What can Em8er learn from Firefalls' model?

[Quzzier]

I played Firefall from the open beta phase and had/have well over 1000 hours logged all without paying a cent.

To date Firefall was/is my most played game by a very large margin and also surprisingly the only game I've never spent any money on, even lesser games (IMO) such as Tribes: Ascend, APB: Reloaded and Star Sonata etc. have been able to make me open my wallet to some degree.

Firefalls' problem was that everything was just too accessible, with enough time commitment anything was possible, new frames, LGV's and even cosmetics purchased from other players. While from a players point of view this was great it didn't help fund and develop the game.

In the games I've spent money on it is usually small QOL stuff or cosmetics, things like extra garage space/loadout slots. As much as I hated Warframe for it's limited starting slots I still forked out money in order to not 'lose' progress from all the weapons and frames it was handing out. A clever ploy that tapped into some primal urge to make past effort not wasted.

I understand that Em8er will most likely be a pay to play title with a cash shop for cosmetics etc. I like this idea but it also can backfire, too restrictive (limited slots etc.) and there will be complaints that it's not value for money, too open (no limitations) and ongoing spending will suffer hurting the game long term.

I kinda would like to see a free to play but highly restricted game (limited equipment slots or a max level restriction) so that people can play it like a demo.

But at the end of the day it's all about paying for entertainment, the game itself (and dev cycle stability) will determine if it's a financial success or not.

 

[ZeroGrav]

Clipped Firefalls' problem was that everything was.. Clipped

I'm going to stop you right there hoss. FireFall had many issues, some mechanic, some financial in nature, but most stemmed from internal company problems. The story has been told over and over, in forums posts, interviews, and chat discussions.

 

[daggoth1408]

I played Firefall from the open beta phase and had/have well over 1000 hours logged all without paying a cent.

To date Firefall was/is my most played game by a very large margin and also surprisingly the only game I've never spent any money on, even lesser games (IMO) such as Tribes: Ascend, APB: Reloaded and Star Sonata etc. have been able to make me open my wallet to some degree.

Firefalls' problem was that everything was just too accessible, with enough time commitment anything was possible, new frames, LGV's and even cosmetics purchased from other players. While from a players point of view this was great it didn't help fund and develop the game.

In the games I've spent money on it is usually small QOL stuff or cosmetics, things like extra garage space/loadout slots. As much as I hated Warframe for it's limited starting slots I still forked out money in order to not 'lose' progress from all the weapons and frames it was handing out. A clever ploy that tapped into some primal urge to make past effort not wasted.

I understand that Em8er will most likely be a pay to play title with a cash shop for cosmetics etc. I like this idea but it also can backfire, too restrictive (limited slots etc.) and there will be complaints that it's not value for money, too open (no limitations) and ongoing spending will suffer hurting the game long term.

I kinda would like to see a free to play but highly restricted game (limited equipment slots or a max level restriction) so that people can play it like a demo.

But at the end of the day it's all about paying for entertainment, the game itself (and dev cycle stability) will determine if it's a financial success or not.

All the issues that firefall had came from the poor choices that were made by the company that took over firefall. It wasnt that firefall was too restrictive or anything like that, in fact it was heading towards a very good direction when it first came out of the closed beta. By making this game restrictive like you suggest, it is defeating the whole idea of it being an mmo like they want it to be. The whole point of a mmo is to have as many options as you can possible, and to have new experiences each time you log on and play. That is why people felt attracted to firefall, was that it was one fo the first fps games that felt like a full mmo. So yes there was a pvp aspect, but then there was the whole exploring an entire world gathering materials and building stuff, and even better yet killing stuff. To be honest the things that ember can learn from firefall so far has already been addressed and that is making sure a horrific greedy company doenst take control and kick out all the talent that made the game great in the first place.

 

[Kouyioue]

Don't let just any random stranger buy stocks from you ?

