So, i’m having otitis, which does some things for me. First, i’m not really in the mood to play right now- i don’t know why but i feel kind of “isolated” in myself right now because i can’t hear properly. Furthermore, i can’t listen to audiobooks, because, well, putting headphones in sick ears must be bad. This results in me reading Peter F. Hamiltons “Judas Unchained” instead of listening, because frankly, it’s so good i don’t want to take a break- so that also cuts into my game time- in the end, this means i don’t really have much to write about. But still, there are a few things happening.
WoW Token
World of Warcraft is introducing its own ingame-subscription-currency you can buy with real money and sell for ingame gold. I guess this is a good move for Blizzard, it probably will further increase revenue and customer loyalty, because my guess is you’ll have to play a considerable amount of the game to be able to have your subscription continued for “free”.
Of course, it isn’t free. Someone has to pay for the token- and this is where i don’t really like these subscription currencies, because they end up as a way for new/casual/slow players paying the subscription for more hardcore/veteran/power players. One could say that this is fair because, well, the veterans probably already paid Blizzard a lot of sub and expansion money, they play the game and are “content” like the free players are in a f2p game. I still don’t like it. Besides some kinds of f2p model incarnations, the MMO space is a place where people who play less pay more (per hour played).
I don’t think that’s fair and i’d really like to see someone offer some kind of “in-game-subscription”, either at an hourly rate (with an optional way of paying a flat fee for a “normal” sub) or just make the “30 days sub” so that these days will only be used if you log in. It’s obvious, though, that this wouldn’t be in the best intentions of the publishing studio. First of all, it doesn’t put pressure on the players to log in as often as possible- in contrast, if they’d substract 1 day subscription just for logging in, many players would think twice if they wanted to play on any given day. And they wouldn’t get all the money they gain from people who forget to cancel their sub in time.
Last but not least, i do wonder- is gold really something that you need if you play WoW? Aren’t there some dungeon tokens and other alternate currencies at work for getting loot from dungeons etc.? What would you need gold for? I haven’t played the game in quite a long time, so i don’t know, but i have to say, excluding maybe Guild Wars 2, ingame gold has never been an issue for me (not even in FFXIV….yet).
Star Wars: the old republic promo
SWTOR gave all former subscribers 7 days of subscription time. Being me, i took advantage of that offer, of course, and did 2 or 3 quests, played 1 or 2 hours and haven’t been back yet. I’d like to see the story in this game, and from time to time, i really like to log in and play- i was especially impressed with the way dungeons work in regards to the communication options- they’re interesting and since you don’t get your dialogue options in every time, you might see the story develop from a different angle than you would if you were alone.
They also have an offer up that gives 60 days subscription, 2400 Cartel Coins and the Shadow of Revan expansion- for 35€. That’s actually quite a good deal and i’m thinking of maybe taking advantage of that and become a free/preferred player going forward. There are some nasty restrictions, but i have accumulated some shop currency to maybe make it worth a try to play without a sub.
On the other hand, there’s Final Fantasy XIV and i don’t really need anything else- especially considering the fact that soon, Cities: Skylines will be released and i’m hopeful that this is going to be a citibuilder worth playing….so, there’s really no need.
Other games
Crowfall
There has been the start of the Crowfall Kickstarter campaign and it has been wildly successful. I’m not in on this, because i’m not really a pvp player, but the premise looks interesting. I’m also quite a huge fan of A Game of thrones, and they are for sure trying to take advantage of the hype around the books/tv-series. While i’d like my MMOs to be virtual, persistent worlds, in this case i find the resetting of the worlds very interesting. This might be the reason for me buying it…when it releases.
Scree starts building a guild for this game and i have to say, i really look forward to reading more posts about the planning and realization of his guild. So far his “Series on the creation of a Crowfall guild” has three posts up. Guild leadership/creation and the inner workings have always been one of my favourite topics in MMO space and i think it’s a topic that’s somewhat too rare on blogs (i don’t know why that is, really), so i really appreciate Scree writing about it.
