DDO Unlimited screens show off in-game store

Turbine has released twelve new screens for their revamp of Dungeons & Dragons Online, which will add the "Unlimited" modifier sometime after its current beta run. In our gallery, you'll find several looks at the various windows and interfaces in which the non-subscribing players will have the opportunity to purchase additional content piecemeal, while they play.

It's pretty interesting to see a previously pure subscription style game go this direction, and we're very curious to see how it plays out for Turbine and the Dungeons & Dragons Online community. This business model shift could bring in a lot of new blood, and may in the long run bring about additional content that wouldn't have been possible to develop otherwise.

If you really want to know more about the upcoming changes and exactly what they mean for DDO and its community, check out our interview with Turbine on the subject, our write-up on the topic by Massively's Colin Brennan or our recent Massively Speaking podcast with DDOCast host Jerry Snook. Can you tell we're interested in this one yet?

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Unlimited

Reader Comments (20)

I think it's well done. They packaged up some of the extraneous large outdoor areas and all the quests within and sell them as packages. This is good.

The more I see this, the more it seems like a glorified free trial. Granted, I think thats a better way to do it - and giving you the option to dive in without paying per month is a nice alternative also, especially to those who do not have hours each day to play.

My guess is that 100 points = $1 - is this correct?

Why are they Hyping the game up with a sexy big busted Succubus and then not making the in game images sexier? Seems misleading to me. I like the free to play model they are going to use i think it will net them a good amount of new subscribers who will use the store.

Hehehe D&D books have always had this type of artwork, it's part of it's fabric. I remember the old AD&D campaign books, it wasn't worth playing unless it had at least a few inches of thigh and a bit of cleavage on the front!

Also, the graphics are a bit odd, but they are DX10 too, and can be pretty good at higher levels, a few levels below LOTRO, but for free.... don't think you can complain too much :)

No i cant complain too much, just i think they need to make things more busty in game as well as having nice splash screens. Oh! now i know why they call them splash screens! hehe

Also yes i wish i still had all my old AD&D books they were great!

Only thing I don't like is that they are using points and not actual dollar values. If $1 is 100 points, that's an easy conversion, but if it's some dumb thing like Microsoft had that didn't convert easily, it's dumb.

There are multiple reasons why they don't use real dollars. The main one is that not everyone lives in America - using "points" makes it so that they can form a consistent form of currency for the game.

Also, they are giving people who pay for the VIP service a monthly allowance of points - that might be confusing to people if they see that they have a balance of $8. More confusing than moving the decimal a couple of times in a number.

In-game stores FTL imo.

Well you can always just subscribe then...

Well the alternative is for people to pay for the subscription, and with DDO, not that many people are doing that right now. You can't complain when the game is free to play, you don't want to use the store, you can still subscribe and get the benefits, so it's a lot better model than what you may have been used to in the past.

The shop is well organized, but I don't know how well it's ultimately going to go over. There has to be enough free content to keep people interested in playing. Realistically, there should be free content all the way from level 1 to 20. Yeah, you may have to replay the same adventures until your eyes bleed, but it's there. If "free to play" really ends up meaning that levels 1-3 are free and then you need to buy adventure packs for everything after that I think they'll find that the new system has a very low retention rate.

It's better to have lots of free content and make your money from oodles of cool extras than to charge for both content and extras.

They already announced on multiple places that you'll be able to level from 1-20 without spending a dime.

Heh. "Earn 400 favor points in game" to be able to play as a race. That sounds like it is straight out of MUDs. Not saying it's good or bad, but it is interesting.

I know there was at least one MUD I played that did that, but with RP points.

I note that the "hirelings" are available as a premium item (screen 2 in this set of images).

I wonder if that means F2P DDO players don't get to use them unless they pay for them?

I was under the impression FTP players could earn a limited number of points, and so would be able to buy them with the points they have accrued?

I hope Turbine makes the points-to-real-money conversion simple as well, but I doubt they will as it's just not the way game companies do things (See: Microsoft, Akklaim, etc.)

Why would you want to convert points to cash, I'm not sure if you through that through?

By conversion, I mean $10=1000 Turbine Points or something like that, ya know, a number easily divisible by ten. So you could easily figure out how much something cost.

Oh no!! I gonna play this game but I am not happy at all with the so called "f2p" version that is pretty much a striped version with full parts of land like a buy item. :(

From the looks of things the F2P people will be locked out of some content, races and classes until they buy them. There seems to be alot of convenience items also available in the store and some "boost" things as well.

Players who pay the normal subscription have access to everything, but can still buy some of those extra convenience and boost items.

F2P players can also earn some of theses reward items. But if its free, what do you care? Your options are do not play; play for free (and maybe buy some of those extras); or pay the full subscription.

I will keep my full subscription...its really a great game and fills a very unique place in the MMO space.

DDO Unlimited screens show off in-game store

Dungeons & Dragons Online: Unlimited

Reader Comments (20)

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 12:05PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 12:32PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 12:36PM Thac0 said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 4:59PM Mr Angry said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 5:05PM Thac0 said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 12:37PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 12:44PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 1:21PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 19th 2009 12:56PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 4:50PM Mr Angry said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 1:59PM aurickle said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 2:34PM Aganazer said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 2:46PM Ghede said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 2:47PM Tom in VA said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 4:48PM Mr Angry said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 3:35PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 4:47PM Mr Angry said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 6:53PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jun 18th 2009 9:06PM TheJackman said

Posted: Jun 19th 2009 3:27AM (Unverified) said

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