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On December 20 2014 04:33 Noro wrote:
What they should have done was implement Heroes of the Storm as a SC2 arcade game (with full blizzard support and patches of course). Just look at what the original Dota did for WC3.
<rant>
Oh. My. God. YES! That's such a cool point!
A fair chunk of people here seem to have the same opinion as yourself, in that the boat has already sailed for SC2. I'm currently on the fence with this one. I'm hopeful.. Maybe.. Just maybe the best years are still ahead? I do not feel however that you or anyone else is misguided in having that opinion. Though I too am loosing faith.
There's just such a lack of any sort of cohesive thought going into SC2. Look at how the 2015 season 1 maps are released, and 5 minutes later a bug preventing a proper wall in for Terran is found.. That's just fundamental simple shit to just get right straight off the bat. bliztards desire to promote their own maps over those the community have produced and voted on as best - I just don't get either.
The rant continues: Look at the arcade marathon currently running, this should be highlighted wherever bliztard can, is it mentioned in game? Wouldnt this be great if it was? Point people into other aspects of SC2? They were going to have the first part of the marathon on EU, but due to patching or christ knows what it's now on the US servers. Good forethought there fellas.
What happens when you search "starcraft 2" in google, you land on this page:
+ Show Spoiler +
Enough said.
Following the link to the main SC2 site, and the 12 hr arcade marathon is just an easily missed small scrolling banner near the top, stuffed in among other items. UGH. You aren't promoting yourself bliztard (or more precisely you are, just not SC2).
Let's go in game into SC2 now, any news happening?
+ Show Spoiler +
We've got one article on WCS 2015
Season 4 ladder map pool winners revealed
Season 3 championship week in WCS
Season 4 ladder map pool voting begins...
Community map spotlight: Moonlight madness
Does anyone ever update this? That's the best you can come up with bliztard? I see that and feel like you're trying to give the impression the games dead already.
Then I watch the oh so great latest carbot animation and feel guilty for having that opinion. But what choice are you giving me here bliztard?
+ Show Spoiler +
Lets wonder over to the DOTA2 way:
Look at the scroll bar, so much more info instantly right there.
+ Show Spoiler +
Calenders in game? So much more information here again. Everyone can see tournaments, guild events and so on. Effort has been put in.
+ Show Spoiler +
How about helping the noobs like me out? We have a whole section on the 100 odd heroes, another for items, another for builds.. It's helping people like me get into the game within the game itself.
+ Show Spoiler +
You are shooting yourself in the foot here bliztard. I just don't get it. Or I do.. You just wont put rescources into Starcraft 2 it seems, no unified direction or forethought.
</rant>
MEH.
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On December 16 2014 15:51 Liquid`Jinro wrote:Show nested quote +On December 16 2014 15:46 Musicus wrote:
Definitely an excellent read, it won't directly affect Blizzard's way of doing things, but it's good to show that we care. Can't remember when the last time was that something got upvoted that high on r/starcraft.
Sadly sc2 came out as a full prized game and people expect (rightfully so) a complete game, with every future content to be free. With LotV being standalone I don't think that will change, since only a free multiplayer would allow microtransactions. But I hope they will at least provide better rewards for playing/laddering even if we won't be able to spend money ingame. I don't really know why they couldn't do something like free multiplayer / pay for campaign. I guess the product is too far along for that, but in theory that sounds good to me.
They can charge for more money if they provide for a full product. The deal is "you have the campaign for some hours and then the option of multiplayer for many more hours."
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Canada16699 Posts
On December 20 2014 04:33 Noro wrote:
People are wrong in criticizing Blizzard for not being able to emulate and implement F2P/Microtransaction models. They simply don't want to for SC2. They know those models work because they're using them on games that they see actually having a monetary future. Blizzard can put out as many PR statements they want about how much they care about this game but really its just white noise. Actions speak louder than words, and what they're saying is SC2 is not worth the investment of resources because the market favours more simplistic/funsie games like HotS and Hearth Stone. Those are the games they will focus on now, regardless of their promises to continually "improve" SC2.
I don't think Blizzard is misleading us. They are attempting to improve SC2. However, Blizzard is doing so with a team size and budget that is commensurate with their profit expectations for an RTS game.
no one is dumping big dollars into a RTS games because there is no one thinks big money can be made as you've noted.
there are still low budget/small scale RTS games like Etherium, Grey Goo, and Rise of Nations Extended Edition coming out these days.
i think Destiny's suggestions, properly refined by Blizz, would result in a small increase in revenue and a small increase in playing time. Nothing is going to stop the over all trend away from RTS games though.
