The new Stukov buffs look powerful, but it's still tempting to go for an infested-focused strategy. Buffed vehicles will still be nice when they are needed in brutal and in mutations.
Ugh. I know they like worker harassment and really want to encourage it, but I'm so tired of having miles of space behind every single base for air units to just hang out in.
On January 24 2017 13:44 opisska wrote: I wonder how many hundreds of megabytes i will have to download this time, only for my gameplay experience to stay almost exactly the same as before
Ever played dota2? you basically download 50-200 MB every day, sometimes twice and basically nothing changes.
On January 24 2017 23:58 dr3am_b3ing wrote: Did new season go live today on NA? Said the 25th, Blizz sometimes resets a day early though....want to grind when I get home
On January 24 2017 13:44 opisska wrote: I wonder how many hundreds of megabytes i will have to download this time, only for my gameplay experience to stay almost exactly the same as before
Ever played dota2? you basically download 50-200 MB every day, sometimes twice and basically nothing changes.
And your point is? That something is even more stupid is not an excuse to other stupidity.
My favorite part is however how I have to constantly update battle.net itself, even though I do not care about the app at all and it brings me absolutely zero benefits. The arrogance on Blizzard's side towards people with slow internet is endless.
On January 24 2017 13:44 opisska wrote: I wonder how many hundreds of megabytes i will have to download this time, only for my gameplay experience to stay almost exactly the same as before
Ever played dota2? you basically download 50-200 MB every day, sometimes twice and basically nothing changes.
And your point is? That something is even more stupid is not an excuse to other stupidity.
My favorite part is however how I have to constantly update battle.net itself, even though I do not care about the app at all and it brings me absolutely zero benefits. The arrogance on Blizzard's side towards people with slow internet is endless.
We are getting a little bit offtopic here, but want to give my 2cent on the bnet client. I used Teamspeak, then in parallel tried skype for some years, but recently my friends and me started using the bnet clients voice chat and the chatroom. Its pretty nice since you have all in one program and for my part i have to say none of us had any issues using it. It just worked perfectly (well this is just about 20 people so the statistics are not very good ;D). And you do not have to run another program besides the client that you use anyways. So i think blizzard provided something great that is totally underused.
Also if you compare it to any other game. They are all related to steam that you have to start in some way. And i think the bnet client is way more elegant than steam is. Of course this is subjective and everyone has its own opinion about this and i can undestand your hate towards the updates. But somehow you have to get the improvements to the user. And if the game updates or a client...
On January 25 2017 01:57 vik7 wrote: is a balance change happening soon as well?
Last week, David Kim was thinking about testing a change as soon as possible.
This week, he suggested the idea about applying the Liberator nerf to the live game as soon as next week since he doesn't think it should drastically affect other matchups besides TvP.
Why is dayvie still toying with an idea of buffing hydras? Maybe I'm biased, but hydras got buffed indirectly once again by nerfing liberators, and current pvz midgame is already a nightmare for protoss so what's the point?
On January 25 2017 04:16 prabuty wrote: Why is dayvie still toying with an idea of buffing hydras? Maybe I'm biased, but hydras got buffed indirectly once again by nerfing liberators, and current pvz midgame is already a nightmare for protoss so what's the point?
Because the current meta for every zerg matchup is Ling bane (Or mass roach zvz). You sprinkle in hydras in ZvP for anti air, but that's it. You get like 12.
Blizzard probably wants top open up some choices for zerg.
On January 25 2017 06:10 Cheesologist wrote: Looks like I'm not the only one getting a 4 second screen delay at the start of each game. Are they going to fix this anytime soon?
As far as I can tell everyone I've talked to is getting the same problem.
Goodbye Starcraft, playing a game the devs care so few about that the seasonal changes are bringing back old maps which don't even remotely fit the expansions meta.
After many seasons, I can honestly say that this is one awful map pool. And enough of these horrible free natural expansions. Can we go back to actual Starcraft?
On January 24 2017 13:44 opisska wrote: I wonder how many hundreds of megabytes i will have to download this time, only for my gameplay experience to stay almost exactly the same as before
Ever played dota2? you basically download 50-200 MB every day, sometimes twice and basically nothing changes.
And your point is? That something is even more stupid is not an excuse to other stupidity.
My favorite part is however how I have to constantly update battle.net itself, even though I do not care about the app at all and it brings me absolutely zero benefits. The arrogance on Blizzard's side towards people with slow internet is endless.
We are getting a little bit offtopic here, but want to give my 2cent on the bnet client. I used Teamspeak, then in parallel tried skype for some years, but recently my friends and me started using the bnet clients voice chat and the chatroom. Its pretty nice since you have all in one program and for my part i have to say none of us had any issues using it. It just worked perfectly (well this is just about 20 people so the statistics are not very good ;D). And you do not have to run another program besides the client that you use anyways. So i think blizzard provided something great that is totally underused.
Also if you compare it to any other game. They are all related to steam that you have to start in some way. And i think the bnet client is way more elegant than steam is. Of course this is subjective and everyone has its own opinion about this and i can undestand your hate towards the updates. But somehow you have to get the improvements to the user. And if the game updates or a client...
I completely agree with you here. My friends and I use B.Net chat almost exclusively now too.
Most games today that aren't Blizzard games must either update through Steam or something else like Origin, uPlay, etc. The gaming world has changed. You no longer go to a store and pick up your SNES Super Mario cartridge, or even a PS2 disc, and whatever is on that media is what you get. Games are now meant to constantly evolve, be patched, fix bugs, etc. People now expect this model and usually get mad at a developer when there is radio silence and no updates to their game.
So don't be mad at Blizzard that the industry is changed, or that you may live in an area with only poor ISPs. Be mad that the infrastructure in your community isn't up to snuff. There are many areas around the world where reliable fast internet isn't available, and that sucks when we live in 2017.
On January 25 2017 07:06 Cheesologist wrote: After many seasons, I can honestly say that this is one awful map pool. And enough of these horrible free natural expansions. Can we go back to actual Starcraft?
Well you need free naturals because your main mines out in roughly 3 minutes.
This map pool is so bad it's insulting. It's a middle finger. I can't see on most of the maps. Like playing in pitch dark. No go. And on the maps I can see... you have stuff like unwallable mains and maps that make you feel like you're battling a dude inside a closet.
Playing on Proxima is like staring into an abyss or a blackhole. Getting sucked into the darkness, expecting to be torn apart at any second. Next patch: give Toss units some flash lights or some miner hats with a light on it. As biased as this game is, probably couldn't even get that. Would be argued as too OP and game breaking.
ugh I hate to use this forum for this so please forgive ...
