Turkeyday Timewasters

Well, it's that time of year again: all the relatives show up to snarfle your groceries, and you're sick of looking at them after fifteen minutes. What to do? Never fear! We here at AC have you covered: just retreat to your Man Cave, lock your snot-nosed cousins and nephews out of the room, and indulge in a little (or a lot) of F2P goodness this Turkey Day weekend. (F2P = "free-to-play," for those what ain't down with the lingo.)

First up, we have World of Tanks. This one has been out for 20 months now, and its popularity continues to rise. The developer, Wargaming.net, recently announced that 40 million unique accounts had been created worldwide. That's mainly a consequence of how easy the game is to pick up and play. It manages to give the feel of driving (and shooting) a huge metal monster without any of the clunky, complex control mechanics for which simulations are notorious. Mouse and keyboard are your interface; no joysticks or funny head-tracking devices here.

As advertised, it is totally free to play -- though you may find your progress slows considerably at upper tiers. Which doesn't really matter one wit to me, since all the fun is to be had at Tier VI and below as far as I'm concerned. Even if you're not a "tank buff," it's worth your time to give it a spin. The game has the advantage that it is played in short, intense bursts; the average match lasts less than five minutes. You've got five minutes, right?

If spaceship pew-pews are more your style, Battlestar Galactica Online has come a long way since launch. The recent introduction of fully three-dimensional flight mechanics allow much more freedom in how you blast those Colonial scum out of existence. You ARE going to play Cylon, right?

If you prefer your spaceships manned with pajama-wearing pacifists, Star Trek Online may be your thing. This one is a real bargain in the F2P arena, because almost none of the content is hidden behind a paywall. The devs make their money from the online store which sells items like costumes and premium ship types, and from "lockboxes": loot boxes you'll occasionally find laying around after a battle. You can buy a key to unlock them or not, as you please. I've found they usually have some pretty good swag inside, but some people just get all torqued about the whole concept.

One of the aspects of STO which is unique is the Duty Officer system. This is basically a metagame, wherein you manage your starship's crew, assigning them shipboard and away team tasks. Essentially, you get to do all the things a real ship's captain does, like managing duty rosters and disciplining unruly crew members. These assignments come in a wide variety of flavors: treating a broken bone in sick bay; running diagnostic routines on ships systems; providing security for a trade delegation; recruiting colonists and planting them in fertile ground in a distant star cluster. (I like to imagine a pajama-clad press gang wandering into a coffee shop in San Francisco: "Right. Free lattes for everyone! You're all colonists, now. Please come with us or we'll have to stun you. Please don't make us stun you... we'll have to go to counseling if we fire our weapons.")

At any rate, you'll earn advancement through the Duty Officer system that can yield tangible benefits when the photons start to fly. It's a really unique take on the Alternate Advancement concept in MMOs.

Speaking of Alternate Advancement, the game that pioneered it is now F2P: Everquest II. Again with this one, very little of the content is locked behind a paywall. It's got years of content to explore and more knobs to twiddle and buttons to push than you can shake a gnome at. You'll just have to get along with limited bag capacity and not being able to sell on the auction house if you don't want to sub. This is the real gem of the F2P world when it comes to traditional MMORPGs.

Perhaps you favor the Diablo style of gameplay for your orc-crushing antics? Then Drakensang Online is your game. It's basically Diablo II wrapped in a web browser. Not much more to say there, since if you don't know what Diablo II is by this point in time, you are by definition Not Interested.

Finally, there's the new kid on the block, Planetside 2. She just stepped out the front door yesterday morning, so everybody's still eyeing her up and waiting to see if she'll put out or not. I've heard good things after the beta NDA lifted, but as with all games, your experience will probably be different from mine. But it's free, so what's to lose?

There you have it, fellow Apathetics: six reasons to hole up in your computer room with a turkey sandwich and snarl at anyone who dares to knock on the door. Happy Thanksgiving!


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