Allegedly Free Game: Difference between revisions

** ''[[The Lord of the Rings Online]]'' is similar to ''Dungeons and Dragons Online'', as it's also by Turbine. You can earn Turbine Points in game through various means (though the Turbine Points are separate from the ones in DDO), but almost everything worth buying is ''at least'' around 500 points. The game allows you to quest up until around level 30-something, when you start needing to buy "Quest Packs" to progress at any sane rate. Each one costs between 500-700-something points when not on sale, which is about what you might get during the entire life of a character by the time they need the first quest pack. And since you need the quest pack to be able to earn Turbine Points in those areas, your earnings are definitely capped relatively low. That's not counting any of the other quality of life stuff. You need to buy your last two bag slots separately, as well as more vault space, shared storage, and the wardrobe that was introduced to keep cosmetic stuff from cluttering your inventory. In a game infamous for being part inventory management, those extra spaces might as well be as mandatory as the quest packs.

** ''[[Anarchy Online]]'' has a free option that includes the early (circa 2002) content; but the expansions -- which add more areas and allow for ''much'' stronger characters -- are subscriber only and also require paying a one-time activation fee. As with other examples here, the game was supposed to be subscriber only, but declining population forced Funcom to open the floodgates.

** Averted with ''[[Star Trek Online]]'' since it went free-to-play, in fact the deal for free players is so good that people are complaining that premium players aren't getting enough benefits.

** [[EverQuest]] 2 has fallen into this as well, it's [[F 2 P]], sure, but you only have the choice between two of six of each of the four profession-types, and you can only play as a few races out of the many they have, and considering how expensive some of these are (20 dollars for the [[Dhampyr]] race alone!) you'd probably be better buying the full game than spending bits to unlock certain things.