mass effect 3 multiplayer

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 14:42:54 -0700, Sheldon England
wrote:

>Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>> Sheldon England wrote:
>>>
>>> In years past I would be in the store on day one of release to buy
>>> Arkham City based on how much fun I had with Arkham Asylum. But they
>>> don't want my $80 so instead I will give them $10 a year from now.
>>
>> Didn't quite understand what you meant by this. Of course they want
>> your $80
>
>I suspect you are just being disingenuous ... but if they wanted my $80
>on release they would provide me with an incentive to do so.
>
>If I don't care about the cheesy in-game trophies or any bragging rights
>about playing first then there is absolutely no incentive for me to pay
>full price on release.
>
>Instead, the publishers 'bargain bin' the software in a couple months
>and take away any incentive to buy on release for full price.
>
>Thus, it seems, they don't want that extra $70 from me.

What I really meant was -- what would give you incentive to do so?

It's not that they are doing anything wrong, per se now. A game that
costs $50 in 2000 would cost about $65 these days adjusted for
inflation.

What has changed is the distribution mechanism (in a lot of cases at
least - not to include the Ted Kazcinsky types that still get DVDs
delivered to their cabins on the bi-weekly horse and buggy run) and
the amount people are willing to pay per title.

So, let's assume they do want $60 for the title plus $15 for DLC, or
whatever the price point is. What could they do that would motivate
you personally to pay that?

In article ,
Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>
>So, let's assume they do want $60 for the title plus $15 for DLC, or
>whatever the price point is. What could they do that would motivate
>you personally to pay that?

That's a pretty general question and I expect that the answer will vary
a lot from person to person. The first necessary condition is they have
to produce a game that provides $75 of value to the purchaser. If I
don't expect to get $75 worth of enjoyment from an entertainment
product, I won't spend $75 on it.

A company that treats me well earns my goodwill and makes me more likely
to pay their asking price for a product all things considered. There
are some companies, like CDProjekt Red and Stardock, which seem to
view their customers as customers and offer them value for their money.
There are other companies like Ubisoft which seem to view their customers
as a mixture of criminal and money-bag. I'm much more likely to pay
full price for a product from the former type of company -- the latter
go to the end of the line unless they happen to make something that
really appeals to me in other ways. (I don't like Ubisoft, but I do
like the idea of resurrecting the Deus Ex franchise.)

--
Kyle Haight

On Tue, 18 Oct 2011 17:28:03 -0500, khaight.TakeThisOut@lefDELETEtistME.org (Kyle
Haight) wrote:

>In article ,
>Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>>
>>So, let's assume they do want $60 for the title plus $15 for DLC, or
>>whatever the price point is. What could they do that would motivate
>>you personally to pay that?
>
>That's a pretty general question and I expect that the answer will vary
>a lot from person to person. The first necessary condition is they have
>to produce a game that provides $75 of value to the purchaser. If I
>don't expect to get $75 worth of enjoyment from an entertainment
>product, I won't spend $75 on it.

Sure, but as you can imagine, what I'm really aiming at for with the
question is -- what does that value entail (to anyone who cares to
respond, because its likely to vary from individual to individual).
What adds value to a game? More play time in game hours? A larger
world? Deeper story? etc... I suspect that answer could vary.

>A company that treats me well earns my goodwill and makes me more likely
>to pay their asking price for a product all things considered. There
>are some companies, like CDProjekt Red and Stardock, which seem to
>view their customers as customers and offer them value for their money.
>There are other companies like Ubisoft which seem to view their customers
>as a mixture of criminal and money-bag. I'm much more likely to pay
>full price for a product from the former type of company -- the latter
>go to the end of the line unless they happen to make something that
>really appeals to me in other ways. (I don't like Ubisoft, but I do
>like the idea of resurrecting the Deus Ex franchise.)

So, lack of DRM is very important to you. Let me ask you this, would
you prefer to pay $65 for a DRM-free game that's not very good or $65
for one that delivers 20 hours or so of riveting gameplay, but has DRM
that authenticates you, only lets you install it 6 times, and ensures
it is only installed on one machine at a time?