Or better yet: ``don't go corporate``

 

[Pandagnome]

what worked imo:

- The thumping was unique fun and the dynamic events too
- The story was cool and so was the intro
- The characters with different personalities gave the world a sense that it was believable and relate to the characters
- The motorbikes especially at night with the light beam ahead speeding away to recapture a zone taken over by the chosen
- The super fun events like the Halloween one and more i always loved those!!!
- The firefall videos with guest appearance had some funny stuff and info on updates
- The jetpack/gliders
- The game was nothing like halo, cod or any usual standard game it had its own style
- The very cool ff manga !

what didnt worked imo:

- The corporation that took over
- The bugs that took ages to fix


what is working now imo:
- The milestone targets for people to see the progress made and the time to adjust it accordingly
- The cool forum/discord
- The ff credit program for loyal supporters
- The owner is in complete control and not another company

 

[0V3RKILL]

I played Firefall from the open beta phase and had/have well over 1000 hours logged all without paying a cent.

To date Firefall was/is my most played game by a very large margin and also surprisingly the only game I've never spent any money on, even lesser games (IMO) such as Tribes: Ascend, APB: Reloaded and Star Sonata etc. have been able to make me open my wallet to some degree.

Firefalls' problem was that everything was just too accessible, with enough time commitment anything was possible, new frames, LGV's and even cosmetics purchased from other players. While from a players point of view this was great it didn't help fund and develop the game.

In the games I've spent money on it is usually small QOL stuff or cosmetics, things like extra garage space/loadout slots. As much as I hated Warframe for it's limited starting slots I still forked out money in order to not 'lose' progress from all the weapons and frames it was handing out. A clever ploy that tapped into some primal urge to make past effort not wasted.

I understand that Em8er will most likely be a pay to play title with a cash shop for cosmetics etc. I like this idea but it also can backfire, too restrictive (limited slots etc.) and there will be complaints that it's not value for money, too open (no limitations) and ongoing spending will suffer hurting the game long term.

I kinda would like to see a free to play but highly restricted game (limited equipment slots or a max level restriction) so that people can play it like a demo.

But at the end of the day it's all about paying for entertainment, the game itself (and dev cycle stability) will determine if it's a financial success or not.

Since 2013 I spent 20 dollars every single month for subscriptions until patch 1.6 came out and sometimes I bought the 99.99 packages. I did it to have nicer gliders, vehicles and such. Firefall never felt pay2win. But, I do not agree that in firefall you could've had everything you wanted if you played long enough. You might've gotten a glider and some garbage stuff, but would never be better than anything sold. One example ticky thump. I missed out on buying one and that hunted me for ever in firefall. Anything you purchased was much better so no I do not agree with you. Also you spent money on warframe on not in firefall? Firefall even on patch 1.6 was still a much superior game than warframe or any mmo out there. I'm sorry but I find that very weird of you

Only thing I always wanted to be better in firefall was the engine it self. For it to perform better and be able to use modern cpu's to it's maximum. That is not going to be a problem anymore in em-8er since they are using Unreal engine. Other than that I loved everything about firefall.

 

[Silv3r Shadow]

FF had nothing new to purchase after 1.1 or 1.2 vending machines 'epic' became 'common' for like 200 credits off the market.
There wasnt many items interesting enough to buy from the ca$h store, kept releasing bland helmets/headgear.

needed more appealing stuff like: bodykits, legendary skins, jumpjet colours/effects etc.
Even though I have majority of cosmetic items, I still wear my Commander Tiki Mask, nothing looks like it and has awesome blue smoke coming from it. (I'd consider it a legendary cosmetic)

There was a skull helmet with flames coming from it too, but that was earned free from an event.


I rekon Mark has this side of Ember covered, the marketing from FF was terrible lol.

 

[ZeroGrav]

One of the few things that I used to love about FF outside of game stuff was the weekly Twitch stream from the community team. Now i'm not sure what kind of budget was behind it, and honestly it could prolly have been done for cheaper. But when steam engine for Em8ber really gets rolling, I hope to see something similar like that from the community team. It was a great way to get a weekly check-in/breakdown of what had been going on.

