Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Sergius]

I'll be watching this.

WATCHING, I say.

[fenrif]

F2P is a customer-hostile buisness model aimed at designing the game around forcing people to spend money rahter than being fun.

What the frack are you talking about? How can a game force you to do anything? I think it's a much more customer-friendly business model than the traditional one, since you can try the game for free and you know what you're getting into and what you're paying for if you decide to pay anything at all. And in order to make you want to spend money, the game has to be designed to be fun in the first place. Apart from just giving the game away I can't think of a more customer-friendly model.

I didn't say they force you to. I said the game is designed around forcing you to, which is a huge difference. The vast majority of free to play games are designed with the mindset of "well people will basically have to play money to be competetive/have fun/complete the game." Obviously not all of them, but most of them. Take a game like Tribes: Ascend for example, which is an awesome game, and it is possible to unlock everything without spending money. But it'll take forever. Or you can just buy things... And for the most part everything you unlock is better than what you start with. This is basically how the buisness model works, and it's completely understandable from a buisness perspective (and isn't always bad, Tribes: Ascend certainly isn't absolutely terrible about it).
 
It's cool that you like F2P, I was just responding to you saying that the only reason people dislike F2P is because they think the people who play those games are inferior... Which simply isn't true.


Anyway, StarForge:

Just had a quick go of it then. It certainly needs some work, obviously only being in alpha. That building interface is a right pain for a start. Runs fine for me at 1080 resolution for what it's worth for those having trouble. Defintaly has a lot of potential and I'll be eagerly awaiting more updates, but I doub't I'll play this version again. The interface just makes building too much of a chore.

The physics based movement is great though. I don't know why more games don't do this.

[jocan2003]

Bit akward tho when running going uphill, your character *fall* on his knee, need works but if it end up like i think it will, great!

[alway]

Yeah, it seems looking at the trees is what's killing my FPS; looking away from the dense foresty bit puts my FPS back up to decent levels.

The physics based movement is janky as all hell, but I have to agree with you that it is really really cool. Particularly when a rocket lands near you and knocks you around.

[Aklyon]

"People will have to pay money to be competitive"
THat sounds much more like a P2W game than any F2P game I've bothered to stick with.

[fenrif]

"People will have to pay money to be competitive"
THat sounds much more like a P2W game than any F2P game I've bothered to stick with.

P2W is F2P done badly. It's still F2P though.

And hopefully they'll tweak the movement a bit. I found my guy getting stuck on himself or moving wierdly at times too, especially when I dug a cave out undeground. As I said, it's got great potential, but they'll need to work on it a bit. Especially if they want to make it a satisfying competetive shooter for that team based game mode. I found it far too much fun just throwing myself into those spinner turrets and watching them clip my legs and send me spinning into the air.

[Aklyon]

Its not all of F2P though, and as far as I've seen so far in the thread thats all thats been talked about except for Tribes.

[Sordid]

I didn't say they force you to. I said the game is designed around forcing you to, which is a huge difference. The vast majority of free to play games are designed with the mindset of "well people will basically have to play money to be competetive/have fun/complete the game." Obviously not all of them, but most of them.

Well yes, but "most of X is crap, therefore X sucks as a whole" could be used as an argument against absolutely everything. 90% of everything is crap, as the saying goes.

Take a game like Tribes: Ascend for example, which is an awesome game, and it is possible to unlock everything without spending money. But it'll take forever.

I see nothing wrong with that, as long as I'm having fun in the process. It's an online game, all online games are designed to be played for hundreds, if not thousands of hours. I'd actually be really disappointed if I could unlock things quickly. I find that having things to unlock is a very good motivation to play the game, even if I never intend to use them (such as the entire Soldier class, which is boring as hell). I know it's stupid and shallow, but it works for me. I play at least once a day to grab that First Win of the Day XP bonus. Often I then keep playing and have a ton of fun (both actual fun and DF Fun, because I suck). Would I do that if I had nothing to unlock? I'm not sure. It's almost as if having fun is a byproduct of hoarding XP. So yeah. Why should longevity be a flaw? I don't think it is.

And for the most part everything you unlock is better than what you start with.

Not really. There are one or two unlockable weapons that are widely considered slightly better than the default ones, but the vast majority of stuff that you can unlock with money is just sidegrades, not upgrades, and which one you like more comes down to personal preference and play style. Actual upgrades are relatively marginal and only purchasable with XP.
 