Has anyone use their Name Change and now have trouble logging in? Every time I try to log in, it asks me to change my name like normal - then won't let me login and asks me to play offline.
.. alternatively is anyone also just having plain old trouble logging on right now? Might it be that?
thank you.
edit: Fixed. Apparently if you use a name that is unacceptable, it doesn't give you any kind of relevant message, it just tells you that you cannot connect and to check your internet. Awesome.
On January 25 2017 09:29 TheFish7 wrote: Yay i love having to download 700mb of co-op missions so that I can mess around on the arcade for an hour..
Disk space is cheap these days. Internet is getting faster. Whining too much? If you say Blizzard didn't do enough, then you have a right to complain.
Is Blizzard paying you for this, or do you stick your head up their ass for free? Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes), but they haven't done that, because it would cost them money to develop and they prefer to shift those costs to the customers instead? Why on Earth do you feel the need to defend a corporation behaving in a selfish way?
The other argument "this is how it is done nowadays" is really one of the stupidest lines of thought in existence and it is the bane of today's society - people without the ability to form their own opinion on things accept the current state of a product and start vigorously defending it, because it makes them look smart, even though it is not better for anyone but the corporation that produces said product. The willingness of people to behave in this absurd way is the sole reason for the success of Apple and similar corporations who now say literal shit covered in sprinkles, yet they have a million-headed herd of marketeers that they don't even need to pay.
Man all the narrow chokes all over these maps. Reminds me of Red City. There are hardly any open spaces anywhere for a decent surround. The only one with any decent open space is Newkirk and maybe Honorgrounds.
On January 24 2017 19:58 FO-nTTaX wrote: I'm always sad when i see old maps make a comeback. So many new maps out there :x
Yep, I want the new maps so, so much more than maps I got burned out from playing in HotS.
Yeah and while we're at it, they could also at least rotate some maps for the previous expansions, as well. And implement automated tournaments for those.
On January 25 2017 09:29 TheFish7 wrote: Yay i love having to download 700mb of co-op missions so that I can mess around on the arcade for an hour..
Disk space is cheap these days. Internet is getting faster. Whining too much? If you say Blizzard didn't do enough, then you have a right to complain.
Is Blizzard paying you for this, or do you stick your head up their ass for free? Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes), but they haven't done that, because it would cost them money to develop and they prefer to shift those costs to the customers instead? Why on Earth do you feel the need to defend a corporation behaving in a selfish way?
The other argument "this is how it is done nowadays" is really one of the stupidest lines of thought in existence and it is the bane of today's society - people without the ability to form their own opinion on things accept the current state of a product and start vigorously defending it, because it makes them look smart, even though it is not better for anyone but the corporation that produces said product. The willingness of people to behave in this absurd way is the sole reason for the success of Apple and similar corporations who now say literal shit covered in sprinkles, yet they have a million-headed herd of marketeers that they don't even need to pay.
Well put, but this phenomenon unfortunately is kinda common among people, thinking critically is too demanding for lots of them, they just don't want things to be complicated. Kinda the same with 'business is business', an easy excuse for just being selfish and not wanting to care about morale or ethics.
The sad reality, however, is that this probably won't change, as long as there are no customer-oriented standards for gamers, corporations will always try to change things up a little for worse and trying to get away with it. Things like frequency of patches, small updates, micro transactions (fuck them), gambling (CS:GO *cough*), those things just shouldn't be a common thing, at all.
So yeah, not gonna buy anything, please let me opt out of those pesky updates. Thing is, if they want to have micro transactions in SC2 that badly, fuck you hard, I don't like it, but FFS then make mutiplayer F2P, at least.
On January 25 2017 15:37 opisska wrote: Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes)
That. It seems like they don't know how to make a differential patch at Blizzard. So they do 5 very small bugs fixes and some minor changes ( a few dozens/hundreds lines of code ), compile everything, and then you downloads every modified (agglomerated archive) file.
It's the most inefficient way ever. It's like bulldozing half an house and then rebuild it to modify the painting of a door. Even for a Beta it's considered bad, it's like pre-alpha stage practice...
The best part is, besides annoying lots of players with bad or average internet, Blizzard looses money doing this. They need way more bandwidth and servers resources than with the correct way to do it. It's not even complicated to do it. Everyone do it, from steam to Windows, Linux, etc. Free software do this, and do this very well.
So they annoy people, waste money, time and energy, for no reason at all (except pure incompetence ).
On January 25 2017 15:37 opisska wrote: Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes)
That. It seems like they don't know how to make a differential patch at Blizzard. So they do 5 very small bugs fixes and some minor changes ( a few dozens/hundreds lines of code ), compile everything, and then you downloads every modified (agglomerated archive) file.
It's the most inefficient way ever. It's like bulldozing half an house and then rebuild it to modify the painting of a door. Even for a Beta it's considered bad, it's like pre-alpha stage practice...
The best part is, besides annoying lots of players with bad or average internet, Blizzard looses money doing this. They need way more bandwidth and servers resources than with the correct way to do it. It's not even complicated to do it. Everyone do it, from steam to Windows, Linux, etc. Free software do this, and do this very well.
So they annoy people, waste money, time and energy, for no reason at all (except pure incompetence ).
"I can feel your anger. It makes you stronger, gives you focus."
On January 25 2017 09:29 TheFish7 wrote: Yay i love having to download 700mb of co-op missions so that I can mess around on the arcade for an hour..
Disk space is cheap these days. Internet is getting faster. Whining too much? If you say Blizzard didn't do enough, then you have a right to complain.
Is Blizzard paying you for this, or do you stick your head up their ass for free? Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes), but they haven't done that, because it would cost them money to develop and they prefer to shift those costs to the customers instead? Why on Earth do you feel the need to defend a corporation behaving in a selfish way?
The other argument "this is how it is done nowadays" is really one of the stupidest lines of thought in existence and it is the bane of today's society - people without the ability to form their own opinion on things accept the current state of a product and start vigorously defending it, because it makes them look smart, even though it is not better for anyone but the corporation that produces said product. The willingness of people to behave in this absurd way is the sole reason for the success of Apple and similar corporations who now say literal shit covered in sprinkles, yet they have a million-headed herd of marketeers that they don't even need to pay.
Well put, but this phenomenon unfortunately is kinda common among people, thinking critically is too demanding for lots of them, they just don't want things to be complicated. Kinda the same with 'business is business', an easy excuse for just being selfish and not wanting to care about morale or ethics.
