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MMOGology: WoW on easy mode
My buddy Rob and I play World of Warcraft frequently, but between the two of us he's got the most /played time. He's got a few 70s on a PvP server and a few 70s on the PvE server where we're spending most of our time. He's also an alt-a-holic and has tons of mid-level characters. He's played every class in the game; most of them thoroughly. After spending so much time leveling so many characters he recently resolved not to level another character until the release of Wrath of the Lich King.His resolution didn't last long. When Blizzard announced their Recruit-a-Friend program a tiny seed was planted in the back of his mind. A seed that slowly germinated, wrapping its diminutive roots around his cerebral cortex until every thought in his head screamed, "MUST HAVE TRIPLE XP." And so, after a very small amount of convincing, I joined him to level up yet another alt. Our new goal was to level a couple of spacegoat shammies.After about 12 hours of /played time we were level 26. I know that's not a record by any means, but for us it felt pretty amazing. In fact, it almost felt like we were cheating. In a way it was like paying for a power leveling service where you do all the work. Sure the XP flew by, but Rob had paid for the game and the expansion all over again, as well as paying for a second account. Still, watching a level 14 paladin run by us and knowing we were out pacing him so drastically, it made me wonder if the Recruit-a-Friend program had somehow cheapened the accomplishment of hitting 60. Remember when hitting 60 felt like it meant something?
Blizzard unveils changes to WoW recruit-a-friend program
We first talked about this allll the way back in April, but it looks like the folks at WoW Insider had it right: Blizzard is making substantial changes to the World of Warcraft recruit-a-friend program. How substantial? Well, how about some hyper-fast leveling and a unique mount substantial? The brand new updated Blizzard Support FAQ offers the nitty gritty, but here are the highlights: Recruited players are now 'linked' to the player account the invitation was sent from. Grouping with a linked player allows both of you to level very quickly. As long as your character and the recruit character are relatively even level, you'll both recieve 3x the normal experience. Recruiting players can summon their friends to them once an hour, via a spell, up to level 60. For every two levels a recruited player earns, he can grant one level to a character played by the veteran. This character must be lower level than the recruit player's character. If the recruit upgrades to a full account from the 10-day trial, these benefits last a full 90 days. If the recruit buys a two month subscription as well as upgrading, the recruiting player is granted a unique Zhevra mount. If these sound like fun, and you've been meaning to get a buddy into the game, you can jump into using the new program via the recruit-a-friend splash page. One of Azeroth's millions of citizens? Check out our ongoing coverage of the World of Warcraft, and be sure to touch base with our sister site WoW Insider for all your Lich King needs!
Blizzard may be considering granting levels to recruit-a-friend users
We've been wondering for months now what Blizzard is holding back. Wrath of the Lich King seems like a very competent, well-planned addition to World of Warcraft, but it's all so samey. More zones, more loot, more content, the usual. The addition of the Death Knight and a PvP-focused overland zone are interesting, but hardly revolutionary - Burning Crusade changed so much about the game that it's been hard not to be a little dissapointed. Now Massively's sister site WoW Insider offers a hint that perhaps there's more to the expansion than the company has let on. WI reports on a post to the MMO-Champion site, from a forum-goer who found something intriguing in the newest 2.4.2 patch notes. Buried in the code are several programming strings that hint at big changes to the WoW Recruit-A-Friend program. At the moment all the program offers is a few days of extra play time if your companion opens up a subscription. The strings, though, suggest that someday your referred friend may be tied much more closely to you. Hints are there that you'll be able to teleport your friend to you, that recruiting a friend may increase your reputation with certain in-game factions, and even that you may be able to grant levels to your friend's character. If these additions to the game are to be believed, this system will have limits; you won't be able to teleport your friend around beyond a certain level, and characters that have leveled past a certain point will no longer be able to have levels granted to them.The notes also imply that your own character's level is somehow tied to the number of levels you can grant a friend; perhaps some sort of metacurrency. This is fascinating news, if true, and hints at the possibility of even more changes coming to World of Warcraft in coming months. Certainly here at Massively we've been talking enough about subjects related to this; it's wonderful to see Blizzard coming at the problem of the endless grind from such a unique angle.
