Free DAoC

[Ati]

Do you think DAoC will be made free in the near future?

I think that after the new epics that have been launched it would not be hard for someone to attain a good enough template to reach level 50 and RvR with a regular group. Most MMORPGs are now turning to giving some of the game for free but charging for expansions. This would also give us all the chance to have buffbots!

What are your thoughts?

I was thinking that maybe to SI, this means they could buy any items they wanted in housing with caps but could not activate artifacts or get masterlevels.

This could be a way to capture some more people into the game seeing as we all know how addictive the game can be, once they reach 50 they are probably going to be willing to pay the subs to take the game further.

Other mmo's that are free (- some expansions)

Planetside
Anarchy Online
Fly for fun
etc.

 

[Ballard]

Your wording is a little confusing. SI and TOA are already free to anyone with a daoc account. I think you mean subscription not box price tho? Main problem would be the loss of revenue from all the Buffbot accounts.

 

[Ati]

Sorry, i do mean what you say, yes i know all expansions are downloadable but they are do however cost subscriptions. The examples below however do not cost subscriptions unless you download the expansions.

So...daoc with SI = completely free of charge
daoc with ToA = have to pay subs

Sorry for confusion

 

[MesS°]

Good idea, but i voted "no" because of human nature.
Free accounts could/would lead to alot of greifing.

 

[Darzil]

Hmm, so in other words, play classic server with SI, get to play any non TOA/Cats races/classes, but get full access (through marketplace/trades) to all equipment, and GOA gets no income from it at all ?

Can't quite work out why any company would shoot themselves in the foot like that.

Darzil

 

[UndyingAngel]

It will never happen,

1, SI client is no longer supported
2, GOA want your money
3, it would bring new people into the game who have never tyed it which would be a good idear and GOA never do anything that could boost the player base.

The only game I know that does this is Anarchy Online which gives you a year free if you do not use any of teh expansions.

 

[Ballard]

Hmm, so in other words, play classic server with SI, get to play any non TOA/Cats races/classes, but get full access (through marketplace/trades) to all equipment, and GOA gets no income from it at all ?

Can't quite work out why any company would shoot themselves in the foot like that.

Darzil

No champion weapon or champion class abilities, so you would definetly be off the pace. The concept clearly isnt so good on classic servers tho without ml levels etc..

 

[Ati]

No lol sorry, I must have worded this terribly?

They get:

Anything form marketplace and epic armour

They however do not get:

MLs
DR levels
Artifacts
any ToA/DR/Cata quests
any DR weapons

\o/ and E&E voted yes! maybe he could ask if it was possible if he gets chance to slip in

 

[Thorwyn]

That would lead to a 2-class society. People paying for better stuff, others are running around in crap stuff because they can´t (or won´t) pay.
If people are playing together on a server, they should all have access to the same features under the same conditions. Otherwise it´s just a hidden variation of the "buy items (for IRL money) from Mythic" idea that was floating around a couple months ago.

 

[evzy]

The games that do let you play for free are all dying on their ass's I think these days, DAOC hasnt quite come to that yet. Planetside is only a 1yr freebie as well.

I wouldnt want to see it tbh - as already said, people would ditch their buffbots for free accounts and everyone would have one - why should other people have paid for that for X months. Also griefing, radar users, x-realming etc would all potentially become a bigger issue if everyone just rolled tons of new toons across diff accounts.

 

[old.Whoodoo]

Nope from any point of view. Its poor business, and the freebies would just cause mayhem.

When is someone gonna do a "No more shite polls" poll?

 

[Escape]

I always see people complaining about the lack of incentives for new players to join the game, now people are flaming this without even thinking about it.

The 'freebie' players will only have access to an extended trial account.
Marketing strategy #38 : A "free account" is more inviting than a "two week trial".

As the new players level up, they might want access to Catacombs(= subs) or at the RvR stage, they'll want artifacts/MLs (= subs).

It's a long term strategy, to introduce new players to the game, many of whom will become subscribers.