The sad reality, however, is that this probably won't change, as long as there are no customer-oriented standards for gamers, corporations will always try to change things up a little for worse and trying to get away with it. Things like frequency of patches, small updates, micro transactions (fuck them), gambling (CS:GO *cough*), those things just shouldn't be a common thing, at all.
So yeah, not gonna buy anything, please let me opt out of those pesky updates. Thing is, if they want to have micro transactions in SC2 that badly, fuck you hard, I don't like it, but FFS then make mutiplayer F2P, at least.
"Support your 6+ year old game and update it frequently for free".
You know for all the grandstanding you do about "critical thinking" you haven't applied any of it to how game development works and why it is that games as old as Starcraft 2 are generally unsupported and completely dead by this point if they don't develop additional revenue streams to make continued development sustainable.
You are entitled to absolutely nothing beyond bug fixes after release. You paid for the game as it was when it launched, not the game + years of additional development time after it came out. You're not entitled to that content for free any more than you are entitled to the expansion packs for free.
But keep rattling on about critical thinking if it makes you feel better. I'm sure a lot of critical thinking was in action when you said in so many words "If you want to sell cosmetic content developed after release, then you have to make the biggest component of the game completely free!". Maybe this is another of these "alternative facts" I've been hearing so much about lately.
they changed the sound for when a CC finishes upgrading and marines look different in the production tab, besides all the changes to the post game thing
I find it weird this stuff isn't listed anywhere. unless I missed it.
This mappool is dragging protoss deeper into abyss. 360 degree dead space all over the main and natural (Proxima Station) Unreachable/invisible lib spots behind mineral lines (Cactus/Belshir) Tank/Libs pushes starting right in your base (Paladino Terminal) Enormous natural ramps (Newkirk) - for f*** sake am i dreaming or is this map still in the pool?!
Seriously, blizzard. Could you ******* please put a little more *****ng effort into this? How on earth did you came to a conclusion that Newkirk is worth staying for the next whole quarter while overgrowth is not? Where did that belshir idea came from?! (like seriously why not shakuras plateau?) Stop adding clones of dasan station to the pool. Noone ***ng wants and plays that. A bit more testing into blind lib spots please (how the hell do i take a third on cactus?!) (if you can't test units you design, at least test maps). God, this is disgusting.
At least: Replace Belshir/Paladino - These are just unplayble. Replace newkirk - it's just *** bad. Fix or replace Cactus.
The only decent map in the pool turns out to be abyssal reef, i can understand why terrans and zerg can hate it though (btw on low setting you can't even see the grid there, but w/e).
wow i mean i know TL is full of negative nerds posting after they rage but damn only negative comments so far maybe for this first time i might not play sc2.... i mean im sure ill try it but so far you guys make its seem awful.
On January 26 2017 17:44 starslayer wrote: wow i mean i know TL is full of negative nerds posting after they rage but damn only negative comments so far maybe for this first time i might not play sc2.... i mean im sure ill try it but so far you guys make its seem awful.
The people who enjoy it is playing the game, not posting in forums
On January 26 2017 17:44 starslayer wrote: wow i mean i know TL is full of negative nerds posting after they rage but damn only negative comments so far maybe for this first time i might not play sc2.... i mean im sure ill try it
Ye right, i always check out random boards in case random guys are negative towards something im about to do, then threaten them im not gonna do that. Makes perfect sense.
On January 26 2017 14:22 Vari wrote: they changed the sound for when a CC finishes upgrading and marines look different in the production tab, besides all the changes to the post game thing
I find it weird this stuff isn't listed anywhere. unless I missed it.
Can confirm. The War Pigs marine skin's portrait looks a bit different, and the OC upgrade now gives a different audio prompt ("Commander Center upgrade complete"?)
On January 25 2017 09:29 TheFish7 wrote: Yay i love having to download 700mb of co-op missions so that I can mess around on the arcade for an hour..
Disk space is cheap these days. Internet is getting faster. Whining too much? If you say Blizzard didn't do enough, then you have a right to complain.
Is Blizzard paying you for this, or do you stick your head up their ass for free? Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes), but they haven't done that, because it would cost them money to develop and they prefer to shift those costs to the customers instead? Why on Earth do you feel the need to defend a corporation behaving in a selfish way?
The other argument "this is how it is done nowadays" is really one of the stupidest lines of thought in existence and it is the bane of today's society - people without the ability to form their own opinion on things accept the current state of a product and start vigorously defending it, because it makes them look smart, even though it is not better for anyone but the corporation that produces said product. The willingness of people to behave in this absurd way is the sole reason for the success of Apple and similar corporations who now say literal shit covered in sprinkles, yet they have a million-headed herd of marketeers that they don't even need to pay.
Well put, but this phenomenon unfortunately is kinda common among people, thinking critically is too demanding for lots of them, they just don't want things to be complicated. Kinda the same with 'business is business', an easy excuse for just being selfish and not wanting to care about morale or ethics.
The sad reality, however, is that this probably won't change, as long as there are no customer-oriented standards for gamers, corporations will always try to change things up a little for worse and trying to get away with it. Things like frequency of patches, small updates, micro transactions (fuck them), gambling (CS:GO *cough*), those things just shouldn't be a common thing, at all.
So yeah, not gonna buy anything, please let me opt out of those pesky updates. Thing is, if they want to have micro transactions in SC2 that badly, fuck you hard, I don't like it, but FFS then make mutiplayer F2P, at least.
"Support your 6+ year old game and update it frequently for free".
You know for all the grandstanding you do about "critical thinking" you haven't applied any of it to how game development works and why it is that games as old as Starcraft 2 are generally unsupported and completely dead by this point if they don't develop additional revenue streams to make continued development sustainable.
You are entitled to absolutely nothing beyond bug fixes after release. You paid for the game as it was when it launched, not the game + years of additional development time after it came out. You're not entitled to that content for free any more than you are entitled to the expansion packs for free.
But keep rattling on about critical thinking if it makes you feel better. I'm sure a lot of critical thinking was in action when you said in so many words "If you want to sell cosmetic content developed after release, then you have to make the biggest component of the game completely free!". Maybe this is another of these "alternative facts" I've been hearing so much about lately.
Gosh TB, you're not the only person in the world who can come up with a thought or twice about how development in general works based on your experience, that point really let's you appear entitled all over again. I get you are heavily invested into the game and that's fine, but neither am I rambling about getting anything for free, nor do I think "making the biggest portion of the game free" is a bad idea after 6 years, since initial development costs have been very well covered, I think (sales of 3 expansions over the course of 6 years). But Blizzard really should decide which model they want for SC2, be it a full price (ok, not exactly full price) game with expansions or a f2p game with microtransactions - right now, it's both and that's just not good for customers, at all. They could therefore make multiplayer portion playable for everyone (just like Starter Edition) and let people only pay for said cosmetical stuff and the campaigns. I'm aware this idea is probably as old as the game itself, but that's just what I wanted to express - and I don't want to pay additional money for stuff I personally don't need in the game.
