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Trust

Once you no longer trust the developers, quit the game.

This realization took me a long while, and I see people struggling with it in comments and forums. If you do not trust the development team’s competence or good will, stop giving them time and money. (That used to be just “money,” but with the emergence of F2P, you see a lot of people playing things they would not pay to play. If you do not think the game is/will be worth your money, it is probably not worth your time.) Game companies are not the government. They cannot come to your house with guns and demand your money. You are free to go, and yes you may lose access to a game, but you are already on the downward spiral to where you quit the game angrily.

I can see sticking around a little longer for the community. This is where you start packing up your community or developing links to it outside the game. They are not serfs either. It is good to make friends with people overcoming the adversary within the game; if the game itself is an adversary, take your friends and find somewhere better to play. Happiness loves company more than misery does.

: Zubon

[LotRO] Help Me with This One

Is this LotRO’s community being typically atypical, F2P players displaying entitlement, or something else I’m missing?

LotRO recently added (character level) experience for crafting, which is the sort of thing we like around here. As with any change, forum-goers announced they are going to quit. It is “More then ridicules. It’s underhanded,” “a deal bracker,” and it will not “do anything aside from discouraging people from doing crafting.” Oh, you laugh now, but “I hope you feel the same when the game is shut down from everybody leaving and Turbine not making a profit.” (One poster took the interesting tactic of replying until he had 10% of the posts in the thread then declaring, “Good for you u like the idea but sorry to say your out numberd.”) (sic on all those)

Some players do not like outleveling content or leveling too quickly. Except there is more content next zone over, and you can run an alt through that level range rather than doing everything from that level range on every character. Except if you are not paying anything and want to avoid running out of free, level-relevant content. Except your opinion does not matter if you are not paying anything, so pushing the free players through the free content faster is a good business decision. Out of alt slots, out of quests? Oh sorry, that is not a problem for subscribers, $$ button’s over there.

Logging on a level 30-something alt, she needed to farm 2.5 stacks of blackberry (master tier) seeds to get one level, and that is with rested xp. Given the leveling curve, this must be a significant amount at the F2P levels but virtually nothing near the level cap. Festival quests now give scaling xp, I’m told, which will also help F2P players level to paid content more quickly.

Turbine also added an xp disabler to the cash store (although not as a consumable as originally designed). Sure, you can stay in F2P levels all you like, but you’re paying for it. I have sympathy for the argument “this should be free for VIP players,” because there are several things in the cash shop that you would expect as part of your paid account rather than monetization monetization, but I’m also sympathetic to “if you think this game is worth playing for months, how about paying us for it?”

: Zubon

My sympathy for that argument does not extend as far as $70 expansion packs.

Holiday Shopping Public Service Announcement

The War Z has been pulled from Steam. It has politely been described as “a scam,” “blatant fraud,” and “the most shameless, amateurish cash grab I’ve ever played.” This last came from a friendly reviewer, and he has the best summary of the situation.

But the usual holiday Steam sale is going, as is Humble Indie Bundle 7, which includes Dungeon Defenders with all DLC, if you were curious about that. Steam already convinced me not to buy things anywhere below 50-75% off unless I want to play it today; Humble Bundles may push me further down that slope.

: Zubon

[GW2] Stages of RNG

I can’t believe ArenaNet made an untradeable set of miniatures in the Wintersday Mystery Boxes. It must be a mistake. There will be ways to get those account-bound miniatures another way. They wouldn’t have decided to restrict this collectible to straight up personal randomness.

I got burned so badly during The Lost Shores where I stupidly gave them $10 for a failed attempt at exotic miniatures. I used to be collecting all of the miniatures back when people didn’t understand the pyramid scheme that is miniature collecting. When those three ultra-rare karka miniatures hit, I just threw my hands up.

