How Unknownworlds Could Generate More Res (IRL)
trentluv
Join Date: 2010-07-27 Member: 73126Members
Join Date: 2010-07-27 Member: 73126Members
Comments
Fuzzy dice hanging inside your exo?
Polished 'new' armor, extra worn armor? He'll yes!
Dynamic armor that starts fresh at the beginning of a life, and scuffs with damage? Take my money!
The business case for cosmetic DLC in NS2 is weak. The cost of implementation would be very high and might not yield a return at all. The 'fun case' is much stronger - It would be awesome if people could customise their armour and exo's as the desired!
Give me an excuse! (an in game excuse; not music, art, or physical products as they are not up my alley, and would prob have a lower profit margin for UWE)
The point about bling bling in games is to have other players see it too (which would not apply to the fuzzy dice in an Exo, but you get the idea). A workshop mod will only make the stuff visible on your client, everyone else will still see the default stuff (unless some server mod maybe forces the download and use of that stuff on everyone - but forced cosmetic downloads did at least cause most players in UT2k4 to rather disconnect from the server before sitting through the eternal download and are generally frowned upon).
With an official implementation, you know that everyone will see your bling and that it will work on every server, even vanilla official ones. Why else would so many people buy hats in TF2 that they can't even see most of the time?
Some low cost to implement res sources might be:
-Donate site (as suggested above)
-Play with the Devs/Comp Players special events (better for short term goals than a long term revenue source)
-Interface Cosmetics (kind of like prestige in *shudders* CoD, where you can get an icon next to your Handle to show you supported the company (could even expand this to other causes like a Cancer Research badge or something community driven))
-In game ads on server browser (would probably receive blowback from the community)
-invent Nanites, they solve everything
We've had *many* threads from people begging to buy some of the other armors because they bought one version and wanted the others - yet there is no 'package upgrade' on Steam.
I would think cosmetic purchasable upgrades would make the most sense strictly because you don't fracture your player base. (Like they did when they released L4D2 less than a year after L4D1) Clearly a game/map DLC would cause that problem. If you had other marine skins, or alien skins, or weapon skins, available for purchase at a cheap price, you could easily appeal to player vanity.
Once you saturate the player base with copies of the game, all the free DLC in the world won't sell more copies. I think you owe it to yourself to at least internally explore the option of paid cosmetic upgrades. Keep it simple. Make up a marine skin pack, an alien skin pack, and a weapon skin pack. Sell each pack separately and have a special 'combo' price for the three of them. This would keep the integration on steam simple, since you wouldn't need to deal with a pile of individual pieces.
Something to think about anyway...
What do you mean by fun case? You can sort of it do it now through steam workshop even though it is client only. Or do you mean how tf2 accepts community created content to sell while they get a cut? In addition to UWE making their own stuff along with community stuff. I would not mind as long as quality control is there to ensure we have no rainbow exos or vibrant pink armor put out that we are forced to look at in game.
I don't think he is dismissing it so much as saying it is not economically viable because of the technological changes that need to be made. Valve has a much larger scale, I am not sure how hat coding is handled but the models would have to be downloaded or streamed to each player on the server and we have long enough loading screens and crummy enough server performance as is. Not to mention the transaction servers that would need to be introduced to allow for the purchase of these items. And security around credit card transactions and the like/ It would have to be handled in game probably. I saw a video of Gabe Newell talking about some of the complexities of the economy around hats and it is much more complex than it seems at first glance.
However I think some of the building blocks are in the code already, as there are deluxe player models for pre-orders. Could be handled the same way they pushed that out in the short term, but that is pretty limited as far as interface too since it is just a select deluxe or normal, no visual preview of what your character model will look like is a bit disappointing.
That said long term I think cosmetic paid upgrades is a good idea, especially since it sounds like Valve might be working on a transaction engine of sorts that they might be able to license and incorporate into their game long term anyway.
Unfortunately, this is not true. The way the game handles Deluxe / Black armour is not suitable for wider use. It's not hacky, but is specifically tailored for use with a very limited models. From the way the game loads them, to how they are authenticated, to how they are bought, it's a system that would have to be completely replaced. Many many programming hours... $$$ Hahaha!
Anyone got any res collection ideas outside cosmetic stuff?
Need an excuse? Here you go.
Gets money to UWE and players into the game. Win-win-win-win.
A Gorge with goggles, a top hat, and two steam powered rockets on its back that cause it to accelerate at blinding speeds on belly slides while leaving a mildly painful steam trail that blocks vision.
Best support unit ever. EVER.
UWE's current strategy mirrors that of Killing Floor, minus the skins. If you remember correctly, Killing Floor was basically a nothing game with poor reviews, and Tripwire kept putting the game on sale along with free content updates. Fast forward a few years later and now Killing Floor has sold over a million copies.
Here's hoping this method also works with NS2!
I had one here. Okay, it's still cosmetic, but you wouldn't need to implement all the back-end stuff because it would be personalized, i.e. no authentication etc required.
Anyway...
For reals - and I can't believe I'm saying this, because I really DON'T like the idea of NS2 selling hats - but if implementing a hat system in NS2 will be a lot of work, perhaps a substantial chunk of it could be outsourced to, or rather rented from, Valve? They're pretty big into making their core gaming functionality available as a plug-and-play service for everyone else's games, so maybe they'd like to monetize their ability to monetize hats, too.
heh, probably that it doesnt matter at the backend hmm?
They already can through the Steam workshop! That's the beauty of NS2!