I feel like Blizzard is moving in the direction for F2P, but they don't have enough cosmetic content or a more robust progression system to unlock the content, at least not yet. With the development team freed from making any more campaigns or mini-campaigns at the moment, we could see more development for those cosmetics and possibly more progression elements.
On January 25 2017 09:29 TheFish7 wrote: Yay i love having to download 700mb of co-op missions so that I can mess around on the arcade for an hour..
Disk space is cheap these days. Internet is getting faster. Whining too much? If you say Blizzard didn't do enough, then you have a right to complain.
Is Blizzard paying you for this, or do you stick your head up their ass for free? Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes), but they haven't done that, because it would cost them money to develop and they prefer to shift those costs to the customers instead? Why on Earth do you feel the need to defend a corporation behaving in a selfish way?
The other argument "this is how it is done nowadays" is really one of the stupidest lines of thought in existence and it is the bane of today's society - people without the ability to form their own opinion on things accept the current state of a product and start vigorously defending it, because it makes them look smart, even though it is not better for anyone but the corporation that produces said product. The willingness of people to behave in this absurd way is the sole reason for the success of Apple and similar corporations who now say literal shit covered in sprinkles, yet they have a million-headed herd of marketeers that they don't even need to pay.
Well put, but this phenomenon unfortunately is kinda common among people, thinking critically is too demanding for lots of them, they just don't want things to be complicated. Kinda the same with 'business is business', an easy excuse for just being selfish and not wanting to care about morale or ethics.
The sad reality, however, is that this probably won't change, as long as there are no customer-oriented standards for gamers, corporations will always try to change things up a little for worse and trying to get away with it. Things like frequency of patches, small updates, micro transactions (fuck them), gambling (CS:GO *cough*), those things just shouldn't be a common thing, at all.
So yeah, not gonna buy anything, please let me opt out of those pesky updates. Thing is, if they want to have micro transactions in SC2 that badly, fuck you hard, I don't like it, but FFS then make mutiplayer F2P, at least.
"Support your 6+ year old game and update it frequently for free".
-dedicated SC2 ladder players were kinda forced to pay for (a game full price) expansions. Last one is 1.5 yo. Your friends and the pro scene move to the new expansion, so if you want to stay in touch with community you actually had to do it, even if this expansion doesn't appeal you at all. 3x60€ is not free AT ALL at a time when most of esport games are F2p. No wonders why 12yo boys play f2p games and not SC2.
-Ladder players don't need upgrades frequently. In fact upgrades frequently brings more bugs than (mostly useless) features for ladder players.
-Some people love campaign/co-op/etc. So it's not that stupid, now, to make them pay for it, and in exchange, get a free to play multiplayer game in order to improve the players base and save the game (some of theses new players will pay for campaigns etc. ). In two words, it could be a brilliant move, from a playerbase and money perspective.
-The unique thing ladder players need is good map pool (not to talk about good balance). SC2 force people to use bnet and blizzard mappool to ladder (no legal LAN, so no alternative client ), yet they produce terrible non-sense map pool most fo the time.
SC2 is a great game, witch we all love here, and the fact is Blizzard killed it by some very bad choices (horrible balance-design for years like bl/infestors and SH, no f2p multi, etc. ). So yeah it seems legit to use critical thinking, conservative "positive" auto-satisfactory thinking is what blizzard had done by the past, and it didn't works, to say the least.
On January 26 2017 17:44 starslayer wrote: wow i mean i know TL is full of negative nerds posting after they rage but damn only negative comments so far maybe for this first time i might not play sc2.... i mean im sure ill try it
Ye right, i always check out random boards in case random guys are negative towards something im about to do, then threaten them im not gonna do that. Makes perfect sense.
On January 25 2017 09:29 TheFish7 wrote: Yay i love having to download 700mb of co-op missions so that I can mess around on the arcade for an hour..
Disk space is cheap these days. Internet is getting faster. Whining too much? If you say Blizzard didn't do enough, then you have a right to complain.
Is Blizzard paying you for this, or do you stick your head up their ass for free? Do you realize that they could as well have made it so that you download only what you actually care about, or they could have made it much more data efficient (because honestly, the data volumes are absurd even for all the changes), but they haven't done that, because it would cost them money to develop and they prefer to shift those costs to the customers instead? Why on Earth do you feel the need to defend a corporation behaving in a selfish way?
The other argument "this is how it is done nowadays" is really one of the stupidest lines of thought in existence and it is the bane of today's society - people without the ability to form their own opinion on things accept the current state of a product and start vigorously defending it, because it makes them look smart, even though it is not better for anyone but the corporation that produces said product. The willingness of people to behave in this absurd way is the sole reason for the success of Apple and similar corporations who now say literal shit covered in sprinkles, yet they have a million-headed herd of marketeers that they don't even need to pay.
Well put, but this phenomenon unfortunately is kinda common among people, thinking critically is too demanding for lots of them, they just don't want things to be complicated. Kinda the same with 'business is business', an easy excuse for just being selfish and not wanting to care about morale or ethics.
The sad reality, however, is that this probably won't change, as long as there are no customer-oriented standards for gamers, corporations will always try to change things up a little for worse and trying to get away with it. Things like frequency of patches, small updates, micro transactions (fuck them), gambling (CS:GO *cough*), those things just shouldn't be a common thing, at all.
So yeah, not gonna buy anything, please let me opt out of those pesky updates. Thing is, if they want to have micro transactions in SC2 that badly, fuck you hard, I don't like it, but FFS then make mutiplayer F2P, at least.
"Support your 6+ year old game and update it frequently for free".
-dedicated SC2 ladder players were kinda forced to pay for (a game full price) expansions. Last one is 1.5 yo. Your friends and the pro scene move to the new expansion, so if you want to stay in touch with community you actually had to do it, even if this expansion doesn't appeal you at all. 3x60€ is not free AT ALL at a time when most of esport games are F2p. No wonders why 12yo boys play f2p games and not SC2.
-Ladder players don't need upgrades frequently. In fact upgrades frequently brings more bugs than (mostly useless) features for ladder players.
-Some people love campaign/co-op/etc. So it's not that stupid, now, to make them pay for it, and in exchange, get a free to play multiplayer game in order to improve the players base and save the game (some of theses new players will pay for campaigns etc. ). In two words, it could be a brilliant move, from a playerbase and money perspective.