 

[0V3RKILL]

FF had nothing new to purchase after 1.1 or 1.2 vending machines 'epic' became 'common' for like 200 credits off the market.
There wasnt many items interesting enough to buy from the ca$h store, kept releasing bland helmets/headgear.

needed more appealing stuff like: bodykits, legendary skins, jumpjet colours/effects etc.
Even though I have majority of cosmetic items, I still wear my Commander Tiki Mask, nothing looks like it and has awesome blue smoke coming from it. (I'd consider it a legendary cosmetic)

There was a skull helmet with flames coming from it too, but that was earned free from an event.


I rekon Mark has this side of Ember covered, the marketing from FF was terrible lol.

really? cause I personally loved the jetpack/glider and bumblebee jeep in patch 1.3. Even the truck for entire squad they sold after 1.6 came out. after that they never did anything new

 

[Wyntyr]

I believe the p2p cost for Em-8ER will be around $24.99 - $29.99 (my own opine/guess). That will net you a game you will be able to jump into and killz some sheet anytime you like . I also believe that some type of cash shop will be in game to basically cover bug/crash fixes and server costs. Any funding beyond that will be done via milestones. Since the game is being made using UE4, my recommendation would be to allow the player base to create cosmetics that, after dev review and approval, can be sold in that shop. This will drastically cut down on dev costs...art is EXPENSIVE. My one caveat beyond this, which I wish FF had done, would be a swag shop for Em-8ER. I want a beanie, t-shirt, mouse pad, hoodie, coffee mug, etc. Depending on pricing it would need to pay for itself and also aid with dev expenses (bug/crash fixes and server costs). Just one player's 2 cents...

 

[Carter154]

So I heard about this new game called FireFall and figured I would give it a try. Set up an account. Made my choices of character. Login. And decide to move out and start exploring. Almost immediately I come across what I later found out was a watchtower with this swirling thing next to it and a few players shooting at it (a nado). I run up to the players and start trying to shoot at the thing like they were doing. And got killed. I didn't know what I was doing.

I figured, oh well. I died. I guess I will re-spawn at some point. But then a strange thing happened. Something I had never experienced before. All the players around me stopped shooting and ran to my aid. Some died as well trying to save me. And were revived by others. Eventually, we all were revived and re-grouped. And went on to kill the swirling windy monster.

Then all the players jumped into this bright light. And were gone. Leaving me to wonder where they went and what had just happened. I sent an inquiry over chat. And someone explained it to me almost immediately. Run up to the light, press E, and run around collecting all the resources you can. Then jump jet up the platforms and press E again to get out otherwise you will die as the melding closed in around you. And oh, btw. Welcome to FireFall.

I was hooked. This, I thought, is the game for me.

Its the community. THAT is what turns a good game into a great game. Never lose sight of that.

 

[Valaetoshiru]

So I heard about this new game called FireFall and figured I would give it a try. Set up an account. Made my choices of character. Login. And decide to move out and start exploring. Almost immediately I come across what I later found out was a watchtower with this swirling thing next to it and a few players shooting at it (a nado). I run up to the players and start trying to shoot at the thing like they were doing. And got killed. I didn't know what I was doing.

I figured, oh well. I died. I guess I will re-spawn at some point. But then a strange thing happened. Something I had never experienced before. All the players around me stopped shooting and ran to my aid. Some died as well trying to save me. And were revived by others. Eventually, we all were revived and re-grouped. And went on to kill the swirling windy monster.

Then all the players jumped into this bright light. And were gone. Leaving me to wonder where they went and what had just happened. I sent an inquiry over chat. And someone explained it to me almost immediately. Run up to the light, press E, and run around collecting all the resources you can. Then jump jet up the platforms and press E again to get out otherwise you will die as the melding closed in around you. And oh, btw. Welcome to FireFall.

I was hooked. This, I thought, is the game for me.

Its the community. THAT is what turns a good game into a great game. Never lose sight of that.

 

[Biz]

Buy to play is good, worked wonders for Guild Wars 1*. In a market saturated with Freemium and subscription based MMOs it stood as a shining beacon of both being a good game and "Not a so called "free game" and Not a buy the CD-key and still pay 15$ a month game". * - I've got 4.4+k hours on GW1 over 7 years, so Maybe I am a little biased here.

