In recent years, more and more games started with a P2P system have switched to F2P, such as Lord of the Rings Online, Ragnarok Online 2, Age of Conan, Lineage II, DC Universe Online, Aion Online etc. Since I am a poor student, I have already played some of them. Below is my three favourite p2p to f2p MMOs.
1. AION. The most up to date MMO to move from p2p to f2p. When logged back to test my f2p account, I had that feeling of a classic old game still with faster combat, wonderful graphics, character fun fly with glide functions, and so on. It really deserves to be my Top 3 games. And it is pretty awesome that there is no monthly subscription fee, no charges for registration and client, complete and playable storyline with so many quests, character development up to level 55 possible, etc. And according to the recent announcement, Aion UA will go F2P as well and some new nice features will be added into the new update 3.0. I think it is a great opportunity for Aion to bring back many old players.
Official site: http://www.aionfreetoplay.com/
2.Lord of the Rings Online. Made after the awesome book and film, it is a great game with classically styled over the battles, haunting music, beautiful graphics etc. And it proved the truth that P2P to F2P was definitely not a bad idea for game companies. As far as I know, after moving to the F2P model, it got a huge boost in player base population and also got the revenue increase by duplicated. I was not surprised of its huge success at all. It is one of the best classic MMOs on the market. Why not enter it if it is free?
Official site: http://www.lotro.com/
3. Age of Conan. A great F2P MMORPG with a ton of content. As well as LOTRO, Age of Conan saw 300,000 sign up after free-to-play switch, and got double revenue in first month. It once again proved that the F2P model was a great choice nowadays. It is really sweet that the magnificent world of Hyboria is free for all players to adventure in. I do enjoy the game for the most part. Because compared to other similar games, it is unchained and the grinding is kept to a minimumsuch.
Official site:www.ageofconan.com
I was going to go into market analysis mode, but realized how boring and off topic that may be. To add to the list I try a lot of games.
I used to be a subscriber to City of Heroes. I spent so much time with the game I suffered burn out. Not because the game is bad, but if you ate the same food day in and day out for years you eventually get to where you have trouble eating anything else, or have trouble eating that old favourite food. I've tried it a little since it has gone free to play and it is still much as I remember it. It may not be for everybody, but the free to play options don't feel all that limiting outside of being locked out of a couple of classes unless you pay to unlock them or reach a certain tier that can be had by spending money and/or subscribing.
With Champions online, I feel they let the free to play people down. I have a lifetime account and a free account so I could try the game from that perspective. One of the biggest draws of Champions for me is the ability to mix and match powers between the different sets. With free to play you are stuck with those choices made for you aside from a couple of spots while leveling up where they let you decide between one of two possible powers. From what I have been able to determine there is no way to buy a means of mixing and matching powers outside of having an active subscription. I think the game is a bit above adequate (so a high eight if I was being paid for this mini review), but that one problem kills free to play for me. It takes the best feature of the game and gives non-subscribers no way to unlock the option.
For those familiar with World of Warcraft imagine you want to play a rogue. You're in luck. There is a rogue option available for free. The down side is that you are stuck with a combat rogue that specializes in dual wielding. The character you have access to has the talent tree already filled out except for two points on it where you get the choice between two options. There is a poison and subtlety rogue available in the store, but if you buy one of them then you are locked into the tree layout for that character and can't mix and match between the two rogue types you own. Subscribers on the other hand can take the stealth from a rogue, demons from warlock, and heals from the priest class. If they spread too thin they can't get the best abilities available to each class, but they can get away with spending half their levels working on one class and have access to anything available to it and still mingle with other classes. What's more, they can mix that combat and subtlety rogue you paid for and take the best features of each. Champions is introducing a new character customization system using something similar to the talent trees of WoW. It will be available to all players. The way power selection works is staying the same however.
On the other hand, I like the free to play options for Star Trek Online. I am not very far along, but there doesn't seem to be any real difference at this point between my current free account and my old subscription. It's not the greatest game in the world by any stretch of the imagination, but it's better than most of the free to play imports.
I've been subscribed to DDO since 2006 aside from a couple of short breaks. I was one of those worried players when they announced the game was going free to play. I had played plenty of free to play MMOs before that point and subscription based MMOs were the ones I ended up sticking with for a variety of reasons. I wasn't concerned about incoming kids. People are really easy to avoid in DDO and I was already a dedicated soloist. I was more worried that a game that was nearly impossible to solo would shift to become dependent upon the store in order for me to continue playing.