Okay, here’s another $10, ArenaNet. Let’s pick up a sack of Wintersday Mystery Boxes and hope they aren’t loaded with default coal (tonics). All I want is the Mini Festive Golem. I know I am going to take one across the face by the RNG, just like I did for Halloween and The Lost Shores. Maybe I will just get something worthwhile this time. I don’t even want the chase item. Just give me something cool, ArenaNet?

Foo. I got three Mini Snoman miniatures. They got forged into Foostivoo; stupid little quaggan staring at his feet is how I feel. People want this dumb miniature too, and I can’t do anything about that. I also can’t gamble anymore because Lionguard Lyns is down without comment. I guess I’ll just play some Wintersday content with this dumb beluga-thing following me around.

Even with this disappointing gamble, Wintersday is pretty fun, you know. I still get a kick out of the jumping puzzle even though I can one-shot it daily. The story of Tixx is also pretty good. Are the skritt being turned in to toys in the Infiniararium? There’s some Tyrian pest control there. I’m starting to like Foostivoo too. My little girls get a kick out of seeing the “blue frog with the silly hat” following me around. I crafted them an early Christmas present of an Endless Princess Doll Tonic, that I can’t wait to give them. I think ArenaNet definitely earned my $10. Excuse me, I have to go snipe some people in a snowball fight.

–Ravious

Org Charts Matter

I have been thinking about PopCap Games recently. In 2009, they made one of the best games ever, Plants vs. Zombies. They have had a couple of new titles since then, but Steam does not list any since EA acquired them in 2011. The new economic model seems to be exploiting existing properties in as many variations as possible, on as many platforms as possible, using as many monetization streams as possible. And a couple rounds of layoffs.

With 5 versions of Bejeweled, PopCap might not have been entirely averse to this structure, but I mostly hear about their games in my Facebook feed these days. The dumbed-down version of solitaire is surprisingly popular.

: Zubon

[GW2] Wintersday Flurries

In the downtime surrounding the stress of the passing of a loved one (who lived an awesome, long life), I did get to play a bit of Guild Wars 2 Wintersday event. Unfortunately in picking up the pieces and tearing up drafts of some of my more frustrating thoughts, all I have left are brief windswept flurries. Feel free to add your own too! Apologies; I meant to add that Bhagpuss and Jeromai already have very thorough posts up about Wintersday!

  • As a holiday event, Wintersday is amazing. I am just blown away with the magnitude of the event. It feels like there is something for everybody.
  • Snowball Mayhem is now my favorite Guild Wars PvP aside ever. It blows away Dragon Arena and Costume Brawl of old, which used to be my favorites. It sucks that the achievements tied to Snowball Mayhem are not fun, especially Gift Stopper. It’s a small dent in an otherwise beautiful game mode.
  • I am exhausted and puzzled at what the team behind the gem store are thinking. We go from souvenir miniatures (Halloween) to exotic tradable miniatures (The Lost Shore) to rare, untradable miniatures (Wintersday). Untradable RNG leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.
  • This puzzlement is compounded by taking down Lionguard Lyns and padding the RNG chests with so much crap! Who wants tonics? Seriously.
  • I love Bell Choir and the Wintersday themes. I hope that ArenaNet puts them up for people to download again like they did for Halloween. Some great holiday songs.
  • The difficulty of the jumping puzzle and the Tixx events are just spot on. The jumping puzzle is a tad hard, but definitely not impossible. The Tixx events are great for a 5-man solo/group instance. Could this lead in to something like Rift’s Instant Adventures?
  • I need to go check out WvW breakout events now. Cya!

–Ravious

 

Steaming along

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.

Continue reading Steaming along

…And Ye Shall Receive

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:

  1. Is any of the old AC2 team going to be on this project? A different set of developers yields a very different game. Granted, given the commercial success of the original, changes might not be a bad business idea.
  2. How do I go about reclaiming an Asheron’s Call account that has been lying fallow for perhaps a decade?

: Zubon
via Ethic via Massively

I Buy Bad* Games

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

[TSW] Barking at the wrong tree

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.