Sure, Wizard101 is free… for certain values of free. I guess I’m just going to have to fall back on definitions, here. I was thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to KingsIsle’s VP of Marketing, Fred Howard, today! Thrilled and a little surprised. What about yesterday’s Wizard101 post, I wondered, could have caught his attention? The gentle fun being poked at the humorously irrelevant Facebook sidebar ads? ...
Lord of the Rings Online launched as a free-to-play game today. No, wait. The gates that had been shut beyond the memory of Man groaned open on hinges made of dwarven stone, mithril-inlaid runes pulsing a message nobody living could read…. BE FREE…. No, no, no. In Evendim, did Lysistra, a Capitan of Men, foresee A day of future memory when Eriador would be free ...
Judgement Robes and Ninja Pigs in the world of Moo Shu Well, I was intrigued enough by the chance to test out Wizard101’s item shop that I snuck back into game today to have a look at what Prospector Zeke was selling. There’s a Prospector Zeke in every world; he usually gives out the collection quest they have in each world, where you have to find very small things in every zone of a world. Dwarven Smiths in Wizard City, Scarab Beetles in Krokotopia and so on. For this last bit of beta, he also sells items of great power. The Zeke in the Olde Town district of Wizard City even sells a pet dragon. ...
Much anticipated Asian/European WoW-like Runes of Magic starts its closed beta August 28th. Even though no North American publisher is yet announced, they vow to have English servers for those who prefer that language, and they don’t care where you’re from. It’s all free, after all. They’ll also have French and German servers for the Gallicly and Teutonically inclined. They will also be showing the game at the annual Games Convention in Leipzig, along with lots of other games we may never see here. Leipzig is pronounced “LIPE-zig”. I checked, this time. ...
As I was working through DOMO-like* Florensia last night (expect a separate article about it tonight), I was thinking, and this goes back to my MMO DNA project, wouldn’t it be nice to take one of those F2P imports and really play the heck out of it, and blog about it, every day for a month? I think it woulld take that long to really get a thorough sense for a game. EVERY MMO is pretty similar at the start – pick up quests, go kill quick-spawning beasties, level up, etc. You can’t review a game based purely on the new player experience, as important a part as that might be. ...