Pay for Mods...? PC Gamer article RE Combat
AlienJu
Join Date: 2005-04-07 Member: 47732Members
Join Date: 2005-04-07 Member: 47732Members
Interesting read, see below the first guy for the response from NS2 combat
http://www.pcgamer.com/two-modders-weigh-in-on-paid-mods/
http://www.pcgamer.com/two-modders-weigh-in-on-paid-mods/
Comments
I do think he's right that there's too much backlash from fans who want mods to be free. That is a pretty unreasonable expectation imo. But a lot of people, including myself, had problems with combat beyond the business model.
I don't care enough to pick up the battered horse just to beat it to the ground again, so I'll leave it at that.
Edit: This line from the article is pretty funny. They (UWE) thought it was the best idea ever to give their most popular mod a chance at the very same thing. Most popular is a bit misleading. Before it went standalone, there were maybe one or two populated servers than ran the Combat mod. Sure it was kinda fun (and super buggy most of the times), but its popularity never screamed out that it had a sufficient audience to go standalone.
Sorry for beating the horse again.
However: to blame the failure of combat on the NS2 community (= his main paying costumerbase in the 1st place) is just silly.
I payed good money for combat, played it a few times, and did not like it.
My review (which i didnt make) would have been something like "better just buy NS2 and play that".
At the end of the day it's not like NS2 itself even had the playerbase. But I didn't like combat in NS1 either, simply saw it as a way to have more exposure to the game-mode I did like. I don't think paid mods are a bad thing, I mean I still buy CDs sometimes, listen to them once, shelve them, and then use spotify.
.i prefer the uniqueness of ns2 and its strategy top down combined with fps style.
.whilst i really enjoyed the new additions to ns2 world via ns2-combat i just felt like their wasnt enough of a difference.
.the leveling up resulted in weapons feeling weak and underpowered if you were behind
.dying and keeping your equipment meant death never really felt like a punishment. even in quake you would lose the weapons you had found.
.the levels themselves whislt fun to play felt overall like levels from a mod instead of a fully fledged game with a couple of exceptions.
.i felt as though more could have been done to emphasis strategy instead of mindless slaughter, commanders werent needed but i would have rather the resource capture and build than leveling up through kills.
.no major new additions like new alien lifeforms or exo suits/ vehicles.
. the population was also very low, my plan was to laod up ns2-c for abit of fun every now and then but the fact that i had to exit ns2 to load up ns2-c specifically meant i often found a game of ns2 to play instead. Had the servers been listed with ns2 servers i would have played ns2-c a lot more.
As for combat, yes it should have been a paid mod/dlc. That's obviously why it failed, having to install and start a whole different game just to play a variation of one game is a freakin drag and gamers are lazy (Myself included).
That said, the reason I didn't buy it was because it doesn't run on Linux. Which of course it would have if it were a dlc.
I think buddy just blames the community for the failure because the reaction was so strong and so negative. If I try to put myself in his shoes I can totally see how that would be really consuming. It must be super hurtful to have all the people who you worked hard for to please tell you that your time, work and soul isn't worth anything.
Internet, gamers and entitlement. The world keeps spinning.
I bought it I played it, it wasn't worth it. I can play NS2 with NS2, combat as a mod offered me a place to practise lifeforms and have mindless shooting fun. Combat doesn't have anything to keep me wanting to play it. In my 2.5k hours of NS2, probably 2.5 hours are combat. Now it will forever sit, in the hidden section of my Steam library.
That's game design folks, shit doesn't work all the time. You can't blame the consumer because they don't like your product
Even mods that go standalone from massive games don't always get the financial success they would like. But a mod 10% of people played in a game with ~600 players at the time, you're kidding yourself. Probably not UWE greatest decision either, but they're bad at making any decisions anyway.
After 8 player connect and play for awhile >> Switch back server to NS2 vanilla
I wish developers can work on this to help players can "Warm up" round when join empty server
Or Add bot when you join empty server >> When players connect will -1 bot and replace player slot
Hurtful yes, but in reality making games is a job - it's a business, it requires you to sell a product to target audience and it has to be well thought out and of a high quality to succeed. Yes it's hard work, yes it probably involved personal costs and time, but at the end of the day that's life.
As for the article, it seems like Thomas still doesn't understand why combat failed and is quite happy to bury his head in the sand and keep blaming the system and others for his own failures. I think that's irresponsible and unfortunately won't serve to help him in his quest to make more/better games.
Why didn't I buy the game? Because I watched the pre-release streaming of the game and realized that I wouldn't do well in the game. I'm not skilled enough to compete in a kill based progression system.
NS2:Combat was risky playing with an established IP. They also didn't consider the pareto principle (the 80/20 rule). Because of this they didn't realise that the NS2 Combat mod provided 80% of the value, for 20% of the development investment. Which meant their product (which was superior to the mod) was only perceived as having slightly more value. Insufficient to sway the NS2 community, lack of marketing meant they didn't even reach new players.
