freeloaders
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Nope, World of Warcraft still isn't going F2P
Sorry, free-to-play fans; World of Warcraft still isn't your game. Eurogamer reports that Blizzard production director J Allen Brack ended speculation of a potential business model switch for the hugely popular MMO. "We didn't make this game to be free-to-play," Brack explained. "We would have to rework the game pretty significantly in order to make it free-to-play. It's not something we're currently considering." In other expansion news, the official WoW website has been updated with several new articles fleshing out yesterday's panel announcement. The first covers leveling from 90 to 100 in the new expansion, while the second is more of a general overview that also includes the Warlords of Draenor: Remaking a World video. View it after the cut.
Chaos Theory: The (F2P) future of The Secret World [Updated]
[Ed: Look for an official Funcom statement regarding the anon tipster email at the end of the article.] Scott Jennings ended a blog entry about The Secret World with a telling phrase this past week. "This is why we can't have nice things," he said. This was preceded by what can only be called a lament, as Jennings laid out how Funcom did something that most MMO developers are loath to do these days: It made an original game. And the reward for such was a dismal quarterly report and a round of layoffs. That The Secret World attempts to break from the putrid post-World of Warcraft MMO mold is not up for debate. What is debatable is whether breaking from said mold can be profitable.
Officers' Quarters: March of the freeloaders, part 2
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Last week, I discussed how players interested in Cataclysm's guild perks can get into guilds without becoming "freeloaders." Today, I'll look at the issue from an officer's perspective. I'll examine the drawbacks of having freeloaders in your guild, steps you can take to filter them and methods for dealing with them if they make it past those filters. What do I mean by a freeloader? A freeloader is a player who is in your guild purely out of self-interest, who has no desire to contribute to the guild in any way. In short, a freeloader is there only for your precious, precious perks. Are freeloaders a problem? A few freeloaders on your roster won't be a major issue, in most cases. You can simply hope that they'll keep to themselves and won't actively cause problems. They may even chip in some guild experience when they have an active day. Small guilds may actually decide to seek out such players to help them level up faster. I don't recommend it, but you will level faster with more players, up to a point. Larger guilds won't benefit much from inviting freeloaders. You'll get all the experience you need from the players you trust, so there's no real advantage (aside from a little extra cash) to inviting more players. In fact, doing so carries a bevy of risks.
Officers' Quarters: March of the freeloaders
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available from No Starch Press. Guild perks are coming, and with them a big change in the way guilds are perceived. In the past, some players shunned guilds for one reason or another. Maybe they didn't want to bother with the social aspect of the game. Maybe they had a bad experience with a guild and never had the urge to find a new one. Maybe, like the writer of this week's email, they felt like they wouldn't be able to contribute enough. Hi, I wanted to suggest a topic or at least get your opinion on something. It seems like the guild rewards in Cataclysm are pretty much irresistible. Even though I'm a long-time guildless player (because of my completely unpredictable playtime, my last attempt at being a guildie was in Asheron's Call 2, if that means anything to you ...). I'm going to be looking for a guild to join because I want to have a shot at some of that good stuff.
