Reminder: Champions Online goes free-to-play today

@IsItInYet

If you like old school beat-em ups, Dungeon Fighter is a pretty good free MMO. It plays like a beat em up, but you have a lot of room to choose your own play style with each character, rpg style.

@IsItInYet

I can't speak for how it is F2P, it seems like the free players get screwed a bit since the games main draw is total customisation, and free players have limited costume parts and are stuck picking from archetypes rather than the custom powersets subs get.

It's worth a try since I personally love it, but I honestly can't see it being that good as F2P in comparison with other F2P MMO's

@IsItInYet

Also right now the server is borked, didn't play today since I'm not subbed and am past the point of making free characters, but apparently it was a big surprise since there was no lag.

@Lerkero

Because Eve can do it, because FF 11 did it, because EQ 2 did it for the longest time, because EQ 1 continues to do it. WoW isn't the only successful MMO out there.

@Lerkero
agreed. Other mmos should try to undercut WoW. They can't beat them on content, just on graphics. I'll do you one better. mmorpgs should charge fees based on actual play time, like some wireless plans, with a cap at the standard $15 per month. (which oddly enough has not increased with inflation over the years). A casual player might only be charged $5.05 a month while teh hardcore would never go over $14.99.

I tried Lord of the Rings Online after it went free. I liked it and tossed them some of my money but I didnt stick with it for whatever reason. I did appreciate it being free to play. Its nice to be able to play a game when you want to and not feel obligated to play it exclusively because you are paying monthly. Its like an endless free trial. You wouldnt want to play it long term without buying bags or auction house use.

@Cleric
Those games you mentioned only got away with charging the same as WoW because they came out before WoW (or at the same time). They are "grandfathered in" so to speak. I think the general consensus today is that no NEW mmorpg should have the balls to charge WoW monthly fees and expect to be successful. You arent going to pry a kid off of WoW unless you have better crack at a cheaper price. I don't currently play WoW so I'm not defending it just being realistic. I would love to see somebody knock them down a peg but they basically perfected fantasy mmorpgs.

@DeadInside

That said, WoW hasn't received a ton of proper competition. A lot of companies have sunk themselves trying to take on WoW, but none of them were companies comparable to Blizzard to begin with, except maybe Square with FFXI. Even then, the games are about the same age, so it doesn't really speak to your point.

I guess ToR will be the first time a truly heavy hitter has taken aim at replicating WoW's success with $15 monthly fees.

@Chareth Cutestory

I'm gonna have to agree with Mr. Bluth here... Companies can blame the big bad wolf Mr. Blizzard all they want for their misfortune, but the fact remains that if you make a good game, 9/10 times people will play it and support it...

Prime example, look at Guild Wars... Constantly growing player base, game has been F2P since launch, and Guild Wars 2 will be as well...

League of Legends, COMPLETELY free game with almost 2 million players... They make their money off of custom character skins because people love the game so much

Good games win, bad games lose... Period

@Getchow hands out my fries

I know it sucks, honestly though you won't care about missing out on stuff in a couple of years considering how each one seems to be getting better and better.

@Drew327

Disagree.

@Drew327

Eve Online.

@Drew327 the game in development at CCCP.

@arucious

Well, yeah...

@aggrolorg "I'm not usually into super hero MMO's... or any MMO's for that matter.

I was a long, long time WoW player..."

This confused me.

@Temidien you dont need wow numbers tto be incredibly successful. 500K active subs x$15/month is a lot of cabbage.

@mocax

Still has something of a following, a lot of people left for CO, then a lot of them went back because they forgot that new MMO's don't have much content. Now they are losing people to both rival MMO's.