A Life Lesson from Massively Multiplayer Online Games

I am the type of player that likes to master a game and squeeze every ounce of gameplay out of it before I move on to the next one. In other words, I am a completionist. I want to do everything and see it all. This is perfectly fine for regular games. It became a problem when I started playing MMOGs.

An MMORPG like WoW has multiple classes, professions, and gameplay types (PvE vs PvP). With my gaming background, that meant I wanted every class at the maximum level, all professions maxed, all raids completed, and a good PvP ranking. I never made it to this goal, but I did get pretty far, to the detriment of other games.

A fun multiplayer game might take me three months to master. Maybe six months if it had a lot of depth, not top of the rankings but reaching my peak ability. WoW would take 5 years to “complete”, and only if I could play it nonstop, no time for work or other duties. Over the years other types of games have started getting a lot of these MMOG conventions.

All the new shooter games, for example Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and Gears of War 3, require you to unlock weapons, attachments, and other gear for multiplayer. Strategy games like League of Legends and Age of Empires Online have heroes/units to unlock and other various gameplay options. The only way to try out all the options is to put in serious time.

Games in general just take a lot more time than before, and I have not even mentioned the DLC. If you want to get all the items, play every class/race, see all the maps, and try every gameplay mode, you have to buy the DLC. With these time consuming MMO elements, I just did not have the time to be a completionist. Then with DLC, I did not have the money to be a completionist.

This was a hard hard lesson to learn. I always thought I would be able to play all the games I wanted and experience everything. I learned that even if I put all my time into one game, I still might not see and do everything in the game. This lesson has helped me become immune to addictive games and buying DLC.

I have learned I will never have every hero in League of Legends, because they will keep adding heroes faster than I can unlock them. I have learned I can never master World of Warcraft, because there will always be another expansion. It is very rare that I buy DLC. When I do buy it, I always wait for a sale of 50% off or so.

These statements may seem gloomy, but it has really given me an appreciation for what I have. I do not feel like I have to unlock everything in Gears of War 3. I do not feel like I have to buy all the DLC a game has. I still have a ton of fun with what I have. This does not just apply to games though.

I will never see all the amazing natural wonders on the planet. I will never learn everything there is to learn. I will never do everything I would like to do. It has helped me greatly to not be materialistic. I see that it is hopeless to try to keep up with all the latest games, let alone everything else in the world. The money I save can go to a good cause as well. Specialize in a few interests you love, ignore everything else, and be proud of them.

Prediction: SWTOR Free to Play Details

It is been announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic is switching over to a free-to-play model. While Bioware/EA did release a Free-to-Play FAQ and a Subscription vs Free comparison chart, they did not go into details on what exactly will be available to free players. A few weeks later they did a Q&A with a few more answers — free players will be able to unlock some things by buying Cartel Coins with real money — but they still have not given pricing or exact free to play limitations. I might be interested in seeing the story for free, so I started thinking about what these details could be.

Limitations
Feature	Free-to-Play	Subscription
Story Content	All 1-50 Content	All Current & Most Future Content
Base Classes	Smuggler, Trooper, Imperial Agent, Bounty Hunter	All 8 Classes
Advanced Classes	All 8 corresponding to the 4 base classes available	All 16 Advanced Classes
Reskill/Respec	Once per character	Unlimited
Species	Human or Zabrak Only	All 9 Races
Character Slots	2 total	8 per server
Legacy	No Access	Full Access
Warzone	3 per week	Unlimited
Flashpoints	3 per week	Unlimited
Space Missions	7 per week	Regular Daily Limit
Daily Missions	5 per day	Regular Daily Limit
Operations	No Access	Full Access
Rated Warzones	No Access	Full Access
Quick Travel	2 hour cooldown	30 minute cooldown
Fleet Pass	72 hour cooldown	18 hour cooldown
Speeders	No Access	Full Access
Galactic Trade Network	No Sell Access, Full Buy Access	50 listings per day
Credits Cap	100,000 per character	No limit (realistically)
Crew Skills	Max 300, only 2 Companions can work at once	Max 400, all 5 Companions can work

We do not know how much Cartel Coins will cost in dollars, but we can look at Bioware Points. They are much the same as Xbox Live Points. Both of these are $1 for 80 points. I think Cartel Coins will probably follow the same model, so 80 Cartel Coins will cost $1. This may seem like too much considering subscribers only get 150 points per month, but almost all of this is included with the subscription fee.

Subscribers can save up their 150 points over several months to get new expansions for free or at a heavily reduced price. Alternatively, they could spend their points to get new pets, speeders, and other vanity items. In terms of dollars, 150 Cartel Coins would be worth close to $2 per month. The 150 coins is for retroactive months paid for, so I think they will increase that to 200 Cartel Coins once free-to-play has started. That would put it at $2.50 per month.

Pricing
Feature	Cartel Coins	Dollars
Character Slot	400	$5
Additional Base Class	800	$10
Additional Species (Non-Legacy)	800	$10
One Reskill/Respec	160	$2
Unlimited Reskills/Respecs	1200	$15
Unlimited Warzones	1600	$20
Unlimited Flashpoints	1600	$20
Unlimited Space Missions	1200	$15
Unlimited Daily Missions	1200	$15
Operations	1600	$20
Rated Warzones	1600	$20
Minor Content Patch (One Flashpoint)	800	$10
Major Content Patch (Warzone, Flashpoint, Zone)	1600	$20
Full Size Expansion (Several new planets)	3200	$40
Speeder Pilot Training 1	400	$5
Speeder Pilot Training 2	800	$10
Speeder Pilot Training 3	1600	$20
Vanity Pet	800	$10
Vanity Speeder	1600	$20
Vanity Item	400	$5
Vanity Item Set	1600	$20
Unlock Credits Cap	1200	$15
Reduced Travel Cooldowns	400	$5
Unlock Crew Skills	800	$10

Again, subscribers will get everything here already with their subscription except Full Size Expansions and the Vanity stuff, though they will be able to purchase some of these like Speeder Training if they do not want to spend in-game Credits on them.

At launch they have said Cartel Coins will not be possible to earn anywhere in the game. They can only be obtained with the subscription or buy paying money (or both). I think they will add some way to get them in-game eventually, but at a very slow rate. Most likely it would be tied to daily quests. It could be a simple formula such as every 1000 credits rewarded gives 1 Cartel Coin, so a typical level 50 daily mission that gives 5000 credits would also give 5 Cartel Coins. Free players would be able to get some Cartel Coins, but the rate would be slow enough that few things would be bought this way.