Suppa7 - How in the hell did we go from me talking about great gaming on the PC to how bad Nintend's ancient properties are. Who cares??? I'm talking PC gaming. I couldn't care any less if those kiddies games had never existed in the first place.

Anyway, it sounds like you need to find a new hobby then Suppa, because you are impossible to please when it comes to gaming. Go make love to your Super Mario cartridge and your Akalabeth floppies one last time then move on to new things; the rest of us will enjoy the great experiences gaming today has to offer the unjaded, non-bitter gamers.

This comment was edited on Nov 5, 2012, 07:22.

I fail to see how F2P would work. I have seen some GOOD examples of F2P. Global Agenda was good, it was free although limited in game functionality (i.e. you couldnt get the better loot and couldnt use the in game trading function too well) you could buy a one time key which would basically unlock all functionality or pay a time charge to get twice the loot and XP. You could also buy cosmetic items but NOT game items. In fact the devs abandoned this before the players did, there was a good healthy base of paying players that pleaded with the devs to add things but were met with a wall of silence.

What could you do with CnC? Any sort of unit hampering would put me off straight away as you would get caned. Map limits? Game queues? No thanks, id rather pay a one time fee or not bother.

As a second point there have been plenty of good games out there in the last 10 years. Many of which were born in the last 10 years. My "major" time sinks over the last 10 years have been CnC generals, CIV4, Silent hunter 3 and 4, NS1 for HL, HL2, TF2, Borderlands, Global Agenda, Mafia (and 2), Diablo 3 (I know im in a minority here but it has been fine for what *I* wanted in a game), NS2 will be my next time sink.

The gap in the last 3/4 was when I had my second child, that sorted out my free time! Note, these are only my major time sinks - ive played other worthy games.

This comment was edited on Nov 5, 2012, 06:21.

shihonage wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 03:02:
F2P games taught me a valuable lesson - they are like web interfaces and the cloud. You don't really own them, and they're prone to horrible decisions being patched in on random basis.

If you want an Email client, get a local one, like Thunderbird or Outlook. If you want to be at the mercy of the ever-changing cloud, use Gmail and Hotmail via the web.

Same goes for games. Either you own them, or not. And with F2P, you don't own SHIT.

This message was brought to you by a disgruntled Tribes: Ascend player.

The worst part about all of this, is that it looks like there are enough dumb fucks on the internet to feed these F2P games forever fucking up PC gaming.

When even Team fortress goes F2P that is seriously fucked up. Minerwars 2081, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2. Online only and F2P. Shit sucks.

jacobvandy wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 03:58:

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 03:20:
blah blah blah

I'm a low IQ gamer and can only post stupid youtube videos to people yelling 'gay'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1ZtBCpo0eU

Suppa7 wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 03:20:
blah blah blah

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXw6znXPfy4

Prez wrote on Nov 5, 2012, 00:54:

Ant wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 23:15:

beigemore wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 14:19:
I'm starting to think I'm done with video games.

I pretty much did that!

You guys just aren't looking in the right place. Borderlands 2, The Witcher series, the Torchlight series - if you are a fan of PC rpg's (and more specifically action RPG's) it's almost an embarrassment of riches. Natural Selection seems to be a great strategy shooter, X-Com finally got a worthy successor this year, Metro 2033's sequel is looking to be a hardcore PC fps, Dishonored is brilliant, and that's not even mentioning all of the promising kickstarter projects currently underway, some of which look sure to be completed. Personally, if I ignore the noise from the big gaming publishers and their AAA crap, I find myself thinking that this is the most exciting time to be a gamer in the 35 years I've been gaming.

You're just WRONG, overall the last 10 years have got to be the worst in gaming history. Nintendo's major franchises (starfox, Zelda, metroid) are all suffering in different ways. Other M was a disaster. Final fantasy series is on the ropes. Since FFX, FF has been going completely downhill and it's basically a movie with hardly any gameplay anymore. The combat system and loot has been totlly removed/dumbed down/gutted.