In article ,
Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>
>Sure, but as you can imagine, what I'm really aiming at for with the
>question is -- what does that value entail (to anyone who cares to
>respond, because its likely to vary from individual to individual).
>What adds value to a game?

That question boils down to "what do you enjoy in a game"? Obviously
that's going to vary widely from person to person. I expect it will
vary even for a given person. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a sprawling
open-world RPG. Right now, though, I'm not, because I just finished
Fallout: New Vegas and I've scratched that itch. With Skyrim dropping
next month I want to spend the time in between scratching the kind of
itch that Bethesda games generally don't, which points to plot and
characterization -- hence my current focus on DXHR.

Sometimes I'm in the mood for something quick and brainless. I expect
the next time that happens I'll pick up one of the Deathspank games
from XBLA.

I also cycle between AAA and indie games. The AAA games bring the
eye candy and fancy production values, which is nice, but the indie
games bring an old-school design philosophy that is largely absent
from mainstream releases now. Six months ago I was burning through
Avernum games -- then I got tired of turn-based old-school gameplay.
Frayed Knights will probably pull me in at some point in the future.

Some of the things I look for in games, in no particular order,
include:

- A good story.
- An interesting world that rewards exploration and environmental
manipulation.
- Choice and consequence on the macro and micro scale. (Big choices
that impact the plot and NPC relations, small choices on how to
approach and resolve quests or tactical problems.)
- Well-written characters.
- Emergent gameplay from interacting systems. (Dishonored, don't let
me down!)
- A combat system with tactical and strategic depth.
- A character development system with flexibility and real alternatives.
- Attractive graphics and sound.
- Humor, if it's done well and is appropriate for the game.

I don't think I've ever seen a single game that provided all of those
things, but that's fine. Those are values I look for in games, but
I don't need to find all or even most of them in a game to enjoy it.

>More play time in game hours? A larger world? Deeper story? etc...

More play time may or may not add value, depending on whether I enjoy
the play. A game should be the right length and no longer. Portal was an
excellent example of that, as was Arkham Asylum. Both games ended pretty
much when the possibilities of their gameplay systems and story setups had
been played out. Fallout 3 outwore its welcome for me. I quit playing
because I was tired of playing it -- there was more content available in
DLC packs, some of it well-reviewed, and I wasn't interested because at
the time I just didn't want more Fallout 3. More play time would have
been a disvalue.

Similar observations could be made about increasing the size of
the gameworld, or making the story 'deeper' -- whatever that means.
A bigger gameworld is only a value if it has more stuff in it that's
worth experiencing. If I'm tired of all the stuff I can do in the
world, then adding another island isn't going to be of value to me.
Another plot twist in a story I'm tired of isn't worthwhile. Etc.

>So, lack of DRM is very important to you.

I'm not an anti-DRM fanatic like some on this group. I don't like
being treated like a presumptive criminal, but I acknowledge that
piracy is a real problem. Non-invasive DRM that doesn't interfere
with my ability to install, play, update and migrate the game doesn't
bother me too much. Couple it with a demonstrated commitment to
remove it several months after ship (as CD Projekt Red has shown) and
I'm generally content.

It's the always-online schemes that tie my ability to play the game
to the company's continued willingness to keep back-end servers
running that stick in my craw. If I want to rent a game on a back-end
server I'll just install the OnLive client and be done with it.

>Let me ask you this, would you prefer to pay $65 for a DRM-free game
>that's not very good or $65 for one that delivers 20 hours or so of
>riveting gameplay, but has DRM that authenticates you, only lets you
>install it 6 times, and ensures it is only installed on one machine at
>a time?

I can't see paying $65 for a game that isn't very good regardless of its
DRM status. As I said above I'm not a DRM crusader. Quality of the game
comes first -- it's a necessary condition. But I have many more games
on my want-to-play list than I will ever have time to actually play.
Given that, I have to pick and choose among games. If given a choice
between two high-quality games, one of which has noxious DRM and the
other of which does not, I'll likely go for the less noxious one. But
it's only one factor among many.