-The unique thing ladder players need is good map pool (not to talk about good balance). SC2 force people to use bnet and blizzard mappool to ladder (no legal LAN, so no alternative client ), yet they produce terrible non-sense map pool most fo the time.
SC2 is a great game, witch we all love here, and the fact is Blizzard killed it by some very bad choices (horrible balance-design for years like bl/infestors and SH, no f2p multi, etc. ). So yeah it seems legit to use critical thinking, conservative "positive" auto-satisfactory thinking is what blizzard had done by the past, and it didn't works, to say the least.
What does any of this have to do with microtransactions being literally Hitler?
Gosh TB, you're not the only person in the world who can come up with a thought or twice about how development in general works based on your experience, that point really let's you appear entitled all over again
Entitled to what? Don't get all offended and then pretend your offense is a good substitute for facts and knowing what the hell you're talking about. It isn't.
I get you are heavily invested into the game and that's fine, but neither am I rambling about getting anything for free, nor do I think "making the biggest portion of the game free" is a bad idea after 6 years, since initial development costs have been very well covered, I think (sales of 3 expansions over the course of 6 years).
And your evidence of that is... where? Even if it were true, where do you think the millions of dollars a year in prize money, logistical tournament support, cost of staff and crew for events, flights, hotels etc. is coming from?
Do you have any examples at all of games this old that have this level of support and don't feature some form of DLC or micro-transaction options to fund that support? I'll wait.
But Blizzard really should decide which model they want for SC2, be it a full price (ok, not exactly full price) game with expansions or a f2p game with microtransactions
Why? Why should they do that? You are declaring arbitrary rules just based on your own personal preference and not the industry reality. Starcraft is hardly unique in offering cosmetic microtransactions in a full priced product. It took them 6 years to finally put that stuff in. Most multiplayer games include it from Day 1 now. If you wanted to stop that, you missed the train by about half a decade, sorry.
- right now, it's both and that's just not good for customers, at all
Why isn't it good for customers? Does being denied a Carbot portrait or Abathur announcer pack ruin the game for you? Does cosmetic content in any way affect your ability to play all the things you bought the game for? It doesn't does it? Your argument boils down to "it should be free because I want it to be free".There's no real standard to support your wishes or industry precedent. Starcraft is unusual solely because it took so long to put microtransactions in, instead of doing it right off the bat (which it should have done frankly and had planned to do with the paid mod store that never materialized).
. They could therefore make multiplayer portion playable for everyone (just like Starter Edition) and let people only pay for said cosmetical stuff and the campaigns. I'm aware this idea is probably as old as the game itself, but that's just what I wanted to express - and I don't want to pay additional money for stuff I personally don't need in the game.
Why did it take you this long to just admit that you just want free shit? You could have saved both of us a lot of time.
So I dunno where that critical thinking you said you had was but you obviously didn't apply it here either. All you did was stamp your feet and get mad at me for giving you a bit of a reality check. No I'm not the only person who can talk about game development but I do know a lot more about it than most non-developers, especially when it comes to SC2s development and maybe you should listen to me when I take the time to share that with you instead of getting mad at me.
That would be breaking with a Starcraft tradition though, forum-goers driving professionals away because they don't like being told that they know less than they think they do and we can't have that.
Gosh TB, you're not the only person in the world who can come up with a thought or twice about how development in general works based on your experience, that point really let's you appear entitled all over again
Entitled to what? Don't get all offended and then pretend your offense is a good substitute for facts and knowing what the hell you're talking about. It isn't.
I get you are heavily invested into the game and that's fine, but neither am I rambling about getting anything for free, nor do I think "making the biggest portion of the game free" is a bad idea after 6 years, since initial development costs have been very well covered, I think (sales of 3 expansions over the course of 6 years).
And your evidence of that is... where? Even if it were true, where do you think the millions of dollars a year in prize money, logistical tournament support, cost of staff and crew for events, flights, hotels etc. is coming from?
Do you have any examples at all of games this old that have this level of support and don't feature some form of DLC or micro-transaction options to fund that support? I'll wait.
But Blizzard really should decide which model they want for SC2, be it a full price (ok, not exactly full price) game with expansions or a f2p game with microtransactions
Why? Why should they do that? You are declaring arbitrary rules just based on your own personal preference and not the industry reality. Starcraft is hardly unique in offering cosmetic microtransactions in a full priced product. It took them 6 years to finally put that stuff in. Most multiplayer games include it from Day 1 now. If you wanted to stop that, you missed the train by about half a decade, sorry.
- right now, it's both and that's just not good for customers, at all
Why isn't it good for customers? Does being denied a Carbot portrait or Abathur announcer pack ruin the game for you? Does cosmetic content in any way affect your ability to play all the things you bought the game for? It doesn't does it? Your argument boils down to "it should be free because I want it to be free".There's no real standard to support your wishes or industry precedent. Starcraft is unusual solely because it took so long to put microtransactions in, instead of doing it right off the bat (which it should have done frankly and had planned to do with the paid mod store that never materialized).
. They could therefore make multiplayer portion playable for everyone (just like Starter Edition) and let people only pay for said cosmetical stuff and the campaigns. I'm aware this idea is probably as old as the game itself, but that's just what I wanted to express - and I don't want to pay additional money for stuff I personally don't need in the game.
Why did it take you this long to just admit that you just want free shit? You could have saved both of us a lot of time.
So I dunno where that critical thinking you said you had was but you obviously didn't apply it here either. All you did was stamp your feet and get mad at me for giving you a bit of a reality check. No I'm not the only person who can talk about game development but I do know a lot more about it than most non-developers, especially when it comes to SC2s development and maybe you should listen to me when I take the time to share that with you instead of getting mad at me.
That would be breaking with a Starcraft tradition though, forum-goers driving professionals away because they don't like being told that they know less than they think they do and we can't have that.
You simply don't get the point, but yeah, thanks for those insights, I'm a miserable human being which apparently can't have his own opinion about things - barely not even able to breathe without your holy guidance...
I'm not wanting free stuff, I bought the game (3 times) and just want to play it, not have multiple patches which don't improve the playing experience for me. We haven't even talked about War Chests, which might be an overall better approach to the topic.
And by the way, how is the industrie not establishing new standards by setting arbitrary rules in the first place?! And is paying much more for a game than a decade ago a good thing for customers? I don't think so.
this TB announcer pack makes for a fascinating litmus test. If another announcer pack with an SC2 personality is never done and Blizzard never adds other languages to TB's pack then it was probably a financial failure. OTOH, if we get 10 new announcer packs for all the top personalities including Blizzard paying for them to say their lines in other languages we'll know TB's announcer pack was a financial windfall.
