Okay, so who's playing what these days? I find myself rapidly getting sucked into the Free To Play titles... mind you, the legacy MMO titles that have been going F2P to save their lives, NOT so much the imports and cheesy rip off F2P titles that usually hold little if any interest.
As of late, I've been playing Star Trek Online again - note: it's not F2P yet, but I had a retail code from when it was on sale on Steam for like $2 that I'm using so as to get my "Premium" free membership when it happens. I rather liked STO from the get go despite its quirks. I'm impressed at where it has boldly gone in the last year.
I downloaded Champions Online again, but am rather frustrated that ALL of my previous characters that I had when I preodered the 6-month subscription are locked out because they're custom archetypes. This seems to be a BIG failing of F2P convert titles, where they choose to shit on customers that previously PAID for subscriptions.
City of Heroes also went Free To Play yesterday. This game is tried and true, and near and dear to my heart. I spent about 2 years playing it and amassed a buttload of characters. Again, they one-up Champions Online a bit in that I can use any of my characters as is... but the only problem is I only get 10 character slots (2 + 4 that were originally bought and 4 that were unlocked through their veteran rewards program) to choose which characters I want to "unlock" and use. 10 should be enough for now... but at $20/5 slots additional, it could get pricey fast.
Lord of the Rings Online - This is a hell of a solid MMORPG. I'd still be playing if Turbine customer support hadn't pissed me off and wasted nearly 3 weeks of paid gametime at one point in time where they thought my account was hacked, though it clearly wasn't. I may go back again.
EQ2X - Not installed, but may be soon. I liked EQ2. It was an interesting title. A world I had never explored before, and fairly unique story lines. It's on the radar.
DC Universe Online - Now that it has been announced F2P coming soon, this actually IS installed on my machine from the free trial period, and will stay there. It has a very dark yet comic-booky feel to it, and I like the fact it plays like a console button-masher style fighter with some MMORPG elements to it.
Black Prophecy - Okay, this one doesn't fall into the same "Was PayToPlay but now is free" category, but I am playing it, and it's free to play. Let's face it, with JumpGate Evolution basically dead now, BP is the ONLY MMO space shooter out there. It's gorgeous, graphics are comparable to the stellar environments in EVE, but it doesn't feel like you're playing a spreadsheet. The AI is a bit rough, but it works. The UI is ... okay, I'll say it, it's horrible. But the gameplay is fun enough to overcome a clunky UI.
Age of Conan - Not installed yet. Seriously though, I have 150GB in monthly cap on AT&T. I can only download so much. Plus my wife gets pissed off when I hog bandwidth.
Global Agenda - It's on my machine, I play it occasionally when I want to shoot someone.
DDO - Haven't played it in a long while, but it's also installed.
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To be honest, I play the above games more and find more entertainment with them than I do recent Steam single-player game purchases. I think the best part about it now is that I can enjoy those titles casually without feeling guilty for only playing 20 minutes here and an hour there because I wouldn't be getting my money's worth. In my opinion, Free To Play is worth it. And I likely WILL be spending money on a few of the titles' game stores over time.
As of late, I've been playing Star Trek Online again - note: it's not F2P yet, but I had a retail code from when it was on sale on Steam for like $2 that I'm using so as to get my "Premium" free membership when it happens. I rather liked STO from the get go despite its quirks. I'm impressed at where it has boldly gone in the last year.
I downloaded Champions Online again, but am rather frustrated that ALL of my previous characters that I had when I preodered the 6-month subscription are locked out because they're custom archetypes. This seems to be a BIG failing of F2P convert titles, where they choose to shit on customers that previously PAID for subscriptions.
City of Heroes also went Free To Play yesterday. This game is tried and true, and near and dear to my heart. I spent about 2 years playing it and amassed a buttload of characters. Again, they one-up Champions Online a bit in that I can use any of my characters as is... but the only problem is I only get 10 character slots (2 + 4 that were originally bought and 4 that were unlocked through their veteran rewards program) to choose which characters I want to "unlock" and use. 10 should be enough for now... but at $20/5 slots additional, it could get pricey fast.
Lord of the Rings Online - This is a hell of a solid MMORPG. I'd still be playing if Turbine customer support hadn't pissed me off and wasted nearly 3 weeks of paid gametime at one point in time where they thought my account was hacked, though it clearly wasn't. I may go back again.
EQ2X - Not installed, but may be soon. I liked EQ2. It was an interesting title. A world I had never explored before, and fairly unique story lines. It's on the radar.
DC Universe Online - Now that it has been announced F2P coming soon, this actually IS installed on my machine from the free trial period, and will stay there. It has a very dark yet comic-booky feel to it, and I like the fact it plays like a console button-masher style fighter with some MMORPG elements to it.
Black Prophecy - Okay, this one doesn't fall into the same "Was PayToPlay but now is free" category, but I am playing it, and it's free to play. Let's face it, with JumpGate Evolution basically dead now, BP is the ONLY MMO space shooter out there. It's gorgeous, graphics are comparable to the stellar environments in EVE, but it doesn't feel like you're playing a spreadsheet. The AI is a bit rough, but it works. The UI is ... okay, I'll say it, it's horrible. But the gameplay is fun enough to overcome a clunky UI.
Age of Conan - Not installed yet. Seriously though, I have 150GB in monthly cap on AT&T. I can only download so much. Plus my wife gets pissed off when I hog bandwidth.
Global Agenda - It's on my machine, I play it occasionally when I want to shoot someone.
DDO - Haven't played it in a long while, but it's also installed.
---
To be honest, I play the above games more and find more entertainment with them than I do recent Steam single-player game purchases. I think the best part about it now is that I can enjoy those titles casually without feeling guilty for only playing 20 minutes here and an hour there because I wouldn't be getting my money's worth. In my opinion, Free To Play is worth it. And I likely WILL be spending money on a few of the titles' game stores over time.