Lord of the Rings Online has recently stated that they have released a "Free to Play" option for their Massively Multiplayer RPG. Enticed by this proposal I took a look at it. Here's what I found.
Despite this being placed in the Free to Play Freakout tag it will work more like a "Pariah's Angry Rant" for reasons you shall see.
Turbine thinks what they are doing is releasing free to play content for their "Award Winning" game in order to give people a taste of the MMO so that hopefully they'd decide to pay for it down the line. What they've done, however, is spit in the face of anyone who doesn't want to pay for their game.
Here's how a great, successful, Free to Play MMO works: They offer full content access to ALL players. Make an account and you can access every single bit of content in the world. Then, add a cash shop, similar to what you can find on most Korean MMOs. Stock the cash shop with different buffs that give the payers certain advantages, such as increased EXP gain, or a faster mount. (Of course not something like a new class or equipment or stat boosts, that breaks the game). There, you've got a great base for an MMO that, if it's fun of course, will make you money and make you lots of fans who will WANT to pay you money.
What you DO NOT DO is this: Grant free players access to most zones, however, only give them quests in the first three that will take them to about level 25. Give them limited chat, crafting, storage, inventory, money cap, support, no permanent mount, etc. Instead have three levels of players: Free, Premium, and VIP. To get Premium, force them to purchase something from the store, whether it be points or actual content. Then to get VIP force them to pay A SUBSCRIPTION FOR YOUR FREE TO PLAY GAME.
If you don't see whats wrong with this then you are part of the problem. This game is not "Free to Play" it's "Free to Test" it's little more than an extended trial version. Turbine would be making so much more money if they'd follow the guidelines I set in the first paragraph, not only that, they'd have a much larger and more loyal fanbase. At the moment, they are offering Free to Play quality content for a Premium price. While there may be some Turbine sycophants out there, as there always is, that doesn't change the fact that this game is an insult to anyone who came there looking for a Free to Play game.
I am frankly infuriated that this is how it turned out. I had been eagerly awaiting the Free to Play release of LotRO as I don't currently have the means to support an MMO subscription, and this really felt like a slap to the face. Like they were some soup kitchen chef who looked out at all the hungry faces awaiting food, then as each person came by for their share they kicked them in the shins and gave them a few drops of soup. It's unacceptable that they think they can get away with this.
I wouldn't really be so upset about this if the game was better, if it was a game with the production quality and polish of something like World of Warcraft then I wouldn't be able to bash it so hard. But it's not, the combat is crude and clunky, everything feels swampy and delayed like you are walking waist deep in mud, and the crafting is restrictive, forcing you to take a set of three instead of giving you a choice of what you want. So if you were hoping to get Tailoring, Foresting, and Armorsmithing, for whatever reason, too bad, you're fucked. Then there's Turbine, which has become my new symbol for everything that is wrong with MMOs nowadays.
That's all for this hybridization of Free to Play Freakout and Pariah's Angry Rants, hope you enjoyed it
HappyPariah
Showing posts with label Free to Play Freakout. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Free to Play Freakout. Show all posts
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
Free To Play Freakout: Allods Online
Sorry about the lack of updates, I really haven't had much to write about, even now this is a bit forced. I am really looking for a bit of content to put out for now, so I had to force this one out of the planning stages before I had completely developed my opinion. Hopefully it'll still be entertaining, however.
When playing Allods Online, the first thing you'll notice is: This looks a lot like World of Warcraft. Of course it's to be expected that with the success of World of Warcraft that there would be clones popping up among some of the more shameless big name companies and the smaller ones just trying to make a name for themselves. The game plays almost exactly like World of Warcraft, so if you've played even the trial of WoW you'll feel right at home... with one distinct exception.