On January 26 2017 19:21 Creager wrote: Gosh TB, you're not the only person in the world who can come up with a thought or twice about how development in general works based on your experience, that point really let's you appear entitled all over again. I get you are heavily invested into the game and that's fine, but neither am I rambling about getting anything for free, nor do I think "making the biggest portion of the game free" is a bad idea after 6 years, since initial development costs have been very well covered, I think (sales of 3 expansions over the course of 6 years). But Blizzard really should decide which model they want for SC2, be it a full price (ok, not exactly full price) game with expansions or a f2p game with microtransactions - right now, it's both and that's just not good for customers, at all. They could therefore make multiplayer portion playable for everyone (just like Starter Edition) and let people only pay for said cosmetical stuff and the campaigns. I'm aware this idea is probably as old as the game itself, but that's just what I wanted to express - and I don't want to pay additional money for stuff I personally don't need in the game.
Blizzard uses the initial base price of the boxed game to deter hacking. the hackers must buy the game again. they do the same thing with Overwatch. OW is boxed game with microtransactions. So is SC2. I'm happy with both games and i like Blizzard's approach to pricing and how they use price to deter hacking.
On January 26 2017 21:16 xongnox wrote: No wonders why 12yo boys play f2p games and not SC2.
12 yo boys get their giant army fighting fix playing Mobile Strike and Clash of Clans on their Smartphones. Those games are not as hackable as RTS games. Name 1 financially viable F2P RTS game. I've already highlighted why the entire genre is doomed to a slow decline into oblivion due to market forces and consumer taste changes far beyond Blizzard's control.
Of course, we could also claim Blizzard sucks balls because the 3/4 overhead perspective racing game genre died because ROck'n'Roll Racing killed it off. And, monthly subsciption MMO's are dying off... WoW destroyed it. Tellin' ya man... Blizzard just sucks.
On January 27 2017 20:00 Creager wrote: And by the way, how is the industrie not establishing new standards by setting arbitrary rules in the first place?! And is paying much more for a game than a decade ago a good thing for customers? I don't think so.
let's get really historical then for a greater perspective. Atari 2600 Pacman sold for $220 USD when you factor inflation. Space Invaders $240 and Asteroids $195. Every Mattel Intellivision game was $120.
if u love SC2 and have very little cash you do not have to spend much to enjoy the fundamental experience. if you love SC2 and have money to burn you can spend it in all kinds of ways and have all kinds of different fun with the game. Basically, this is a "pay whatever you can afford" model with the minimum box price to prevent hackers from easily rejoining.
On January 27 2017 22:30 JimmyJRaynor wrote: this TB announcer pack makes for a fascinating litmus test. If another announcer pack with an SC2 personality is never done and Blizzard never adds other languages to TB's pack then it was probably a financial failure. OTOH, if we get 10 new announcer packs for all the top personalities including Blizzard paying for them to say their lines in other languages we'll know TB's announcer pack was a financial windfall.
On January 26 2017 19:21 Creager wrote: Gosh TB, you're not the only person in the world who can come up with a thought or twice about how development in general works based on your experience, that point really let's you appear entitled all over again. I get you are heavily invested into the game and that's fine, but neither am I rambling about getting anything for free, nor do I think "making the biggest portion of the game free" is a bad idea after 6 years, since initial development costs have been very well covered, I think (sales of 3 expansions over the course of 6 years). But Blizzard really should decide which model they want for SC2, be it a full price (ok, not exactly full price) game with expansions or a f2p game with microtransactions - right now, it's both and that's just not good for customers, at all. They could therefore make multiplayer portion playable for everyone (just like Starter Edition) and let people only pay for said cosmetical stuff and the campaigns. I'm aware this idea is probably as old as the game itself, but that's just what I wanted to express - and I don't want to pay additional money for stuff I personally don't need in the game.
Blizzard uses the initial base price of the boxed game to deter hacking. the hackers must buy the game again. they do the same thing with Overwatch. OW is boxed game with microtransactions. So is SC2. I'm happy with both games and i like Blizzard's approach to pricing and how they use price to deter hacking.
On January 26 2017 21:16 xongnox wrote: No wonders why 12yo boys play f2p games and not SC2.
12 yo boys get their giant army fighting fix playing Mobile Strike and Clash of Clans on their Smartphones. Those games are not as hackable as RTS games. Name 1 financially viable F2P RTS game. I've already highlighted why the entire genre is doomed to a slow decline into oblivion due to market forces and consumer taste changes far beyond Blizzard's control.
Of course, we could also claim Blizzard sucks balls because the 3/4 overhead perspective racing game genre died because ROck'n'Roll Racing killed it off. And, monthly subsciption MMO's are dying off... WoW destroyed it. Tellin' ya man... Blizzard just sucks.
On January 27 2017 20:00 Creager wrote: And by the way, how is the industrie not establishing new standards by setting arbitrary rules in the first place?! And is paying much more for a game than a decade ago a good thing for customers? I don't think so.
let's get really historical then for a greater perspective. Atari 2600 Pacman sold for $220 USD when you factor inflation. Space Invaders $240 and Asteroids $195. Every Mattel Intellivision game was $120.
if u love SC2 and have very little cash you do not have to spend much to enjoy the fundamental experience. if you love SC2 and have money to burn you can spend it in all kinds of ways and have all kinds of different fun with the game. Basically, this is a "pay whatever you can afford" model with the minimum box price to prevent hackers from easily rejoining.
Ok, to be perfectly honest, I haven't considered this side of the argument, at all. Preventing hackers is a really interesting and good point.
I am really not sure why Creager decided to "agree with me" and then go in a completely different direction, even summoning the wrath of TB himself.
I insist that my original complaint is well founded. I have paid 150 euro for a game, which I quite often can't play, because Blizzard forces me to download shit I do not care about as you can't play online without patching and there is no LAN alternative. This is in my opinion inexcusable and if the customer protection standards in Europe weren't absurdly skewed in the case of software (that is, if the same standards applied to software than they apply to loads of other products) they could even be investigated by some customer protection agencies for this - selling me something and then preventing me from using it.
Yes, I am glad that Blizzard is supporting the game, in the form of bug fixes, gameplay/balance changes and e-sports support, but being glad doesn't bind me to being subservient. They are still a for-profit company, so I see their actions as primarily motivated by their gains and I am not happy that they have decided to reach said gains using my resources - in this case, my bandwidth. I am not saying they should stop producing patches, but they should invest into conservation of the bandwidth, because the data volumes are silly. At least there needs to be the possibility to opt out of anything that is not essential for ladder and have that downloaded only on demand.
