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On August 26 2020 20:06 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On August 26 2020 18:06 Gorsameth wrote:
monetization is not inherently bad.
PoE, the biggest ARPG currently could not exist without monetization, to stay relevant for many years a game needs to be kept 'fresh' and that takes development time and time = money.
Expansions only get you so far and in a long term run into issues with gaining new players requiring 'wasted' dev time on restructuring old content.
You can see it in D3, seasons are extremely lackluster compared to PoE because Blizzard cannot justify spending the dev time on making them interesting because there is no financial gains to be had.
If done correctly there is nothing wrong with some level of monetization and it will be beneficial long term. But then you get into this entire GaaS stuff which is stupid IMO. You don't need new content being added constantly for the game to be relevant - see how popular D2 is to this day even though it was last patched like 5 years ago and those are very minor patches without any new functionality really, the last big patch that changed the meta was like 17 years ago. Personally I like the expansions and games having a point when they're done. I don't need any more games that will require me to log in daily for years in fear of missing out on stuff or that get so much new stuff that if you quit it for a while and return you're just too overwhelmed (or pissed off because you now can't get some of the older stuff that was introduced while you were gone). Seriously, fuck that GaaS bulshit. If a game is good players will keep playing it no matter what. I'd also prefer the devs to deliver a complete game and move on to some new project instead of spending 20 years updating a single title. I don't mind buying expansions, cosmetics etc. but anything past that is just aggravating. Edit: In addition, I think this is awful for both the devs and the players. The company now puts priority on keeping the cash flowing and they know they can get away with the game being flawed at release since "they can patch it later".
Yeah. I want games, which i buy, and then have. Which i can play when i want, how i want. And which have 2-3 expansions, which i might also buy, but which are just DONE at some point. I don't want something that is trying to trick me into throwing infinite money into it.
Microtransactions suck, and games which try to get me to log in every day to stay on some skinner box treadmill are also annoying. I am honestly even pretty annoyed at the Paradox Games model of releasing a game, and then releasing 4 expansion packs a year for 5 years. That means that if i buy a game, and let it sit for 2 years, i no longer have a complete game. I know that they are adding stuff to the game, and the game i bought is still the same game, but it feels incomplete because there is a lot of additional stuff, and they usually link the new mechanics with those in the old game in a way that you notice the wholes where a mechanic you need to buy from a new expansion would be.
Just sell good games. Please.
As a sidenote, it took me a while to figure out what you meant with Gaas, and i was really wondering what Galliumarsenid had to do with anything (even though that would be GaAs)
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for me I really like the multiplayer aspect of ARPGs. Coop of course, and I wish that PvP was more developped too.
Difficulty is very important to me, especially that the endgame is more difficult than the early game, but also that there is difficulty and reward from the beginning.
Regarding monetization, I don't mind cosmetics being buyable but dislike "transmogrification" stuff (looks must make sense with gameplay etc). So for example, paying for some.. dyes or whatever, or maybe just some account portrait.. frames or something. It seems like you'd want many cosmetics to only be available in game too, like as a reward for some achievements and/or crafting etc. How about a small optional subscription instead, that gives you access to some minor benefits for its duration, cosmetic or functional with the interface like.. online armory or whatnot. I dont know.
As for constant patching to keep fresh, imo most important is that the endgame is broad and not narrow.. i don't think constant patching is necessary, unless it has to do mostly with maintenance? when the game reaches a really good and balanced state. Good additions are good.. but adding for the sake of adding I don't think that's good. Making things obsolete to make new things matter.. is what I don't like. Or overcomplicating systems that give the same result or even underperform (lot of knowledge, less possibilities). Constantly overpowering the previous content is concerning.
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Regarding monetization, I don't mind cosmetics being buyable but dislike "transmogrification" stuff (looks must make sense with gameplay etc). So for example, paying for some.. dyes or whatever, or maybe just some account portrait.. frames or something. It seems like you'd want many cosmetics to only be available in game too, like as a reward for some achievements and/or crafting etc. How about a small optional subscription instead, that gives you access to some minor benefits for its duration, cosmetic or functional with the interface like.. online armory or whatnot. I dont know.
