I have to give them credit, they certainly know how to rape a good thing when they see it. As many of you are aware, DDO became free to play some time ago and this has completely turned around the fortunes of the game.
This is all well and good. The game has grown and it's no longer the desolate wasteland it once was. Hooray for Turbine.
But have you ever wondered why the game became as profitable as it did?
Here's a few hard and fast rules as to how Turbine is the motherfucker of all Free to Play video games.... at least that I've encountered thus far.
1. Break a system and sell the fix to it. Seriously, a perfect example is their "bag" system. They create an inventory system that is incredibly cumbersome. Then they create a collectibles system that's even ridiculously worse than the inventory system they created, swamping you and your limited inventory space with vast amounts of junk you might eventually get around to using someday.
Until you pay them money. Then your inventory space is magically cleansed of all unwanted items and you can take a deep breathe and live easy once more. After you fork over upwards to twelve to fifteen bucks... PER CHARACTER.... to help stave off the sheer pain in the assery of their fucked up system.
2. Be suspiciously ambiguous about ridiculously overpriced items.
"Summons one Ethereal Rest Shrine at your location (not usable in raids or public areas). Restores all SP, some HP and removes harmful effects. The Rest Shrine cannot be moved. Re-usable every 15 minutes on casual and normal difficulty. No re-use on Hard, Elite, or Epic difficulty."
This is a fucking six bucks. That's right, six bucks for a SINGLE rest shrine.
Now, when I first came across this I found it pretty remarkable. I mean... wow. An item that gives you a free rest shrine wherever you need it once a mission? That would be great. Knowing turbine, I thought it might be a bit underpriced. I could see someone shelling out ten or fifteen bucks for that kind of power, maybe even twenty. It'd be a hard price, but hell it's a potent item.
But no, the fuckers were at it again. And more importantly, they were pretty ambiguous about just what that item does. I mean it says right there in the text from the DDO store "Re-usable...".... but then below it it says uses "1". Sure, plenty of people are stupid but I have to give mad props to the fine folks at Turbine for actively victimizing the slower members of their own playerbase.
3. Resell you shit you already bought, for more money. I bought DDO when it first came out, but they want me to shell out how much for Shan-To-Kor (which came with the very first purchase of the game)? Who the fuck do these people think they are? They sell me the game I'm playing and then turn around and demand I buy the fucking thing all over again? Wow. Their balls, they are brass.
4. Remove Carrot and beat you with the stick. Wait, hold on... I finally made it to level 20... and now you want me to pay you twenty bucks to start my character over... from scratch... with a pissant of a bonus... and make it take LONGER for me to get back to twenty? And you want me to do this six fucking times over so I can get another bullshit bonus? Oh, and I'll need to either find or buy tomes every step of the way (because apparently those get "lost" in the reincarnation process).
Turbine, in all its glory, wants to charge you nearly a third of the price of the game when it came out, to play the game all over again, for almost no benefit, and the prerequisite that it will make you play longer.
FUCK! These people are BRILLIANT! They're like drug dealers, except I'm not afraid of drug dealers. I'm afraid of motherfucking Turbine's Free to Play system.
5. Break the game, then sell you the cheat. This is the second most insidious aspect of DDO. They cheat for he with the most money. Not the obvious stuff... not the experience potions, or the loot gems, or the other myriad benefits they pawn off on he with the deepest pockets... no. They cheat the players in terms of outright balance.
Take a good hard look at the Half-Elf as it was released. It was broken. Unbelievably broken. It received a racial feat that allowed it to duplicate actually CLASS FEATURES, and then improve upon those class features with enhancements. It was broke as fuck... and yours for the price of... fuck... whatever they're pushing it for now. No other race can do this, no other race has that potency.
In fact, if you'll notice if it's being sold it has an edge and a substantial one at that.
Which brings us to...
6. Just how the hell do they get away with all of this? I mean really? Well, pay attention to the forums... The DDO Forums aren't merely full of fanbois... it's almost exclusively populated by them. Unless you've managed to stay on the forums for forever, and a day (and are often a former fanboi yourself) you'll find your stay to be brutal and short. Go ahead, try it. Make an account and then go and criticize Turbine's product on the DDO forums. It'll be like blood in the water.
