Earlier this month OGPlanet announced the release of a new massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Cabal Online. The game is not groundbreaking in terms of gameplay, but reflects perhaps the highest quality entry and most interesting business model in the newest category of F2P (free to play) MMOs.
That's right, free to play. You could log in right now, register on the OGPlanet site, download Cabal, and begin playing. In this it's not dissimilar from a number of different offerings such as, Twelve Sky, Saga, Dungeon Runners and RF Online. In fact, just head on over to Free MMORPGs to browse through their extensive aggregation of sites and info.
Of course, nothing in life is truly free. Each one of these games has some facility for getting your cash. In some, paying a monthly fee will get you access to higher character levels and gear. In others, you can one-time shop for the very same things. Dungeon Runners, for example, has certain "grades" of equipment which are superior to normal equipment and only useable by subscribers. Players are exposed to these items from the get-go, which exerts a constant pressure on them to upgrade their accounts so they can use what they loot.
Cabal offers a slightly different variation on the theme. Every aspect of the game is available to every player, subscribed or not (premium subscription is $18/month, I believe -- higher than World of Warcraft). However, the % chance of good equipment dropping from monsters in the world goes up significantly for paying customers. Not only that, but subscribers have a much higher level of experience gain from killing and questing than non-subscribers. This really spikes right into the addict's vein. Furthermore, player versus player combat is a constant threat once a player reaches level 20 (fairly early on). It's brilliant. Players are quickly pitted against each other. Survival depends on character power and player skill. Spending money will give a player not only a distinct advantage over other players, but a distinct advantage in proportion to how much they spend. (How's that for a strategy to marginalize the gold farmers?)
I'm very curious to see how this venture pans out.
