The biggest problem for UWE isn't keeping player counts up. Player counts don't pay the bills. Selling copies pays the bills. So the question becomes how do you keep *sales* up. (Since if you can do that, the player counts will come with it.) That too, there is no easy answer. Even TF2, which struggled with sagging sales, eventually went free-to-play as a means to keep the cash coming in. (Frankly they did an outstanding job with the conversion to free-to-play, they're raking in money hand over fist.)
Makes me wonder if some aspects of NS2 should be F2P to attract more people, such as the combat mod. Throw in a few purchasable cosmetic items (or purchase the full game and receive them for free! Includes modding tools!) and you've tapped into some extra cash for little work.
It might not feed the competitive scene, but you've lured in those who may shy away from a £19/$25 price tag but would happily spend $2-$3 on a Gorge hat or marine face paint.
Makes me wonder if some aspects of NS2 should be F2P to attract more people, such as the combat mod. Throw in a few purchasable cosmetic items (or purchase the full game and receive them for free! Includes modding tools!) and you've tapped into some extra cash for little work.
It might not feed the competitive scene, but you've lured in those who may shy away from a £19/$25 price tag but would happily spend $2-$3 on a Gorge hat or marine face paint.
I wouldn't want to see the F2P model applied to NS2 proper, but in thinking about it, Combat actually seems like the perfect place to throw in silly/fun cosmetic purchasable items, or even to overhaul it with some kind of long form XP or leveling system. The latter would require some major brainstorming and design to implement properly, but the former ought to be a piece of cake.
And just to clarify before anyone rage-vomits all over me, the kind of long form XP system I'm thinking about wouldn't be like an MMO where you have a fixed level that determines how powerful you are, but rather would be similar to how they set up the F2P in Tribes: Ascend. Anything cosmetic would only be available for cash, and long term XP gained in each game would go towards unlocking which upgrades you would have available to use in each match. Boosters could be purchased for real money that would increase the rate you gain long term XP, but not short term XP. You want to give people more ways to play and customize their loadout, not pay to win.
For example, by default everyone would start with a 'fundamentals' upgrade tree to spend their in-match XP on, like armor and weapon upgrades, early life forms, abilities, the kind of stuff you would get in vanilla CO in NS1. That way new players are really forced to learn the basics, and then as they get long term XP they can unlock some of the crazier upgrade paths to allow things like the x-menu unlocks. You could add all kinds of stuff to the unlockables over time, really have some fun with it. Dual rail guns? Gorge webs? Extra JP fuel? Droppable Turrets? Onos Leap, Cat Packs, Acid Rocket, Primal Scream, HMGs? Whatever, throw it in as an unlock to be purchased for X amount of long term XP. You could even have perks which emphasize a particular role, like if you took ranks in 'Tank' you might get extra armor at the cost of dealing less damage, to encourage teamwork and specialization. Obviously you'd want to avoid implementing any absurdly overpowered perk combos, but I think that goes without saying. You can use tree branching to make some perks mutually exclusive with others.
You might have to ratchet up the ceiling on the basic upgrades just so that people without purchased unlocks can still spend their in-game XP on something. Armor 5, Carapace Rank II, boring stuff that is nevertheless useful - in particular, the Tribes perk 'Determination' seems like it could be a good fit for new players, where you gain extra health each time you respawn without getting a kill. Make them work for the fun toys. Then how do you get games to last long enough to actually upgrade to these crazy deep-tree loadouts? Just add more hives / chairs. Stick em next to eachother, split em up, vary by map, it don't matter. You could even add some kind of team-wide benefit or handicap for each command point destroyed, to add a level of incentive / desperation.
The more I think about this, the more I feel like it has some real potential. Am I crazy?
The more I think about this, the more I feel like it has some real potential. Am I crazy?
Maybe.
Yes, yes you are crazy. I suppose you could do all that if you throw game balance out the windowk, otherwise it would be a nightmare to keep game balance.