But Creager's idea that paying for cosmetics in a game that costed money to buy is somehow essentially wrong, is exactly as absurd as the post I was replying to and Creager was "agreeing with me" - it's just based on Creager being used to getting shit for free. As long as Blizzard keeps the things that I have paid for available for me, why should I take issues with them offering other things for money? That is fucking insane!
On January 28 2017 01:42 opisska wrote: I am really not sure why Creager decided to "agree with me" and then go in a completely different direction, even summoning the wrath of TB himself.
I insist that my original complaint is well founded. I have paid 150 euro for a game, which I quite often can't play, because Blizzard forces me to download shit I do not care about as you can't play online without patching and there is no LAN alternative. This is in my opinion inexcusable and if the customer protection standards in Europe weren't absurdly skewed in the case of software (that is, if the same standards applied to software than they apply to loads of other products) they could even be investigated by some customer protection agencies for this - selling me something and then preventing me from using it.
Yes, I am glad that Blizzard is supporting the game, in the form of bug fixes, gameplay/balance changes and e-sports support, but being glad doesn't bind me to being subservient. They are still a for-profit company, so I see their actions as primarily motivated by their gains and I am not happy that they have decided to reach said gains using my resources - in this case, my bandwidth. I am not saying they should stop producing patches, but they should invest into conservation of the bandwidth, because the data volumes are silly. At least there needs to be the possibility to opt out of anything that is not essential for ladder and have that downloaded only on demand.
But Creager's idea that paying for cosmetics in a game that costed money to buy is somehow essentially wrong, is exactly as absurd as the post I was replying to and Creager was "agreeing with me" - it's just based on Creager being used to getting shit for free. As long as Blizzard keeps the things that I have paid for available for me, why should I take issues with them offering other things for money? That is fucking insane!
I'm super sorry, but I don't understand how releasing multiple patches is preventing you from playing the game at all.
Perhaps leave your computer running overnight? Or on a day when you go into the office? Your auto update will download while you aren't there, and you'll be able to play immediately.
I understand your complaint of, "I've paid money for this game 3x" - but that brings up another point: each of the ladders on each of the other games still exists. You purchased the new expansions / games to get the additional units and gameplay that came with them.
Sure, you can sit back and say, "Well everyone moved to the new version of the game, I had no choice but to buy the latest version" - and I would reply with no, while the vast majority of people moved, there are still populations on the old versions, and you're hardly required to buy a new version of a game if you aren't liking how frequently blizz is patching it.
I, for one, am generally fine with the overall prices for the game(s), and fine that there are extra little cosmetics that you can purchase to customize various things. I just hope that they don't become too jumbled and messy to make it difficult to tell exactly what units you're looking at / start to overload with little spinning doodads and nonsense on everything.
For me, I work long hours and have other obligations. If I am lucky, I get maybe 1 or 2 hours to play before bed. I am not going to leave my computer on while I'm not home or mark patch day on my calendar so I can plan ahead. So I try to log in, if it takes 20 minutes to download a patch, that's as much as 33% of my leisure time that's shot to hell.
It's really just a minor annoyance. But, the patches are getting larger and more frequent and as a result the annoyance is also getting larger and more frequent.
That's the only point I wanted to make. However, since we're having the wider discussion around the state of the industry , please remember that ActivisionBlizzard has annual income of nearly $900million (and rising). So I really don't get the arguments being put forth saying that we need to support game developers and stop demanding free stuff. I would be quite happy if they'd just stop making DLCs altogether and start working on warcraft 4.
Overwatch went over 25 million on January 26th. It is a long term success. The majority of D3's sales occurred after it was 9 months old. Nothing like WoW has existed in the industry before or since.
With Blizzard its definitely quality over quantity.
Long term product engagement is objective proof of quality.
On January 26 2017 19:21 Creager wrote: Gosh TB, you're not the only person in the world who can come up with a thought or twice about how development in general works based on your experience, that point really let's you appear entitled all over again. I get you are heavily invested into the game and that's fine, but neither am I rambling about getting anything for free, nor do I think "making the biggest portion of the game free" is a bad idea after 6 years, since initial development costs have been very well covered, I think (sales of 3 expansions over the course of 6 years). But Blizzard really should decide which model they want for SC2, be it a full price (ok, not exactly full price) game with expansions or a f2p game with microtransactions - right now, it's both and that's just not good for customers, at all. They could therefore make multiplayer portion playable for everyone (just like Starter Edition) and let people only pay for said cosmetical stuff and the campaigns. I'm aware this idea is probably as old as the game itself, but that's just what I wanted to express - and I don't want to pay additional money for stuff I personally don't need in the game.
Blizzard uses the initial base price of the boxed game to deter hacking. the hackers must buy the game again. they do the same thing with Overwatch. OW is boxed game with microtransactions. So is SC2. I'm happy with both games and i like Blizzard's approach to pricing and how they use price to deter hacking.
Well they would have to first effectively and frequently ban hackers to make this strategy works. I will not make publicity for suck maphackers, but well-know maphackers stayed in GM for consecutive months, even toping it. I think particularly of on dude being a well-know mapahcker for years in the 2v2 scene, then taking 1st GM spot.
In fact the small top ladder EU 2v2 scene got killed multiple times by a few maphackings teams (maphack in teamplay is auto-win if you are semi-decent). They played for months. For the most part they were never banned. Everyone reported them, it was public knowledge.
So while it's a nice theory in paper, i think in practice they don't even five a fuck, and do nearly nothing to combat it.
On January 26 2017 21:16 xongnox wrote: No wonders why 12yo boys play f2p games and not SC2.
12 yo boys get their giant army fighting fix playing Mobile Strike and Clash of Clans on their Smartphones. Those games are not as hackable as RTS games. Name 1 financially viable F2P RTS game. I've already highlighted why the entire genre is doomed to a slow decline into oblivion due to market forces and consumer taste changes far beyond Blizzard's control.
Of course, we could also claim Blizzard sucks balls because the 3/4 overhead perspective racing game genre died because ROck'n'Roll Racing killed it off. And, monthly subsciption MMO's are dying off... WoW destroyed it. Tellin' ya man... Blizzard just sucks.