Graphics: What an odd place to start this review. Well, right after you notice how similar everything is to WoW you will then notice: Gawdam! This is beautiful. This game is among the best free to play has to offer in terms of graphics. Taking a look at the screen shots shows just how much time was put into just creating the scenery. While up close it might seem a bit bland in a largely unchanging area such as a forest, when you take a look off the sides of the floating islands the game is set on you can't help but feel awestruck by the beauty of it all. I sat for about ten minutes just staring out into the void of nothingness in the first quest zone you arrive at. In addition the animation was surprisingly fluid, if a bit repetitive, and is even said to be fully motion captured. That being said, all of this really does play into the whole World of Warcraft rip-off feel of the entire thing. Honestly, I would expect more originality from the developers of Heroes of Might and Magic 5, especially with the $12 million budget, the largest video game budget ever in Russia, it's developing country. Especially considering it has Gala-Net behind it, one of the largest free to play MMO publishers out there. Allods gets a 6/10 for Graphics. The scape is simply breathtaking, however the minute details are dated and boring.
Sound: Again, a very strange placement in the review for this particular piece. Allods prides itself on it's development quality. Stating in it's information page several times how reputed it's developers are, particularly the inclusion of Mark Morgan, a musician who has worked on Dexter, Fallouts 1 and 2, and Planescape: Torment. Honestly though, none of the music really stuck with me. I played this game only a few minutes prior to beginning this review and cannot remember a single tune. That's very disappointing given how fantastic the music for the Fallout games were. At the very least the town music should stick in your head. I remember playing Fallout for the first time, the very first time I heard "Trader's Life" I knew it would stick with me and it has. To this day "Trader's Life" is still one of my favorite examples of ambiance in a game. Unfortunately, the same holds true for the combat sounds in Allods. Sometimes after charging a spell and then holding it for the next encounter I'd get no sound after firing it. In addition, the melee fighting sound is very minimalistic presenting very little to pull you into the mood. Allods gets a 3/10 for Sound. A horribly disappointing turn.
Gameplay: Here we get to the meat of the game. Of course, the game can have all of the stupendous graphics it wants, but if it's not fun to play then who gives a fuck, right? Let me just say this. If you've played World of Warcraft, you've played Allods. There are the basic archetypes: Fighter, Ranger, Mage, and Cleric/Healer, and each seems to be different from the others with a decent amount of interesting skills for each of them. The crafting system in the game works more like a mini-game than in games like World of Warcraft, a refreshing change of pace. The game is said to be a spiritual successor to Rage of Mages, a game the developers had previously worked on. Having never even heard of Rage of Mages I can't confirm or deny this claim, but I don't think that even really matters. The game functions exactly like World of Warcraft with one tiny.. or major rather, difference. You cannot change the key bindings. I'm sorry but this really makes me angry. Especially when the developers decided that "A" and "D" in the normal "WASD" set up shouldn't be to rotate, but to strafe. Having played World of Warcraft since launch, only recently ending my account for good, this took a very very long time to get used to. I still mess up most of the time when trying to move. I don't understand what is so difficult about letting me change my bindings to set strafe to a different key.
Now, as per Free To Play law this game must have one huge hook factor that sets it apart and ahead of others. That hook comes in the form of The Astral, a supposedly enormous sea of nothingness in which numerous "Allods", basically islands that give a huge 'fuck you' to physics, float. I've not been able to reach the necessary level to explore this area as it also requires a very hefty sum of cash, and I really don't have the time to test out every aspect of every game I feature on this segment. According to the site a group of six players can man a flying ship and search The Astral to find Allods containing treasures and monsters, giant demons they must fight, and even enemy ships they can fight against, board, and subsequently pirate. This seems like a very interesting proposal, if a bit irritating that someone much more powerful than you can simply steal everything you won and, I'm guessing, destroy your ship in the process.
Allods gets a 7/10 for Gameplay. While it may just be World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft was magnificently executed and this game chose well in it's quest to rip-off a much more popular one. However, I am still angry about Key bindings.
Community: Allods is a unique game, at least to my knowledge, in that it's a Free To Play MMO that has a community with the mentality of a Pay To Play. Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between chat in WoW and chat in Allods, it was spectacular. You get your classic MMO spread: The normal players who are looking for a good time, the hardcore elitists progressing through end game while being determined to make a name for themselves, the general assholes who like to be assholes for no reason, and everything else you could imagine. But.. everyone is so nice. I was really amazed at how well interactions went. Almost every question was answered, given of course there was someone around to answer it, in a timely and respectful manner. A nice change of pace from games like Gunz or some of the more infamous WoW servers, I'm looking at you Destromath. The guilds are friendly and seem to be real COMMUNITIES, something a lot of MMOs and players forget in the pursuit of being "hardcore". The service team even has interviews with popular and up-and-coming guilds and guild masters, showing how much they really care about the community. Allods gets a 9/10 for Community, while it does have some minor nagging issues that are of so little consequence that I didn't even mention them, this will become my example of how great an MMO community can be.
