LOTRO Goes Free To Play How Will This Affect The MMO World?

[Confucius]

I guess you're not aware that Blizzard was already a big corporation before WoW came out. They simply caught on to a craze at the right moment and ran with it, thus what they have become today. Blizzard will keep the game interesting to the younger kids that don't mind, grinding out useless gear because their parents fund their addiction. It is boring, it will stay boring, any expansion after thus will be void of interesting stuff, but more or less going back to old world stuff and regurgitating it and saying its new. Sure they're adding 2 new races, but only saying a little about the lore. Imo they've gone past the storyline of WC3 and from what books I've read. I no longer have interest in playing for something I don't know what I'm playing for. However, their new game will most likely produce a new storyline which will give people something to research, something to be interested in, and maybe something to work for, hopefully they'll use a better engine and not cater to the people who have crappy PC's. So I don't know what they'll do to WoW to keep milking it, but it won't make it fun.





Basically all this is saying is, is that it won't be WoW based but a new storyline. As a game and business model, it will compete.

Hmmph I stand corrected, either way I think that WoW will go free to play for the reasons in the article and the new MMO ect.

[Jeremiah]

I believe that WoW will enter a free-to-play model as soon as Blizzard begins to see a fatal downward turn in subscribers. Until then, the viability of the pay-to-play model is unquestionable. Blizzard would introduce other methods to generate revenue, of course, that is a given. Blizzard will not, however, abandon the prospect of milking Cataclysm for a good 2 1/2 years, and releasing a couple more expansions before they decide to change a pay model.

[The Maffyx]

Hmmph I stand correctly, either way I think that WoW will go free to play for the reasons in the article and the new MMO ect.

Well I was quoting Aphel on that. But the IP will obv be different.

I never stated that I thought that Blizzard wasn't a big corporation before, I said the opposite. Starcraft was the best-selling PC title of all time. I was merely pointing out that Blizzard became even richer after the massive success that was WoW. They rose from successful developers to the sole and hegemonic developer of popular MMO titles, which says how good their next title will be.

I reread that, read it wrong the first time.

I believe that WoW will enter a free-to-play model as soon as Blizzard begins to see a fatal downward turn in subscribers. Until then, the viability of the pay-to-play model is unquestionable. Blizzard would introduce other methods to generate revenue, of course, that is a given. Blizzard will not, however, abandon the prospect of milking Cataclysm for a good 2 1/2 years, and releasing a couple more expansions before they decide to change a pay model.

Blizzard is already losing subscribers, but their new game probably won't be coming out until Cata is well on its way. So therefore WoW may change its way of payments.

[Confucius]

Well I was quoting Aphel on that. But the IP will obv be different.

I reread that, read it wrong the first time.

Blizzard is already losing subscribers, but their new game probably won't be coming out until Cata is well on its way. So therefore WoW may change its way of payments.

meant to say corrected but auto correct got me :\

[The Maffyx]

meant to say corrected but auto correct got me :\

It happens, anyways I'm done with this, basically making an argument based off of conjecture therefore no one knows anyways.

[Jeremiah]

Thanks for the insightful discussion, Maffyx.

[~OddBall~]

In an interview a few months back, the main dude behind WoW/Blizzard whatevs said they wouldn't rule out making WoW f2p, but they didn't say it was a planned thing.

Anyways, after DDO's success it was pretty obvious LOTRO was gonna follow the same idea.

[Trygve]

i rather pay monthly like wow instead of having spoiled 14 years olds buy everything for real money.

[Innit]

I never stated that I thought that Blizzard wasn't a big corporation before, I said the opposite. Starcraft was the best-selling PC title of all time. I was merely pointing out that Blizzard became even richer after the massive success that was WoW. They rose from successful developers to the sole and hegemonic developer of popular MMO titles, which says how good their next title will be.

Diablo 2 was then fastest selling PC game of all time.
Warcraft 3 was then the fastest selling PC game of all time.
Diablo 2 LOD was then the fastest selling PC game of all time.
WoW was then the fastest selling PC game of all time.
TBC was then the fastest selling PC game of all time.
WotLK was then the fastest selling PC game of all time.

No matter what blizzard do we will all suck it up.

[Confucius]

i rather pay monthly like wow instead of having spoiled 14 years olds buy everything for real money.

Yeah but with the new free to play you can keep playing by paying monthly or with game cards unaffected.

[ßetray]

I think Runescape did the mix of Free and P2P best: Free was a fairly sizable world with a vast array of skills, items and monsters; P2P Offered a whole new area nearly twice the size of the normal world, new skills, many new monsters, access to monsters with benefits, and more (not to mention only $5 a month).