Wednesday, October 2nd 2024
Free MMO Throne and Liberty Drops $40 Early Access Fee at Full Launch, Review Scores Slide
Last week, it looked like Amazon's Throne and Liberty would largely turn out to be a commercial success when it exited its early access period—a perk that would cost gamers at least $40. Although, as player counts spiked on Monday's full release, so, too, did negative reviews, with the game sliding from a little over 60% positive reviews on Steam to 55% at the time of writing.
Mere hours after the game launched as free-to-play, concurrent player counts jumped massively from around 45,000 players to 326,377, according to SteamDB. That player count puts Throne and Liberty in fifth place, just behind Banana and PUBG: Battle Grounds in SteamDB's 24h peak player count rankings. That said, as far as all-time peaks go, Throne and Liberty only comes in 33rd place, with everything from Starfield and Monster Hunter: World to Baldur's Gate 3 surpassing it handily.
That said, Throne and Legacy launched on a Tuesday, and player counts for the new game have held fairly steady since launch. It wouldn't be surprising to see player counts increase again over the coming weekend as gamers have more time and the word gets out about the launch. Baldur's Gate 3 is an excellent example of just this type of increase in popularity. It launched on Steam on August 3, a Thursday, and player counts rose to 814,666 the following Sunday, with another spike to 875,343 players the following Sunday.
As for Throne and Liberty's user reviews sliding by around 5% on Steam, most of those issues seem related to combat and gameplay, rather than the typical complaints of microtransactions and pay-to-win mechanics—although those are present, too.
Source:
SteamDB
Mere hours after the game launched as free-to-play, concurrent player counts jumped massively from around 45,000 players to 326,377, according to SteamDB. That player count puts Throne and Liberty in fifth place, just behind Banana and PUBG: Battle Grounds in SteamDB's 24h peak player count rankings. That said, as far as all-time peaks go, Throne and Liberty only comes in 33rd place, with everything from Starfield and Monster Hunter: World to Baldur's Gate 3 surpassing it handily.
As for Throne and Liberty's user reviews sliding by around 5% on Steam, most of those issues seem related to combat and gameplay, rather than the typical complaints of microtransactions and pay-to-win mechanics—although those are present, too.
8 Comments on Free MMO Throne and Liberty Drops $40 Early Access Fee at Full Launch, Review Scores Slide
It plays like a poor version of Aion, which NCSoft created years ago. Combat felt bland and controls feel clunky on the mouse/keyboard. I really liked playing Aion, I thought it was well done - of course any hardcore WoW player would just claim it's a crappy "clone" of WoW, but they say that about any MMO that's come out after WoW.
Perhaps changing some control options might make combat feel better, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I may not return to the game and it's not just because of the controls. My understanding, based on some posts I've read about the monetization in the game, sounds like the direction Aion went once it left the subscription pay to F2P. I hated what they did to Aion at that point so I stopped playing it. I put in a good 1200 hours into Aion, but the direction NCSoft took it in terms of monetizing it is how it sounds Throne and Liberty is handled and that's not something I'm interested in. It's basically a mobile game, plain and simple. Free to play, but costly to advance in - either in money or time.
Sure, you can advance F2P games without paying, but you hit high walls you can't hurdle. Yes, you can overcome them and make it over the top, but it takes a ton of playing to get there. Whereas those willing to pay to bypass the climb, they get a key for the locked door to let them pass through. I've been playing Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes for the past couple of years - I've not put a dime into the game and about 30 minutes a day over the past few years I still lag way behind those that pay to win. Sure, I'm advancing my characters bit by bit, but I'm so far behind someone that drops hundreds of dollars on the game that it's not even funny. So I know that long play can get you a good way into these F2P games, but I'm not interested in sinking a ton of game time where I'll significantly lag behind those that are willing to pay, pay, pay.
last part is a joke... just fyi...