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On December 20 2014 05:38 fruity. wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2014 04:33 Noro wrote:
What they should have done was implement Heroes of the Storm as a SC2 arcade game (with full blizzard support and patches of course). Just look at what the original Dota did for WC3.
<rant>Oh. My. God. YES! That's such a cool point! Blizzard Dota, later Blizzard Allstars, now Heroes of the Storm was originally presented as an arcade map.
Now SC2 still has no market place so you cannot sell skins and heroes if it were an arcade map. If they had implemented the market place, the entire community would whine that
a) Blizzard rather invests in an interface to sell stuff than finally fix Protoss, Zerg or Terran (depending on the preferred race)
b) SC2 is officially dead.
Would you REALLY ask someone to install a 10 or 16 GB SC2 client just to be able to play Heroes of the Storm?
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On December 19 2014 08:17 Bastinian wrote:
Starcraft should be learning from Dota 2, in terms of microtransactions, that would keep game alive for much time! If Blizzard wants to make some money, they should add some things like skins and stuff to be bought in game. Everyone knows how attractive Collector Editions are...
Yeah they should introduce skins which makes it harder to recognize units ...
And I am sure just because one can show off how rich one is, that the casual players will suddenly accept to lose many games. Because the problem with SC2 is not that you have to invest much time but since it is 1v1, no teammate to blame the loss on, instead it is that the game is dead because you cannot purchase cosmetic ingame stuff for real money.
Jeez.
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Just because you wouldnt want skins doesnt mean others wouldnt too. Rich? A couple of quid or dollars? Rich? OK...
Personally I wouldnt mind being able to have a unique flag on my battle cruiser for example, or voice pack for my ghosts and other units. For a few quid? Maybe.
For the casual gamer this might matter more. Seems to be the case from reading the article.
Would it harm if you could have a different UI in game? How long would it take to set that up - No time considering how many of the community have custom UI skins for xsplit.
It's one option of many great ideas this thread is throwing up on potential ways the give sc2 more casual appeal (which is important in getting larger pro-level tournament exposure). Sure it might not work, or even be viable, but to dismiss it out of hand isn't what this is about.
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On December 19 2014 05:03 JokerAi wrote:
main problem with sc2 it is that casuals cant play this game becouse they must lrean to much befor they can win games.
It´s frustraiting to lose in sc2 you are working so hard and you need so long time to play better.
Archon mode and the other mode, "Commander", look like more fun to me when I try to bring casual players in.
Not "oh here this game which you don't plan to play for very long anyway offers skins for real money".
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On December 20 2014 06:06 fruity. wrote:
Just because you wouldnt want skins doesnt mean others wouldnt too. Rich? A couple of quid or dollars? Rich? OK...
Personally I wouldnt mind being able to have a unique flag on my battle cruiser for example, or voice pack for my ghosts and other units. For a few quid? Maybe. Getting the full content only when you pay after the initial purchase? Or making LotV a 'free to play' game which for the casual player I know sound a lot more like Farmville than Dota 2?
Or making multiplayer f2p but charge for the campaign? Which financially responsible person would devote years of development for a campaign if it just sells like normal DLC?
On December 20 2014 06:06 fruity. wrote:
For the casual gamer this might matter more. Seems to be the case from reading the article.
Would it harm if you could have a different UI in game? How long would it take to set that up - No time considering how many of the community have custom UI skins for xsplit.
It's one option of many great ideas this thread is throwing up on potential ways the give sc2 more casual appeal (which is important in getting larger pro-level tournament exposure). Sure it might not work, or even be viable, but to dismiss it out of hand isn't what this is about.
"How long would it take to set that up"
I work as a technical support guy with a company which develops software. Even small changes take a lot of time and testing. Even cosmetic changes costs a lot of manpower and time if you need to provide the quality of a commercial product.
Do you actually propose that Blizzard offers fan-quality UI skins for real money (even if the original Ul maker gets a fair share)? Do you assume, Blizzard is willing to overhaul all sold UI skins when they change the default interface (movement or resizign of buttons, ...)
"How long would it take to set that up" indeed.
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On December 20 2014 05:47 JimmyJRaynor wrote:Show nested quote +On December 20 2014 04:33 Noro wrote:
People are wrong in criticizing Blizzard for not being able to emulate and implement F2P/Microtransaction models. They simply don't want to for SC2. They know those models work because they're using them on games that they see actually having a monetary future. Blizzard can put out as many PR statements they want about how much they care about this game but really its just white noise. Actions speak louder than words, and what they're saying is SC2 is not worth the investment of resources because the market favours more simplistic/funsie games like HotS and Hearth Stone. Those are the games they will focus on now, regardless of their promises to continually "improve" SC2. I don't think Blizzard is misleading us. They are attempting to improve SC2. However, Blizzard is doing so with a team size and budget that is commensurate with their profit expectations for an RTS game. no one is dumping big dollars into a RTS games because there is no one thinks big money can be made as you've noted. there are still low budget/small scale RTS games like Etherium, Grey Goo, and Rise of Nations Extended Edition coming out these days. i think Destiny's suggestions, properly refined by Blizz, would result in a small increase in revenue and a small increase in playing time. Nothing is going to stop the over all trend away from RTS games though.