Skyforge
Just a short paragraph concerning Skyforge. I think it looks decent and may even provide a nice gameplay like, for instance, Wildstar/Neverwinter. For my tastes, it seems quite shallow on the virtual world front, but then, not every game needs to be- sometimes a change of pace is nice. The setting seems interesting, although i have to say i’m not a fan of “becoming god”- while i’m not very religious myself, i don’t think we, as humans, should strive for that- and, yes i know, it’s just a game, but it doesn’t appeal to me very much in games, either.
They’re selling founder packs and surprisingly, they’re reasonably prized. I’m tempted to opt into the lowest tier- but then again, why would i do that? We’ll see.
Final Fantasy XIV
Sometimes, i do play FF14- and i have made some progress, mainly bringing the Weaver to 20, the Botanist to 21 and the Conjurer to level 11. Next time, i might start the first experiment in growing my friendslist- by running FATEs for some time. I don’t know if this is a good way to socialize in the game, but i’m curious to see if it works.
The guild project
The guild project is moving away from Everquest 2 at the end of the month and it seems we’ll be starting up in Age of Conan. Well, i like the game, but i think it will make it hard for me to plan for the group (or even groups)- it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of group content in the form of dungeons and something like that. I know that you can enter Elite versions of all the zones- but i don’t know if it will become more interesting that way and also, what would we do if we were to split in two groups? If you have any suggestions or experience in regards to playing AoC in a full (or even small) group- content-wise, i’d appreciate it if you’d let me know about them.
Party Business 
“Aren’t there some dungeon tokens and other alternate currencies at work for getting loot from dungeons etc.?”
For the most part, they took those out. If you want, for instance, Heirloom Items which scale as your character levels and often provide bonus experience, then those only cost straight gold now.
I hope you feel better!
Thanks for the wishes and the info. Hum, i like that, actually- because really, what’s the point of having/collecting/amassing gold if you can’t do anything with it?
It will be interesting to see the exchange rate of tokens/gold when it gets released.
I do admire WoW for the world/zone design- it’s really good, so an excuse to travel Azeroth in some way would, at times, be welcome, but not sub-worthy. And i won’t hold my breath for it to become b2p/f2p 😀 But my guess is the prize is going to be too high for me.
I hated the removal since it kind of defeats the purpose of running Heroics once you gear up, but I suppose gold is a fitting alternative.
Is it bad that out of all of what you wrote, the thing that got me most excited was the fact that you’re reading Peter F Hamilton? I’m currently reading “The Great North Road” by him right now. Loved his Night’s Dawn series, love the Pandora’s Star even more. Very imaginative guy.
It’s not bad at all! I’m getting kind of nervous, though, because i’m almost finished and my research is telling me that this might have been the best fit for me in terms of space operas. I do like The Expanse, as well and i might look into Revelation space when i’m finished with Pandora’s star/Judas Unchained, but the other series by Hamilton might also get a look.
I like/liked the commonwealth saga very much- although somewhat predictable from a bird’s eye view, it is surprising and gripping- and, indeed, imaginative. Most things seem plausible, from the story, the worlds, the characters to the behaviour/culture of the alien. That last one is tough, but the author managed to describe it in a way that the reader is able to “understand” the Prime.
Right now, i think i’m heading to the showdown- will also look into the Great North Road, by the way. I remember Amazon suggesting it for me, but i don’t think this is part of a series, is it? Well, i’ll take a look, anyway. Need more SF to read…
Great North Road is a standalone. It’s set in the “Commonwealth Universe” but in the early days of it, so there are only a few planets colonized as of yet, rejuvenation is still a thing for the gazillionaires only, there’s no SI yet, etc. So far it’s been pretty interesting to me, but I’m also taking it quite slowly.
I’ve actually read everything by Hamilton that I can find. I got into the Night’s Dawn back in 1999 and grabbed his entire catalog then. And I’ve bought everything new he’s put out since. Fallen Dragon was another stand-alone that I quite enjoyed.
It sounds interesting, to be sure. Might be the next one to read- but i’m also eyeing the Revelation series from another author and maybe even the “Culture” series…or will it be Night’s Dawn? I don’t know, it’s kind of difficult to find a successor.