The Danger of Free to Play MMOs

It hasn't even been a full 24 hours since I started playing Runes of Magic and I have already started looking at other free to play massively multiplayer online role playing games because I have tasted the distinct, delicious iron in the blood and now I want more! I am certainly not going to overdo this for there are many titles that interest me so: several at a time in itself is a slight overkill because MMO desires your free time like a gamer desires his or her next gameplay session. While I was downloading the files for the selected games, I was reminded of a brief conversation I had with someone in the past. I was trying to encourage this guy to test out World of Warcraft because he was seemingly curious about the game. The reason why he didn't want to play the game was that he was afraid that it would take over his life completely. Though I can understand that MMO can be such a leech on the player's life energy, I think that to completely starve oneself from even trying out the experience is an unfortunate thing, especially with all the different "free to play" options available right now. We all live once in our life, why not take the chance and enjoy things while we still can? There is such a thing as self control and if one doesn't have that in the first place, well it's a different kind of problem outside of the video game related symptoms that needs to be addressed.

League of Legends has completely changed my perception of the "free to play" concept because it is indeed that and a treasure chest full of gold coins. But bear in mind that LoL is a multi-player online battle arena and it is not a MMO. Two separate genres. This is why I am still rather apprehensive about the "free to play" heading attached to a lot of these popular "FTP" MMOs. Runes of Magic really shook things up for me though because it is such a blast to play even though I am still very early in the game: so the micro-transaction surprises may still be lurking somewhere in the future. Still, it somehow convinced me that perhaps there is hope here, and that this genre will not disappoint me in the end. Since the game is free, why not enjoy the actual free content wherever that may take me? That sounds reasonable enough for me.

It's almost a crime to not play Allods Online because the developer spent millions making it.

So, who are the lucky candidates that have been selected to further occupy my FTP MMO time? The first is Allods Online - not to be confused with an Altoids on your tongue - by Astrum Nival which is another close WoW clone but with a strange industrial setting more reminiscent of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning. The game looks absolutely gorgous, far better than Runes of Magic and way ahead of almost all of the subscription-based MMO I have played. There are a lot of races/classes and what makes the selections even more special is that all the classes are race specific even if they share similar functionalities. Oh I can tell this one is just going to eat up a lot of my time... providing that it's not micro-transaction dependent. The second additional game I am going to squeeze into my packed gameplay schedule is Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited by Turbine. I actually bought the original release when it first came out. I didn't stay on the game too long though because it lacked content then. The game looks great after all these years but unfortunately, there are locked features from the get go on this one where you have to pay real money to get them. Still, the core gameplay experience is here - who needs more than 2 character slots anyway when you are playing multiple MMOs? Not me at least.

One of the more unique features of DDO:EU is the atmospheric Dungeon Master voice-overs.

I was also going to start playing Battle of the Immortals by Perfect World, a sick looking Diablo+MMO clone but after trying it out for merely 10 minutes, I was through and I deleted the game immediately. The game is just too simplified where quests can be completed without much thought and there are just too many things happening on the screen. Worse is the game's small user interface that can't be customized to your own liking.  The character customization system is also rather limited: though you fill up many slots on your body, only the main costume shows up on your character. The costumes do look really good based on the gameplay trailer but I have a feeling that equipping a new look is probably a few and far between event - unless you are willing to pay for the upgrade. Oh well, this may turn out to be a good thing because on top of my abandoned console games, I really do have enough on my plate at the moment.

This could have been such a Diablo III killer.

- ALLODS ONLINE -
FIRST IMPRESSION: 5 out of 5

- DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ONLINE: EBERRON UNLIMITED -

FIRST IMPRESSION: 3 out of 5

- BATTLE OF THE IMMORTALS -
FIRST IMPRESSION: 1 out of 5