You can go on and on all day about how you think people should deserve to get money for their "work" but unless that work has a reasonable guarantee to stay compatible with the game, receive continued support, and not be shit, i really have no interest in ever paying for your 5$ sword texture.
There's a little thing called the open source community, the bane of free market money makes everything better evangalists, some people forget that large mod communities are already a functioning version of that. Why would you ever want to move away from such a system instead of reinforcing it through pay what you want systems like code bounties, bandcamp or the humble bundle or anything really is beyond me. People are shortsighted i guess.
The guy in the article is obviously biased, his arguments arent even based on reason so there's not much to even argue against, just his feels. Also pointing out that people are completely fine with paying for good "mods" that become more than just mods, look at NS2, killing floor, half of valve's games, just not his.
I've suggested it many times, NS2:Combat would work better as FTP with skin pack DLC, and loading screen adverts to produce revenue.
Out of curiosity what price point seems about right for paying for mods?
£0.99 ? £4.99 ? £9.99 ?
Mods and DLC
Mods are modifications to a game which are unofficial, the official version being DLC. There is not much true distinction between the two beyond this. It is therefore not a big leap to look at how DLC are today and imagine a similar situation with mods, would payed mods become a thing.
DLC can be seen in content vs cost.
This can lead us to various groups of DLC.
Cosmetic but useless
The best and most acceptable DLC assuming a few things are taken into account:
Partially useless, mainly cosmetic, pay for ease.
Still usually accepted, this variant is a payed variant of a item usually already in game. So instead of a black gun, its gold. The original item is not super hard to get, having both a good access to the item in game as well as the DLC.
A example of this is what they do with "Anno 2080" and various items. You can buy DLC items like a certain sub. However its free ingame counterpart can be aquired by completing a, quite easy, global event. Global events repeat.
The 'dont lag behind' items.
These are items you do not truly NEED to win the game, but will greatly benefit your progress if you do. Imagine items which increase a rested status on your character ingame to speed up experience gain.
Players without if will eventually get there, but will lag behind by design.
A less excepted DLC / shop item.
Pay to win
The most reviled and known variant. It boils down to 'buy OP item, have better chance to win.
While it will be harder to make mods which belong in the later 2 categories, as it pretty much involved making game mods, its not unrealistic to think such mods could be made.
There will always be someone who does not realise in time that its a 'pay to win' game, rather then a cosmetic game.
So DC, you have been talking about DLC.. but I (the reader), do not see enough of a resemblance. Talk about mods already!
A fair point. so lets continue.
I have some mods on the workshop. Lets look at the most popular mod I have, which is my crosshair mod.
Now imagine for a moment the following:
Now what would happen? What do I myself think would happen?
Support
Obviously I could think of TOS before I put on a price, but... would it be worth the effort? The hassle?
Let mods be mods, else just release as a new game.
There are people who revile all forms of DLC, even that. Cosmetics are seen as a show of greed and cheapen the game, expansion content is automatically assumed to be stripped from the base game or else better off were it to have been included in the first place, and I shouldn't need to get into paying for power, but many people consider "pay to not grind" to be a form of it.
And just to make my point clear; if you want to see the excessive damage of cosmetic DLC just look at hat fortress 2. The game that was no longer is, and what you have now is a game where the players get angry if you try to play, to say nothing of the fubar aesthetics.
On the topic of Combat, my personal concern for that was that it would fracture the already dwindling playerbase. Players might move on to combat, and even if they were to quickly tire of it they might not move back to NS2. A great example of this happening is with Unreal Tournament 3. Most of the UT2k4 playerbase moved on to UT3, but when they found UT3 lacking they never moved back. UT2k4 is a ghost town now other than the 24/7 rankin (demo) servers, but it was going very strong right until the release of UT3. Starcraft 2 is another example. Starcraft is now totally dead, though starcraft 2 has managed to scrape by it has nothing of the formers glory. Granted those are both sequels where Combat is a spinoff, but it was my fear nonetheless.
Of course there would have to be some sort of oversight developed and a quality/support mechanism implemented for mods, but it's the reaction from the community that's disheartening. I hope something is worked out, or all the good mods will probably end up going this way.
I have made mods in the past, not just for NS2. ive made models, hell ive even animated my own models entire custom skeleton from scretch. Nothing says ouch like doing 150+ animations to put up a model and hope they dont add more.
I still think however that modding in essence is volunteer work and yes I truly do realise that almost noone donates and that its a thankless job. Going on mod strikes will do nothing, people shall either complain or not care. Ive been spending way to much time in thankless jobs (mostly support) to know that people do not care, nor will.
A good example is the CDT.. How much bile do they receive? More then they should, from what I can see. And yet its nothing compared to more popular games.
But changing how people react on the internet in general, not just with expecting free mods, is a whole different topic.
