connected to people outside the game (guild forums or whatever) then you still don’t know the others.
I think this illustrates to me, perhaps better than anything, how little some devs get that successful MMOs are ones where the “social” part is the most important part.
Nothing makes me believe I’m actually in a virtual world like whipping out my credit card for a companion mystery basket.
Nothing makes me believe I’m actually in a virtual world like pressing w to move forward.
As that exact same topic came on in a discussion here in meatspace recently, are there even any means to find MMOs which get F2P “right”? Short of asking people (hey people, help me :)
I am not talking at all about good/bad games – just about the amount of F2P verses pay to win and/or annoyance.
– WoW does everything correct here, a few mounts/pets from the shop
– EVE has Aurum, but that’s even more cosmetical fluff?
– SWTOR as a subscriber might be ok, but preferred and free accounts are quite “in your face” with paid unlocks
– LotRO is somewhat ok, but also many “BUY THIS” buttons – but so far I could play without feeling pressed to buy anything besides a zone or two
– Runes of Magic – totally pointless without spending money, imo
– TSW?
– Rift?
– GW2?
How do the last ones fare the pay2win-test? Can you get by levelling to levelcap without inyourface-marketing?
GW2 is an odd case in many ways, not just the payment model. It came up amongs a group I play with regularily; none of us remember anything about the game, despite all of us hitting the cap. It’s just so unremarkable blah; which I suspect is an issue for them now that the initial box money is running dry and they need people to love the game enough to start spending in the shop. As for whats in the shop, at least 3 weeks after launch it was… well I forget. Guess it wasn’t bad enough to worry about at least.