I think that Destiny's analysis is very good. However I doubt that his more specific suggestions would play out well.
I think, a casual-friendly but esports-viable RTS as f2p can work. If it is designed from the ground-up that way. SC2 is made like a classical full-price title.
In my opinion, SC2 is a bad game to play with your friends who have no (or just bronze-level) SC2 skills. Compare it with Quake: Even if someone wins with 20 frags, casual gamers will every now and then get a lucky shot and finish with lets say 4 frags.
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On December 20 2014 06:18 [F_]aths wrote:
Do you actually propose that Blizzard offers fan-quality UI skins for real money (even if the original Ul maker gets a fair share)? Do you assume, Blizzard is willing to take care of control element placements with all subsequent overhauls of their default interface?
They do that with maps. So why not with skins?
Sorry that's a tad sarcastic. I'm not looking to start an arguement here. I respect your posistion. As I hope you do mine.
My over riding point is that more could be done to get casuals to stick about in SC2. Ways to generate revenue which is then justification to keep the ball rolling and develop further, for either after market sales with skins, UI's, campaigns, bug fixing, balance, whatever.
As for the whole free to play model etc. That boat has sailed already, it's too late as we both know.
Is it harming for us to think up better ways things could be done? That's all Destiny's article is. He think's he has valid points, perhaps you and other don't. It's still relevant either way though.
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On December 20 2014 06:29 fruity. wrote:
My over riding point is that more could be done to get casuals to stick about in SC2. Ways to generate revenue which is then justification to keep the ball rolling and develop further, for either after market sales with skins, UI's, campaigns, bug fixing, balance, whatever.
Let me focus on this. I go one by one.
Skinks make the game harder to read. If you allow a player to configure the game to show only default models, if would defy the reasons to buy skins (to show off.)
I don't think you can generate revenue with UI skins in a game like SC2 because
- it does not add any features, you pay for something you don't even play with, just to interact with outside the actual game.
- if you change the default UI, you would need to check and change ALL other UIs. A lot of work.
How epic could a campaign be if you market it as DLC? Would you really be able to cast professional voice actors, compose and record orchestral musik, write, change, polish on the actual story, create new campaign-only models and so on?
If you let the players pay for bugfixes you just ripping them off. Same for balance.
I am not saying that any form of micropayment is automatically couterproductive. BUT you sold SC2 to the classic gamer, not to the f2p player. You would risk to disappoint many who have the first two parts.
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On December 20 2014 06:38 [F_]aths wrote:
Skins make the game harder to read. If you allow a player to configure the game to show only default models, if would defy the reasons to buy skins (to show off.)
No it wouldn't I could see them, it personalises my stuff.
I don't think you can generate revenue with UI skins in a game like SC2 because
- it does not add any features, you pay for something you don't even play with, just to interact with outside the actual game.
- if you change the default UI, you would need to check and change ALL other UIs. A lot of work.
OK. To be honest I think it would be hard too. Doesnt mean it's not viable though. If it's been looked at already by bliztard and dismissed as unviable. Wouldn it harm if they said that? A nice overlay in game, personally I like the idea of this. Time it would take to develop vs. possible revenue returns.. If it's unviable tell us so bliz.. Would that be THAT hard?
How epic could a campaign be if you market it as DLC? Would you really be able to cast professional voice actors, compose and record orchestral music, write, change, polish on the actual story, create new campaign-only models and so on?
Not so sure about this one, I see your point. People have redone the sc1 campaign in sc2 for example. If there's a will there's a way.
If you let the players pay for bugfixes you just ripping them off. Same for balance.
100% agree. But we don't see bliztard working to fix stuff anyway. This
I am not saying that any form of micropayment is automatically couterproductive. BUT you sold SC2 to the classic gamer, not to the f2p player. You would risk to disappoint many who have the first two parts.
F2P isn't an option for lotv (I said that). However I do feel that some sort of micro transaction could be bolted on to help justify continued development, to the callous pen pusher upstairs - who's only looking at numbers, it might make it justifiable.
