New Neverwinter RPG Delayed

Castrum - It would appear Cryptic's new Neverwinter RPG has been delayed as a result of their acquisition by some Asian company I've only heard of due to an ad on IGN one time:

Atari's sale of Cryptic to Perfect World Entertainment has come with a catch regarding its Neverwinter project. Due to the new ownership, Perfect World is demanding Cryptic work on "a more immersive experience" for Neverwinter and is thus pushing the cooperative RPG's release from the formerly announced 2011 launch window to late 2012.

Personally, I hope this game pans out. Though I do have issues with Champions Online, I have enjoyed playing City of Heroes for 7 years now. Cryptic is capable of making great games, so long as Jack Emmert stays the fuck out of the kitchen.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/08/15/never-say-neverwinter-cryptic-forced-to-delay-dandd-rpg/

Free-To-Play = The Future

Castrum - Now that the Age of WoW has come and gone, it seems Western developers are waking up to the reality of lucrative microtransactions and removing barriers to entry in their MMOs (and other assorted genres):

Wondering why going "free to play" is so trendy right now? Consider MMO Age of Conan. In May, it launched a F2P version. It's since doubled its revenues and increased subscriber numbers.

While this can lead to serious two-tier systems of gameplay, personally I welcome F2P. I'm so sick of paying $50+ for an MMO just to see it suck, lose subscribers en masse, and/or shut down a few months (or years) after launch.

If anyone's looking for a decent action-oriented MMO that's F2P, City of Heroes is going F2P later this year. I've put in about 6 years of time and money into the game already, and I still find it vastly different compared to other MMOs out there: http://na.cityofheroes.com/en/news/freedom/freedom_overview.php

http://kotaku.com/5829868/this-is-why-games-are-going-free-to-play