Free Isn’t Without Cost

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I mentioned previously that I was horribad at Planetside 2.  My death to kill ratio was atrocious and I put it up to lack of skill/understanding.  Truth be told, I’ve never played a game that offered zero hand holding and simply dropped you in the middle of a death match.  I am certain that someone has botted a new account creation scheme just to farm new arrivals.  And that brings me to this post’s topic, F2P and bots.

When SWTOR went F2P and decided to have zero entry to the door, they basically said to the botters “come on in”. Without restrictions, they could potentially farm entire zones, flood the market and all sorts of economic destruction without any real repercussions.  BioWare was smart enough to realize this and essentially paralyzed the non-payers with a huge wall.  Though, if they buy but a single item, they still get a lot of access – enough to cause serious damage.

Diablo 3 is rife with botters and this is due to the low cost of entry.  You can get D3 for 20$ or less.  Gold has an absolute floor of 1.25$ per million, meaning you need to sell 25 million gold to break even on the RMAH.  I can assure you that this is no challenge as most bots can make > 1 million per hour with little effort.  So let’s say you’re a botter and you want to make money.  Buy 50 accounts.  Farm for 2 weeks (14 days), 12 hours a day.  You’ve made 7000$.  I could go on about this particular point, but suffice to say that the RMAH is the cause of massive inflation in D3 and an overall failure from a gaming perspective.  From a business perspective, Blizz makes a cut on every gold sold… so you know.

Planetside 2 has zero barriers to entry and zero barriers to play.  Every purchase is a convenience purchase (to level faster) and there’s no actual trade in-game, so the economy can’t break.  What does happen however is that players can cheat the system with hacking tools: aimbots, speed boosters, etc…  SOE can ban the players but the players can just as easily come back for the same experience.  Blocking IPs doesn’t work, proxies fix that.  Blocking hacking techniques doesn’t work either, they just build better tools.  SOE has a massive problem here, where the concept of “equal footing” is a key marker for the value of the game.  If a player doesn’t feel they have a fair chance at winning, why play?  With no barrier to access, anyone can hack their way to the top.  Even if they get banned, they can do it again with no cost but time.

F2P with no barrier is a risk.  An open-world persistent PvP game with next to no penalty for cheating is a disaster waiting to happen.

Let’s Pretend

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We’re a week away, so let’s recap!

Let’s say you’re a really big developer with  solid fan base.  Let’s say you partner with a massive publisher.  Let’s say you have been using the largest IP in the world and have had tremendous success with it.  Let’s say you get tapped to make an MMO with that.  What do you do to try and find success?  Repeat it of course!

Repeat what worked in the single player game and throw in more players.  Repeat what the largest MMO has as well.  Don’t innovate, don’t provide any “out of box” thinking, just use what you know works.  Oh, and throw more money at it than some countries have GDP.  Hype it to heck and back.  Get massive pre-orders 6 months before launch.  Sell nearly 3 million copies.

Don’t forget to ignore beta feedback or all feedback for that matter than you don’t agree with.   Oh, don’t let players copy players to the test server either, and wipe after every patch so no one can test in live either.  Watch as that untested material, of which you had no experience developing previously nor had valuable feedback, turn away the playerbase in droves.  Watch after less than 6 months you have to consolidate over 90% of your assets due to player loss.  Blame the payment model.

Try a new payment model!  But wait, don’t forget you don’t have experience in that either and you need to generate cash to stay afloat, somewhere near the 500K subscription mark no less (which in F2P terms means having 5 million players at a generous 10:1 ratio).  Now, gouge players and penalize them so much that actually buying the content isn’t attractive at all and that a subscription is the only way to play the game you designed.  So, force the players to use the payment model you know doesn’t work.

Now, sit back and watch.  Wonder how the largest IP in the world, the largest publisher in the world, one of the largest developers in the world with the largest budget the genre has ever seen was able to fail in such a spectacular fashion.

I am so utterly baffled by this past year that I can’t even be disappointed.

