LOTRO’s Great DDO Hope
To paraphrase a Groundhog Day quote, “Déjà vu? I’ll check with the kitchen to see if we have that.” In riding out the player reactions to the F2P-hybrid model change, it feels as though we’ve done this all before — and not too long ago, at that. The “RAWR!” of players against F2P and newbies in “their” MMO, the “RAWR!” of players for it, the sane folks in the middle who calmly reserved judgment until it actually happened — these are not just the reactions of the past couple weeks, but also a year ago when Turbine announced the same thing with DDO.
I’m not interested in prodding the hornets’ nest of F2P opinions this week; Lord knows everyone’s firmly entrenched in their respective positions and are glaring at the other side without giving up an inch. Instead, I wanted to explain one of the biggest reasons why I personally am pretty positive about this switch, and that comes from going through this whole switch with Dungeons & Dragons Online. I’m going to preface these statements by saying that the comparison isn’t perfect. LotRO is not DDO in many ways, and vice-versa. LotRO has a larger subscriber base than DDO did a year ago, LotRO’s design is not as modular as DDO, and there was no obvious need for a Hail Mary pass to keep the game afloat as there was with DDO. What worked for DDO may, in fact, not work for LotRO, and we’ll only know when the new version of the game hits this fall whether it sinks or swims.
That said, I believe there’s a lot of hope we can take away from DDO’s new model and how Turbine handled it, and there are certainly cues we can take to keep a positive outlook.
1. Uproar over the change was great at first, died down by the time beta was in full swing, and was relatively non-existent by launch.
Really, this is par for the course for many major game announcements. There’s a large reaction — and overreaction — by players and speculators when the announcement is made, which lacks both checks and balance because the change in question is as of yet unseen. Emotions are understandably high right now, but given time these will die down and more thoughtful, careful analysis will take place as we get our hands on the facts.
2. DDO scored THE press coup of 2009.
When it comes to PR, I don’t believe in coincidences. With little news making waves in the summer months, Turbine came out with DDO’s F2P announcement in June 2009, reaping months of rejuvenated attention in the title. Fast-forward to this year: Turbine once again announces in the early summer LotRO’s F2P move for the fall. They’re obviously hoping to reap a summer’s worth of attention and interest in both the game and the change, and so far so good in that regard.
3. The store prices were reasonable.
A lot of the fear and uncertainty aimed at DDO’s F2P switch revolved around the store, and especially how expensive adventure packs and other goodies would cost “hooked” F2P gamers. It turned out that Turbine really did believe in micro (not macro) transactions, and kept costs down to make a la carte play attractive and reasonable. We don’t have much information as of yet how much LotRO’s store items will cost, but going off of history, Turbine will attempt to find that “sweet spot” that both makes them a profit and keeps players from feeling fleeced.
4. The store items were not game unbalancing.
This is important, because it’s a valid concern of many F2P titles out there. It’s not that fun to play a game where the guy or girl who has the most cash wins, just out of virtue of how they can buy epic gear and unfair advantages. DDO’s store offers an edge in a few places — 32-point builds, decent starter gear, increased XP reward potions — but nothing that enables a loaded player to jump into the game and start dominating raids. Turbine has promised the same thing for LotRO, and I’m inclined to believe them as the backlash against unfair purchases would make trade-off a sour proposition.
5. Turbine was willing to fine-tune the model after launch.
Turbine learned a lot from F2P DDO, for sure, and a lot of that was post-launch. One of the most encouraging sights, to me, was to see how the company was willing to reexamine F2P decisions, and in some cases, overturn them completely. One example that pops to mind is the leveling caps, an artificial barrier that Turbine put into place for F2P gamers to encourage them to buy “leveling sigils” from the store. While you could quest to find them, the sigil system proved unpopular, and Turbine eventually removed them entirely.
6. Turbine kept adding free content for all levels of players.
A cynic might assume that it was in Turbine’s best self-interest to forever eschew new free content after the change and make all DDO updates cost moolah from there on out. While paid content certainly makes them money, it can’t buy the goodwill or positive press that additional free content can, which is why (I assume) Turbine continued to add additional content available for all players, subscriber or free, such as in Update 3.