Support: Gala-Net did well, partnering with GPotato for the release of Allods. GPotato is a very large company that hosts several MMOs. Due to this the game gets great support all around. The team working on content and maintenance is also very clean and professional. As I've said before it really feels like the developers are proud of this game and promote the community in any way they can. However, the updates are slow, as can be expected from a Free To Play, but with the amount of people working on it, being free to play is little excuse. Allods gets a 5/10 for Support, amazing in it's developers fervor, but not excessive enough to warrant a higher score.
Overall: Allods gets a 6/10 overall. It is definitely one of the better Free To Play MMOs. The graphics, gameplay, and community really make this game what it is, while the sound and support are it's weaker links. If those two aspects can be brought up to par with the rest of the game then it could rival even it's inspiration, WoW.
That's all for this entry in Free To Play Freakout
Cheers,
HappyPariah
 |
| Blatant World of Warcraft clone is blatant |
Graphics: What an odd place to start this review. Well, right after you notice how similar everything is to WoW you will then notice: Gawdam! This is beautiful. This game is among the best free to play has to offer in terms of graphics. Taking a look at the screen shots shows just how much time was put into just creating the scenery. While up close it might seem a bit bland in a largely unchanging area such as a forest, when you take a look off the sides of the floating islands the game is set on you can't help but feel awestruck by the beauty of it all. I sat for about ten minutes just staring out into the void of nothingness in the first quest zone you arrive at. In addition the animation was surprisingly fluid, if a bit repetitive, and is even said to be fully motion captured. That being said, all of this really does play into the whole World of Warcraft rip-off feel of the entire thing. Honestly, I would expect more originality from the developers of Heroes of Might and Magic 5, especially with the $12 million budget, the largest video game budget ever in Russia, it's developing country. Especially considering it has Gala-Net behind it, one of the largest free to play MMO publishers out there. Allods gets a 6/10 for Graphics. The scape is simply breathtaking, however the minute details are dated and boring.
 |
| Fantastic |
Sound: Again, a very strange placement in the review for this particular piece. Allods prides itself on it's development quality. Stating in it's information page several times how reputed it's developers are, particularly the inclusion of Mark Morgan, a musician who has worked on Dexter, Fallouts 1 and 2, and Planescape: Torment. Honestly though, none of the music really stuck with me. I played this game only a few minutes prior to beginning this review and cannot remember a single tune. That's very disappointing given how fantastic the music for the Fallout games were. At the very least the town music should stick in your head. I remember playing Fallout for the first time, the very first time I heard "Trader's Life" I knew it would stick with me and it has. To this day "Trader's Life" is still one of my favorite examples of ambiance in a game. Unfortunately, the same holds true for the combat sounds in Allods. Sometimes after charging a spell and then holding it for the next encounter I'd get no sound after firing it. In addition, the melee fighting sound is very minimalistic presenting very little to pull you into the mood. Allods gets a 3/10 for Sound. A horribly disappointing turn.
 | |
| What the fuck is this thing? |
Gameplay: Here we get to the meat of the game. Of course, the game can have all of the stupendous graphics it wants, but if it's not fun to play then who gives a fuck, right? Let me just say this. If you've played World of Warcraft, you've played Allods. There are the basic archetypes: Fighter, Ranger, Mage, and Cleric/Healer, and each seems to be different from the others with a decent amount of interesting skills for each of them. The crafting system in the game works more like a mini-game than in games like World of Warcraft, a refreshing change of pace. The game is said to be a spiritual successor to Rage of Mages, a game the developers had previously worked on. Having never even heard of Rage of Mages I can't confirm or deny this claim, but I don't think that even really matters. The game functions exactly like World of Warcraft with one tiny.. or major rather, difference. You cannot change the key bindings. I'm sorry but this really makes me angry. Especially when the developers decided that "A" and "D" in the normal "WASD" set up shouldn't be to rotate, but to strafe. Having played World of Warcraft since launch, only recently ending my account for good, this took a very very long time to get used to. I still mess up most of the time when trying to move. I don't understand what is so difficult about letting me change my bindings to set strafe to a different key.