Balance for the Sake of Balance

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Wildstar is on my map for future MMO.  It seems more focused on the action/adventure portion than the “mash 1-2-3” of current games.  I also like the art style, and if you’re going to spend dozens of hours staring at a screen, might as well like what you see too.

There’s only a bit of stuff on the site so far but one of the more interesting links is on balance.  Sure, you get the typical crud about trying to and actually achieving balance but some of the more interesting comments are:

Gazimoff: Glass cannons that are all glass and no cannon. If I’m playing a spellcaster, give me a Yamoto Cannon, not a Pea Shooter.
sirchatters: When the developers give up unique classes and just make everything fair/even. I prefer a few paths be bad than all the same.
qn2Quid: I get annoyed when special abilities are removed to create class balance, classes should be different and feel unique
jleithart: When I don’t understand why things are nerfed. patch notes should give an explanation for the reason I’m nerfed.
jkkennedytv: many players confuse 1v1 for game balance. Biggest frustration is for devs having to filter misinformation.
Gazimoff: Also: Buff Spellslingers.

This is why prefer Rift’s class balance efforts to WoW’s.  Rift knows that some builds are simply horribad and some are great.  It doesn’t focus on the details of the builds but more on the feeling of the builds.  WoW has all specs having to be withing 5% of each other, which is simply impossible to do when trying to balance raids, dungeons, single player, duels, arena and battlegrounds.  A mage should be a glass cannon.  Most games today make them a ranged tank.  Games either need to accept that balance isn’t possible at a high level or build their systems to ignore the need for balance (lower difficulty).

Wildstar is doing a few things right.

  1. The focus is on PvE first and PvP will fall in later.  Focus.
  2. Balance on fun skill vs number skills. This is a major problem I have with ToR.
  3. Due to the telegraphing mechanics of the game, CC really ins’t a factor.  AE attacks put markers on the ground, dodge them.  Active combat!
  4. Skills work on everyone.  In most games, (TOR especially) a bunch of skills don’t work on bosses for balance reasons.  They will work with diminishing returns but they will work from the start.

Planetside is Not For Me

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All this talk about Planetside 2 made me want to give it a shot.  As most have reported, the second to log into the game, you’re going to die.  You’re not going to understand any single mechanic (like the inability to get more ammo without another player), what the hell any of the icons mean, why enemies look the same as regular players, and how it is you’re exactly dying.  Emptying an entire clip into someone’s head and them not dying while you die in a single shot is annoying.  Snipers that can’t hit the broad side of a barn, annoying.  1 grenade for all your lives, unless you buy another, annoying.

There are so many core mechanics that baffle a non-hardcore FPS player, it’s surprising.  I’m sure I ended up with a 100: 1 death to kill ratio.

None of this says it’s bad, so much as clearly the game is designed for a particular niche and makes no compromises.  I gave it a shot, some people are going to love it, and those some people aren’t me.

When A Climax Is Not

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It took about 16 hours to finish Dishonored on a “low chaos” setting. If I recall, I only ever had to kill 1 enemy for a sub-quest and a bunch of spitting plants. Every single boss, including the last, has a non-lethal solution. Let’s get to that.

It’s no mass secret that Dishonored is about being betrayed. How often that happens is perhaps a secret but a poorly kept one after 10 minutes of play. You know the outline just not the details. And the details are good.

The final mission, or set really, test your ability to get around without being seen. Where the first missions had you jumping from roofs to avoid people, the last few have you running in the open with massive robots and teleporting ninjas all around. The second last zone is quite taxing.

The final zone has 4 enemies to avoid before the boss. Took a few tries but I got through.

When you reach the boss, you aren’t yet acknowledged so the door is open if you will. I shot sleeping darts, moved on up and opened a door to end the game.

I can tell you that after having subdued the first boss at the start of the game, pulled him across what seemed like 5 miles of corridor and branded his face, this last fight was perplexing.

But then I looked at it from a lore/story perspective, and lacking the want to spoil it, the ending made perfect sense.

