Hey Joxer, did you just happen to get an e-mail with a key in it? I went to the website and logged in but it just said to monitor my e-mail for a key, which I still don't have. I think I registered for the beta over a year ago or whenever sign-ups occurred.
Don't know how good it will be but I am kinda looking forward to the user created content.
My key is brought with PC gamer magazine. I can post you a link printed in the magazine, however when you go there, you have to answer a random question correctly to receive a key. I mean… You have to browse the magazine to find an answer (in my case the question was "what year…" and the hint was "page 51", if you don't have the magazine how would you find an answer?).
One thing… It's US version of the magazine, I'm not sure you can get the code from UK or any other version.
Also I didn't have to register a new acc on PWE because, as I've said, I'm STO player. Well… Was.
EDIT:
Wait a minute… We can "cheat". You can read me the question you get and I can provide an answer then. But… Would that be legal?
Let me tell you a secret, the faster you realize that online gaming is not a competition, the sooner you will feel better about yourself, start to enjoy F2P games without spending money on them and feel a lot less like a raging teenager.
Actually in case of League of Legends, it's a competition, it's f2p model, and you don't have to spend $473856387658364 to get something of value nor you can buy your victory with cash. There are things you can buy only with real money there, but those are only skins. With ingame "currency" you can unlock everything except those skins that only make your hero and his abilities/moves look different.
But the game was so damned good (when I had enough time to play it) that I put some money in the game to buy a few skins and never spent all of ingame "credits" (riot points), I simply felt it's fair to support those devs.
There are raging teenagers in every MMO community, I tend to ignore them or simply put them on ignorelist.
If you want to talk about fraud, look at SWTOR, where none-subscribers have no customer support when their real money store purchase fail. That was the most stupid idea EA ever had.
OMG. It's definetly a fraud. Idea or not, again, there is no law that could prevent such business model. Yet. Just wait till countries find out how many cash is being transactioned taxfree.
As for Neverwinter, I expect similar RNG chests, because they are the norm in F2P games now (and some P2P too), but for me it's the player generate content that attract me.
Did I mention the game LoL? No gambling in it. No random loot boxes. To win something there, you need a skill.
It's not the only game like that. There is a fun game Wizard101. It's basically f2p, but to unlock more areas you need to pay. And although you're paying for more content in it, there are no gambling boxes to buy for real cash and you still have to be skilled to win both PvE and PvP. And the game is so fun, especially if you're playing it with a friend or two, that you simply have to support those devs by unlocking areas even if you don't care for those.
Etc etc.
I mean… There are many f2p models, and not every single one feels like a fraud. In the case of Cryptic's STO, the model inside it is an obvious fraud.
One more thing to add here. While not every computer f2p model is a fraud, all f2p models on smartphones… Every single one is a fraud. Every single one.
All of them allow your kid to buy something expensive for real cash in some ingame store without you noticing. Till the next bill. That's the main reason I'm not supporting kickstarter projects for smartphones. I'll start supporting them when having an ingame store becomes illegal/unwanted.