A Green Mushroom

MMO subscription options are lacking at the moment.  There is usually only one option per game.  Of all the games on the market there are basically only two models; either pay $15 per month or play for "free" but buy items in a virtual store for real world money.  These aren't necessarily bad options, but there could be better ones out there. EverQuest 2 apparently feels the same way since they just released a new pricing option.  Returning players can pay $5 for 3 days of consecutive play time. That is stupid.  It's limiting because it only targets old players who return and the three days of play time have to be consecutive.  Having an option to pay more money per hour but for less overall days isn't bad, only the restrictions on it are. Instead, why not do a daily rate and let it be an option for all players? I would revisit many of my old MMOs if I could pay per day instead of per month.  There a bunch of MMOs that I might play once a wee...

Star Trek Online is one of the newest MMOs on the block.  There is a ton of coverage in the blogosphere and there are so many people playing it at the moment.  When bombarded from multiple fronts it is a hard game to ignore. But, how great would this game be if it had to stand on its own without the power of the IP behind it?  Would it still hold up as a decent MMO or are people overlooking flaws because they get to finally be in the Star Trek universe?  I think much of the current appeal is seeing your own character in a star fleet uniform.  Hearing the sound of a phaser (which has been burned into the fanboy mind) in battle is hard to resist. At this point it is impossible to divorce the game from the IP, but it is still interesting to think about how many people would have bought STO if it didn't have the power of the Star Trek license behind it. STO isn't the only game this applies to either.  Just look ahead to next year's launch of The Old Repub...