F2P MMORPG DDO: Eberron Unlimited

DDO advertises itself as a F2P MMO. Be aware free means lots of different things in the F2P world. In DDO, you can play a lot of the game and you can run a lot of the dungeons, but if you're not a subscriber, there are restrictions on what you can do.

Do you want to play a drow? Sorry, you can't play Drizzt. That's restricted. However, you can unlock the drow as a character option if you play long enough and earn enough favor with various factions in the game. So it's not that bad. But chances are, if you've read the Drizzt books, you won't have the patience to wait and you'll fork over some dollars.

Many of the dungeons are restricted, too, but there are still plenty of dungeons to keep you busy. The pay-to-play dungeons aren't significantly better than the free-to-play dungeons, so you're not really missing out on better content, just more content.

Turbine might very well have saved DDO by going free-to-play. Since going with their F2P model, their subscriptions have jumped. Turbine boasts over one million subscribers to DDO, now. After going with their F2P model, they actually had to bring more servers online.

Today's MMO market is extremely competitive. Players expect a lot from their pay-to-play MMOs, but are willing to be more forgiving with their F2P games. By going to a F2P model, DDO might be able to fill in the gaps of their MMO. If they do, they could end up with one of the best MMOs on the market.