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I have been paying $15 a month to play online mmorpgs since 1999. Therefore, you may assume that I don't mind paying for a game I like to play. p2p games are honest and upfront about how much it costs to play. AO is not. They advertise the game as free to play, with an item mall (IM) that you may use if you wish, but it's not necessary.
BZZZ... that is true up into your 70s. At that point, you either must party for most fights, or start buying $30 per month of IM things. Specificall, if you want to solo, a Warrior package, that contains temporary licenses to do things like teleport, see the mobs health, see the mobs formation, etc, and a blessing license, that increases your fighing ability by 50%.
The IM also sells boxes, that contain mounts, clothing, and misc items that increase your power. Wait.. the boxes don't actually contain the item, say a mount, that you want. You click on the box, and it starts a random number generator. At least that's what they imply. It is actually a weighted number generator. They say that the box gives you a chance of gettin one of say, 19 items from the box. they list the items you have a chance on. The implication is that you would have a 1 in 19 chance of getting the item you want, instead of all the other minor stuff available.
Forget it, the game is rigged. Some folks have posted on the AO forums that they have spent $400 buying boxes that have a chance for the mount they want, and gotten nothing but the other crap. Before I found out about this, I bought 20 boxes, 1 in 11 chance, figuring the mount I wanted would be worth it. Just junk. This is dishonest, and I won't support an unethical company.
This game is so driven by IM sales, that most folks should stay away, Play WoW for $15 a month, or Eve, or whatever p2p game you prefer. This game is a casino, masquerading as Free to Play.
Comments
The game is "FREE TO PLAY" nobody said nothing about "BEING FREE TO ENJOY".
you dont Need... to buy boxes...it would be great to.. but you dont need to
Random boxes and item shop items you "rent" are the sleeziest of the item mall schenanigans. The first time I heard someone mention renting an item from the item mall I thought it was a joke. Sadly, I was mistaken...
Help gaming, and improve your hobby. Don't support companies that pull this kind of shit.
The pvp is really cool. im looking for a new rpg with similiar pvp aspects... but ur right, that game is a CASINO.. and thats why I quitted
Same here, I loved the game. Got to lvl 65ish and quit for the same reasons. PvP however was some of the best fun I've had, very strategic, almost like chess....awesome!
Dunno I got to 80 without spending any money. I got a bunch of stuff free from the item shop though when I found out my account had some points for the cash shop for some reason. I got decent stuff from the boxes. But it isn't worth the fact that you are gambling to have fun in a game. If I wanted to do that I would play entropia.
This is the usual trap F2P titles have, It seems like you won't need the cash shop's but past a certan point it'll become a near nessecity to use it to advance. Aka what I call Pay to Win Mmmorpg's its especally true if the game has alot of pvp, CS users will almost always stomp ones who do not use CS in F2P games. Usually takes the form of items to help upgrading weapons, Rising force online is a prime example of this. There are very VERY few F2P mmo's that you can honestly enjoy past midgame without spending in the CS. Dungeon fighter online is one you could hit cap and never spend a penny irl or ingame on any cs item and do fine. However the minor pvp aspect the avatars help. But pvp is not a big deal in dfo really its just a pointless arena. Only time you need pvp points is for your awakening quest at level 48 (cap is lv 55 iirc atm).
Overall my point is, you'll probally spend more monthly in some so called "free to play games" than you'd spend in a year on a pay to play game.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words."
-Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
i fail to see whats the problem with that? Essentialy you are free to play this game, doesnt include winning. If you end up against some peep who cashed up their toons you cant complain because thats a viable option. Damn peeps behave like tis cheating to use CS.
Still the game is free to play or not.
Actually alot of people is playing it for free. The thing is anything from item mall can be bought with in game money.
The catch is you need to be constantly grinding money. And there will be people that plays much less than you and have much better gears because they spend alot of money on item mall.
Fail logic is fail.
1/11 chance is a 9% of getting what you want and a 91% chance of getting what you don't want. Simple math will tell you that you have a 15% chance of not getting what you want out of 20 boxes.
If you want to claim that it's a weighted RNG, provide standardized sets of data; otherwise, don't make assumptions based off your 85% certainty. Even if it is a weighted RNG, are they saying that it's actually an equal chance of getting any item? If not, you really don't have any right to complain.