Now, as per Free To Play law this game must have one huge hook factor that sets it apart and ahead of others. That hook comes in the form of The Astral, a supposedly enormous sea of nothingness in which numerous "Allods", basically islands that give a huge 'fuck you' to physics, float. I've not been able to reach the necessary level to explore this area as it also requires a very hefty sum of cash, and I really don't have the time to test out every aspect of every game I feature on this segment. According to the site a group of six players can man a flying ship and search The Astral to find Allods containing treasures and monsters, giant demons they must fight, and even enemy ships they can fight against, board, and subsequently pirate. This seems like a very interesting proposal, if a bit irritating that someone much more powerful than you can simply steal everything you won and, I'm guessing, destroy your ship in the process.
Allods gets a 7/10 for Gameplay. While it may just be World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft was magnificently executed and this game chose well in it's quest to rip-off a much more popular one. However, I am still angry about Key bindings.
 |
| The obligatory Elf race of Allods |
Community: Allods is a unique game, at least to my knowledge, in that it's a Free To Play MMO that has a community with the mentality of a Pay To Play. Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between chat in WoW and chat in Allods, it was spectacular. You get your classic MMO spread: The normal players who are looking for a good time, the hardcore elitists progressing through end game while being determined to make a name for themselves, the general assholes who like to be assholes for no reason, and everything else you could imagine. But.. everyone is so nice. I was really amazed at how well interactions went. Almost every question was answered, given of course there was someone around to answer it, in a timely and respectful manner. A nice change of pace from games like Gunz or some of the more infamous WoW servers, I'm looking at you Destromath. The guilds are friendly and seem to be real COMMUNITIES, something a lot of MMOs and players forget in the pursuit of being "hardcore". The service team even has interviews with popular and up-and-coming guilds and guild masters, showing how much they really care about the community. Allods gets a 9/10 for Community, while it does have some minor nagging issues that are of so little consequence that I didn't even mention them, this will become my example of how great an MMO community can be.
Support: Gala-Net did well, partnering with GPotato for the release of Allods. GPotato is a very large company that hosts several MMOs. Due to this the game gets great support all around. The team working on content and maintenance is also very clean and professional. As I've said before it really feels like the developers are proud of this game and promote the community in any way they can. However, the updates are slow, as can be expected from a Free To Play, but with the amount of people working on it, being free to play is little excuse. Allods gets a 5/10 for Support, amazing in it's developers fervor, but not excessive enough to warrant a higher score.
Overall: Allods gets a 6/10 overall. It is definitely one of the better Free To Play MMOs. The graphics, gameplay, and community really make this game what it is, while the sound and support are it's weaker links. If those two aspects can be brought up to par with the rest of the game then it could rival even it's inspiration, WoW.
That's all for this entry in Free To Play Freakout
Cheers,
HappyPariah
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Free To Play Freakout: Gunz the Duel
Welcome to the first segment of "Free To Play Freakout", where I will break down downloadable free to play games and give you my personal view on them.
Today's subject is: Gunz the Duel, a third person action game similar to games like Counterstrike, wherein you connect to a server and play solely online competitive games, with the exception of one cooperative game mode.
Now, in order to facilitate a fair air between games that will be featured on Free To Play Freakout, I will use a universal grading method factoring in universally accepted points of a good game, namely: Graphics, Sound(including music), Gameplay, Community, and Support.
Graphics: Gunz is a fairly old game, which explains their distinct lack of high resolution textures or... rather any identifiable effort put into the graphics. They aren't horrible, there is definitely far worse, but they are far from anything spectacular, or even noteworthy. There's really not too much I can say in this part, the graphics are just so mediocre. Gunz gets a 4/10 for Graphics.
Sound: The music is definitely one point where Gunz shows a bit of a strength. The music, while somewhat bland if you play it for a very long time, is definitely something that deserves mention. It is varied between the different maps and does it's job, it fills in the silence with something that isn't horrible to listen to, but also goes a step beyond, making some of the tracks even enjoyable. Gunz gets a 6/10 for Sound.