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On December 20 2014 06:57 fruity. wrote:On December 20 2014 06:38 [F_]aths wrote:Skins make the game harder to read. If you allow a player to configure the game to show only default models, if would defy the reasons to buy skins (to show off.)No it wouldn't I could see them, it personalises my stuff. I don't think you can generate revenue with UI skins in a game like SC2 because
- it does not add any features, you pay for something you don't even play with, just to interact with outside the actual game.
- if you change the default UI, you would need to check and change ALL other UIs. A lot of work.OK. To be honest I think it would be hard too. Doesnt mean it's not viable though. If it's been looked at already by bliztard and dismissed as unviable. Wouldn it harm if they said that? A nice overlay in game, personally I like the idea of this. Time it would take to develop vs. possible revenue returns.. If it's unviable tell us so bliz.. Would that be THAT hard?
How epic could a campaign be if you market it as DLC? Would you really be able to cast professional voice actors, compose and record orchestral music, write, change, polish on the actual story, create new campaign-only models and so on?Not so sure about this one, I see your point. People have redone the sc1 campaign in sc2 for example. If there's a will there's a way.
If you let the players pay for bugfixes you just ripping them off. Same for balance.100% agree. But we don't see bliztard working to fix stuff anyway. ThisI am not saying that any form of micropayment is automatically couterproductive. BUT you sold SC2 to the classic gamer, not to the f2p player. You would risk to disappoint many who have the first two parts.F2P isn't an option for lotv (I said that). However I do feel that some sort of micro transaction could be bolted on to help justify continued development, to the callous pen pusher upstairs - who's only looking at numbers, it might make it justifiable.
Skins: Would you implement a system in which both players see different skins?
UI: What seems like only a little bit of work at the beginning, becomes a mess as the software and the UI develop further. I agree in the sense that Blizzard should improve both streaming and casting customization, including ingame-overlay support and other useful stuff, to make it easier for streamers to differentiate not only by play and commentary style.
To keep SC2 relevant, it relies quite heavily on user produced content, like streams, to provide an experience you can share and discuss with others.
The SC1 campaign fan project is no faithful reproduction of the actual SC1 campaign, it is also not really on par with WoL or HotS. The project was possible because some sacrificed a lot of time and no motive to earn money. If a player already lost interest in SC2, would he come back and pay for a SC1 campaign remake by Blizzard? Wouldn't you personally rather pay the full price on release and know you get all of the content, with no future money drain?
The huge list of SC2 (mostly interface) fixes shows that the SC2 development and QA department is not as resourceful as we might think. Adding even more people, working on other stuff, is maybe not feasible from Blizzard's perspective. All really broken things are fixed, we are left with some inconvenient and clumsy stuff. That does not mean Blizzard should only focus on the gameplay. Using the interface is an important part of the game experience. Many things in the current Bnet interface however are not intuitive at all.
If we think about payment in general. You have to consider different laws in different countries. You have to implement a system accepting a range of currencies. You have to implement actual age control. All things you do must be triple-checked and tested because you are handeling with real money now.
Remember how complicated the D3 auctionhouse was? It was cut later anyway, because it was not wanted from core D3 playerbase.
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This blog hits the nail on the head but reading this commentary you'd think that the SC2 posters here would rather the game just died?
These sentiments are echoed quite a bit throughout the thread:
We can't assume SC2 would be viable as a micro transaction game.
Nobody has qualified this statement beyond "sc2 is very dissimilar to other micro-transaction games". I'm sorry but how is CSGO any less dissimilar from dota2 or LoL?
People seem to bash microtransactions without realising that those pay-systems are currently keeping a huge number of relatively unpopular games floating (look on steam for free games and bask in the glory of a thousand bizarre titles).
FYI, D3 auction house was axed because it incentivised botting and compromised the game in a very significant manner. It would be foolish to extend that idea onto any conceivable implementation of micro-transactions on SC2.
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I think microtransaction is win/win all around. If they don't sell skins, then they're basically denying free money. I for one would buy a shitload of skins and especially if I know that it will be used to further support and improve the game.
And when the day SC2 becomes F2P, I really hope they enable LAN. That will be the day.
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I have been lurking for a while and reading a lot of comments and i simply do not understand those people who thinks that skins and voice packs are exclusively micro-transaction related.
Destiny even wrote himself that you could have more of this stuff unlock as you progressed in levels.
Right now we get portraits and rank badges when we should be getting skins and maybe a voice pack as the end all be all achievement for each race, and then on the side you could have additional skins and voice packs you could purchase if you really want something without working for it.
They had huge ambitions for the arcade and it just didnt pan out at all.
The problem i see is that the layout doesnt support playing with other people as much as its just supporting playing a certain map.
