Top Ten Free-to-Play Games

[Ralsu]

First Impressions are Lasting Impressions

In this week's Top Ten Free-to-Play Games, Danny "Ralsu" Gourley admits to Ten Ton Hammer readers that he's having trouble putting down his favorite game to try new ones and addresses a unique hurdle facing free-to-play games:

If a gamer shells out $30-50 for a game, he is very likely to try to get his money's worth by taking full advantage of his 30-day free trial. He feels obligated to justify his purchase. That's just not the case with [free-to-play] titles.

• Read this week's Top Ten Free-to-Play Games

[megaflux]

i can generally tell in the first 5 hours. not counting launches because those are always chaos. having played most of the f2p games out there i can easily tell if the communities are worth the time, and THAT is the deciding factor to me. tons of gibberish spam or people not speaking english will generally kill it (unless i play a non-NA/english game "Tantra" for example).
i definitely LOVE dungeon runners. i think it makes up for what it lacks in some areas with great game play and an awesome community; plus the lack of gold spammers=+5 points.

[Vroshnak]

Free to Play games have three stages for me. Some of them I uninstall in the first hour. If I make it past that mark, I generally can play until I hit the "grinding wall" where suddenly I am not levelling fast and I need a ton of money to keep my character well equipped. If the wall is too tall to get over, I quit. Where the wall hits you is different in every game.

First hour - "Does this suck?" stage
Second hour to 10 or 20 hours - "Boy am I levelling fast!" stage
Rest of game - "Is it still worth playing?" stage

Atlantica Online is the only free to play online game that I have hit stage 3 and will continue playing.

Maybe it's time to go down to top 5 games? Even better, why not just write about Atlantica Online and let the rest rot?

[Ralsu]

Originally Posted by Vroshnak

First hour - "Does this suck?" stage
Second hour to 10 or 20 hours - "Boy am I levelling fast!" stage
Rest of game - "Is it still worth playing?" stage

Atlantica Online is the only free to play online game that I have hit stage 3 and will continue playing.

Maybe it's time to go down to top 5 games? Even better, why not just write about Atlantica Online and let the rest rot?

I can relate to those stages--and the suggestion to turn the column into an Atlantica Online love fest. But, I'll keep cracking at 10 so that I can find a game that fits many different styles of gameplay.

[Rauge]

2 games that I think are good and F2P: Zu Online and Perfect World.