I think people knowingly ventures into F2P game and hope for the best but in reality we all knew what we getting into, pony up the dough it's just matter of time. I don't see the reason why people complain about playing a game for free then all of sudden the need to purchase from IM become a shock to them. I for one don't pay much attention to F2P games anymore, I'm happily contempt to pay a set amount of month subscription to enjoy my MMORPG experience, people just need to stop being cheap and realize >$15 is lot cheaper than lot of crap you waste your money on. I'm not a anti - f2p gamer, I actually played and liked lot of F2P games and would probably still play them if they would just have P2P monthly model in place that wouldn't constantly tunnel you to their IM.
I didn't play Atlantica Online because it's f2p. I play it because for me, it's the most fun MMORPG.
If I can choose, I'll definately play a 15$ subscription game though, and I keep my heads up that there well be new P2P game that worth while for me to play.
There is no such thing as free, somone somewhere has to pay for the game.
Dem hibbies! Dey be wrong!
as I understand it, you cannot buy what you want... you have to gamble that you may get what you want. To me that is a reason to complain.
Currently bored with MMO's.
"as I understand it, you cannot buy what you want... you have to gamble that you may get what you want. To me that is a reason to complain."
That's not a reason to complain, that's the divine revelation to uninstall this game from your computer.
He could have buy what he want. Just buy other fixed price things from the item mall. Sell that in game and buy the things he wants.
If he just do that, 200$ could have guaranteed neted him 3 mounts.
But for 200$, you could have played a 15$ monthly subscription game for 1 year.
Its criminal and its gambling.. You should not have to pay for a concealed spinning table. Its the equivalent of spending money in a slot machine, like they said its a casino. And just like casino's the odds are clearly rigged for maximum monetary gain, however unlike in a casino where alot of the time the payouts are given right back through repeat play, these companies have do not risk losing anything if someone were to actually "win" a nice new shiny mount or whatever.
So the reasons for them even forcing you to pay for a slim chance at winning is absurd. the correct way of doing this would be to allow the random boxes to be dropped by mobs or attained through quests and those who would like to just skip all of this could then fork out a little money to just BUY the damned item.
LOL the best reply I ever seen... uninstalling as we speak the game is a hoax it lead you to believe you have a fair chance to gain something useful... while in most cases you end up with crap.. as for enjoying the game I did until I hit lvl 100 then all people were soloing except for daily quests that gets amazingly boring once you done it 1000 times to get somewhere.. the game is really good at one thing and its the combat engine which is cool the rest sucks... don't waste more time or any time on this game it's not worth your time..or money and for those who thinkf2p is great this one is a good example of not a good option I rather do p2p than this one again... blearg...
Heh , yea I've played AO for a while and bought stuff off the IM until I realized it was up to a few hundreds. Too bad though , AO brought some pretty interesting game mechanics into the MMO world. Yes I know ,Final Fantasy Console mechanics , not the shitty FF's we're seeing as MMO's now a days , lol.
Anyways , I'm patiently waiting for a Dev to make a P2P version of AO , because it seriously caught my attention , just the IM part that really pissed me off , caught me off guard , when you see something new into the genre and your having fun it's easy to say to yourself : "Bah i'm having fun so what will a few dollars do?" That question is good until you start hitting a few hundreds within a few months that could of been able to pay for a WoW / EVE account together for a few years. Anyways some old timers are still playing AO and have putted over 10K into the game , it's a shame that those same people get owned in PvP by non payers :P .
AO could of gotten more people playing if Ndoors simply removed 2 things , Durability on equipment and blessing scrolls / potions. Also they could of went with the Runes of Magic style and capped gear to +6 instead of +10 , Runes of magic is alot cheaper and more legit from a F2P stand point then AO. You'll cap your gear for way cheaper in RoM then in AO , probably why I sometimes still play RoM. With a 20$ a month for a while and capping your crafting skills you can rack in some serious gold to be able to buy IM stuff without the need of your credit card.
Since we're talking about AO and how not F2P it is , go play Runes of Magic , you won't be disappointed and you'll get more bang for your buck , a 400$ in RoM is pretty much overkill , in AO 400$ gets you no where , LOL :P