Thoughts about Endless Conquest
I've spent the last month or so playing for free on a new account to see what the experience would be like for a new player giving the game a try. Sadly, Endless Conquest compares very poorly to the free-to-play experience offered by some of the other games in this genre. The Endless Conquest restrictions feel punitive rather than limiting and I don't think this is a good thing. I believe the developers thought that this would force people to subscribe, but I suspect it just encourages most potential new players to move along to another game.
When I play Lord of the Rings Online or Everquest 2 I almost always do subscribe, but not because I feel that I have to do so. Both games offer such a great set of quality-of-life benefits to subscribers that I feel a subscription is well worth the price. While the player bases of these games aren't what they were at their peak, they're still sufficient to make the game worlds feel lived in. Both games still release new content on a relatively regular basis. I think this is a pretty good indication that their less restrictive free-to-play models were much more successful.
So, the point of this is to suggest that the DAoC developers rethink Endless Conquest. This is not saying to throw out all restrictions, although some should definitely go like the restrictions on races, crafting, and using dyes since these in particular feel punitive rather than balancing. Classes should be opened up to all but the stealth classes. EC players should be able to spend up to 100 realm skill points and 10 points on champion abilities. To replace the current limits, EC accounts should have a slowly but steadily increasing multiplier to the experience required to earn each additional realm and champion rank. Finally, get rid of the 4 month wait before free-to-play kicks in after a subscription ends since I have a strong suspicion that all this does is give EC players a very strong incentive never to subscribe at all so that they won't lose access to their account for 4 months.
In regards to incentivizing people to subscribe, offer more benefits for doing so instead of punishment for not doing so. Give more personal bank storage and an account wide shared bank. Give more character slots. Implement a /travel command that lets you go to any of the existing travel destinations with an out-of-combat requirement and a 10 second casting time. Give 500 bonus mithril per month which is what many other games already do even though they cost a good bit less per month to subscribe.
I think DAoC has the potential to become more successful, but I don't think it will ever happen if new players aren't given a better experience.
When I play Lord of the Rings Online or Everquest 2 I almost always do subscribe, but not because I feel that I have to do so. Both games offer such a great set of quality-of-life benefits to subscribers that I feel a subscription is well worth the price. While the player bases of these games aren't what they were at their peak, they're still sufficient to make the game worlds feel lived in. Both games still release new content on a relatively regular basis. I think this is a pretty good indication that their less restrictive free-to-play models were much more successful.
So, the point of this is to suggest that the DAoC developers rethink Endless Conquest. This is not saying to throw out all restrictions, although some should definitely go like the restrictions on races, crafting, and using dyes since these in particular feel punitive rather than balancing. Classes should be opened up to all but the stealth classes. EC players should be able to spend up to 100 realm skill points and 10 points on champion abilities. To replace the current limits, EC accounts should have a slowly but steadily increasing multiplier to the experience required to earn each additional realm and champion rank. Finally, get rid of the 4 month wait before free-to-play kicks in after a subscription ends since I have a strong suspicion that all this does is give EC players a very strong incentive never to subscribe at all so that they won't lose access to their account for 4 months.
In regards to incentivizing people to subscribe, offer more benefits for doing so instead of punishment for not doing so. Give more personal bank storage and an account wide shared bank. Give more character slots. Implement a /travel command that lets you go to any of the existing travel destinations with an out-of-combat requirement and a 10 second casting time. Give 500 bonus mithril per month which is what many other games already do even though they cost a good bit less per month to subscribe.
I think DAoC has the potential to become more successful, but I don't think it will ever happen if new players aren't given a better experience.
Comments
I did have to do a bit of brainstorming in terms of how to address champion levels and realm ranks. Higher caps but slower progress seemed to be a reasonable compromise, but I would definitely be interested in hearing other alternatives. If you don't think what I suggest would work, then what do you think would?
I'm definitely happy to receive comments, even negative ones. However, it would be nice if they included at least some effort to be constructive since this opens up the opportunity for discussion in order to make the plan better.
My comment was regarding the current EC model not your ideas. EC should be a basic account minus the QoL improvements. People should have access to their account but there should be some drawbacks for playing free, no realm/zone bonus, no keep take/defense RP tick just basic RPs per kill, mounts without storage, short realm switch timer, etc.
After I finish my "experiment" with EC, I'll be glad to go back to my regular subscription accounts. I do wish the subscription offered a bit more compared to other games. Things like increasing the monthly mithril to 500 points would make me much more likely to go back to yearly subscriptions rather than subscribing maybe 3-5 months of any given year.