On PC ... I've played all those games you mentioned. Torchlight 2 is basically a worse version of diablo 2. The itemization is bad and the story/world is worse. Not to mention Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 were huge disappointments especially with the 'always online' bullshit and the gimped mod tools. Starcraft 2 is basically another parallel universe in terms of story, the story in SC2 is totally not congruent with the firsts. We're seeing what World of warcraft did to blizzard (totally fucked them up). The people behind the original diablo 2 and starcraft were blown to the winds and after 12 years the new developers totally sucked at giving sequels to two of gamings most beloved franchises.

Borderlands 2 isn't anything special, people who are over-wow'd by graphics and don't have good taste in gameplay find it 'amazing'. Older FPS's were more fun on release then the entire single player campaign of borderlands 1+2 and had more longevity (UT2004).

BL2 is an example of everything that is wrong with the games industry: Game developers never learn from other games and just rehash what they know. Borderland 2's biggest problem is it's pacing, the world is too big and the enemies too sparse. As a single player FPS it is underwhelming, it's not anything we haven't seen before umpteen hundred times.

Metro is YET ANOTHER FPS (gtfo). Witcher is a mediocre RPG with a shitty combat system and Dishonored is a half baked version of thief combined with bioshock for the ADHD call of duty crowd.

Games have been dumbed down by the influx of:

1) Unskilled gamers
2) Low intelligence gamers with no fucking clue what makes a good game.

The only highlights lately have been Torchlight 2 but even it is living off Diablo 2's great design and it still fucked up majorly in places that counted: Loot in general sucks in Torchlight 2.

This comment was edited on Nov 5, 2012, 05:10.

F2P games taught me a valuable lesson - they are like web interfaces and the cloud. You don't really own them, and they're prone to horrible decisions being patched in on random basis.

If you want an Email client, get a local one, like Thunderbird or Outlook. If you want to be at the mercy of the ever-changing cloud, use Gmail and Hotmail via the web.

Same goes for games. Either you own them, or not. And with F2P, you don't own SHIT.

This message was brought to you by a disgruntled Tribes: Ascend player.

Ant wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 23:15:

beigemore wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 14:19:
I'm starting to think I'm done with video games.

I pretty much did that!

You guys just aren't looking in the right place. Borderlands 2, The Witcher series, the Torchlight series - if you are a fan of PC rpg's (and more specifically action RPG's) it's almost an embarrassment of riches. Natural Selection seems to be a great strategy shooter, X-Com finally got a worthy successor this year, Metro 2033's sequel is looking to be a hardcore PC fps, Dishonored is brilliant, and that's not even mentioning all of the promising kickstarter projects currently underway, some of which look sure to be completed. Personally, if I ignore the noise from the big gaming publishers and their AAA crap, I find myself thinking that this is the most exciting time to be a gamer in the 35 years I've been gaming.

beigemore wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 14:19:
I'm starting to think I'm done with video games.

I pretty much did that!

And no free time. I played CS:GO free weekend for about 15 minutes.

This comment was edited on Nov 5, 2012, 01:08.

Tumbler wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 21:48:
Meh, good luck with C&C anything at this point.

I guess if they have bases then we have to consider it progress. Minimal progress, but something :/

Meh, good luck with C&C anything at this point.

Not really sure how a strategy game will work with the F2P business model. F2P relies primarily on cosmetic items and XP boosts for revenue.

Well if Age of Empires online is any indication it won't work at all. Players complained of super high grinding for basically everything or paying through the nose for things like new civs. And C&C 4 had some of the worst grinding ever in a RTS, not to mention always online DRM.

Why is Command & Conquer Generals 2 F2P?! Why dear god, why...