--
Kyle Haight

Am 10/18/11 11:15 PM, schrieb Rin Stowleigh:
$80 so instead I will give them $10 a year from now.
>
> Didn't quite understand what you meant by this. Of course they want
> your $80
>
Of course they want, but given all the DLC crap they have been pulling
off they increased the incentive to wait for the ultra whatever edition
to hit the bargain bins. As the poster before noted, it simply makes
more sense to wait until all the bugfixes have been rolled in and all
the DLC packs.
Before it was just bugfixes now you get the full content as well, not a
good incentive for a first day buy.

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 00:06:22 -0500, khaight.DeleteThis@lefDELETEtistME.org (Kyle
Haight) wrote:

>In article ,
>Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>>
>>Sure, but as you can imagine, what I'm really aiming at for with the
>>question is -- what does that value entail (to anyone who cares to
>>respond, because its likely to vary from individual to individual).
>>What adds value to a game?
>
>That question boils down to "what do you enjoy in a game"?

Yes, and they are sort of parallel (and I realize I didn't phrase the
question very well), but I was mostly asking from a pre-sales
standpoint. In other words, if I am playing the role of the guy whose
job it is to maximize sales revenues for a game and make decisions
about the direction of the development and allocation of resources,
how can I do the best job possible that I've been hired to do?

Certainly there's a lot of overlap between the game traits you mention
and the general gaming community. But from a standpoint of getting
more people to add to cart soon after release at the original price
point (whatever that may be), what's the best way to sell more copies
(and hopefully and more ambitiously, either build or sustain a
successful franchise)?

This is circling back around to my point. Multiplayer might be the
last strategy they have for getting people to buy early and at a
higher price point.

With the increasing popularity of global unlocks and stats (like BF3),
part of the payoff of buying early with multiplayer is not that you
gain more XP for the sake of XP, its that you are able to unlock
weapons / abilities or other features of the game that in many cases
really do increase your enjoyment of the game, and what's more waiting
too long to pick up the title can leave a gamer finding themselves in
the wake of others who are far ahead. It's understood that this will
not be enough to motivate everyone; in fact I'm pretty sure that 90%
of the readership of this NG will not be able to relate to this
paragraph or understand what I am talking about at all, but aside from
adding a multiplayer element, when I put myself back into the
fictitious role of "sales maximizer guy", I don't see too many other
strategies for getting your sales dollar early, especially when you
have all those other $5 deals to choose from on Steam, easy access to
plenty of nice indie titles, etc.

>It's the always-online schemes that tie my ability to play the game
>to the company's continued willingness to keep back-end servers
>running that stick in my craw. If I want to rent a game on a back-end
>server I'll just install the OnLive client and be done with it.

Veering off topic, I don't think you want that. Cloud gaming is a
ruse. Bandwidth and computing resources cost OnLive money. So, once
they've lured you in, guess what is an easier way for them to maximize
their profits as their sign ups grow? Throttle down the bandwidth and
computing resources to the point where you are no longer getting the
framerates or responsiveness you were when you first joined the
service.

There is probably nothing anyone could do to put nails in the coffin
of gaming faster than use a cloud gaming service. Its a bait and
switch scam.

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:49:25 +0200, Werner Punz wrote:

>Am 10/18/11 11:15 PM, schrieb Rin Stowleigh:
>$80 so instead I will give them $10 a year from now.
>>
>> Didn't quite understand what you meant by this. Of course they want
>> your $80
>>
>Of course they want, but given all the DLC crap they have been pulling
>off they increased the incentive to wait for the ultra whatever edition
>to hit the bargain bins. As the poster before noted, it simply makes
>more sense to wait until all the bugfixes have been rolled in and all
>the DLC packs.
>Before it was just bugfixes now you get the full content as well, not a
>good incentive for a first day buy.