-Well i heard of a lot of cheating issues in Clash of Clans ^^ -I read your theory about the genre declining, and while i knowledge there are fashions and technical evolutions, i'm not convicted at all concerning RTS. Doom is 25 yo and people still play FPS. From Clash of Clans to MOBA a lot of rts-like (degraded RTS imo) games are popular, and they are technically way easier than an RTS like SC2. You can do them all in a SC2 editor... -lots of 12yo boys play available free games for them, either on smartphone or on the old father's/brother laptop. Times have changed concerning pricing, we are not with the SNES and 90s PC anymore where only privileged children got a lots of games, and the potential public is way way wider. -I'm not whining for me (still prefer pack-pricing than pay-to-win bullshit for sure, etc. ) but i think SC2 could do way greater with a economic model change now (let's get realistic, 90% of the sales are done, at least ). Making only the ladder F2P and everything else priced (campaigns, co-op, skins, etc, etc ) for free players could be a very good way to make money and brings in more players. -Not the place to discuss it here but there are better and more effective way to combat cheating.
On January 26 2017 19:21 Creager wrote: Gosh TB, you're not the only person in the world who can come up with a thought or twice about how development in general works based on your experience, that point really let's you appear entitled all over again. I get you are heavily invested into the game and that's fine, but neither am I rambling about getting anything for free, nor do I think "making the biggest portion of the game free" is a bad idea after 6 years, since initial development costs have been very well covered, I think (sales of 3 expansions over the course of 6 years). But Blizzard really should decide which model they want for SC2, be it a full price (ok, not exactly full price) game with expansions or a f2p game with microtransactions - right now, it's both and that's just not good for customers, at all. They could therefore make multiplayer portion playable for everyone (just like Starter Edition) and let people only pay for said cosmetical stuff and the campaigns. I'm aware this idea is probably as old as the game itself, but that's just what I wanted to express - and I don't want to pay additional money for stuff I personally don't need in the game.
Blizzard uses the initial base price of the boxed game to deter hacking. the hackers must buy the game again. they do the same thing with Overwatch. OW is boxed game with microtransactions. So is SC2. I'm happy with both games and i like Blizzard's approach to pricing and how they use price to deter hacking.
Well they would have to first effectively and frequently ban hackers to make this strategy works. I will not make publicity for suck maphackers, but well-know maphackers stayed in GM for consecutive months, even toping it. I think particularly of on dude being a well-know mapahcker for years in the 2v2 scene, then taking 1st GM spot.
In fact the small top ladder EU 2v2 scene got killed multiple times by a few maphackings teams (maphack in teamplay is auto-win if you are semi-decent). They played for months. For the most part they were never banned. Everyone reported them, it was public knowledge.
So while it's a nice theory in paper, i think in practice they don't even give a fuck, and do nearly nothing to combat it.
On January 26 2017 21:16 xongnox wrote: No wonders why 12yo boys play f2p games and not SC2.
12 yo boys get their giant army fighting fix playing Mobile Strike and Clash of Clans on their Smartphones. Those games are not as hackable as RTS games. Name 1 financially viable F2P RTS game. I've already highlighted why the entire genre is doomed to a slow decline into oblivion due to market forces and consumer taste changes far beyond Blizzard's control.
Of course, we could also claim Blizzard sucks balls because the 3/4 overhead perspective racing game genre died because ROck'n'Roll Racing killed it off. And, monthly subsciption MMO's are dying off... WoW destroyed it. Tellin' ya man... Blizzard just sucks.
-Well i heard of a lot of cheating issues in Clash of Clans ^^ -I read your theory about the genre declining, and while i knowledge there are fashions and technical evolutions, i'm not convicted at all concerning RTS. Doom is 25 yo and people still play FPS. From Clash of Clans to MOBA a lot of rts-like (degraded RTS imo) games are popular, and they are technically way easier than an RTS like SC2. You can do them all in a SC2 editor... -lots of 12yo boys play available free games for them, either on smartphone or on the old father's/brother laptop. Times have changed concerning pricing, we are not with the SNES and 90s PC anymore where only privileged children got a lots of games, and the potential public is way way wider. -I'm not whining for me (still prefer pack-pricing than pay-to-win bullshit for sure, etc. ) but i think SC2 could do way greater with a economic model change now (let's get realistic, 90% of the sales are done, at least ). Making only the ladder F2P and everything else priced (campaigns, co-op, skins, etc, etc ) for free players could be a very good way to make money and brings in more players. -Not the place to discuss it here but there are better and more effective way to combat cheating.
Being that this is probably patch related, and not thread worthy, I'll leave this here.
Is anyone having some really strange latency since the patch? I am getting into 200 quite often and it seems to fluctuate wildly. I am in SoCal and have Fios and have had near perfect ping for years until this patch.
On January 29 2017 08:47 JimmyJRaynor wrote: name 1 financially viable F2P RTS. its easy to sit around and fire potshots. its another thing to create a workable revenue model.
Well without changing model, being realistic, given the very few amount of new players, they already sold 95+% of total probable copies. So from this perspective they have nearly nothing to loose and everything to win. Each Hearstone's new thing is probably more important for blizzard income than the future of SC2 sales with actual model. The F2P Hearstone, witch makes fucktons more of money than SC2, btw.
SC2 is the sole modern esport RTS for years now ( there is not another viable pay-the-box RTS neither, so we can not directly compare to anything ) But we can name a lot a viable F2P esport games. Even MOBAs are kinda a sub-rts genre. And F2P works in MOBA. (for some major titles, at least )
The only potentially intelligent reason to not make SC2 ladder f2p *now* is not actual money, but the fear of creating a precedent (then everyone will think next blizzard RTS game will be f2p from beginning )
On January 29 2017 08:47 JimmyJRaynor wrote: name 1 financially viable F2P RTS. its easy to sit around and fire potshots. its another thing to create a workable revenue model.
Well without changing model, being realistic, given the very few amount of new players, they already sold 95+% of total probable copies. So from this perspective they have nearly nothing to loose and everything to win. Each Hearstone's new thing is probably more important for blizzard income than the future of SC2 sales with actual model. The F2P Hearstone, witch makes fucktons more of money than SC2, btw.
SC2 is the sole modern esport RTS for years now ( there is not another viable pay-the-box RTS neither, so we can not directly compare to anything ) But we can name a lot a viable F2P esport games. Even MOBAs are kinda a sub-rts genre. And F2P works in MOBA. (for some major titles, at least )
The only potentially intelligent reason to not make SC2 ladder f2p *now* is not actual money, but the fear of creating a precedent (then everyone will think next blizzard RTS game will be f2p from beginning )
the initial boxed copy price of OW and SC2 is a deterrent to hackers
EPT![[image loading]](http://bnetcmsus-a.akamaihd.net/cms/blog_header/m6/M6TGXDIH89UV1484787016186.jpg)
