Pirates didn’t have the best launch ever. Critics raved about its naval combat, but it was a game in two halves. And the half that saw you searching around empty port towns for something to do was the bad half. But hey – Dungeons & Dragons Online managed to turn things around, increasing revenue by 500% when it went free-to-play. Can PotBS do similar?
They’ve certainly had a good deal of time to add content, and fix up the little bugs that hindered its launch. But as many an MMO has discovered these days, the enthusiastic launch customers won’t wait around forever. They’ve got their level 80 WoW character in the back of their mind, begging for some polished battlegrounds play.
But Dungeons & Dragons Online suffered a similar launch, so it’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. Over on BurningSea.com, their devlog states “all of the necessary tech is completed and is in testing, and we’re very close to starting the countdown.
“Experience has shown us that players who try the game tend to stick with the game, so we want to remove any impediment for a player to try the game.”
Similar to the recent F2P launch of Lord of the Rings Online, certain conveniences will be available through microtransactions, and more for players who pay subscriptions, but there’s no current mention of locking non-paying players out of any quest or pvp content.
Leave a Reply