Are there any free games for a mac that are like World of Warcraft? I know there is turf battles for a pc but I was wondering if there are any free mac versions. I really do not feel like paying for wow and the monthly fee because i know i will only want to play for a month or so.
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Free Game Like WoW
- Thread starter Hawkizzle
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"like WoW" is the problem with your question. I estimate that Activision Blizzard is spending something like $300 million* a year just on development costs for WoW. There is nothing out there that is free which is having anywhere near that kind of effort spent on it.
So if you're asking "Are there free mmorpgs?" then the answer is yes: type "Free MMORPG" into Google and fill your boots.
But if you're asking "Is there a free game like WoW?" the answer is no.
* Just so you don't think I'm pulling these numbers out of the air, a little background: in June, Vivendi Games merged with Activision. While you can't tell how much Vivendi was spending on WoW annually from the pro forma financials they filed with the SEC, you can make an educated guess. The filing shows that 78% of Vivendi Games' revenues were coming from subscription and licensing and 0% of Activision's were in that category. The big difference between their two businesses is WoW, so it is not that much of a stretch to assume that those subscription revenues are coming from WoW and that it represents something like 3/4 of Vivendi Games' revenues pre-merger. In the quarter ended 3/31/08, Vivendi Games spent $102,716,000 on product development. If 75% of that is WoW, then they are spending about $75.3 million a quarter on WoW development, or $301 million a year. If WoW is wildly profitable and their other businesses only break even, subtracting all of the revenue from their other business straight from expenses (i.e. they make no profit there) leaves 73.3% of their total expenses, so 75% is not a bad guess.
And that is just development expenses. If you look at all expenses (including cost of sales, marketing, general, administrative and amortization/depreciation) and you use the same assumptions, they spend around $780 million a year to bring us WoW (they spent $259,769,000 on all expenses in that quarter, which annualizes to $1.04 billion).
Unless they have some other major piece of subscription income that I'm unaware of, the amount of money they are spending on WoW is massive. It is inconceivable that an ad supported game could come anywhere close to delivering the same product.
So if you're asking "Are there free mmorpgs?" then the answer is yes: type "Free MMORPG" into Google and fill your boots.
But if you're asking "Is there a free game like WoW?" the answer is no.
* Just so you don't think I'm pulling these numbers out of the air, a little background: in June, Vivendi Games merged with Activision. While you can't tell how much Vivendi was spending on WoW annually from the pro forma financials they filed with the SEC, you can make an educated guess. The filing shows that 78% of Vivendi Games' revenues were coming from subscription and licensing and 0% of Activision's were in that category. The big difference between their two businesses is WoW, so it is not that much of a stretch to assume that those subscription revenues are coming from WoW and that it represents something like 3/4 of Vivendi Games' revenues pre-merger. In the quarter ended 3/31/08, Vivendi Games spent $102,716,000 on product development. If 75% of that is WoW, then they are spending about $75.3 million a quarter on WoW development, or $301 million a year. If WoW is wildly profitable and their other businesses only break even, subtracting all of the revenue from their other business straight from expenses (i.e. they make no profit there) leaves 73.3% of their total expenses, so 75% is not a bad guess.
And that is just development expenses. If you look at all expenses (including cost of sales, marketing, general, administrative and amortization/depreciation) and you use the same assumptions, they spend around $780 million a year to bring us WoW (they spent $259,769,000 on all expenses in that quarter, which annualizes to $1.04 billion).
Unless they have some other major piece of subscription income that I'm unaware of, the amount of money they are spending on WoW is massive. It is inconceivable that an ad supported game could come anywhere close to delivering the same product.
There are free private wow servers out there. If you really want the wow experience without the monthly cost, that's the way to go.
OP said FOR THE MAC.
This is a windows game.
To the OP. There are some free mmorpg's for the mac but I wouldn't waste the time downloading them. The graphics and interface are a bit clunky and not very refined.
Minions of Mirth (*spelling) and there's another one I can't think of atm but I tried 2 and they both were a waste of download time IMO.
If your looking for WoW like experience, I'd suggest vmware/bootcamp and get a free MMORPG like perfect worlds international or something like the MTU suggested. On the Mac your sorta stuck atm, unless you wanted to search for a hack WoW server and try that route (I'd advise against it officially
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Is this an oriental MMO grindfest?