Turbine did right by me with DDO. First off they introduced dungeon scaling which made soloing easier. The store items are nice, but almost all can be had by in game means. Anything I may want from the store is covered by free points I get as a subscriber. On top of that, they had introduced new pricing plans from time to time so my subscription is now cheaper than it used to be. The sum up I now get more out of my subscription than I did before the transition to free to play and I am also paying less money.
Continuing with Turbine, you already mentioned Lord of the Rings Online. I have a lifetime account I picked up at launch. They have thrown me a freebie a couple of times for being both a lifer and a founder since launch. To be honest I probably would have dropped my subscription early on as I don't play all that often. I had friends that would have dropped if they weren't paying 10USD instead of the regular 15USD that they would have to pay if they dropped and came back again. It's not that the game is particularly bad, but I tend to rotate subscriptions quite a bit. Now that it is free to play nothing has changed for me as a lifer other than I had enough points accumulated to by the last expansion using just in game points. I don't get people with lifetime accounts that talk about how they have been cheated as we get more now than we did before the game went free to play.
As high as my praise for Turbine's handling is concerning the transfer to free to play, my disappointment with Sony on Everquest II is about equal. I like Everquest II a couple of years after launch. They had some problems when the game came out, but worked a lot of those out. The first disappointment was free to play servers. My friends that were coming into the game could not play with my characters on the subscription server. Another problem was that if they wanted to start subscribing they would pay more if they wanted to keep the characters they had been playing and would still be stuck on the free to play servers. From what I understand they have taken care of the separate servers issue, but it was a big problem for me when they announced free to play. Another issue I had was that supposedly if you had bought expansions for the subscription service in the past then the races unlocked by those expansions were supposed to be available to you on the free to play servers as well as long as you signed in using that same account. To continue, the store was a mess. They stated only time savers and cosmetic items would be available, but within a couple of weeks had added other items which weren't easy, or impossible to get in game. I like to think they have learned some things from taking EQII free to play, but I haven't been back in lately to see.
DC Universe Online is fun. It's sort of like the Torchlight of the MMO world for me. I could get lost in it for a night or two. The depth isn't there sadly. A friend was asking me about the game at launch and my response then was it simply needed more. Everything this game needs is there in place, just not enough of it. It needed more powers, more content, more story. About the only thing it had plenty on was weapon sets. Leveling is faster than pretty much any MMO out there. The game was designed to get players to end game quickly with the levels acting sort of like an extended tutorial. Not in that it takes that long to learn the game, but they expect you to be playing with your full compliment of powers and the leveling up process is an excuse to learn to use one power at a time so as to help players not feel overwhelmed.
DCUO is a snack in the world of buffet restaurants that are MMOs. I don't think the designers ever really intended it to be somebody's primary MMO. It's great for what it is. Really great. I don't understand how they could expect someone to spend the kind of time in it one spends in other subscription based MMOs. I have a feeling they either knew they were going free to play, or intended it to be something to add to the Station Pass as added incentive to jump onto that.
That being said, I have no plans to resubscribe, but I will likely spend money in the store. It's a great game to play here and there in small chunks. The in game store is primarily cosmetic items along with some content packs and a few fun toys thrown in. There are a couple of power sets as well, but they have been tied into the content. I believe there may also be some PvP content, but I never looked that closely as I rarely participate in any PvP. The current business side of things it is like getting the game for free then buying the DLC you want and there is plenty of play without the DLC. It is one of the few subscription based MMOs to make the switch where it is hands down cheaper to go free to play and buy all the content than it is to subscribe unless you only ever want to play for a month or two.
My main character with Age of Conan was an assassin. I played a bit with free to play, but didn't like the fact that my main character was locked to me. I probably would have spent more time with the game if it wasn't for that and the fact that the game is completely different after leaving Tortaga.
I never cared much for Lineage II from a PvE perspective. I tried it back when it was subscription only. At that time the early game was as grindy as some of the worst free to play MMOs, but the mobs were more spread out. I would run up to something and kill it. Then I would look around and not be able to see anything so I would pick a random direction and run. I would run until I found another mob to kill. I would drop that one, and then run off in some direction other than the one I just came from because my short experience with the game had taught me that the mob has not respawned yet. After a while I was praying to be ganked. That game centers strongly around the players because without other players the content is too thin to get anything out of. Well, that was the case. I may have to see if things have changed in the years since then.