 

[Ati]

Nope from any point of view. Its poor business, and the freebies would just cause mayhem.

When is someone gonna do a "No more shite polls" poll?

I could have done this thread without a poll, but one i wanted to know how many people read the thread voted but did not post.
I also wanted to know who wanted to incoperate this idea.
I agree there are alot of polls, but i mean calling my thread shite when its a valid idea about what is going on in most older mmorpgs is hardly reasonable?

 

[Darzil]

Best way to introduce new players into the game is to get to know them. There are plenty of new players, but when they find out how elitest RvR and bigs raids tend to be, I couldn't blame them for being put off.

I can't help but think that the community that powerlevels, doesn'tt want to group with people without great templates/RR abilities/MLs etc, and flames people who don't play the game their way (whichever way that happens to be), isn't entirely welcoming for newcomers.

There are of course guilds and people who don't behave like that, but if you listen here and in BG's, you'd think that most do.

Darzil

 

[Lawnmower]

Lots of good points.. not sure whether to agree or disagree

 

[Fana]

Its not inconceivable that Mythic might do something similar with DAoC to what was done with Anarchy Online (can play the basic game without monthly cost) and Planetside (can play for free all you want but cant reach beyond the first couple battleranks etc) when they launch WAR. It would be a good way to promote the company and they likely will lose alot of people from DAoC over to WAR, so they might offer something like "play for free but cant reach more than rr2.0 and cant use latest expansions etc unless you pay" and then offer only skeleton support. Not saying it will happen but its one model they could try if they want to have a promotion game for their company and flagship product WAR later on and still make a bit of money, since some people will undoubtedly try and then end up paying to get past the "free content" or like the game and get interested in what else the company has done (i.e. WAR).

 

[old.Whoodoo]

I can't help but think that the community that powerlevels, doesn'tt want to group with people without great templates/RR abilities/MLs etc, and flames people who don't play the game their way (whichever way that happens to be), isn't entirely welcoming for newcomers.

Well said m8, its sad but true that our beloved game has been reduced to a very anti-social version of the one we started 4 years ago, and is sadly irreversable.

Ive said it a thousand times before but the advertising of the game has always been shit, my own article in PCGamer is the biggest mag ad I have seen for this game, theres been little on cover disks, and with DR getting a massive 36% in one review, youd think they would come up with something better than a 14 day trial.

However, as all others have said, from so many angles this is a bad idea, free accounts lead to all kinds of abuse, and will mean less revenue to keep the game and customer support going. Something like a 50% reduction on second accounts maybe, a longer trial, or even as I have always thought, remove /level and give new players 1 /level toon only to 24 once they have reached level 5 naturally.

Sorry about the pop about yet another poll, it seems FHers are bored and polls are coming out of their ears at present. This poll in particular doesnt ask for whats really needed, but just shows that people will have anything for free, tight gits.

 

[Ati]

rr4l9 would be better than rr2

i.e. not full RvR

seeing as new BG ?

 

[Pretarded]

Best way to introduce new players into the game is to get to know them. There are plenty of new players, but when they find out how elitest RvR and bigs raids tend to be, I couldn't blame them for being put off.

I can't help but think that the community that powerlevels, doesn'tt want to group with people without great templates/RR abilities/MLs etc, and flames people who don't play the game their way (whichever way that happens to be), isn't entirely welcoming for newcomers.

There are of course guilds and people who don't behave like that, but if you listen here and in BG's, you'd think that most do.

Darzil

/level 20 killed the game for newcommers ages ago

 

[Escape]

Best way to introduce new players into the game is to get to know them. There are plenty of new players, but when they find out how elitest RvR and bigs raids tend to be, I couldn't blame them for being put off.

I can't help but think that the community that powerlevels, doesn'tt want to group with people without great templates/RR abilities/MLs etc, and flames people who don't play the game their way (whichever way that happens to be), isn't entirely welcoming for newcomers.

If that's the impression you're giving new comers, it's no surprise they quit


GOA marketed the game poorly, new MMO gamers are more likely to start on WoW than DAoC.

