City of Steam keeps chugging along nicely. Now in closed beta, I had the chance to play around in it for a while (many thanks to Gabriel from Mechanist for the opportunity and being a great guide).
The game felt much improved from my last go around; much more solid, feature complete and visually packed with goodies. After the break, some brief comments and screenies about the new stuff that impressed me the most.
In 2010, Ethic suggested that Tubrine bring back Asheron’s Call 2 under F2P. It’s not there yet, but there is a free beta available to Asheron’s Call 1 subscribers. Questions that spring to mind:
: Zubon
via Ethic via Massively
Julian wrote yesterday about The Secret World’s switch to a buy-to-play model with episodic content not being the only issue for The Secret World. At the outset, I have not played The Secret World, and it was for one reason. I did not try it out because it had a subscription fee. I had followed The Secret World prior to the announcement, and I felt that it would have been a great game to follow an episodic buy-to-play model. Yet FunCom decided that a forced episodic model relying on subscriptions to advance the content would be the better way to go.
Now, the reason I did not buy The Secret World is gone. Will I buy it now? It is likely, but I must say that the momentum of launch is also gone. Syp and Bhagpuss seem to enjoy it, and their MMO playstyles are very similar to my own. I think it will go on my Steam Wishlist to be considered next time I want to buy a game. Continue reading I Buy Bad* Games
As you might have heard, The Secret World today announced its move to a Buy-2-Play model, essentially identical to Guild Wars 2. Or, if you wanna get ornate, just like it used to be back in the day when we owned the games we bought. Subscriptions are gone with the wind. You buy the client and you get (le gasp!) unlimited access to the whole game.
What surprises about the move is not that it came to pass. Many people would have rightfully argued it was coming. The surprise is in how it comes just less than six months after launch. I hope lifetimers are having a wonderful day. Personally I find myself having zero beefs with Funcom for doing this. If the game needs a shot in the arm, then it needs a shot in the arm and that’s basically the end of it. You gotta do what you gotta do.
I am, however, curiously reading some rumblings here and there about how this is exactly what the game needed and now… ha ha! -Now- you will all see how you were all wrong all this time, and everyone will get to see just how great the game is. Today, buy to play. Tomorrow, the world a critical mass of players and so on.
I say hang on a second. I say hold your stinking horses.
Excuse me if I differ, but I seem to be getting the feeling of this vague, generalized idea out there that TSW tanked because it had a sub attached and that was basically the only thing that was holding it back and now that the subs are gone it’s Return of the King time, Aragorn returning to Gondor with a brace of fine Haradrim honeys on each arm and it’s gonna be a rave at the White Tree.
I’m not so optimistic simply because the fundamentals of the game haven’t really changed. TSW is still the beast it is (for good and bad) and having or not having a sub does not change that. I’m sure there will be an uptick in sales. There has to be. And that’s only good news. But I doubt the retention rates, and by extension the amount of active players, would change much if you were to sample pre and post B2P. I think the fact that the game just didn’t click for a lot of people was a much stronger factor in the equation than the sub ever was. No matter how much you charge people at the door, or how expensive your drinks are, if people don’t really like the music all you’ll ever end up with are the people who really don’t care about the music. Which might be good for business, but that’s just about all that such a thing is good for.
TL;DR: The sub was not the only thing that drove people off TSW. And in a sort of ying-yang way, the lack of sub might bring some back, but it won’t be the only thing that will make them stay. And if you don’t believe me ask around Bellevue.
The Winterday patch for Guild Wars 2 Â is coming this weekend, and Habib Loew, one of the WvW iconics on the Guild Wars 2 forums, stopped by for a quick peek at what to expect in the snow-covered, mist-shrouded battlegrounds. He hinted at larger developments for a huge game update in February, but these smaller changes are much needed.
The first two revolve around client stuff. ArenaNet can push at least 6 builds a day if they wanted to, and this can severely cripple WvW offensives. Now players get a notification that a build is on its way, which will help somewhat. The other thing is that killing the client will no longer save your sorry butt from dying. It takes a long time kill people with my necromancer, and any time I 1v1 my target usually knows a few seconds in advance that death is inevitable. Poof! I get nothing. Well instead of a server-side countdown akin to some other MMOs, the client-killing player automatically dies and gives the opponents experience and loot. Poof is now autolose. Continue reading [GW2] Wintersday Wuv
Anything that has a 50% chance of happening for you will happen 2 in 10 times.
Anything that has a 50% chance of happening to you will happen 7 in 10 times.
: Zubon
If anyone asks, I did not tell you it was ok to do math like this.
Mounted combat is the centerfold for the Riders of Rohan expansion in Lord of the Rings Online (“LOTROâ€). It changed things, subjectively for better or worse. Some people think that LOTRO became bad for them. I feel that as I am nearing level 80 I have a pretty good handle on mounted combat. I can see through the curtain, so to speak, and I haven’t decided whether I like what I see. The horse’s path doesn’t seem to go very far. Continue reading [LOTRO] The Horse’s Path
In the middle of development between Guild Wars 2 The Lost Shore and Wintersday, ArenaNet’s Isaiah “Izzy” Cartwright took some time to answer a few questions I had about using data for design. (Be sure to also check out the recently publicized video of a GDC talk by Cameron Dunn also discussing data and design for Guild Wars 2 on a more technical aspect.) Read on for Izzy’s thoughts on designing content around the economy, player activity, and other surprises in the data. Continue reading [GW2] Interview with Izzy on Data and Design
Socializing costs and privatizing benefits is a lousy combination.
Many games allow you to increase your difficulty and your reward. This could be explicit in the form of a difficulty dial tied to rewards, but it is more often an opportunity cost. For example, you might equip an item that improves your loot, but doing so forgoes equipping an item that improves your damage. The fight is marginally harder and your rewards are marginally better. Kingdom of Loathing is an example of a game that does both: there are ways to increase monster level, and you can also equip items that have +monster level instead of (or in addition to) stat bonuses.
Kingdom of Loathing is also a single-player game. City of Heroes similarly gives you tools to adjust mission difficulty, and it gives the same difficulty increase and reward increase to everyone.
Multiplayer games that allow individuals to equip +loot items allow those individuals to increase their rewards at a cost of increased difficulty to everyone on the team. Alice is a tank using best-in-slot gear for damage resistance while Bob is a healer using best-in-slot gear for improved loot drops; Alice is working harder and incurring more repair costs for Bob’s benefits. Alice’s only way to avoid players like Bob is to stick with known companions or be That Guy and demand to see your equipment before letting you into the group. If everyone or no one is wearing +loot gear, the situation is fair and both risks and rewards are shared. Allowing individuals to unilaterally increase group difficulty for personal benefit is a solid example of anti-social design. Continue reading Loot Bonuses: Bad Multiplayer Mechanic