Exactly my point. So what would be incentive?

Multiplayer may be the only answer, thus we may see a lot more of it
added to previously SP-only franchises.

Am 10/19/11 3:33 PM, schrieb Rin Stowleigh:

> Exactly my point. So what would be incentive?
>
> Multiplayer may be the only answer, thus we may see a lot more of it
> added to previously SP-only franchises.
>

MP might be something worthwhile to many, I personally do not have any
interest into MP never had, never will be probably.
But having two kids, I am slowly fading out of gaming anyway due to time
constraints, thats the way of life.

On 10/18/2011 10:06 PM, Kyle Haight wrote:
> In article ,
> Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>>
>> Sure, but as you can imagine, what I'm really aiming at for with the
>> question is -- what does that value entail (to anyone who cares to
>> respond, because its likely to vary from individual to individual).
>> What adds value to a game?
>
> That question boils down to "what do you enjoy in a game"? Obviously
> that's going to vary widely from person to person. I expect it will
> vary even for a given person. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a sprawling
> open-world RPG. Right now, though, I'm not, because I just finished
> Fallout: New Vegas and I've scratched that itch. With Skyrim dropping
> next month I want to spend the time in between scratching the kind of
> itch that Bethesda games generally don't, which points to plot and
> characterization -- hence my current focus on DXHR.
>
> Sometimes I'm in the mood for something quick and brainless. I expect
> the next time that happens I'll pick up one of the Deathspank games
> from XBLA.
>
> I also cycle between AAA and indie games. The AAA games bring the
> eye candy and fancy production values, which is nice, but the indie
> games bring an old-school design philosophy that is largely absent
> from mainstream releases now. Six months ago I was burning through
> Avernum games -- then I got tired of turn-based old-school gameplay.
> Frayed Knights will probably pull me in at some point in the future.
>
> Some of the things I look for in games, in no particular order,
> include:
>
> - A good story.
> - An interesting world that rewards exploration and environmental
> manipulation.
> - Choice and consequence on the macro and micro scale. (Big choices
> that impact the plot and NPC relations, small choices on how to
> approach and resolve quests or tactical problems.)
> - Well-written characters.
> - Emergent gameplay from interacting systems. (Dishonored, don't let
> me down!)
> - A combat system with tactical and strategic depth.
> - A character development system with flexibility and real alternatives.
> - Attractive graphics and sound.
> - Humor, if it's done well and is appropriate for the game.
>
> I don't think I've ever seen a single game that provided all of those
> things, but that's fine. Those are values I look for in games, but
> I don't need to find all or even most of them in a game to enjoy it.
>
>> More play time in game hours? A larger world? Deeper story? etc...
>
> More play time may or may not add value, depending on whether I enjoy
> the play. A game should be the right length and no longer. Portal was an
> excellent example of that, as was Arkham Asylum. Both games ended pretty
> much when the possibilities of their gameplay systems and story setups had
> been played out. Fallout 3 outwore its welcome for me. I quit playing
> because I was tired of playing it -- there was more content available in
> DLC packs, some of it well-reviewed, and I wasn't interested because at
> the time I just didn't want more Fallout 3. More play time would have
> been a disvalue.
>
> Similar observations could be made about increasing the size of
> the gameworld, or making the story 'deeper' -- whatever that means.
> A bigger gameworld is only a value if it has more stuff in it that's
> worth experiencing. If I'm tired of all the stuff I can do in the
> world, then adding another island isn't going to be of value to me.
> Another plot twist in a story I'm tired of isn't worthwhile. Etc.
>
>> So, lack of DRM is very important to you.
>
> I'm not an anti-DRM fanatic like some on this group. I don't like
> being treated like a presumptive criminal, but I acknowledge that
> piracy is a real problem. Non-invasive DRM that doesn't interfere
> with my ability to install, play, update and migrate the game doesn't
> bother me too much. Couple it with a demonstrated commitment to
> remove it several months after ship (as CD Projekt Red has shown) and
> I'm generally content.
>
> It's the always-online schemes that tie my ability to play the game
> to the company's continued willingness to keep back-end servers
> running that stick in my craw. If I want to rent a game on a back-end
> server I'll just install the OnLive client and be done with it.
>
>> Let me ask you this, would you prefer to pay $65 for a DRM-free game
>> that's not very good or $65 for one that delivers 20 hours or so of
>> riveting gameplay, but has DRM that authenticates you, only lets you
>> install it 6 times, and ensures it is only installed on one machine at
>> a time?
>
> I can't see paying $65 for a game that isn't very good regardless of its
> DRM status. As I said above I'm not a DRM crusader. Quality of the game
> comes first -- it's a necessary condition. But I have many more games
> on my want-to-play list than I will ever have time to actually play.
> Given that, I have to pick and choose among games. If given a choice
> between two high-quality games, one of which has noxious DRM and the
> other of which does not, I'll likely go for the less noxious one. But
> it's only one factor among many.

