Kelly's Blog
Fortune League: Fantasy Sports League, EverQuest2 Style
Fortune League is a purpose-made game in the same vein as fantasy sports leagues, but created for Sony Online Entertainment’s EverQuest2 players by Fastpoint Games, rewarding successful players with virtual good for use in the EverQuest2 MMO.
Much like fantasy sports leagues, players receive a fixed amount of coins to draft a team for their league. However, in place of real life statistics, players have to match the stats of their team to weekly objectives which are a mix of any 4 or 5 of the following game statistics:
- DMG-P — Damage Physical
- DMG-M — Damage Magical
- DMG-AOE — Damage over an Area of Effect
- DMG-Pet — Damage by pets
- DMG-S — Damage by Stealth
- BUFF — Buffs Cast
- DEBFF — Debuffs Cast
- DMGSTP — Damage Stopped
- KILLS — Number of kills made
- DTHS — Deaths Suffered
- HATE — Hate Gain
- HEAL — Heal Points
- EVACS – Number of Evacuations used
A team, or party, as they are called in Fortune League consists of five slots and players fill these slots to maximize the points earned. During the week, various opportunities and disasters are hinted at and revealed. These may or may not directly impact each week’s objectives.
Unlike the online game where a balanced party will include at least a healer and fighter, players will draft only heroes that will help their party maximize the weekly objective. The cost of a race/class combo can have something to do with how they perform, but this is not always the case. Similar to Fantasy Sports Leagues, the price of a hero rises with popularity, and falls when the race/class is not needed or does not perform.
The game monetizes by selling trades. Leagues run Sunday midnight through Saturday, and numbers are also crunched every night and points awarded. Each Saturday, a player receives three trades for free, and unused trades accumulates and on Sunday, a new quest begins. The purchase of a new party member does not count as a trade and only the sale of a group member who has earned Hero Points will be deducted. This means that until the party locks each day, players can change out a newly purchased party member for another without incurring a trade.
Rewards for playing the game are only usable within EverQuest 2 itself. The weeks are grouped into sets of four and named Adventures. Active participation in any week yields an Alternate Advancement scroll. Ending any week in the top 50% yields an Experience Potion. Ending in the top 20% of any Adventure gains the player a cosmetic item – currently a set of tattered wings – that can be displayed by their character in game and the top 40 players at the end of any four week Adventure gains a trophy that can be displayed in their in-game house.
The game is currently in an Alpha stage and there is little wonder that numbers are low and headed downwards, with an all time high of over 3,700 daily active users and over 20,000 monthly active users to the current 2,100 DAU and 9,600 MAU. As a purpose built game with rewards that can only be used in an online game, the target market is small and even further smaller are the players within that subset that are attracted to the Fantasy Sports League genre. Unless SoE decides to broaden the rewards for playing the game, we can expect numbers to remain low.
Article: http://www.insidesocialgames.com/2011/03/21/fortune-league-fantasy-sports-league-everquest2-style