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
It wasn't Combat that killed NS for me, or even Siege. It wasn't WoW either. It was the many other great games that came out in 2004
UT2004
Far Cry
Thief: Deadly Shadows
HL2
CS:S
After playing all those games, NS lost it's appeal, although I played intermittently until about 2006, the other games were much more interesting to me, primarily because of their newer shinier engines
It wasn't Combat that killed NS for me, or even Siege. It wasn't WoW either. It was the many other great games that came out in 2004
UT2004
Far Cry
Thief: Deadly Shadows
HL2
CS:S
After playing all those games, NS lost it's appeal, although I played intermittently until about 2006, the other games were much more interesting to me, primarily because of their newer shinier engines
2004 was quite a year for video games, wasn't it? Probably the best since 1998/1999 (I'm always amazed at how many great games came out in those two years)
I don't understand, why was 3.0 and combat related to killing the game?
ill tell you why in my perspective, when 3.0 came out, i downloaded and installed it, to find that every single server was running combat, i played the game and i thought that the whole game was about combat, i got disgusted and left cause i hated it. a year later, i was talking to someone about ns1 and told them "ns1 was such an awesome game until they put dumb combat now, i love building things and loved the strategy element from it" then he enlightened me saying, thats still in the game just look for maps called NS_ and it blew my mind, however even then most servers were still CO_ it was hard to find an NS_ server,
Comments
Makes me wonder if some aspects of NS2 should be F2P to attract more people, such as the combat mod. Throw in a few purchasable cosmetic items (or purchase the full game and receive them for free! Includes modding tools!) and you've tapped into some extra cash for little work.
It might not feed the competitive scene, but you've lured in those who may shy away from a £19/$25 price tag but would happily spend $2-$3 on a Gorge hat or marine face paint.
I wouldn't want to see the F2P model applied to NS2 proper, but in thinking about it, Combat actually seems like the perfect place to throw in silly/fun cosmetic purchasable items, or even to overhaul it with some kind of long form XP or leveling system. The latter would require some major brainstorming and design to implement properly, but the former ought to be a piece of cake.
For example, by default everyone would start with a 'fundamentals' upgrade tree to spend their in-match XP on, like armor and weapon upgrades, early life forms, abilities, the kind of stuff you would get in vanilla CO in NS1. That way new players are really forced to learn the basics, and then as they get long term XP they can unlock some of the crazier upgrade paths to allow things like the x-menu unlocks. You could add all kinds of stuff to the unlockables over time, really have some fun with it. Dual rail guns? Gorge webs? Extra JP fuel? Droppable Turrets? Onos Leap, Cat Packs, Acid Rocket, Primal Scream, HMGs? Whatever, throw it in as an unlock to be purchased for X amount of long term XP. You could even have perks which emphasize a particular role, like if you took ranks in 'Tank' you might get extra armor at the cost of dealing less damage, to encourage teamwork and specialization. Obviously you'd want to avoid implementing any absurdly overpowered perk combos, but I think that goes without saying. You can use tree branching to make some perks mutually exclusive with others.
You might have to ratchet up the ceiling on the basic upgrades just so that people without purchased unlocks can still spend their in-game XP on something. Armor 5, Carapace Rank II, boring stuff that is nevertheless useful - in particular, the Tribes perk 'Determination' seems like it could be a good fit for new players, where you gain extra health each time you respawn without getting a kill. Make them work for the fun toys. Then how do you get games to last long enough to actually upgrade to these crazy deep-tree loadouts? Just add more hives / chairs. Stick em next to eachother, split em up, vary by map, it don't matter. You could even add some kind of team-wide benefit or handicap for each command point destroyed, to add a level of incentive / desperation.
The more I think about this, the more I feel like it has some real potential. Am I crazy?
Maybe.
Yes, yes you are crazy. I suppose you could do all that if you throw game balance out the windowk, otherwise it would be a nightmare to keep game balance.
UT2004
Far Cry
Thief: Deadly Shadows
HL2
CS:S
After playing all those games, NS lost it's appeal, although I played intermittently until about 2006, the other games were much more interesting to me, primarily because of their newer shinier engines
I do like the idea, (actually I'm rather addicted to long-term progression in games), but also agree with Res in that it would be insane to balance.
But then if UWE didn't want a hard game to balance they wouldn't have made the teams asymmetrical to begin with. ;]
2004 was quite a year for video games, wasn't it? Probably the best since 1998/1999 (I'm always amazed at how many great games came out in those two years)