Nah, not a fan of that. If you want to do free to play shit in your game, make your game free to play. Don't sell me a game, and then also try to sell me ingame stuff. I realised how disgusted i am by this shit when i played Everspace and was amazed that i could just FIND colours for my ship in the game world. At that point i realized that this isn't normal, and it isn't how stuff needs to be. The idea of selling a colour to use to customize something or a cosmetic in a game used to be utterly absurd. We used to laugh about the stupid horse DLC in Oblivion.
But somehow this utter bullshit got so normalized that we are now willing to accept it as a lesser evil. No. At this point i play almost exclusively indie games, because they usually don't try to pull this bullshit. They don't treat a game they just sold me as a platform to sell me shit in their game.
Make a good game, then sell me that game. Don't try to "monetize" the game you already sold to me even more. Don't cut parts of the game away for the whales. Don't try to turn the game into a "give us money"-simulator. Make cool stuff to reward players for playing the game, not for giving you money.
I find the way modern games try to milk their players disgusting, and it makes a game basically completely unattractive to me if stuff like this shit is in a game.
But i guess i am not the demographic games companies look for anyways. Because i just want to buy games, i don't want to keep shuffling money towards game companies.
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I agree with you honestly Simberto, these days I'm just looking at some things like private servers staff not always having enough incentive to organize things for free (which they can still do a great job at). Like, if they want to get rid of cheaters, botters, and also keep upgrading servers, while the large population of a game doesn't necessarily grow or decrease. This would cost a little money. It could just go through some donation or optional subscription kind of thing. Or, it could just be a voluntary based thing, recruiting among community/players. But I agree preferably any cosmetics should just be ingame stuff it's just better.
Maintaining servers and getting rid of cheaters comes to mind, both these are really important to the quality of a game and it does cost something. Again simple donations can most likely work, and voluntary stuff. Seems pretty ideal, but I don't mind donating or subcribing for it, optionally. Heck, just give me some fking chat emotes on bnet chat you know?? lol
(public chat of course)
so like, not free to play (buy game you get everything that's in game), and with optional subcription/donation for supporting these admin efforts basically
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I agree a lot with people's sentiments on microtransactions.
I have played games for a long time. I worked in games after college for a bit. This was a bit before the current state of games that require never ending amounts of money just to play the full game. It is a disgusting model to me.
The only game that I play that has microstransactions is Path of Exile (I will never play games that require subscriptions). I found this game during their open beta. I looked at their model and said...well, some stash tabs are kinda of paramount, but the rest is icing on the cake. I looked at those purchases as the upfront cost of the game. Over time I have given quite a bit more money to GGG, wholly by choice. Why? I saw the founders of the company actively reach out to the community, hold long live discussions about the future of the game, why certain design decsions were made, take their feedback in earnest. They don't hide the fact that they are indeed there to make money, but they are very unlike virtually every other gaming company on Earth.
Early on, I wanted to buy a friend an inexpensive MTX. This is actually against their terms of service, but I got ahold of them, asked if I could do this for my friend. They got it through after a few emails back and forth tracking down his account and whatnot.
About 6 months ago (Delerium maybe?) I had issues with my card going through. The first email I got back from customer service was one the fuckin founders!. Like wth? Who else does this? I could give a good number of other examples of this kind of thing from them. I will continue to support their company when I can. Sure, they basically have it made now. It is for damn good reason.
The fact that Blizz has hired somebody specifically for monetization makes me cringe. I don't expect much else from them any more. They have shown their colours in spades over the last several years. I won't give them a dime of my money any more until they show that they have a gd clue.
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On August 27 2020 03:54 Simberto wrote:
As a sidenote, it took me a while to figure out what you meant with Gaas, and i was really wondering what Galliumarsenid had to do with anything (even though that would be GaAs)
Hehe, I thought that Game as a Service is a well known term by now. I guess not 
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Yeah at this point gaming companies want you to spend money so they can make patches that fix their broken ass game because they released 6 month too early.
The whole GaaS thing is a shitshow and I have yet to see a game that fully delivers (Maybe Destiny 2 or Warframe, dunno have stopped playing both)
I do understand that developers need more money than back in the day cause costs have obviously gone up but game prices have gone down (Retail is still like 50$ but with all the Steam sales, Humble bundle, ...)