Me too! (What he said.)

Additional:

- Use the keyboard and mouse for the interface -- no
more of this console nonsense of enter, up, down, back
- Don't waste development time on any multiplayer aspects,
focus on single-player gameplay
- Use CD as DRM and remove that after a year or so. No
more creating unique user accounts for EVERY FRICKIN'
GAME for single player games.
- Do away with all DLC and make full games instead of selling
it out in parcels.


- Sheldon

In article ,
Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>
>>It's the always-online schemes that tie my ability to play the game
>>to the company's continued willingness to keep back-end servers
>>running that stick in my craw. If I want to rent a game on a back-end
>>server I'll just install the OnLive client and be done with it.
>
>Veering off topic, I don't think you want that. Cloud gaming is a
>ruse.

Just in case it wasn't clear, I have zero desire to rent a game on a
back-end server, and even less desire than that to use OnLive.

--
Kyle Haight

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 16:04:15 +0200, Werner Punz wrote:

>Am 10/19/11 3:33 PM, schrieb Rin Stowleigh:
>
>> Exactly my point. So what would be incentive?
>>
>> Multiplayer may be the only answer, thus we may see a lot more of it
>> added to previously SP-only franchises.
>>
>
>MP might be something worthwhile to many, I personally do not have any
>interest into MP never had, never will be probably.
>But having two kids, I am slowly fading out of gaming anyway due to time
>constraints, thats the way of life.
>
>

I've known a few folks that have integrated the kids fully into their
multiplayer gaming strategy, forming a mini-clan of sorts

I've played with multiple clans that had multiple team members from
the same family, in one case there was a father, three sons, and one
daughter in-law that all wore the same clan tags.

I personally don't like to play in organized clans with that
situation, because just like nepotism in the workplace it introduces a
weird dynamic and lots of new challenges, but it does happen all the
time.

On Wed, 19 Oct 2011 11:49:56 -0500, khaight RemoveThis @lefDELETEtistME.org (Kyle
Haight) wrote:

>In article ,
>Rin Stowleigh wrote:
>>
>>>It's the always-online schemes that tie my ability to play the game
>>>to the company's continued willingness to keep back-end servers
>>>running that stick in my craw. If I want to rent a game on a back-end
>>>server I'll just install the OnLive client and be done with it.
>>
>>Veering off topic, I don't think you want that. Cloud gaming is a
>>ruse.
>
>Just in case it wasn't clear, I have zero desire to rent a game on a
>back-end server, and even less desire than that to use OnLive.

Good to hear. I don't rant much here on my feelings about OnLive
unless someone mentions it, because I think in general the readership
of this NG would be unlikely adopters; at the same time a lot of folks
here are extremely thrifty and might be lured in at the low cost to
get started just as many were suckered into the low cost of console
hardware.

I saw that Microsoft is entering cloud gaming as well, I suspect
because they see it as a valid threat to Xbox/PC gaming and there's of
course the old saying about keeping enemies close.