At this point, freebie accounts is one of the best marketing strategies GOA can hope for. Distributed through magazines and advertised online through gaming sites.

 

[Samaroon|Terracotta]

Nope from any point of view. Its poor business, and the freebies would just cause mayhem.

When is someone gonna do a "No more shite polls" poll?

Done that when we first got the 'privelages' to make polls on my old account, then i got banned for 'poll spamming'

 

[~Latency~]

Stupid idea

 

[Ati]

Stupid idea

vote no then?

 

[Awarkle]

in my opinion they should allow the classic ONLY zone to be made free to play however high level battlegrounds are locked passed thid (which is 25 ie halfway to 50)

so you can get into the game pve up a bit try out the rvr aspect of the game if you like it pay a subscription and get up to toa activated (technically) or continue to pve and maybe activate laters.

However i dont see mythic or goa making the game free in any incarnation because it costs money to run these games. You have bandwidth charges + technical staff to support + gms + billing + rent etc etc it mounts up.

I do think goa should do some more freebie disks on cover magazines but more than one and more regular. but thats just me ;P

 

[~Latency~]

vote no then?

Wow, thanks for the advice/help

 

[Thadius]

First time I played a mmo was Ultima Online

Ages ago, they gave away 2 weeks free trial

Shame my computer couldnt handle it back then, I would have definately bought the game

Im sure it would work with daoc as well

Problem is, with new players now there is so much to do, templates, masterlevels, realm ranks, champion levels and the alltime favourite, artifacts.

If you dont join a fairly decent guild with people who know about the game, you have a slim chance of actually making it before being bored.

Take Cluster for example

How many groups are running with rr8+?. Vs a rr2 group, they pretty much dont have a chance of losing. So these rr2 groups camp bridges/zerg, much to the annoyance of the rr8 groups.

Camelot is getting boring because its more or less the same playerbase of 4 years ago and what do you do when you get bored of your char?

Roll an alt? And when you get bored? Roll another! And so on and so forth. I think its come to the stage where most people have played every class on every realm(I know, I have played all of Mid and Alb classes, Testground Thid ftw)

 

[Dancingboner]

I think it's a great idea. There are from my point of view only 2 problems.

1) Mis-use
2) /20 on everybody elses accounts, so new players will only really be able to hunt with other new players.

Tho both can be controlled if we're not being defeatist.

This game needs more players. Get them into the game, get them hooked for free. Then, when they decide that they can't compete in RVR without the lovelies like artifacts and masterlevels they're gonna have to pay. Perhaps allow only one free account per household?

In all seriousness. If you're giving things away, it wont really work unless you're giving them Darkness Rising graphics. Otherwise people are gonna look at it and go.. this isn't a patch on WoW. SI graphics, certainly player models weren't all that great. Give them the graphics if possible but don't give them access to the content. Make TOA + DR + Instances unreachable somehow - people arent going to make BBs on these accounts if they already have one - do you really want to 1-50 a new buffbot, ML it etc? I know i'd rather pay my subs than do that.

To avoid mis-use and mayhem just use a combination CC details and address for registering. So it doesn't cost you anything, but we want your details so you're not gonna open new accounts to scam/steal and cheat. Make it clear that if the free account is misused all accounts associated with those details will be punished.

Fact is, if all bases are covered, it can only increase player base, which will lead to more subscriptions which will lead to GOA making more money.

Oh, and remove /20. It's overrated anyway. Best PVE in game is pre-20. Rest is boring and slow and would it hurt GOA to chuck a big wad of cash at advertising? Lets have a DAoC TV advert in the UK eh? Nobodys bloody heard of it.

 

[Ivynoxia]

I dont think it will ever be free.. you still have to pay tener a month to play Ultima Online and that game has been around for 8 years.

 

[Adlatus Hellbringer]

Free Willy? kk thx

 

[judas]

give free DR as its a crap expalision.
and give free master levels as they suck to do.
oh and ofc /lvl20 even if u dont have a lvl50 char as it only makes it harder for newbies to enter the game.