I don't mind cosmetics. I don't mind buying expansion with some worthwhile content (new classes, new story,...)
I hate DLC's like "get this new warhorse, it is super shiny and also a lot faster than any ingame mount"
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On August 27 2020 18:49 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2020 03:54 Simberto wrote:
As a sidenote, it took me a while to figure out what you meant with Gaas, and i was really wondering what Galliumarsenid had to do with anything (even though that would be GaAs)
Hehe, I thought that Game as a Service is a well known term by now. I guess not
Game as a Service is a term i recognize, i just didn't link it with the short GaaS
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"game as a service" always sounds terrible lul
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given that an online game has essentially always been a service, it is a bit awkward
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exactly the online features are a service, the game itself is yours to own and that's where they're trying to say you don't own the game we give you access to it, but that's not agreed^^ for example i think world of warcraft, i bought the game, if i wanna play it anywhere or make my own server i do it
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On August 28 2020 03:25 ProMeTheus112 wrote:
exactly the online features are a service, the game itself is yours to own and that's where they're trying to say you don't own the game we give you access to it, but that's not agreed^^ for example i think world of warcraft, i bought the game, if i wanna play it anywhere or make my own server i do it
Well, think of it like D3 or SC2 with the always online requirement etc. You're basically paying for the access to a service.
On August 28 2020 00:13 Simberto wrote:Show nested quote +On August 27 2020 18:49 Manit0u wrote:On August 27 2020 03:54 Simberto wrote:
As a sidenote, it took me a while to figure out what you meant with Gaas, and i was really wondering what Galliumarsenid had to do with anything (even though that would be GaAs)
Hehe, I thought that Game as a Service is a well known term by now. I guess not Game as a Service is a term i recognize, i just didn't link it with the short GaaS
I see PaaS (platform as a service) and SaaS (software as a service) a lot at work so I thought that GaaS would be a natural way to do it for games 
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On August 28 2020 05:43 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On August 28 2020 03:25 ProMeTheus112 wrote:
exactly the online features are a service, the game itself is yours to own and that's where they're trying to say you don't own the game we give you access to it, but that's not agreed^^ for example i think world of warcraft, i bought the game, if i wanna play it anywhere or make my own server i do it Well, think of it like D3 or SC2 with the always online requirement etc. You're basically paying for the access to a service.
One reason why i didn't continue playing i guess : P
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Well, think of it like D3 or SC2 with the always online requirement etc. You're basically paying for the access to a service.
I didn't play D3 until the expansion, and it did not keep my interest long at all. I did several HC playthroughs on low Torment from scratch, and only lost a character or two during endgame stuff of that time.
One of the main reasons was lack of modding. I did a lot with D2. Even learned enough that eventually helped with several patches of the Hell Unleashed mod by Soulmancer once he was done, and let the community continue to do so. (I think Duffbeer may have finally canned this? as the webpage has been down for some time now).
I made a lot of maps for Broodwar and for SC2 through Heart of the Swarm. I did not play LotV for a long time after release. I started again a bit at the end of last year, and picked up again a month or two ago. (I play mainly team games there). I have already kind lost interest in it again. I don't like the economy changes at all. I am basically used to it now, but I still don't like how it feels at virtually any stage of the game.
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On August 28 2020 16:37 kramvti wrote:Show nested quote + Well, think of it like D3 or SC2 with the always online requirement etc. You're basically paying for the access to a service. I didn't play D3 until the expansion, and it did not keep my interest long at all. I did several HC playthroughs on low Torment from scratch, and only lost a character or two during endgame stuff of that time.
D3 is simply boring. Builds and itemization are screwed up in it, they're just too shallow. The fact that entire game from certain point becomes just mindless rift speed clears doesn't help it either.
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Pretty much. I didn't play the original of it because I was so turned off by their design decisions as well.
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both D3 and SC2 don't compare well with their predecessors at all to me so I'd rather play D2 and BW anytime, or also as far as RTS go Aoe2 or War3
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And that's the saddest part really. D3 could potentially be really big (much, much bigger than what it was and is) but they really messed it up. All they had to do was to stick to the tried and true formula of D1 and D2, there was absolutely no need to change the game so drastically. Then there were all the blunders with always online requirement but servers being down (my friend who pre-ordered it was so pissed when he could install the game early but couldn't play it for several weeks), the entire RMAH debacle etc.
