Better to launch a polished game with less content but without "Early Access" tag, cause it will turn people away after so many early access indie games have fucked up. And then make a regular content updates, even is they're small. Small frequent updates is much better than a big update once in a year. Early access thing has a very bad reputation nowadays.
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Silv3r Shadow
I believe Grummz has mentioned that at certain fund points in the milestones that are going to be used for the early game build, there will probably be the incentive that you'll get the launched game. As for DLC's it really depends on the content added. If someone's worried about the DLC, then wait until peeps post vids/reviews/etc before buying it.
Test 2 Play (ie starter area with advancement only to a certain point) may not be too terrible. Also, Test or Free 2 Play only from Monday - Wednesday may not be too terrible either.
Edit: The key is to also aid in keeping out gold farming and such. I don't think T2P or F2P should have access to the player market(s).
Test 2 Play (ie starter area with advancement only to a certain point) may not be too terrible. Also, Test or Free 2 Play only from Monday - Wednesday may not be too terrible either.
Edit: The key is to also aid in keeping out gold farming and such. I don't think T2P or F2P should have access to the player market(s).
F2P came about BECAUSE players wanted a good way to try a game before buying it; demos, even in digital form and especially in physical form, are a serious expense for very questionable financial gain. In a way, F2P has been successful in that specific regard; virtually every F2P game allows enough gameplay for free that a player can be fairly certain whether they like the game enough to keep playing and/or pay for things.
Unfortunately, I think it's gone too far in some ways, going from a "try it, then buy if you like" to "pay, or get stomped and feel like a second-class citizen in the slums, you filthy freemie." "Free to play" has become "free to lose." The divisiveness of many F2P games that feature "pay to win" models has only segregated the playerbase and formed the "whales" we always hear about--you're either the fatcat throwing hundreds or thousands of dollars in and basically coasting to victory and progression, or you're not really playing and deserve to lose for weeks or months until you hopefully grind your way out of the gutter. It's an impromptu caste system, and it's toxic. It's clear devs want you to pay by the way you're basically shunned and shamed for not doing so. It's bad form and it kills games, not to mention reputations.
Games definitely need to start looking to evolve their business models in the hope of solving this segregation problem before free to play models disappear completely.
Unfortunately, I think it's gone too far in some ways, going from a "try it, then buy if you like" to "pay, or get stomped and feel like a second-class citizen in the slums, you filthy freemie." "Free to play" has become "free to lose." The divisiveness of many F2P games that feature "pay to win" models has only segregated the playerbase and formed the "whales" we always hear about--you're either the fatcat throwing hundreds or thousands of dollars in and basically coasting to victory and progression, or you're not really playing and deserve to lose for weeks or months until you hopefully grind your way out of the gutter. It's an impromptu caste system, and it's toxic. It's clear devs want you to pay by the way you're basically shunned and shamed for not doing so. It's bad form and it kills games, not to mention reputations.
Games definitely need to start looking to evolve their business models in the hope of solving this segregation problem before free to play models disappear completely.
The primary issue with F2P is that the devs have to eat, need transportation, a roof over their head, an office (typically), etc. Cosmetics aren't going to get that done on their own. They are time consuming to create and thus expensive and therefore they have to be expensive for peeps to purchase which can keep some from buying them as much as the price tag for a game does. Soooo...the only way to really get along is to place/make things in the game that you have to pay for so you can get out of the annoyance of that place/thing. For example, movement on foot only unless you buy a mount/vehicle, slow as hell craft and/or research times unless you pay to complete them instantly, pay for gear that's better than crafted gear (P2W), etc. Now if you can get the community to build cosmetics/content the company can save time and money. I do like Warframe in that you can buy color palettes. That was a brilliant move as you only have to package whatever colors per pallet and pick a price point that hopefully is adequate.
The game will cost at the high end of Indie games. Looking at most indie games that seems to be in the $30 range, plus or minus. There will not be a subscription fee. The cash shop is for cosmetics and utility (name change, etc.). We will sell mini-expansions to keep content coming.
If you are a player who needs a game they can play without every paying anything, anytime, we can't, as an Indie afford to do that. Our audience just won't be big enough for enough paying players to subsidize completely free players and cover the costs of servers and bandwidth. Well, that's not completely true, we could do this, but we'd end up having to monetize critical parts of gameplay and introduce deliberate "inconveniences" into the design to make more people pay so you can play absolutely free.
If you are the type of player who likes to try a game for free and then decide to support it through cash shop, etc., then I'm sure we will do things like Steam free weekends where you can try the game for free.
If you are a player who needs a game they can play without every paying anything, anytime, we can't, as an Indie afford to do that. Our audience just won't be big enough for enough paying players to subsidize completely free players and cover the costs of servers and bandwidth. Well, that's not completely true, we could do this, but we'd end up having to monetize critical parts of gameplay and introduce deliberate "inconveniences" into the design to make more people pay so you can play absolutely free.
If you are the type of player who likes to try a game for free and then decide to support it through cash shop, etc., then I'm sure we will do things like Steam free weekends where you can try the game for free.
