I’m not the biggest fan of D&D — in any of its incarnations — although I’ve softened slightly on the tabletop rules (something which may change when I actually read the non-free version). But D&D Online has switched to a new business model which — one can hope — will give other MMORPG developers pause for thought.
Until now, all major MMORPGs have used a subscription-based business model. If you want to play you pay a monthly fee. Usually you get a slight discount for paying several months in advance. Of course if you get sick of the game and stop playing with several months of credit, well — tough luck.
D&D Online has switched to the model used by much less successful online games — free basic play and paid-for “perks”. Except that DDO’s perks are content packs. I.e. you pay to see more stuff. This is exactly how things should be — if you want to make lots of money you need to create lots of compelling content — not suck players into your version of IRC. If I’m going to have to run through the same freaking dungeon 50x to get a suit of armor, I don’t want to have to pay a subscription for the “privilege”. (Arguably, Guild Wars adopted this approach first, but each “content pack” was a new boxed game — which is both inefficient and unnecessarily expensive.)
I wish them well. Now if only someone would make a decent MMO that isn’t fantasy or Star Wars or “you live in a spaceship“.