A private WoW server might be tempting, but I'd fear that you'd sink a lot of work into it just to have Blizzard shut it down and poof, there goes your characters.
I looked at Minions of Mirth a couple of years ago and at the time, it did not compare to WoW in any way although it has no monthly fee to play.
http://kotaku.com/5050300/how-much-has-wow-cost-blizzard-since-2004
Does not include original development costs
I know this is a grave dig but that's what happens when your boards aren't pruned. I found this community on google looking for free games like wow. Anyway the best game I came across was Runes of Magic it's pretty much a WoW clone. I found this one from http://gameslikewow.com and a few others but nothing else really compared to Runes.
Approximately $30 to $40 million on the original development. I think it might have been worth it.
Check out this list of Mac MMOs at MMORPG.com some of them are listed as free and some have standard vendor charges (item malls) most so called "free" MMOs have these days. Looking at your original post, you won't get that much accomplished in a month. Probably not worth messing with.
There are a ton!
It does not matter how much money Blizzard puts into wow. It is the fact that it costs money to play the game. There are a ton of games out there like wow even available on mac that are actually free to play too. Most of them can be played right through your browser or some need to be downloaded as well. Rappelz, Last Chaoes, Rift. Seriously the list goes on and on! Maybe look at http://freegameslike.com/world-of-warcraft or http://freegameslikewow.com. They have a list of games there just like wow and seem to have a good review written of each.
It does not matter how much money Blizzard puts into wow. It is the fact that it costs money to play the game. There are a ton of games out there like wow even available on mac that are actually free to play too. Most of them can be played right through your browser or some need to be downloaded as well. Rappelz, Last Chaoes, Rift. Seriously the list goes on and on! Maybe look at http://freegameslike.com/world-of-warcraft or http://freegameslikewow.com. They have a list of games there just like wow and seem to have a good review written of each.
Wizgamer21 said:
None of these are free or have Mac clients, not really worth looking into if the OP wanted free. Last Chaoes claims free, but you really need to buy in-game money. Hidden costs doesn't equate to free the last time I checked.
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Basically I agree with you, however...
Although GW2 must be purchased, it will not have a subscription and although it has yet to prove itself, I believe it is positioned to give WoW a run. And considering that Planetside 2 is just around the corner and it too will no longer include a subscription, I'll be very curious to see what financial model the next big Blizzard MMO will be based on. I'm sure having $50-100M (5-10 million subscribers x $10) a month in gross revenue helps speed along development, but will monthly subscriptions work the next time around?
There's a wineskin version of Lord of the Rings Online floating around. Free up till level 65 maybe (?) with a store to purchase upgrades, which is unnecessary. Google search will bring up the download link and plenty of forum threads to get you started.
It's worked very well for me; much less glitchy than WoW was when it first came out. Worth a try at least if you don't want to bootcamp
It's worked very well for me; much less glitchy than WoW was when it first came out. Worth a try at least if you don't want to bootcamp
Not sure how many of you still remember Everquest. It's a great MMORPG game, I highly recommend it, and I believe WoW are inspired by this game in certain degree.
I spent so many time on this game when I was in college, level up, grouping, raiding, camping mob~~ good old times
I heard now it's open free-to-pay in both PC and Mac!
Here you can see some info of the game.
http://www.everquest.com/
For Mac version:
http://launch.soe.com/lp3/index.html?game=eqmac&skin=everquest
Enjoy! Happy hunting!
I spent so many time on this game when I was in college, level up, grouping, raiding, camping mob~~ good old times
I heard now it's open free-to-pay in both PC and Mac!
Here you can see some info of the game.
http://www.everquest.com/
For Mac version:
http://launch.soe.com/lp3/index.html?game=eqmac&skin=everquest
Enjoy! Happy hunting!
Wow.... (pun intended)... I can't believe somebody resurrects a post from a year and a half ago... But anyways years ago I downloaded planeshift... I haven't played it in years though so couldn't tell ya how it is doing now... It was free and worth looking into...
Quoted for truth.
There is a ton of free MMORPG's out there. But WoW's quality outshines them so much it's not funny. There's a reason why people say WoW is dying at 8 million players (with it's TBC peak at 12 million). It's not really dying but it's just a comparison to the other MMORPGs that can hardly get 1 million players.