Do not misunderstand my view of free mods as me saying payed mods have 0 right to exist.. I am saying however there are many questions / problem in need to be solved before it would be a viable solution. (going completely insane with cosmetic stuff like TF2 is obviously something to be weary of also.)
As for combat SA... I got it, I saw potential. What broke it for me were some annoyances which should never ever ever have made it into live.
Mainly server performance (or lack thereof), no official servers (see previous comment), and some sound issues which seemed... wrong.
There was also a very unintuitive or bugged ui thing in terms of upgrades.
In the end I do think the 80/20 comment was a good one. Yes combat SA is superior to the mod, but most people simply do not believe its superior enough to warrant the money.
Although if they fixed all of the above & people are playing, I would still play combat SA if I had time.. which I have, rarely.
The simplest solution is not to provide a supporting service. Only particularly large and desirable mods should even think about charging. Combat is a good example, an entire gameplay mode complete with maps is on the low end of the minimum requirements, though it also deserved its failure in the end as well. Other mods that would be acceptable to charge for would be Nehrim for oblivion, or Tamriel Rebuilt for morrowind (though currently as early-alpha), or of course even Natural Selection 1.
With no support service, like what the steam workshop did, or a feature built into the Nexus, those who decided to charge for their mods would need to commit resources to web hosting. In doing that, they would also present to their potential buyers just how much they were willing to invest in the continued success of their product, meaning ongoing development and support. They would need to expect to be popular enough to justify the expense. No nickle and diming microtransaction mods, go big or go home.
It wasn't the internets reaction to paid mods, it was the gaming community specifically. If I was one of those Skyrim modders, specifically the teams of modders who have spent years making mods that seem to rival the vanilla game itself, that push back must have seemed like a slap in the face. I'm not surprised a lot of the big teams have quit.
As for combat, I bought it first. I hadn't heard of NS2 prior to playing combat. Combat's doesn't seem any more or less buggy then ns2, and I think the ui looks fine, if not a little better then ns2's. Since I bought combat first it seems the fact that ns2 and combat shares assets doesn't really bother me. Plus I picked it up on sale. It would be cool if the combat stuff could be integrated into ns2. The weapon selection seems lacking in ns2, though from what I've read so far, that's not likely.
Sorta off topic, but I hope the combat guys keep working to get all the stuff they've shown in game, but at this point, I'd have dropped it.
@Soccer_guy243 I think it's modders telling modders to stop modding (which I hope doesn't happen
Im only saying it shouldnt be in release to begin with.
For combat due to it using the same engine as ns2 it accepts similar commands. Its doable to keep a eye on server tickrate and I'll tell you. It was not fine when combat was released.. At all. If this is purely coding or purely servers isnt a real concern. End result was no stable servers, which you will notice in hitreg. (the ones more used to such movement from playing ns2 would notice.. more)
I know many did not have the same UI issues, but on a playerbase that small you cant have any having a problem with basic ui features.
(hm.. I have half a mind to play combat now, see if folk are on and stuff is fixed)
I am well aware how much time modding costs.. Loads and loads of it. Still shall not stop me from having the opinion I previously stated.
This does not imply that Valve's implementation of paid-for-modding was a good idea. There's a huge quagmire with quality control (do mods do what they say they do? Do they respect other mods or step on each other's toes? Will mods broken by game updates recieve support?).
I'd like to see paid-for-modding in some form; I just don't know how you'd implement it in a remotely sensible fashion except for the way it has been traditionally implemented (e.g. Valve hiring the best and brightest moders to make a paid-for version of the mod).
So let me get this straight. These large Skyrim mod teams started projects with no good option or expectation of getting paid for them. Then Valve comes along and potentially gives them an option to make some money off of them, but it receives backlash from the users and is removed. And now because it didn't work out, they are threatening to quit doing something they never got paid or expected compensation for in the first place. Who is being childish now?
Also, it's really hard to start charging people for something that they have already been getting for free. It has to be done pretty tactfully. (Well unless you're Comcast and you already have your customers by the balls.)
You'd have to have an auction for such a priceless thing...
Its not because of the paid mods not working out, I believe its because of the reactions of some of the community.
One example being SkyUI having a donation box, and in all its time its only raised about $500? I might be slightly bitter if people said: "just have a donate box!!!"
You are 100% right that its hard to charge for what people have been getting for free however. The black mesa route might be best, have the old version for free as a demo, and keep working on the new version with extra features and support. That, or maybe one day a new game can arise, with paid mods in some form from the start of its life (in a sensible format).
Its my hope anyway...
No my statement and wording was correct. It didn't work out (aka failed) because of the backlash from users.
Today, after nothing short of an apocalyptic hellstorm of fan fury, they’ve announced they’re taking the store down.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2015/04/27/valve-takes-down-skyrims-paid-mod-store-after-mass-protests/
My only reason for quoting was literally the Who is being childish now line, everything else I agree with you on
Sadly relevant