Gameplay: Gunz is a unique online game in that it grants you powers similar to gun-fu style action movies. Your character can vault off walls, run along walls, climb using their melee weapon, and do all sorts of other ridiculous stunts. These moves, while somewhat difficult to pull off in the heat of combat are definitely fun and can make combat look spectacular. However, the problem comes when you factor in the weapons you actually get to use. The progression is... linear... very very linear. Sure, you can blow a ton of cash and buy a heavy weapon like a rocket launcher or light machine gun, but they are completely superfluous and generally end in you never using them after their gimmicks are played out. The only real interesting gear is purchased for real money, something that really pisses me off. Gunz gets a 5/10 for Gameplay, the moves are cool, but the weapons are seriously lacking.
Community: The Gunz community is fairly active, yet not that friendly. Most clans are simply zerg inviters, inviting everyone who is not already in a clan. The community is a huge problem for this game and is worth a simple 3/10. There's nothing else to say.
Support: The Support category refers specifically to the developers support of the game. Gunz sits right in the middle of the road for this one, just as it does with most everything else. Since it's part of a large company, ijji, it gets significant technical support and new cash shop releases, as well as Moderator run events and those sort of things. I'll have to give Gunz a 5/10 for Support.
Overall: 4/10 Gunz is a decent game, it's somewhat fun to play and can be a good way to kill an hour or two with some friends, but the community as well as the linear weapon progression without spending real money really pulls this game down.
That's all for the first Free To Play Freakout
Cheers,
HappyPariah
Today's subject is: Gunz the Duel, a third person action game similar to games like Counterstrike, wherein you connect to a server and play solely online competitive games, with the exception of one cooperative game mode.
Now, in order to facilitate a fair air between games that will be featured on Free To Play Freakout, I will use a universal grading method factoring in universally accepted points of a good game, namely: Graphics, Sound(including music), Gameplay, Community, and Support.
Graphics: Gunz is a fairly old game, which explains their distinct lack of high resolution textures or... rather any identifiable effort put into the graphics. They aren't horrible, there is definitely far worse, but they are far from anything spectacular, or even noteworthy. There's really not too much I can say in this part, the graphics are just so mediocre. Gunz gets a 4/10 for Graphics.
Sound: The music is definitely one point where Gunz shows a bit of a strength. The music, while somewhat bland if you play it for a very long time, is definitely something that deserves mention. It is varied between the different maps and does it's job, it fills in the silence with something that isn't horrible to listen to, but also goes a step beyond, making some of the tracks even enjoyable. Gunz gets a 6/10 for Sound.
Gameplay: Gunz is a unique online game in that it grants you powers similar to gun-fu style action movies. Your character can vault off walls, run along walls, climb using their melee weapon, and do all sorts of other ridiculous stunts. These moves, while somewhat difficult to pull off in the heat of combat are definitely fun and can make combat look spectacular. However, the problem comes when you factor in the weapons you actually get to use. The progression is... linear... very very linear. Sure, you can blow a ton of cash and buy a heavy weapon like a rocket launcher or light machine gun, but they are completely superfluous and generally end in you never using them after their gimmicks are played out. The only real interesting gear is purchased for real money, something that really pisses me off. Gunz gets a 5/10 for Gameplay, the moves are cool, but the weapons are seriously lacking.
Community: The Gunz community is fairly active, yet not that friendly. Most clans are simply zerg inviters, inviting everyone who is not already in a clan. The community is a huge problem for this game and is worth a simple 3/10. There's nothing else to say.
Support: The Support category refers specifically to the developers support of the game. Gunz sits right in the middle of the road for this one, just as it does with most everything else. Since it's part of a large company, ijji, it gets significant technical support and new cash shop releases, as well as Moderator run events and those sort of things. I'll have to give Gunz a 5/10 for Support.
Overall: 4/10 Gunz is a decent game, it's somewhat fun to play and can be a good way to kill an hour or two with some friends, but the community as well as the linear weapon progression without spending real money really pulls this game down.
That's all for the first Free To Play Freakout
Cheers,
HappyPariah
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