People wont try new maps but because so few people are playing them and the wait time is way too long which then in turn makes people not want to do it in the future which grows the problem. They should just have the classic bnet lobby in addition to the system they have in place atm.
What Destiny is talking about are ofc just a few of the things they should do, they should also just increase the damn skill cap of all the individual units by increasing player control like Suppy and Lalush have been preaching for years.
Blizzard are so worried about "you cant see the skill in those micro situations" Which is just bullshit because those are the very things that got us all so excited back in the day.
I was so excited when i found out about the moveshot and watching the pros be effecient with it in games.
If it is hard to notice skill you just have to tell the commentators to be vocal about those things because they are truly things that makes the gameplay experience that more engaging.
Right now the only truly skillful moments i see are when there are 3-4 drops going on at the same time but half the time the camera man never notices. Ironically THAT is in turn hard to see at times, or hard to catch rather.
If they increased general control in the game then the difference in skill would be much more noticable and cookie cutter methods and techniques would have a higher chance of being squashed against a better player even if they got blind countered in their builds.
Zerg has been suffering the most for this i feel. Not that zerg is harder to play than other races, but zerg is pretty much the only race to roll over dead when they face a deathball.
Blizzard is addressing this by giving zerg the roach evolve creature ravager thing, which does increase micro a little bit but its not really that skill related. I have been experimenting with it and all i can say is that its babbys first skillshot.
I am just not sure they are going about this the right way.
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On December 20 2014 08:13 [F_]aths wrote:
If we think about payment in general. You have to consider different laws in different countries. You have to implement a system accepting a range of currencies. You have to implement actual age control. All things you do must be triple-checked and tested because you are handeling with real money now.
Remember how complicated the D3 auctionhouse was? It was cut later anyway, because it was not wanted from core D3 playerbase.
Thats where you are wrong. They implemented D3 auction house perfectly. It was easy to use and the microtransactions on items was possible across all the major regions i believe.
Do you honestly think that blizzard wouldnt be able to do this when pretty much every other game does this? I mean seriously now.
Not only that they have it in heroes of the storm dude.
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On December 16 2014 15:46 Musicus wrote:
Definitely an excellent read, it won't directly affect Blizzard's way of doing things, but it's good to show that we care. Can't remember when the last time was that something got upvoted that high on r/starcraft.
Sadly sc2 came out as a full prized game and people expect (rightfully so) a complete game, with every future content to be free. With LotV being standalone I don't think that will change, since only a free multiplayer would allow microtransactions. But I hope they will at least provide better rewards for playing/laddering even if we won't be able to spend money ingame.
On December 16 2014 15:51 Liquid`Jinro wrote:
I don't really know why they couldn't do something like free multiplayer / pay for campaign. I guess the product is too far along for that, but in theory that sounds good to me.
I didnt read the whole thread so maybe this has been suggested before but what IF:
Blizzard just makes Starcraft 2 free to play completely and release LotV for free aswell and put in all the skins, microtransactions etc.
Customers who bought the full priced game and hots (like me) get some kind of premium membership, a skin package or sth similar which gives them some boni at the start for compensation.
Kinda similar to what failed mmos do.
But well Blizzard is a huge company and they have alot of experts so I cant imagine that they havent been considering something like that already. They don't want to. They're going to release LotV for 40 bucks, make some money out of it and leave it be.
Guess we have to face the truth: Blizzard has abandoned Starcraft and similar games and put more effort into their new, simpler games which are free to play from the start like Hearthstone, Heroes of the Storm and this new Battle Arena game.
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Sc2 is not fun at all.. Bnet 2.0 you feel lonley, the arcade system ist very static and boring, the games are very stressfull (larva inject, timewarp, creep spread etc), and the defense ist shit(too many damage from units). If your a casual u want to lean back, putting some defense feel save, dont click every seconds on the timewarp button etc., Bw was the better game, skill but more fun too, if you dont like 1v1 you play big game hunters or hunters FFA, very fun games. Hate this new style.
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East Gorteau22261 Posts
On December 20 2014 20:48 Schakal111 wrote:
Sc2 is not fun at all.. Bnet 2.0 you feel lonley, the arcade system ist very static and boring, the games are very stressfull (larva inject, timewarp, creep spread etc), and the defense ist shit(too many damage from units). If your a casual u want to lean back, putting some defense feel save, dont click every seconds on the timewarp button etc., Bw was the better game, skill but more fun too, if you dont like 1v1 you play big game hunters or hunters FFA, very fun games. Hate this new style.
It seems a little strange to say that when BW most certainly required more clicks to maintain baseline macro/production. Lets not fool ourselves by claiming BW wasn't stressful.
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