7. It encouraged people to give the game a second chance.
I’ve heard and read many testimonies of players who had long dismissed DDO for various reasons, but came back for a second helping when F2P launched. Came back, mind you, and found it appealing. A F2P switch isn’t just aimed at completely new players to the game, but lapsed players and former samplers who, for various reasons, sidelined the title for the indefinite future. Both DDO and LotRO have grown by leaps and bounds since launch, and for players who haven’t experienced that growth, F2P is a powerful encourager to do so.
8. It saw a dramatic increase in updates and new content.
Another interesting parallel between DDO and LotRO is that prior to F2P relaunch, both titles were and are suffering from slower updates. Since its fall 2009 launch, DDO’s team has sprinted into action as if it was a brand-new game, posting updates at a rapid clip (four as of the writing of this article, with a fifth about to descend) and finally implementing content that players have been asking for for years (guild housing, new races, new difficulty, new classes). Faster, better content is a win-win for both Turbine and players in this environment.
9. It got more of the advertising budget (TV ads, print ads, etc.).
A big addition or update for a game gives publishers a great reason to prod marketing into overtime, and DDO benefited from numerous TV, print and web ads for the switch. DDO on a TV ad — seriously, whodathunk it? Of course, we have no idea if LotRO will receive the same treatment, but there’s no reason to think why not!
10. It didn’t end the game — on the contrary, it strengthened and revitalized it.
This is definitely the bottom line. DDO’s community, who pride themselves on fostering a close-knit, mature environment, was terrified that all that would be ripped from them come the F2P change. It turns out that not only did they weather the storm just fine, the community swelled as many terrific players joined their ranks and experienced what DDO fans had been drumming about for years — a great game that more people needed to try. Today, it’s hard to argue that DDO is worse off, especially considering that profits are up, subscriptions are up, content is rolling out on a regular basis, servers were added, and this older title still makes headlines on news sites and blogs.
Conclusion: Frodo lives!
Again, just so I’m not accused of fanatical blindness (I just have regular blindness — curse you, sun, for looking so pretty!), I know that DDO’s F2P move and resulting success doesn’t guarantee anything for LotRO. I have concerns, just like everyone on both sides of the debate, and we really won’t know until this fall how it pans out. But I do think we stand to gain considerable hope for the best from DDO’s example, as it’s the same company with the same motivations, and it doesn’t appear that Turbine’s trying anything radically different with LotRO’s F2P model than they did with DDO.
- Posted in: Dungeons & Dragons Online ♦ Lord of the Rings Online
The announcement was enough to get me to log into the game after not doing so for a month. After a couple days of playing I think it’s a good move but I get this strange feeling, one that I’m sure others have more strongly, that it’s almost like the end of an era for the game. It’s like when someone that’s worked somewhere for a long time gets a promotion and sees a fresh face stepping into their shoes. The old timers knows things will never be the same, but the place is still open.
I think one of the things current players need to remember is that, for them, very little will change in terms of their interaction with the game and availability of content. If you pay a sub now, and continue bto do so, not much changes. The cash shop doesn’t contain game-altering items (except maybe the deed grinding items which, as a lifer I will probably purchase!).
All Turbine is really doing is adding a new tier of players – the freeplayers. THIS is who the cash shop is for.
Well, for one reason not to be is that there now is no money to be made doing boxed expansions as opposed to micro ones, and all future ones will be designed to be bite sized. The old sub model tended to promote much larger, game-changing expansions, but hybrid models don’t: I saw it in FFXI with their micro expansions, which were just quest lines that 3 of cost the same as a boxed expansion, with ten times less content, and I saw it in Champions, in which Vibora Bay was originally intended to be paid, but had so little content it’s barely worth it free.
The cry of a lot of LOTRO players seems to be “Give me Rohan and Mordor!” But they have no reason to over just adding small areas to the game piecemeal. Why waste all that dev time when the subs get it for free?
I never tried DDO until in went FtP. I was very pleasantly surprised by it. Like you, my experience with DDO greatly lessened my qualms about Turbine switching LoTRO over. The community in DDO is mature and helpful, the item store doesn’t sell anything unbalancing, and the item shop prices are overall quite reasonable. I also think that LoTRO lifers, particularly foundering lifers, are getting a fantastic deal.