B2P has a number of advantages that Freemium game can not, and will not have. For one the B2P game doesn't particularly Need to have a player base in the millions with only a few percent of the population subsidizing everyone else who plays but doesn't pay nor does it have to compete with subscription-based games. If everyone you see in the game already has money down to be there, then their share of dev costs and maintenance and server costs and all that is already paid. Sure you won't see the massive number of new players window-shopping, as in a freemium game, but it also cuts down on a number of spambots or a need for any kind of "cheats" they might provide.

B2P game Can have horisontal progression - it Can have all of the content ungated, with little or no gear power curve etc because it does not need to keep you playing or slow down the progress you can achieve per/day and still feel rewarding. It can also have a truly optional cash currency since you already paid for everything else. It Can give you a generous amount of character slots/ frame slots or whatever without ever nudging you to buying cash upgrades.

What one can certainly learn from FF is probably that:
- you should think through basic mechanics before being 5+ years into a neverending alfa/beta test. The relative power of players fluctuated wildly over the years - mostly leaning into making things harder by infusion of bloaty bullet-sponginess essence into ALL of the things. Devs not particularly knowing how much movement is too much, making players be either slow hulking brutes that can barely get off the ground with their jump jets to letting players have so much movement that some never touch the ground.
- Not design weapons and skills inherently less powerful/useful because of... reasons. Secondary weapons, for last couple of years, were quite literally tokens that give slightly more power to your primary weapon/skills. If a skill/weapon is there for no other reason than to give you an option to make a bad choice as to what skill or weapon you should use, then something has gone wrong.
- listen to players Less =). If players knew how to be game devs, they would be making their own games. Forums are usually frequented by a small subset of the player-base whos opinions may not be echoed by a good portion of the silent majority. For instance seemingly listening to material hoarders about how everything Should continuously use materials they hoard, did not quite turn out well.
- Do not, for the love of Odin, introduce permanent durability loss on player crafted items. Items that crumble away with use is a bad idea if your game makes you more or less powerful based on the items you use. It does not much matter that you can, in theory, easily replace the items or that replacing would be infrequent. It is a matter of principle - putting in a Sisyphean burden into the item system just to try and offset the materials produced puts unnecessary urgency into everything player does, to a point of said player choosing Not to play the game rather than having to deal with the burden.
- Tinkering as a lottery - probably a bad idea. It probably makes "ordinary" upgrade tier cheaper, but if you do not get the rare tier you know you can get you might as well have wasted your materials. Would probably be more sensible, in a B2P game, to rely less on the RNG.
- RNG rewards - probably a bad idea, while fixed nonRNG rewards work better. If you know that every time you finish a mission or kill a boss or whatever, that there is a small chance you will get that One item you can both use and need, then every time you do not get that item you might as well be wasting your time and that you are not a single step closer to getting it. If finishing a hard task X times guarantees a reward of your choosing - it might actually serve as a motivator.

TL;DR: B2P works because it changes all aspects of game design for the better, buying the game is a small price to pay for getting all of the benefits of a better design philosophy.

Give players the freedom to achieve tiers of "progression" at their own pace and rely less on RNG and more on incremental steps that do not roll back.

 

[g0rki]

Can't really imagine myself paying 15$ a month for a game, for years... But then thats just me

 

[Vedrit]

Can't really imagine myself paying 15$ a month for a game, for years... But then thats just me

Yeah, me neither. Even EVE Online, my #1 favorite game, I would only pay a few months at a time

I agree that the B2P model is probably the best. Especially in regards to punishing rule-breakers (Hackers, cheaters, spammers, etc)
B2P: $25 - $50 for each account. Money you wouldn't have had to pay if you didn't get banned.
Sub to play: Eh, just shift the $15 from one account (that has been banned) to another, and try to get away with what was done last time. You'd be paying the same whether you got banned or not.
F2P: lol, just make a new trash account. Money? What money?

