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what was the first mmo to...
TribeofOne
Member UncommonPosts: 1,006
Does anyone remember what the very first mmo to get a cash shop was? or the first mmo to go F2P w/ cash shop?
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ok i went through the old DDo news articles here and it went F2P and added the store in 2009. F2P may have saved DDO but is it just a coincidence that it also seems like the quality new mmos and the decline in enthusiasm for the mmos we've had in that 5yr period since then.
It seems to me like since F2P that the size and quality of each games community has suffered drastically too. I think that F2p has made it so you dont have to commit to a game and its community because we've all become like locust swarming from one "new and shiny" mmo to another just because its "FREE"
I find it very sad.
Well you also have to realize that there is a new mmo or 2 or 3 coming every year, you you dont have to commit either, because there is always something new coming down the pipeline, and you always have WoW or EvE to go back to. Back in the EQ days, you had what? 2 or 3 to choose from? each with very different gameplay. So if you wanted to play a MMO you had to buckle down and accept the things you didnt like in order to play one.
Look at the recent sub MMOs, usually fantastic box sales initially, with the game population crashing and moving on a month to 3 months after release. That may be more a symptom of lowering the time to level across the board, so possibly a fix is to increase grind? I think that could work in indie or niche mmos, but I doubt you'll see a AAA MMO taking that route.
Communities have also diluted, not just because of F2P, but the increase access to the internet, and wider acceptance to gaming in general. True F2P aids in the barrier to entry, so you get more people trying these games out, making it harder to find people of a similar mindset to play and associate with.
Yep, there were free games already on the east, and on the weaker stable (browsers, etc), but the first big western game which switched to f2p was DDO.
Usually that's considered as a launch event of the f2p trend in the west, mostly because it was a very successful one (an almost dead game, instead of shutting down Turbine turned it into a living, profitable game with the switch. On a sideffect it led to LotRO's f2p turnover to increase its profit...)
edit: worth noting, Turbine didn't get the idea "out of the blue", during that period games were already experimenting with lowering the entry barrier in different ways (AoC for example introduced the unlimited trial around this time as well). But still, going to full f2p (more likely freemium) was a bold move from them - or desperate, since the game had nothing to lose.
There is an interesting 4 part video series called "Everything is a Remix" (<-- found at that link as a singular 36min vid).
I bring it up because at one point during the series I recall the author saying some thing to the effect of "Invention has stages" which could be threefold and seen as:
1) Mimic
2) Recombine
3) innovate.
And, that these stages come in order and in a continuous cycling. If this is to be believed (and the author makes a good case for it). Than, this is how we get new things.
Moreover (and again the view on this depends on weather you subscribe to this concept or not)...What WoW really did in the industry was go through two of these steps at once (albeit, on different fronts). WoW copied a lot of what had come before. And, in truth much of what it copied was already a copy of earlier work. But, it didn't just sample, it re-combined facets of previous games in a streamlined format. But, where it may have tripped things up. Where it may have greatly disturbed the general sense of a natural cycle for invention. Is in that it popularized the genre with mass marketing. Therein was the innovation.
So, we got a premature reset of the cycle from WoW's success. Since then I feel we have been in the copying phase. Many games are either taking a page from WoW's book or MMORPG that made the F2P leap. Some of them had made early attempts at recombining and streamlining what they copied as well (Like Aika Online did with Archlord's content). However, I think we are very much still in the Mimic phase.
Now games like EQ next will be recombining features that several games have. It is largely a mimic of itself. But, it's introducing a much deeper crafting system, and on top of this it's adopted (and some might argue, likely in all fairness improved) the voxel system. We may soon be entering that more interesting phase of recombining what we already know in new ways. And hopefully soon after. We might see some real innovation. Somethings that are actually new.
[Edit: I actually decided to rewatch the series myself since I posted it and it is: copy, transform, combine...how ever where we can apply this to MMORPG and gaming in general I sort of like how I restated it better]
I think largely it's the difference between Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. We really have to look at the point in which the implementation of an f2p/cash shop model became industry relevant. We can say D&DO had the first f2p/cash shop model and we can say others did it first. The difference is that with D&DO we can point to a specific time, place, and thing/event very easily (sept. 9th 2009 btw)...As easy as a google search. With this other stuff we can only make vague allusions and it might take a good deal of digging to find the supporting information about it. because what they did was a matter of course. What D&DO did was benchmark and had an effect far reaching enough to change a standard.
I can agree that the garden is overgrown and in need of weeding. And, much like a weed, the roots run deeper then the plant stands tall. You can chop it down, but unless you get at the roots it's just going to grow back eventually, and likely stronger then before. And, if left unchecked it threatens the useful plants. You can plant hardier produce that is capable of flourishing amongst the weeds. But, the problem will still be there. You have to get at the roots. The question is how do you go about that in a way that doesn't also negatively effect the useful plants.
Yeah, I went over board with a less then stellar analogy. But, to clear up what I am trying to express with it I will say this:
Consumers are most responsible towards the good health of the genre. If we don't like a model we may view as bad, we have to stop paying for it. Moreover, we have to stop even trying out f2p games that sell the win factor and use the falsehood that the way they have chosen to have us pay for the game is courtesy that removes their obligation to strive for better.
Choose to give your money and your attention in general only to developers that are really earning it. It's easy enough to not give a bad game your money, though. The harder part comes in denying it attention. Not making first look, and beta videos about another generic that does nothing special or remotely unique and abuses of the impulse buy tendencies some people have. Not even viewing or commenting on them. Not writing reviews for games that just perpetuate the stale state of the genre. Not commenting on those either. We tend to put attention on it weather it is good or bad. Often we put more attention on the bad then the good (maybe there is just more bad to pay attention to). It comes back to the old marketing saying. The only bad press is no press.