It Is What It Is

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You know when you put your name in a hat for something and nearly a year later you get a call about it?  That feeling of “huh, I guess I was interested then“.  FireFall and Wildstar both piqued my interest about this time last year, when my SWTOR beta blues were hitting hard.  This week I got a pre-beta (what the heck is that if not an alpha?) for FireFall and decided to load it up.

Primer first.  FireFall is an FPS with PvE and PvP elements.  The RPG elements are skill unlocks and player customization.  The more skills you have, the better your loadouts.  You can also craft, but most of that is off-limits in the beta, as are the top-tier loadouts.  A few common classes, medic, engineer, tank, assault and sniper.  You can swap between them for little cost and the typical advantages/disadvantages apply.

Other than the actual beta-type issues (supremely interesting bugs), the core mechanics seem solid enough.  Shooting things to shoot more things makes sense.  The aiming portion feels solid.  The damage portion does not, but I think that’s a numbers game that beta will solve.  Skills make sense, cooldowns are long enough to provide meaning.  Movement is fluid, quests are indicated by checkpoint flags.  There’s plenty of random stuff happening on the map too, so there’s always something to do.

The hiccups for are as follows:

  • The game is based on group play.  Beta currently has few people.  This isn’t player driven content (like Planetside 2) but you still need players.
  • The variance between classes is significant.  Assaults/heavies deal much more damage than other types, way more than snipers.  Balance in any PvP game in terms of basic numbers is important.
  • Parallel to that, skill should play a larger factor.  I play most FPS games on the hardest level and get by well enough.  Standing and shooting has the same impact as moving and shooting, for the most part.  AI aiming/damage seems like it’s perpetually cheating.
  • I really don’t get how the game is monetized other than cosmetics.  Again, it’s beta, so a lot of stuff is going to change.  Still, I hope that cosmetics/convenience are the only things for sale.
  • Tutorials.  The game throws everything at you on the first mission.  All you unlock later on is more skills on the bar but 90% of the game is right there to start and they practically expect you to know it all.  I don’t mean combat, I mean crafting, loadouts, changing skills, using skills and all the town related items.  It took me 20 minutes to figure out how to load a 2nd skill.  My 2 year old was pressing random buttons and found the menu.
  • Self-healing.  There needs to be some type of self heal available at lower levels.  Being at 5% health with no healing options (or nearby players) is a drag.

The pluses!

  • Sound is great.  Sound is a stupid important part of an FPS.
  • The art style is cohesive and entertaining.  It reminds me a LOT of Borderlands, without the black outline.  Not only stylish but lowers the video card requirements
  • Integrated systems.  Everything seems linked in some fashion.  Spawns can trigger other spawns, some skills work best when combined with another one.
  • The skill progression is interesting, if somewhat confusing.  I like talent trees.  I like that your talent tree changes drastically when you change loadouts (classes) or armatures (sub-classes).
  • I like a challenge.  FireFall is a challenge.  The wall for skill for any player is high, very high.  I died about 20 times in the first hour.  I expect that to be slightly worse for the average player.
  • 3D matters.  If your enemy cannot shoot, then get to higher ground.  If they can, then use line of sight to your advantage.  This is smart.

There’s quite a lot of potential here.  Beta should be going on for another 6 months or more, but with no EXP resets, what you play/buy now will be there forever.  I think this will become the norm for F2P games, where the perpetual beta/slow rollout means that the server loads make sense.  No more day zeros of loading 100 servers then 2 months out, no one is left.

Sign up, give it a shot.

Edit: I wanted to point out that I found a bug on the main quest chain after you get your first upgrade that essentially stopped you from any progress whatsoever story-wise.  You can still level and explore, but the main quest is unavailable.  Hopefully it’s fixed by the time anyone tries it out.

Let’s Get This Straight

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When you exchange money for something and it’s understood by both parties that you are getting a specific item, that’s a purchase.

When you exchange money for a chance at something, that’s called gambling.

This proliferation of lockboxes that can only be opened by exchanging real money is gambling. I know the US prohibits online gambling as it’s the easiest way to launder money. I am astounded that companies that offer this feature, without an in-game option, haven’t yet been brought to court.