 

[Faeryl]

I believe the p2p cost for Em-8ER will be around $24.99 - $29.99 (my own opine/guess). That will net you a game you will be able to jump into and killz some sheet anytime you like . I also believe that some type of cash shop will be in game to basically cover bug/crash fixes and server costs. Any funding beyond that will be done via milestones. Since the game is being made using UE4, my recommendation would be to allow the player base to create cosmetics that, after dev review and approval, can be sold in that shop. This will drastically cut down on dev costs...art is EXPENSIVE. My one caveat beyond this, which I wish FF had done, would be a swag shop for Em-8ER. I want a beanie, t-shirt, mouse pad, hoodie, coffee mug, etc. Depending on pricing it would need to pay for itself and also aid with dev expenses (bug/crash fixes and server costs). Just one player's 2 cents...

+1 the recommendation of a dev approved player base cosmetic shop; AND
+1 the recommendation of a SWAG SHOP

I'd LOVE to pay for some EM-8ER SWAG too!!!

 

[flyinhigh]

The biggest thing we should learn from FF is that this go around needs to be focused on PVE, in the traditional sense. A lot of early closed beta was wasted time on the pvp matches that ultimately got canned. I like PVP aspects but it should be brought in when it makes sense.

This needs to be a great MMO FPS with non leveled progression. Buildings frames, hording good mats to make best possible on your frames to progress is the best. It gives everyone the potential to play together on the same character and bust out higher frames when needed. And can bring different play styles to every frame.

B2P - Absolutely. Even from the fact that I multi-boxed to mega advance during the first raid (Charge rifle ftw).

No ongoing sub, but minor QOL and swag items up for prizes and purchase (2 jumpads on dif cooldowns).

Ember needs to also make a solid clan / guild system that works well from the early start. Even in early closed beta, those people you start with grow as the game does and needs to be managed effectively. It's a social game and the core has to be there.

Good crafting with a wide varying material grade, but tools to normalize if you want to sacrifice. Crafting UI and functionality that makes things non-tedious.

I was extremely excited when I jumped into the early closed beta of FF and stuck with it for years (off and on in the early days, lack of stuff to do) and always came back because this is the game I want to play. I'm betting round 2 will finally get us there.

 

[Dean Cyrus]

I still play guild wars 1 to this day btw b2p is like is my goto phrase when i want to play a game and if u want to stear away from being a wow clone b2p is the way to go with a founder system aswell along with a swag-shop but even if it dosent become a b2p i still try to support this game just not as much,but i trully love the idea of b2p because it make the account seem moar valuable and more is at stake to not piss off people as much so the whole your value is worth its weight in gold is accepted more and i like the idea of freedom when i play a mmo to not have the naggin feeling in my head about about getting my moneys worth and to spend all eternity playing the game as a job because i forked over a subscription fee every month :/... sorry for the rant i just want this game too succeed for as many years to come because firefall is what got me into gaming p.p

 

[Dean Cyrus]

ps to post above i got a free hat from a dev during a brontodton king party community event there was grifball and towerstacking funn all around but i like my red five baseball cap i got from that its one if not my favorite item i ever eanred in that entire game

 

[Alan Jones]

what worked imo:

- The thumping was unique fun and the dynamic events too
- The story was cool and so was the intro
- The characters with different personalities gave the world a sense that it was believable and relate to the characters
- The motorbikes especially at night with the light beam ahead speeding away to recapture a zone taken over by the chosen
- The super fun events like the Halloween one and more i always loved those!!!
- The firefall videos with guest appearance had some funny stuff and info on updates
- The jetpack/gliders
- The game was nothing like halo, cod or any usual standard game it had its own style
- The very cool ff manga !

what didnt worked imo:

- The corporation that took over
- The bugs that took ages to fix


what is working now imo:
- The milestone targets for people to see the progress made and the time to adjust it accordingly
- The cool forum/discord
- The ff credit program for loyal supporters
- The owner is in complete control and not another company

I totally agree, adding to list,

- If the game is based on PvE add an open world area without restriction on PvP
.......If I want to craft and thump fight the NPC Invaders, so be it, but when i want to get into a fight with friends gimme the land to do so, not some little area you think would make a nice mini game area. Let clans,guilds or what ever you want to call them claim and own bases in these areas with rewards for owning these bases

- Always look back at what started the frenzy and remember not to loose that feeling!