Nymie_the_Pooh wrote:I was going to go into market analysis mode, but realized how boring and off topic that may be. To add to the list I try a lot of games.
WOW, you have played so many games. I am just looking for some other good f2p mmos. So if you have to choose your three favourite p2p to f2p mmos, what is your answer?
My favourite game to make the transition would be Dungeons & Dragons Online. I am a subscriber, but I still feel the free to play option is viable. The kids have free accounts on top of our two paid accounts. I've dabbled with the free to play for City of Heroes and it seems to offer quite a bit on the free to play side as well.
Third is up in the air. It all depends what you are looking for. The in game shops seem pretty reasonable for DC Universe Online and Star Trek Online. Again, DC Universe doesn't have the meat to be a primary game for very long if someone plays a lot, but it's fun for what it is. Lord of the Rings Online is okay as far as the store goes, but I don't like it as much as DDO's in game store and locked myself into a year subscription to WoW back in October so don't play much as the games have a lot of similarities in how they play out for the solo leveler.
The ones I would not advise for free to play are Champions Online and Everquest II. Champions Online takes some of the best aspects of the game and limit them to subscribers only. There isn't even a way to pay to unlock the features outside of a subscription. Everquest II has changed their model some since I looked at it so may be worth it. I don't really know now.
Some other games you might want to look at are Guild Wars, Vindictus, and Forsaken World. Vindictus is fun here and there, but gets monotonous as you are running the same areas over and over again with slight variations in enemies and there are incentives to rerun them with those same enemies to improve your time. It's good for loading up to beat on things for a bit if you need a change of pace. I haven't spent much time with it, but Rusted Hearts is similar in PvE layout and has more variety. I don't know how much you can play that without hitting the item shop however.
Guild Wars has a different business model in that you buy the box, but there is no subscription. I think you might be able to get all of the campaigns for thirty US$ direct from NCSoft and there is a trial. They are working on a sequel right now. I have no clue what their plans are for the first one, but they recently announced they will be dropping support for older versions of Windows this Summer so support will only be for XP and newer. If I had to guess they are planning to continue hosting the game for a bit at least.
Forsaken World is probably the best MMO I have tried that started as free to play. It's an Eastern grinder without the grind and some variety in what one can do in game. There are a couple of points that if you never interact with other players then your quests dry up. You don't need much interaction, but if you want to go completely solo for everything then the first real problem with quests from this is in the early twenties.
Something to keep in mind with free to play games is that if you settle on one and spend quite a bit of time in the game then it might be cheaper to pay the subscription. I had a friend that thought I was crazy for paying a subscription game, but when he actually sat down and figured out how much he was spending in his free to play game at the time he was spending a minimum of sixty dollars a month and was still feeling like he was behind.
For most people I suggest trying out the free to play games, but also some trials. There are even trials without time limits such as being able to play up to and at level ten in Warhammer Online and WoW now lets you play unlimited up to level twenty. Try them all and if one grabs you and you have no urge to play other MMOs or even other games then subscribe if possible. I had two years where I was subscribed to and active with one MMO and that was my only money spent on video games for those two years which saved me quite a bit of money for those two years.
Another option is MUDs. There are some great ones out there. The majority are free to play, but there are some professional ones as well with various marketing methods. Persistent worlds for games like Neverwinter Nights can be lots of fun too. You can pick it up from various retailers (I know gog, but probably other places as well) for ten bucks and that is for everything outside of some DLC they don't sell anymore. The art assets are still in the patches so the content can still be used in persistent worlds. The original campaign is rather lackluster. It feels like it was tacked on to showcase what the engine was capable of with the real intent being to have someone GM games online for their friends. People have expanded on that concept to host games that stay running online without an active GM which is what persistent worlds are.
In recent years, more and more games started with a P2P system have switched to F2P, such as Lord of the Rings Online, Ragnarok Online 2, Age of Conan, Lineage II, DC Universe Online, Aion Online etc. Since I am a poor student, I have already played some of them. Below is my three favourite p2p to f2p MMOs.