Tabula Rasa is Amazon's Deal of the Day
A friendly heads-up for you MMO completionists among us. If you're one of the of the few who balked on the fantastic Tabula Rasa deal that GoGamer had going last month, consider this your chance at redemption. Amazon is currently offering the regular edition of Tabula Rasa for $9.99 as it's gaming Deal of the Day, with the Collector's Edition (which features a surprisingly beefy chunk of swag goodies) going for the low, low sum of $19.99. We have quite the affection for Tabula Rasa around the Massively offices, in spite of its flaws. Even if you ignore our positive opinions of the game wholesale, it'd be really difficult not to get at least $9.99-worth of enjoyment out of the title.And for you Tabula Rasa regulars, this should be icing on the cake. As reader double9s pointed out to us, you can get double the mileage out of this deal by giving your new copy to a friend and then having her sign up using the recruit-a-rookie program. She gets a free game, you get another month for $10, and the Destination Games crew gets another warm body filling their servers, everybody wins![Thanks to everybody who sent this in!]
SWG's "Buddy Program" is a win-win-win-win situation
If ever there was an optimistic expression of the seductive power of the MMO, it's in the trial program. All game makers have to do is offer a way for existing subscribers to give a taste of their product to their friends, and these new players will fall head over heels into the pile of paying customers. It's a sound marketing strategy really; who knows better which kinds of people will be weak to the siren song of an MMO better than their friends, co-workers, and family members? In politics, they call this micro-targeting.According to Cameron Sorden over at Random Battle, the thing that sets SWG's Buddy Program apart from the competition is that instead of offering incentives in the form of free playtime (as with the popular Tabula Rasa Recruit a Rookie program), they offer in-game rewards to players. By Sorden's logic, most gamers already consider their subscription fees a sunk cost, so the greatest incentive is something that will enhance their in-game experience. He takes it a step forward and suggests that rewarding players for recruiting whole networks of new players, would provide the greatest return to all parties involved. It's an interesting perspective, though personally I would probably stop short of the whole pyramid scheme idea.
Tabula Rasa 'Recruit a Rookie' rundown
We know that many gamers were finally seduced into Tabula Rasa's warm embrace with the recent deal that popped up on Amazon, where you could get the CE for half off the retail price, but we also know that MMO players as a whole are a jaded lot, and bargain prices alone aren't enough to to pull you away from your current games of choice. To this end, NCsoft is currently running a refer a friend promotion for Tabula Rasa that could net you a three day trial of the shooty sci-fi MMO. On the PlayNC site (under Account > Manage > Game Accounts > Tabula Rasa), subscribers can email a trial code to a buddy, which will allow them to download the client and give the game a spin. For those who don't have friends who would be interested in receiving a trial, or who people looking for a code themselves, try one of the links below: Tabula Rasa Vault's Referral Thread PlanetTR's Trial Key Request Thread SciFi Massive's Recruit a Rookie Thread In the event that you do choose the purchase the game after using a trial, make sure to use your game code to upgrade your account, not make a new one. Every time somebody upgrades their account from a trial to a full account, the person who made the referral receives a free month of play time. There is a limit of four referrals per account, but that's a potential four free months for the cost of sending a few emails. So hop to it.
New program helps bribe your friends back into CoX
Got a buddy who used to be really into City of Heroes, and is on the fence about resubscribing to see the new Issue 11 content? The folks at NCsoft are here to help. They've announced an expansion of their referral program that will allow you to invite past subscribers to reactivate their accounts, and will split a free 30 days of game time between you. So for every buddy you successfully yank back into the game, you get an extra 15 days and they get 45 days for the price of 30. We'd stop short of calling it revolutionary, but it is a rather clever spin on the usual referral programs.Speaking as somebody who just let their CoX account run out, I'm a little perturbed at NCsoft for offering such a great deal during a season when I'm already cash-strapped to begin with. Whoever came up with this idea must have their finger on the pulse of the community, because anybody whose had much experience in an MMO community likely knows that it's way easier to sucker in get older players back than it is to recruit new blood.
Kieron Gillen on TR, betas, and free trials
Kieron Gillen of Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a great retrospective up about Tabula Rasa, its launch, and where Destination Games should go from here.Kieron talks about how he actually likes TR, but how the game has been damaged -- maybe ruined -- by an ill-advised Beta test. Which is spot on, really. Loads of serious MMO fans played the Beta at one time or another, and it was missing so many features that made it into the final game it's not even funny -- in fact, it's still missing some even now, hence the rush for patches and new content. The solution? Kieron recommends TR gets a free trial. Not the refer a friend scheme going around at present -- a real free trial so Beta testers can reevaluate the game as it stands.The quality of a Beta influences how successfully a game sells much more than publishers seem to believe, and similarly, free trials. It's always struck me as foolish that every MMOG doesn't have a free trial to begin with. Whilst retail sales is something publishers will always hate to lose, surely if subscriptions are increased in the long-term it's a wise investment?