I know that maybe they've decided to change the game completely because they've lost the source code and assets for D2 but even if you have to make a new game from scratch it would be far easier if you could lean on an existing product instead of going in a completely new direction (which nobody wanted). I mean, you have formulas and everything publicly available on the Internet. There's a gazillion reviews, articles, guides and gameplay videos - why not use all of that as feedback so you can take what was great and improve on it. Like, take the D2 to the next level, make all mercs viable, remove stamina, bolts and arrows (streamline it a bit), give people stash that's shared between all chars, fix/remove some of the most obnoxious items/runewords (I'm looking at you reaper's toll, nigma and botd). Then you can just focus on writing a good story and maybe some new classes or giving old classes a new spin. People would be all over that shit.
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and i would add make a broad endgame that's harder than the other parts of the game even when you're highly geared, broad choice of best gear and skill and stat builds and develop pvp more both access(/reward?) balance and depth, theres lot to list tbh, let players make builds that use a lot of skills also not just a low limit make it hard to master; improve monster AI to make them more difficult to escape from but less one shots, game difficulty good from the start without OP builds that make rushing to the end easy with little opportunity cost
[oh and anti cheat is needed please, game masters who can locate and handle cheaters banning them and keeping it all legit]
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On August 29 2020 04:30 Manit0u wrote:
And that's the saddest part really. D3 could potentially be really big (much, much bigger than what it was and is) but they really messed it up. All they had to do was to stick to the tried and true formula of D1 and D2, there was absolutely no need to change the game so drastically. Then there were all the blunders with always online requirement but servers being down (my friend who pre-ordered it was so pissed when he could install the game early but couldn't play it for several weeks), the entire RMAH debacle etc.
I know that maybe they've decided to change the game completely because they've lost the source code and assets for D2 but even if you have to make a new game from scratch it would be far easier if you could lean on an existing product instead of going in a completely new direction (which nobody wanted). I mean, you have formulas and everything publicly available on the Internet. There's a gazillion reviews, articles, guides and gameplay videos - why not use all of that as feedback so you can take what was great and improve on it. Like, take the D2 to the next level, make all mercs viable, remove stamina, bolts and arrows (streamline it a bit), give people stash that's shared between all chars, fix/remove some of the most obnoxious items/runewords (I'm looking at you reaper's toll, nigma and botd). Then you can just focus on writing a good story and maybe some new classes or giving old classes a new spin. People would be all over that shit.
To be fair, D2 was very different from D1. I am fine with the fact that Blizz has taken risk by making something new. However, they definitively stated they aimed to make it approachable by the masses. This is one of the nails in the coffin of any individualistic efforts that set it apart from everything else.
Even though they may have lost the orignial resources, most of this has been redone (some folks at the Phrozen Keep have basically rewritten the whole damn thing, mods like Hell Unleashed had folks that figured out most of the hexedited stuff including their command words and the like, etc etc). It is simply laziness and deflection if Blizz is actually using this line, but I can't say that I am surprised when the makers of D3 seemingly had no bloody clue how D2 was even being played since 1.10 at minimun.
Also, look at the aims of 1.10 in the first place. I think it was Peter Hu that actively came to the modding community and asked what they wanted soft coded most. It made a massive difference in what could be done. Almost every single mod of worth is based on 1.10.
And since when was Reaper's Toll seem as OP? I made a fury wolf with one back in the day. I was often asked on that character wtf was I using. I showed them that, and upgraded Duriel's Curaiss, one of the druid helm's, rare dual leech rings, and a +2 druid skill, dual leech crafted amulet(with a lvl 95 requirement). They said ya, right, now show what you are actually using...this isn't hyperbolic. Note that I used Heart of the Wolverine rathat than Oak Sage as Well
I do agree that perma decrepify is very very strong, but the attack speed is pretty slow compared to other things you can use. I also made one with (oh hell what was the one that gave free holy freeze aura?). It was as good as Reaper's in most cases, better against regular trash mobs, but lacked a bit when it came to tough dual immune rares.
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EPT
