MMO News from the MMORPG.com Newsletter

[HunterAP]

This is a copy/paste from the MMORPG.com newsletter. You can subscribe to the MMORPG.com newsletter from their news page.

Just before the holidays, we learned that NCsoft's Aion would be the next game to jump on the microtransaction train, offering paid services like plastic surgery, gender changes, Legion name changes and more for unspecified fees in the new year.

Read more here.

Bad news for fans of Sony Online Entertainment's Vanguard: Saga of Heroes came this past week as they learned through a 2010 roadmap that many of their anticipated additions and fixes to the game had been shelved indefinitely.

Read more here.

Cryptic's Champions Online is the newest game to jump on the unlimited free trial bandwagon, announcing on December 22nd that potential players would be able to play to their hearts content from levels 1-15.

Read more here.

[Rylanborn]

wow the first 2 are terrible news for the most part. Although I play neither game. But the last one is exciting. I wouldnt mind playing around with their character creator for awhile and checking out the game at least.

[HunterAP]

Well, if you're not a fan of the micro-transaction thing, be ready to be disappointed when SW:tOR comes around. The more I read about that game, the more I believe that it will be micro-transaction driven.

I had been stating this for a while, but last month, Slacknews reported that the EA CEO came out and said that tOR would be micro-transaction based. There was a pretty big uproar about it, and a day later, EA came out and said, "No statements have been made about the Star Wars business model."

I still firmly believe that SW:tOR will be a Guild Warsy version of KotOR, with typical micro-transaction stuff. (XP bonus's, different colors for your light saber, etc.) Not entirely a bad thing in my book. If it had been Guild Warsy KotOR with a monthly fee, I would have had a problem with that.

Time will tell.

[Rylanborn]

i dont mind micro transactions at all or the free to play model. I love it infact. But combing subscription models with free to play elements just rubs me the wrong way. Like they are just trying to jerk more money out of us.

[HunterAP]

Rylanborn wrote:

i dont mind micro transactions at all or the free to play model. I love it infact. But combing subscription models with free to play elements just rubs me the wrong way. Like they are just trying to jerk more money out of us.

Yeah, I agree.