D&D Online going to offer free play option

[Chewbacca]

Any IWers plays this? How is it?

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6211743.html
excerpt

When Turbine Inc. announced the start of the beta for Dungeons & Dragons Online's newest major upgrade, Eberron Unlimited, the developer also dropped a bombshell: The massively multiplayer online game will receive a free-to-play option for all its current and future players

[SpiritWarrior]

It's not great imo. Some here like it, but I don't know anyone on IW who stayed subscribed to it. Now, free play, THAT makes a difference. Not sure what they mean about the "upcoming monk class" as that's already in the game. Unless they mean it's gonna be restricted to VIP members now. But yeah, free play is the way to go for this game, as it will attract thousands more people. I personally will return to it using the free-play options. I think it shoulda started out that way as this is a niche game in an already-monopolized MMO market.

P.S. I have trial keys somewhere if you wanna sample it btw.

[SpiritWarrior]

I noticed I kinda said two things here. I should clarify and add that it's not great to pay for monthly, but when they take away the monthly bill, then it is worth getting. When I subscribed to DDO, I did everything in almost a week of sporadic playing. And there was no real replayability or longevity to it as an MMO entering into the premium market at the time. I went back from time to time, but never for long.

Because it has limits and I felt it was a ripoff to pay for those limits every month. Now that they aren't asking me to do so, it's something I am gonna reinstall this week, and play every so often when I need something new. But even free, I still couldn't play it daily, simply because there's not enough content. This game is a good MPer game as opposed to an MMO.

[Chewbacca]

Hate monthly fees for video games and hate grinds so I have avoided MMOGs totally and have no experience. I like that this one is going free more as a D&D player and collector than as a video gamer.

[Luvian]

The one problem with DDO is that's it's really more of a lan game, as in to really make it work you need to be playing with your group of friend every session because like pen and paper this is a party based game.

Finding pickup groups didn't really work for a bunch of reasons I won't get into here, but hopefully going free to play might bring more players and so give more grouping opportunities. Still, this is a game you really need to be playing as a group with your friends.

[Chewbacca]

The free option is now available and essentially re-invigorated the game according the this link.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2...m_campaign=rss