With the new year, things are starting to pick up again on the MMO front after the customary winter quiet. TERA follows the trend of many modern MMOs and goes Free-to-Play, Neverwinter busts out from its radio silence with announcements of Founders Packs and goes straight into closed beta, and Wizardry Online launches in the West. These are the top stories that this edition of MMO Co-Opportunities will be focusing on.
TERA Goes Free-to-Play
It’s tough to be a subscription-based MMO these days. Many recently released subscription-based MMOs are encountering this issue. Happily, rather than shutting the servers down (like MMOs used to do when they dropped below a certain number of subscribers), the hip thing to do is convert to Free-to-Play with a microtransactions shop for either bonus game content or cosmetic/utility items and consumables.TERA is the most recent big-deal western MMO to make this switch. On February 5th, TERA was converted to a Free-to-Play game, and though I haven’t yet checked it out yet, it sounds like they’ve gone about it in a decent way. Now, anyone can create a Standard account, gaining access to all existing content of the game. There is also an Elite Status account, which has replaced the subscription fee. For $15 a month, players can receive certain perks like shortened cooldowns on dungeon resets, double the daily bonus quests, and store discounts. These perks don’t sound game-breaking at all, but provide a nice incentive for players who are really into the game. There is also a Founder account which is granted to anyone who has bought the game (either pre- or post-Free-to-Play switch-over). Instead of two character slots per server, Founders get eight, and they also get max bank inventory space.
The microtransactions shop (though I’m not currently able to browse it) sounds reasonable as well. Enmasse claims that they don’t want to make anyone play for existing content, and the microtransactions shop will instead sell things like costumes, mounts, and consumables. That’s certainly a policy that I can get behind, and I hope it’ll be maintained. So if you were curious about TERA and never got around to trying it out, now’s certainly a good time to jump on in.
Neverwinter Announces Founders Packs; Enters Closed Beta
I got my hands on Neverwinter last PAX East nearly a year ago. It promised action combat in a D&D setting (a strange combination to be sure), and played quite well. After getting excited about the game months and months ago, I hadn’t heard too much about Neverwinter until a couple weeks ago. Cryptic made up for their silence by bursting out with their Founders Packs as well as closed beta dates.
Founders/Supporters Packs are kind of a new thing for games that are planning to be Free-to-Play on launch. It’s a little like kickstarting, except the game will launch regardless of how many packs are sold. They often grant cosmetic items, consumables, forums titles, etc. that are often unable to be gained anywhere else. And more importantly, they usually include alpha or beta access to the game. Neverwinter announced three Founders Packs: the Neverwinter Starter Kit ($20), the Guardian of of Neverwinter Pack ($60), and the Hero of the North Pack ($200). Somewhat surprisingly, only the Guardian and Hero packs grant access to the three currently announced beta weekends. The packs contain items such as costumes, companion pets, mounts, and increased inventory space.
The announced beta weekends included this past weekend (Feb. 8-10), with the weekends of March 8-10 and 22-24 upcoming. I had the chance to jump on and play a little bit this past week, and I’m encouraged by what I see. Looks like it could be a great amount of fun with friends. Be assured that I’ll be writing up a full classic MMO Co-Opportunity when the game officially launches and I can play enough to get a well-rounded impression of the co-opportunities it has to offer.
Wizardry Online Launches in the West
At the very end of January, the servers went up for the western launch of Wizardry Online. Wizardry Online is, you guessed it, from the long line of Wizardry games. Though the game is Free-to-Play, it promises an MMO experience for hardcore MMO players. This includes stat-rolling for a high random number of bonus stat points, free-for-all PVP (with an outlaw system in place), nearly mandatory grouping, and permadeath. If that’s not enough to make any casual (read: sane) player from trying it out, I’m not sure what else it would take.
I was tipped off on this game by Co-Optimus community member Jenks (thanks, Jenks!), and became interested in it. Unfortunately, while I have the game installed, I haven’t actually had a chance to play it yet. Though, it seems the game may have not had the smoothest launch, so it might be a blessing in disguise and I might be missing a messy launch. I must confess, however, I’m not much of a sane gamer, so I’m actually looking forward to experiencing the extreme pain that Wizardry Online promises to offer. Hopefully I’ll have a chance to check it out soon and let you guys know what I think.
So what about you, fellow Co-Optimus MMO’ers? Anything new going on in your current MMO of choice you’d like to share? Any MMOs on the horizon you can’t wait to get your hands on? Let us know!