This summer, Dungeons & Dragons Online will go where no other subscriptions MMO has gone before it. The launch of Dungeons & Dragons Online Unlimited makes D&DO free to play, but adds micro-transactions to the mix. Players will be able to choose to pay a subscription fee and access all content, or pay-as-they go by dropping small amounts of loot for content they want. Crispy Gamer sat down with Turbine and got the inside scoop on how the micro-transactions are going to work in-game, and the game's interesting "guest pass" concept.
"The store integration should feel pretty familiar if you’ve used pretty much any ecommerce site on the web — like Amazon.com, etc. We modeled it after some of the best-of-breed sites out there while adapting it to the specific needs of the game interface," explained executive producer Fernando Paiz.
"In your normal gameplay, you’re going to encounter the store — and you don’t have to use it. Another way we could have gotten in here was that I could have bought a guest pass for you — since I’m a subscriber," Paiz said. "Subscribers are people who have purchased content before, and will have the ability to buy a guest pass — essentially a 90-minute pass to a certain piece of content — and bring their friends along."
For more details on Dungeons and Dragons Online Unlimited, check out the entire interview!
What model do you think will win the hearts, minds and money of MMO gamers: Subscription, micro-transactions or some combination thereof?
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Displaying 1–7 of 7
sixwings
Holy shoot muscles.... this should be sweet! I love D&D.
Micro transactions can really nickel and dime you to death, but if they have an option for all access at a significant discount in comparison to piecing it together, I think they could have a winner. So I guess I'm for a combo of the 2 in a way.
RyuSensei
D&D MMO: Taking all the social interaction (and hence all the fun) out of a classic!
kkotd
There is a right way and a wrong way to do Micro-transaction, if you are constantly plowing the player into the fact that, Hey we have this store here and you could skip all the crappy content by paying $5, then the player's experience will be hurt. On the other hand, this seems to work for other games by plowing ads at them and then saying, Hey you can get rid of those by paying, and a lot of people go for it... They need to find that balance, because if they don't I see them, quite possibly, killing their own game in more ways than one.
Sinnix
"This summer, Dungeons & Dragons Online will go where no other subscriptions MMO has gone before it."
Except for Anarchy Online which went free to play years ago... but who's counting!!
The free to play model DDO is beta testing now is a little *too* restrictive for my tastes, especially when you compare it to some of the other more modern offerings out there.
snookgum123
I don't see people going to flock or jump to this at all. I like Guildwar there concept is easy. Its free online!!!!! than they charge you for expansion but whocares you still can't beat that.
Postal1111
I was/am in the closed beta for DDO-U and it's still the same game, with a few features removed. These extra features can be bought for a one-time transaction rather than paying the $15/month subscription.
The best thing about it is the implementation of the DDO Store. It's right there in the menu bar of the UI, click on it and up comes the store...find what you want, go through the checkout and it's in your inventory before you close the DDO Store window. Extremely fast and simple to use.
I'll be playing it for a long time.....
sixwings
RyuSensei... you can still play the normal D&D game. Now there is an MMO version for people who like that. What's the problem?
Snookgum123... this is also free online. You can (optionally) pay for additional content. What's the difference? I'm guessing the GuildWars expansions aren't optional... maybe that's the difference?
Sinnex and Postal1111 thanks for giving us some insight from your experiences. I would love to try it if they will accept my request for beta.
Displaying 1–7 of 7
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