It's cool that you like F2P, I was just responding to you saying that the only reason people dislike F2P is because they think the people who play those games are inferior... Which simply isn't true.

I was only half-serious with that.

The physics based movement is great though. I don't know why more games don't do this.

I would guess the reason is that it sacrifices precision for immersion. Trying to stand in one specific spot is nearly impossible in this game, when you let go of the button the character takes one more step in an apparently random direction as he goes from walking animation to standing animation and he settles in a slightly different location than you intended. As I said earlier, this reminds me an awful lot of Trespasser, and that game combined a system that had this odd effect with a large number of idiotic jumping puzzles. Not a good combination, that.

Its not all of F2P though, and as far as I've seen so far in the thread thats all thats been talked about except for Tribes.

There was also a four page discussion about what a voxel is.

[alway]

Hey, that was only 1 page if you used the proper page length of 50 posts.

[Aklyon]

Hey, that was only 1 page if you used the proper page length of 50 posts.

Indeed it was.

[Sordid]

I did, but in my experience most people don't.

@alway: Also, I didn't notice your last post in that discussion. Quick response: Fair enough, I guess the terminology isn't entirely unambiguous. I was taught what I so vehemently defended. Looks like you know what you're talking about, so please forgive me if I was a bit too... intense in our exchange.

[Matz05]

Yeah, what people call voxel-based games are usually voxel PHYSICS grids with polygonal GRAPHICS meshes attached.

On the subject of this game, it looks completely awesome!

[fenrif]

Well yes, but "most of X is crap, therefore X sucks as a whole" could be used as an argument against absolutely everything. 90% of everything is crap, as the saying goes.

I see nothing wrong with that, as long as I'm having fun in the process. It's an online game, all online games are designed to be played for hundreds, if not thousands of hours. I'd actually be really disappointed if I could unlock things quickly. I find that having things to unlock is a very good motivation to play the game, even if I never intend to use them (such as the entire Soldier class, which is boring as hell). I know it's stupid and shallow, but it works for me. I play at least once a day to grab that First Win of the Day XP bonus. Often I then keep playing and have a ton of fun (both actual fun and DF Fun, because I suck). Would I do that if I had nothing to unlock? I'm not sure. It's almost as if having fun is a byproduct of hoarding XP. So yeah. Why should longevity be a flaw? I don't think it is.

Not really. There are one or two unlockable weapons that are widely considered slightly better than the default ones, but the vast majority of stuff that you can unlock with money is just sidegrades, not upgrades, and which one you like more comes down to personal preference and play style. Actual upgrades are relatively marginal and only purchasable with XP.

I was only half-serious with that.

I would guess the reason is that it sacrifices precision for immersion. Trying to stand in one specific spot is nearly impossible in this game, when you let go of the button the character takes one more step in an apparently random direction as he goes from walking animation to standing animation and he settles in a slightly different location than you intended. As I said earlier, this reminds me an awful lot of Trespasser, and that game combined a system that had this odd effect with a large number of idiotic jumping puzzles. Not a good combination, that.

Again, not really arguing against F2P per se. I can see why people like it, and I enjoy some F2P games myself. But multiplayer games existed for years without the need for constant unlocks. CounterStrike is still a hugely popular game and has none. Even with unlock the length of time it takes to unlock something isn't an exact science. It's largely a matter of taste, some people want lots of quick unlocks, some people want things that take hundreds of hours to unlock. With Tribes everything you unlock in the game can be bought for real money (classes, perks, weapons) The only thing you can't use real money for is upgrading things you allready have. And the sidegrade vs upgrade thing is debatable.

Basically making a F2P is a fine line between making sure your players want to give you money and making sure your players don't need to give you money. Hopefully Starforge will be able to strike a good balance. From what I've heard of their plans for their cash shop it sounds like they're on the right track.

I never noticed any movement problems in Tresspasser, but then again they were probobly far less noticable than every other physics problem that game had. Getting around the precision/immersion tradeoff shouldn't be too hard to do though. It doesn't seem like this game is designed around really precise footwork, and the ability to walljump off anything seems like it'd help with any general platforming that might crop up.

[SHAD0Wdump]

Anyone curious about their business model might gain some insight from this thread...

http://starforgeforums.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=65&sid=752f54aa1ec353e45277444d667ed868

[Rex_Nex]

I want that track that plays at the end of the video as hes falling