The decline is a new generation of gamer came online then. That generation was raised on 8hr weekend console games, which he can find another 8hr weekend console game just as quickly that day. He has little patience but to blaze through content -- and if he faces a stop sign often seen in MMOs -- he whines for nerfs or for changes so he can blaze through content there too.
The decline is they don't play for long (limited attention spans). Before gamers came to EQ and WoW to play a game for the long-term and for 15hr nights. That's not the case today, if you can keep them in the game for 2hrs a night for *1* month -- without whining -- that's an achievement.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
Didn't Maple Story did it first? It was not a conversion though.
Ragnarok Online was F2P even before Maple Story. This is from 2002-2003 when the Korean Free 2 Play games started showing up all over the place.
for Western mmos,
it was probably Everquest 2 -- SOE did this in 2005 with Station Exchange
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1716/soes_station_exchange__the_.php
EQ2 players could sell their gear, gold, and even their characters for cash
DDO didnt launch until a year later in 2006
EQ2 fan sites
UO had UOstore open up in 2005 and think thats about the time you had item stores for Webzen.
THE innovation Blizzard did was this: LFG and LFR.
That ended the most PITA aspect of MMO game play -- taking 3 freaking hours to get a group together to down content. It revolutionized group play in MMOs by making the little guys able to do more than sight see (as before then groups were controlled by black/white lists and guilds controlling access to instances).
A game without either now will die, as freedom feels so good.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
1997 with a pretty darn refined* text based game called Achaea. They have a pretty darn brutal microtransaction system as well starting with directly selling power in items, going to selling lessons(a reward that's normally part of leveling up, the only way to max out your character is buying lessons with credits), and ending with trading cash shop credits for in game gold.
edit: *some really nice game mechanics, that also made good use of the text interface. If you're looking for depth you'll have difficulty finding something to top the game.
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
Yeh, i would have quit the game much earlier if it was not for LFR. Before that if i want to raid, i have to be in a raiding guild (and i was) but that was too much work and commitment.
...Like $5000 axes...
Brutal is an understand. I don't care how many people say "my game was harder" THAT MuD was hell on Earth.
It's all but dead these days (checked back a couple years ago), and not because of lack of content, but because the community is only matched by WoW in indecency. The worst cyberbullying I seen in gaming was in that game, when some punks spent their time tearing down a girl. It was horrible. So when I saw them again, when the game was nearly dead, they sure could whistle a different tune when their pretty $$$$ toys could goto waste. It had fine features, but the community wasn't one of them.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
I think f2p has been a standard in the asian market for a long time. I don't know that the sub model ever got used ? even WoW isn't a real sub like we know it.
that's like saying the internet didn't exist before the internet archive or google started saving sites. just because you cant google it, doesn't mean it didn't exist.
RO didn't go free 2 play until the last few years. in 2001 it was in alpha/beta, early 2002 it went beta, then it went subscription model from mid/late 2002 til just a few years ago when the first f2p server was out. maple story was out before D&DO and it was f2p though.
still yet, as i said, the first f2p mmos were browser based mmos. when you played them, all you got were lines of text. you would:
"5 damage to goblin"
"globin defeated"
"you recieved 9 gold and 56 exp"
there werent even any 2d animated graphics, just gifs or jpegs. you could trade and chat with players. the cash shop came from the game owner putting godly weapons/armors for sale, for real money. then a few months later, you could even more godly, even more powerful armor. they just got stronger from there, you get the picture. those are first mmo cash shops to appear.
I think this isn't quite right. Creativity happens inside individuals, and most individuals are more inclined toward one type of mental process than another. Deconstructive analysis is an important part of creativity and it's not mentioned in this cycle. I would describe the creative process as:
1. Identify existing things that you like.
2. Analyze similar things to separate the pattern from the details If you stop here at mimicking, personally I believe that's an immature phase of creativity, where you are practicing the "how" of creating but haven't finished learning the "why" yet.
3. Compare different things to see how one pattern can be different from another even if the details are similar.
4. Choose a favorite pattern or hybridize a new one, then populate it with details. (This is both remixing and innovation.)
Scott McCloud's book has a nice chart about the steps an artist matures through:
http://gangles.ca/2009/01/20/the-six-layers/
...
A specific answer for a specific question. Yes RO instituted a cash shop around 2007 (called the kafkra or something like that?). That was in addition to adding free play servers if I recall right (free play servers that were not a replacement for the subscription servers).
The way I understood the OP's question, was as : Wanting to know which game made the first all in leap to f2p from a preexisting sub-model (likely towards the ends of answering which game really kicked off this trend of starting as a sub-game then going f2p with a cash shop). That would be D&DO. Especially if we're talking about modern MMORPG that are using 3D graphics and not using isometric camera constraints (for lack of other options, more so then an aesthetic choice), and layered tiles.
If we are talking about the first free to play MMORPG, or the first one to have a cash shop period. I wouldn't exactly know (I do have an intrigue blog post on the first MMORPG here - but even that is non-conclusive). But to get more specific (since it needs that, I guess)...
The first Modern MMORPG that started as a subscription game and went free to play, as well as instituting a cash shop as it's main source of income, in an effort to survive the WoW craze was most likely (and at the very least most notably) D&DO. This action likely set the trend for others to follow suit. And, for games which were not even extent at the time to start out as a sub game and once their subscriptions fell off in a couple months due to over hype vs. the reality of what they were, went f2p in order to save themselves (or potentially as part of the plan all along).
As for Korea...Don't you mean South Korea? <-- bite that hook, please oh please.