The dirty F word. Is it nearing that time?
Tyrsis
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8804Members
Join Date: 2002-11-15 Member: 8804Members
Freeplay!
OMG!!! There is no way! But let's be realistic.
Play stats are on a downward trend. That is just how games tend to go. People lose interest move on, but the huge ongoing games like DOTA, CS and LoL replace the losses with new players faster than they lose them. What's the secret? Accessibility. This game probably losses a massive % of players due to poor performance and it's been way too long now for that to be corrected. I think most of us have to live with the fact that perhaps this game came out before it's time in terms of performance. (I'm OC to 4.8ghz with 2 vid cards, and even I struggle late game, that is just unacceptable. No offense to the devs, I know you guys are trying, but well that's just the reality).
I think this game would actually thrive as a free game. People get absolutely lost right now start game, and top that off with bad late game performance, and you have bad replay value really. Though if it's free to play for awhile, perhaps they would fall in love with it like a lot of us. So how could it function as a free game? Allow only base play in free mode. As a marine, you can only play with an LMG. No shotties, no jetpacks, no exos (no picking up dropped shotties, etc). As an alien, you can only be a skulk and maybe a gorge (or lerk). No fading, no onos. Let players learn the game as a base player, and swoon at the 50-2 fade / onos or that shotty / JPer late game that just completely owns, and then force a small fee to play the game completely. Does that sound a bit sour? Perhaps, but would it pull people in? I think so.
Does freeplay fix the accessibility issue? No, but it exposes people in a non-aggressive way to the game, and allows them to experience it. The big thing it does do is let them play, and if it just doesn't play well right now, it will allow them to try it again later on when performance issues are improved! If they have a bad first play, and only get 20fps, but come back a few months later after paying nothing the first time, and see that it's playable for them perhaps they will actually give the game another chance. As it is right now, people pay for the game, discover it's unplayable and never give it another chance. The game being free and unplayable is one thing, but asking someone to pay for it and it being unplayable is another issue completely.
Am I completely off base in my thinking here? I think it's an interesting discussion.
(I expect a shitload of disagrees, but at least post why you disagree
OMG!!! There is no way! But let's be realistic.
Play stats are on a downward trend. That is just how games tend to go. People lose interest move on, but the huge ongoing games like DOTA, CS and LoL replace the losses with new players faster than they lose them. What's the secret? Accessibility. This game probably losses a massive % of players due to poor performance and it's been way too long now for that to be corrected. I think most of us have to live with the fact that perhaps this game came out before it's time in terms of performance. (I'm OC to 4.8ghz with 2 vid cards, and even I struggle late game, that is just unacceptable. No offense to the devs, I know you guys are trying, but well that's just the reality).
I think this game would actually thrive as a free game. People get absolutely lost right now start game, and top that off with bad late game performance, and you have bad replay value really. Though if it's free to play for awhile, perhaps they would fall in love with it like a lot of us. So how could it function as a free game? Allow only base play in free mode. As a marine, you can only play with an LMG. No shotties, no jetpacks, no exos (no picking up dropped shotties, etc). As an alien, you can only be a skulk and maybe a gorge (or lerk). No fading, no onos. Let players learn the game as a base player, and swoon at the 50-2 fade / onos or that shotty / JPer late game that just completely owns, and then force a small fee to play the game completely. Does that sound a bit sour? Perhaps, but would it pull people in? I think so.
Does freeplay fix the accessibility issue? No, but it exposes people in a non-aggressive way to the game, and allows them to experience it. The big thing it does do is let them play, and if it just doesn't play well right now, it will allow them to try it again later on when performance issues are improved! If they have a bad first play, and only get 20fps, but come back a few months later after paying nothing the first time, and see that it's playable for them perhaps they will actually give the game another chance. As it is right now, people pay for the game, discover it's unplayable and never give it another chance. The game being free and unplayable is one thing, but asking someone to pay for it and it being unplayable is another issue completely.
Am I completely off base in my thinking here? I think it's an interesting discussion.
(I expect a shitload of disagrees, but at least post why you disagree
Comments
This is also completely wrong but I will only say one simple sentence instead of bringing up a ton. Free players will be worthless to everyone else on the team and they would feel just as worthless.
This would get lost in ideas and suggestions which no one ever reads, heh, and if we can post videos of MACs vs drifter videos in gen forums, than I think this should be as well.
Are you saying someone with an LMG is completely useless? I would completely disagree with you. Start game is very important and make this game. Good skulk and lmg play early game are very important. Mid-game revolves around upgrades, but start game does not.
What other issues do you have with free play besides low quality players?
You are correct in that, so perhaps they can upgrade, but at a price. Perhaps at 2x the cost? (so no dual exos, and no onos for sure for free play, but allowing 40 res shotties and 100 res fades?). At least they can "experience" the upgrades in some form and use their resources. Also realize these are players that wouldn't be there otherwise.
WTF.
I don't want noobs who can't afford stuff on my team.
Yeah fuck the noobs!!! Let's all 400 of us play the game as pros.
Come on really? The game isn't magically going to grow population because you will it. It's about exposure.
every influx of players has resulted in temporary spikes only
maybe going free would be a much larger influx, but it doesn't matter if it's just temporary
LOL. So very correct.
