D&D Online: Eberron Unlimited Update 3 Review

IGN has posted a review-of-sorts for Turbine’s latest update to Dungeons & Dragons Online: Eberron Unlimited, and while there isn’t any type of score, you’d be hard-pressed to find a negative word within the article. An excerpt:

The biggest issue they’ve addressed here is the lack of free content beyond level 12. In Update 3, they’ve introduced four level 13-18 dungeon quests, which effectively provide enough content to get to level 20. They have also removed the need for leveling sigils. The game previously required players not paying a subscription to use a leveling sigil in order to advance every fourth level. These sigils were available as loot options after completing certain quests or by looting chests in some dungeons; the easiest way to obtain them was through the DDO store. These two changes alone have opened up the game substantially and any player can now conceivably advance all the way to the level cap without having to spend a single penny.

Turbine is giving away a great deal of content in this update. Why is Turbine doing this? It’s no secret that “free-to-play” doesn’t mean that game companies are spending money without getting anything in return. Ideally, an F2P game offers the most casual of players some enjoyment for free while successfully enticing the more dedicated ones to subsidize the free players by buying items or perks. Otherwise, there’s no money for further development, the game stagnates, and eventually dies of atrophy. So, you would expect an update to introduce more stuff for you to buy, not more free content. Well, perhaps in this game more so than in any other MMO, character advancement is only a by-product of experiencing the content, and as they introduce more premium high level modules in the future, it benefits them to have a bigger potential market if the new breed of free players were also at level cap.