Mabye you could think about a 'demo'.
Everyone can download the game and the first x hours is free..
Those x hours could be real time, thus they count when you dont play or they can be game time.
After the x hours ppl will have to pay x amount to purchase whole game.
This way ppl can try out the game and get possibly get hooked on it and more important can experience how te game runs. Preventing a massive flood of "omgoorzzz why this game is brokeb?" Or "wtfhax this game wont run on my ultra cool 2002 rig!!!"
Everyone can download the game and the first x hours is free..
Those x hours could be real time, thus they count when you dont play or they can be game time.
After the x hours ppl will have to pay x amount to purchase whole game.
This way ppl can try out the game and get possibly get hooked on it and more important can experience how te game runs. Preventing a massive flood of "omgoorzzz why this game is brokeb?" Or "wtfhax this game wont run on my ultra cool 2002 rig!!!"
Free Steam weekends have proven more effective to replace a free demo. Massively more effective. Demos just aren't as effective anymore. Free weekends get heavily promoted on Steam, and the limited timeframe means a huge wave of new players each time.
The industry and markets have just moved on from demos, practically speaking.
The industry and markets have just moved on from demos, practically speaking.
what about dlcs? crowdfunding after release is fine but as far as i'm concerned dlcs are a deal breaker in this case, i can get over even pulling a no man's sky on release price but selling exclusive content later on is a big NO NO as far as i'm concerned, after evolve and star citzen i will never ever even consider putting money in a game with dlcs (talking about content dlc obiviously, 100% exclusively consmetic dlcs are fine by me)
I don't know what constitutes a DLC and what constitutes a mini-expansion in your mind? In my current thinking, mini-expansions are a probably going to be a collection of new content and gameplay that are bundled together and sold. For some, that's DLC, for others thats an expansion. Game can't be free, servers to run, people to pay and network bandwidth is a bitch.
what about the division, evolve, star citzen, any other game by ea? this is an indie game and that already requires a certain level of trust in the devs when backing the crowdfunding and there are already no guarantees, at dlcs i draw the line, it's a bad practice period,dlcs have no place in multiplayer online games, things like story dlcs for spm or coop games are one thing (see saints row:gat out of hell / borderlands claptastic voyage / most fallout/elder scrolls dlcs for the offline games) but here? just nope.
don't start with gw2 here, I'm a gw2 junkie AND IT'S SHIT (oh the irony ^^ )
most of the free user not coming back and too strongly restricted that they run away (FUCK YOU CHINESE GOLD SELLER)
GOD DAMMIT ANET, KEEP YO BLOODY FINGERS AWAY FROM ESPORT
RUINING THE GOOD PVE FOR PVP SAKE, EVEN GW1 HAS MORE ESPORT POTENTIAL, HELL IT EVEN HAD AN BETTER PVP BALANCE WITHOUT RUINING THE PVE ASPECT!!
AND FIX THAT DAMN WVW SHIT!!
most of the free user not coming back and too strongly restricted that they run away (FUCK YOU CHINESE GOLD SELLER)
GOD DAMMIT ANET, KEEP YO BLOODY FINGERS AWAY FROM ESPORT
RUINING THE GOOD PVE FOR PVP SAKE, EVEN GW1 HAS MORE ESPORT POTENTIAL, HELL IT EVEN HAD AN BETTER PVP BALANCE WITHOUT RUINING THE PVE ASPECT!!
AND FIX THAT DAMN WVW SHIT!!
My thing about "free steam weekends" is that my weekends are USUALLY busy (working) so these will NOT work for me. I'm not complaining, but just merely stating that not everyone will be able to try the game then. NOW I've not bought a game on steam, but I assume that's the client you're going for? If soo I can always get a steam card and pay that way as a alternative.
if it adds content/features it's dlc (the bad kind) if it adds cosmetics it's good, no 2 ways about it, i guess i'll see on release then, i'm so NOT backing another star citzen, i'm glad that you stated it from the get go at least.
no game can be free but not all games are dlc fests, i'd rather pay 60$ up front and be done with it, there are a ton of succesful games up there that don't have content locked by dlcs, besides you don't plan it to be story based so i don't even see how would you justify it, it's just holding content back to milk the players, to quote a reviewer "DLC allows developers to make extra content for their fans in the same way swords allowed people to go to neighboring villages to help carve turkeys."
that's called early access, you can't call that dlc at that point (not that it's a bad thing)
edit: compressed accidental multipost
no game can be free but not all games are dlc fests, i'd rather pay 60$ up front and be done with it, there are a ton of succesful games up there that don't have content locked by dlcs, besides you don't plan it to be story based so i don't even see how would you justify it, it's just holding content back to milk the players, to quote a reviewer "DLC allows developers to make extra content for their fans in the same way swords allowed people to go to neighboring villages to help carve turkeys."
that's called early access, you can't call that dlc at that point (not that it's a bad thing)
edit: compressed accidental multipost
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phoenix