Dungeons & Dragons Online Goes Free-To-Play

Dungeons & Dragons Online developer Turbine has announced that they'll be launching a new version of the game, called Eberron Unlimited, which makes it free to play, with the option of using micro-transactions to buy certain items and customize characters. Players will also be able to earn points through normal play that they can spend in the DDO Store. There's an additional option to pay a normal subscription fee for priority access to servers, a monthly allotment of points for the store, and extra character slots. Further details and a sign-up for the beta are available at the game's website.

Re:Stop asking for the other kind of free

[jfim]

Only if you are an idiot. The first rule of client-server programming is don't trust the client. Don't give the client any more data than it needs, validate all messages from the client. Things like wall hacks only work because the server is providing the client with too much information. Speed hacks only work because the server is allowing the client to move more than the correct amount (i.e. not validating the input). As for tripling the size of on-screen enemies and aimbots; if your game depends so much on your ability to click accurately on small things to be fun, the odds are that it isn't.

No, wallhacks work because it is very expensive to perform thorough visibility checks on every single frame of the game(See Potentially visible set [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia). The idea is that a precalculated set of areas have information as to which other areas are potentially visible from that particular area. This means that an area spanning a corridor would have visibility into adjacent corridors, and thus, you could 'see' around corners with translucent walls.

Pushing more information towards the client is an optimization, in the same way that database denormalization is. In an ideal world, you wouldn't need either of those, but we're still bound by performance constraints.

Re:They let anyone on these days...

[Tofino]

If you are playing an MMORPG, your time is worthless. They are all insane time-sinks. Even a casual-friendly game like WoW where you can "just log in and out for short sessions" realistically takes close to an hour or so just to log in, check and relist auctions, do a couple of daily quests, mail off new loot to your mule, and say hi to friends. And that's just the daily-chore part of playing.