Longest running beta phase in franchise history? I don't know how they think that boasting that is a good thing?... to me that's a bad thing... If you were a good developer with good QA, you'd fix all the bugs as fast as possible, not let it drag on like this after core development has ended. They need to change their priorities, but it's EA so I'm not surprised... they already ran the C&C franchise down to the ground with C&C4 and Red Alert 3.

Actually, long betas aren't that uncommon for F2P games. Stronghold Kingdoms just came out of a very long "beta" of around two years. During that time they were still able to charge money for the extra features just as you would in a "released" version.

It's sort of the best of both worlds when developing. You get to say "but it's still beta" when addressing the complaints or getting the content finished and you still make money from those eager to pay for those extras.

Not really sure how a strategy game will work with the F2P business model. F2P relies primarily on cosmetic items and XP boosts for revenue. Cosmetic items would work fine in an RTS but XP boosts? The idea of having to grind to unlock units, structures and upgrades seems like it would really unbalance the game.

I'm curious to see how well End of Nations does.

Longest running beta phase in franchise history? I don't know how they think that boasting that is a good thing?... to me that's a bad thing... If you were a good developer with good QA, you'd fix all the bugs as fast as possible, not let it drag on like this after core development has ended. They need to change their priorities, but it's EA so I'm not surprised... they already ran the C&C franchise down to the ground with C&C4 and Red Alert 3.

The beta phase is primarily for balancing, something the previous C&C games have had trouble with. That said, I think there's only so much testing you can do before you reach a point of diminishing returns. Players will always find new tactics and strategies and the only way to balance them all is to release the game to the public and tackle issues as they arise.

"As planned right now, the Beta will start in the first half of 2013, and will be the longest running beta phase in franchise history."

Longest running beta phase in franchise history? I don't know how they think that boasting that is a good thing?... to me that's a bad thing... If you were a good developer with good QA, you'd fix all the bugs as fast as possible, not let it drag on like this after core development has ended. They need to change their priorities, but it's EA so I'm not surprised... they already ran the C&C franchise down to the ground with C&C4 and Red Alert 3.

PHJF wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 14:38:
... retail games that ultimately failed and had to go F2P to survive. Different when a game is built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind.

This is the issue. When games are built from the ground up around F2P they tend to be very irritating, as they reward those who pay over those who don't. There are some exceptions to this, like Dota 2 and (from the looks of it) Planetside 2, so it's not an absolute rule but it holds true most of the time. And we're talking about EA here.

I don't know what you define as "properly", but I enjoyed Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and a few others just fine

... retail games that ultimately failed and had to go F2P to survive. Different when a game is built from the ground up with microtransactions in mind.

I'm starting to think I'm done with video games.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Nov 4, 2012, 13:36:
I'm not interested in F2P games. To enjoy them properly they end up costing a lot more than traditional games and the gameplay tends to revolve around grind rather than enjoyment. Age Of Empires Online was a classic example of that, with civilisations that amounted to hundreds of pounds if you bought them all. It's a disgusting business model but it's no surprise to see EA embrace it.

I don't know what you define as "properly", but I enjoyed Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and a few others just fine...spending about 20 bucks a month total. In other words instead of paying 15 bucks a month for one game, I spent about 20 (if that, usually less) and played a few different ones depending on what I was game for. In addition to that there is Path of Exile which I still haven't paid a dime for and have enjoyed as much or more then every other game this year.

Age of Empires Online was an example of how not to run a F2P, but it is far from the definition of the business model. This C&C game doesn't look all that promising to me though, but it has nothing to do with the F2P concept. I try not to come into these with a negative attitude, but C&C hasn't been a fun franchise to me for some time and what I have read so far hardly makes me believe that is going to change.

That said...I only play any of them when my "que" is low, and right now isn't one of those times. Currently still paying XCOM and POE, and I have a crapload of other games still to catch up on. I mean...I still have LA Noire in my Steam "to play" list. Between the sales and the rash of good games lately...the biggest enemy to F2P games is that there have been plenty of good games worth paying for to take up my somewhat limited game time.