Why is it so bad? I know it's not ideal, I wish we had 10k concurrent players daily, but we do not, I'm just throwing out some options is all. Command is an interesting problem. Can free players be commander? Well if no one else wants to command then I don't see why not. Comms can obviously research anything as a free player as well. I don't think free play should limit a comm because as UWE said even in beta, this game is more about the FPS experience than the RTS.
Maybe give them a different skin too.
Yeah that's my point in saying this -- trying to keep these free players. Influx and exposure is one thing, but keeping them is another. I think we can all agree on WHY people don't continue to play --> performance. But the devs can only fix that so quickly. It will get there eventually. The problem is right now that people are expected to pay before experiencing the game. If they can try it for free and see that performance improved after devs did x or y, then perhaps they will decide to actually pay instead of not.
At this point the business model is completed, UWE gained the most amount they would via a pay model. They were a semi-success in that respect, but now it's about continuing it. They have absolutely nothing to gain by keeping the game going in it's current state, but if they do a free -> pay model, it can continue. But that isn't really the realm of this I guess.
I don't think limiting them to one map would be enough, there has to be an actual gameplay disadvantage to not paying I think. That is basically the real world model right now in terms of free play games.
The devs are working hard on performance, and the early indications suggested that there could be some nice improvements in the not-too-distant future. I would wait for those to land, THEN being in new players with a sale or free weekend (also brings back ex players with news of performance improvements).
While this is true, it is much more useful to post a thread about the topic and asking what can be done. Proper debates can happen and it will not suffer from having the original poster start off in the wrong direction.
You are correct -- but realistically new players do that anyway even now. I can guarantee the first time you were fade, you probably died a horrible and miserable death. Fades are tricky and are hard to play properly. The thing is a player can see someone playing a fade, and see how well they do, and maybe want to emulate that. While I know it's a bit of a jump to see that, the main thing is they are actually IN the game to see that.
I know what you're saying about players hearing of performance improvements and coming back when they hear about it, all I'm saying is that a free player will be more likely to come back and try that compared to someone who paid already and already got burned. Believe me if I payed for this game with a lesser computer and got 30 fps out start game (down to 10 end game) I would be livid and would never return. Someone who didn't play would be a lot more forgiving with performance issues. Will they get there? Probably, but realistically it's been almost too long now for that to be a solution. (This came out halloween of last year, not a few weeks ago. This has been an issue even back in beta.)
I don't think there is anything wrong with what I'm trying to discuss here. I really wish the game had more concurrent players then it currently does. Do you actually think the game is in healthy state right now? Perhaps I should pose that question to you. Because if you think it is, then perhaps that's why you completely disagree with me. And if you prefer it to be a complete niche game, then yeah so be it. There is nothing wrong with that either I guess. NS1 had a following long after it's expiration date as well.
players should never get any gameplay advantage over others just for buying stuff. that's a pretty sad direction for games to take
I don't think the cost is driving off players. look at the amount of purchases that NS2 has versus the amount of players that continue to play it. it's not like the cost that's driving off players, they're just leaving the game after they've bought it. there's zero player retention probably due to issues like performance / gameplay
I'd rather play the game they way it's meant to be played with 400 people, than have games filled with people who can't use upgrades.
And who said 400 is not enough? As long as there is still one full server in my location, I'm fine with it. You can't really join two servers, you know.
'Ey, I played 230 hours of this with a 3 year old PC struggling to stay at 20 fps, your argument is invalid!
Is it nearing that time already where we call "Limit them to one map but with all the gameplay features" free to play?
Back in my days this was called a demo (hell of a fancy word, I know) and was for instance UT2k4 with just DM-Rankin and ONS-Torlan. You would not believe how many players and servers even years after release would be there that only had those maps on them with countless demo players. It's like those people played the game years without ever buying it because they were happy enough with just two very good maps.
(And then there were the servers that were cracked and used a demo key for themselves but actually managed to run custom mutators and maps (which was not possible on demo servers usually, thus resulting in them often being flooded with cheaters because they couldn't install the AntiTCC mutator for cheat protection) and thus enabled players of the demo to play any kind of map on them.)
Going completely F2P might still be an option in the future, but if we did do that it would not be for quite some time, and it would likely mean making the entire game free, not just pieces of it. And we certainly wouldn't want to do any kind of pay to win format.
Introduce cosmetics, make sure they dont look like shit.
I could see making a free version where the first 5 minutes would play as normal but after 5 minutes both teams would be teched out and gameplay would be limited. EXrines are limited to lvl 1/1 shotguns/mines no jp/exp/arc/gl/flame and aliens could get gorge lerk and crag but no shift/shade/fade/onos
Have all the upgrades be visible but in red showing what would be available in the full version.
In addition to getting new people in game people who upgrade would have the basics
This would require a new server list so freeware versions wouldn't clutter the paid...
If they do ever do cosmetics, you can be sure that they will look as good as all of the other art in the game (i.e. amazing)
I think it would be great to reignite the game, good paid unlocks could be priority with team picking, freebies can't command (it's not like many people do anyway!), and obviously good ol' cosmetic stuff.
If they could route F2P players through combat, they might have something.