I’ve studied enough math to know that gambling is a tax on the mathematically inept. If you gamble TO make money, you’re delusional (or a prodigy and lucky). If you gamble as a passtime, with the same budget as others (say a round of golf), then that’s quite a bit different. Sadly, there are more in the first bucket than the second.

Little fact for you. The odds of winning that $500 million PowerBall were higher than getting killed by a vending machine trying to coax the chips out.

Games You Should Play

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We’re a couple days out of December and less than a month to Christmas (we need to find a more offensive name for it) and people are going to start making lists about top games and whatnot. Let’s fall into the pack shall we?

This list is going to include games released in 2012 and that I played. There are other games out there, such as Journey and Darksiders 2 that I found interesting from other people but never had the change to play. Without further delay, I give you:

Top games I recommend, based on play in 2012!

XCOM

Long have we awaited a return to form for the classic XCOM game. While it does remove a fair amount of strategic elements, the difficulty remains as does the attachment to the crew, which were mainstays of the first game. Play on Classic and Ironman to get the real feel.

Borderlands 2

Rarely does a FPS game hold my attention for any period of time. Put on RPG elements, a lottery style itemization structure and you have a hell of a hook. So much so that two F2P games are coming out to replicate it (Wildstar and Firefall). Great story, solid controls and lots of replay make for a great game.

Dishonored

Like the game itself, this one kind of snuck in there out of nowhere. Set in a dystopian past, this combination of Thief and Assassin’s Creed makes a strong contender for game of the year for major sites. I really like the pacing and exploration portions of the game, with some slight reservations around combat. Sound is really good, as it should be with any stealth game.

Legend of Grimrock

Back to old school dungeon romping. The simplicity of Grimrock is the real selling point. That you’re able to have an atmospheric experience, worried about what’s around the corner while trying to explore every nook and cranny, speaks volumes around the developers’ ability to get the core gameplay down solid. Considering this game is under 5$ now with most vendors, it’s a must buy.

FTL

Indie game that came out of nowhere really, and supplanted my want for Star Commander on the iOS. A space rogue-like game under a time clock is one thing. Being put into perpetual no-win scenarios and still going back for more punishment is another. Don’t let the simple interface and graphics fool you, this is a near perfect representation of what rogue-likes should be.

Torchlight 2

This is what Diablo 3 should have been.  Choices matter, progression is near infinite, the art style is cohesive and there’s no massive penalty for bad design.  Every single frustration I had with D3 I found solace in Torchlight 2’s arms.  For the price you pay for admission, you get a super solid balanced gameplay, enemies with interesting abilities and always, always have the feeling you can get through a tough spot.

Failure Is an Option

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I picked up Dishonored during the Steam sale this weekend and I’ve put a few hours into it.  Think a combination of Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed and Thief together.

Where in most stealth games there is but a single path, with perhaps a few options along with dozens of reloads, I find that Dishonored doesn’t follow that path.  You seem to always have ways to subdue enemies without killing them, even if they see you.  You have 2-5 different ways to get to your goal as well.  Heck, the goal isn’t even static as most quests give you a kill or don’t kill option depending on actions.

The difference is in the impact of the decisions.  Kill everyone and the world turns darker, with more rats and “zombie-like” enemies.  Play cleanly and the world gets brighter with less much around.  Combat isn’t easy by any means.  Some game have enemies queue up to kill you.  Dishonored sends 2 guys against you and odds are you’re going to die.  I like that mistakes aren’t instant death and that they are survivable but not so much so that I can simply walk around dancing and singing a tune.

From what I can tell, I’m about half-way through.  The mini-collection quests along the route (runes, charms, signs and paintings among others) make you hunt down odd passages and explore more than you would think otherwise.  If I were to ignore them and simply take the obvious route, I’d probably end up being a worse player with a more complicated experience.  It’s odd where a game is able to integrate this side-game without being a complete distraction (*cough*batman*cough*).

I’m having a lot of fun.  People should give this game a shot.  It hits all the right notes, has a good voice cast, interesting setting and smooth gameplay.  Happy hunting.