It is true that it discouraged many people certainly.
Elite Dangerous has sold 3m copies, Horizons 1.3m (43% of basegame owners)
- Thread starter StuartGT
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It is true that it discouraged many people certainly.
In that case every MMO is pay to win so stop complaining.
Never mind - it recently obtained nearly as many average concurrent players on Steam as a 2D sprite-based sandbox game which started life as a spare time project by people who'd never published a game before.
So that's certainly something to celebrate.
So that's certainly something to celebrate.
Ahh, the 'something is only good if it is the most popular' gambit.
Oh I get your angle on this now, and agree. As for not caring, IMHO the ability to land on planets, however boring they may be designated this game as unique among other space titles, that is, before No Man's Sky appeared. This is no longer the case, but still for me Elite without Horizons (read: 2.0 expansion) is a hollow shell. It's just my opinion, man ;-)
How dare people play different games!
No, it's the "game with 100 staff working on it non-stop for years on end and a glitzy PR budget churning out videos resplendent with not-in-game footage is slightly less popular than a first attempt by a Czech start-up thrown together in their spare time" gambit. There are similarities between these gambits, true, but there's a subtle difference which I believed was worth probing.
Marketing is like Santa Claus beyond a certain age you are expected not to take it overly seriously. The "not in game footage" tag is also a bit of a pointer.
"I don't like that different people like playing different games" or "I don't like that other games exist"?
That's a good thing, the most popular games tend to suck.
Cool, like I said. You can't come up with a comparable paid expansion that didn't add superior 'P2W' kit then
(PS you're forgetting that Multicrew added extra PIPs and is totally P2W
Actually it only added one and the fact I listed that many additions that don't give much tangible advantages shows how plausible an expansion like that is.
But its hard to get china out once there in and before you know it 10cent will own you!
I would argue that Horizons is not true Pay to Win.
Pay to win is where you get an immediate benefit, IE you buy the Beam Lazer inst-a-zap cannon and you get to insta-kill your opponent for only £5 or 100,000 e-coins (which cost to real money to buy).
With Horizons, you still have to spend game time to earning the access to the engineers, gathering the materials and then engineering the 'flying fudge' out of your ship to get those advantages. I'd be interested to know how much game time you would need to upgrade a (just as an example) stock clipper, with starting access to engineers, to a fully engineered ship. I'm betting it will be at least 30 hours of game time. I feel that having gone to that much effort, the upgraded ship is a decent reward for the extra effort you've put in. Horizon's just gives you access to the possibility of having an enhanced ship, not everyone who has Horizons has spent their time engineering a killer PvP ship.
Pay to win is where you get an immediate benefit, IE you buy the Beam Lazer inst-a-zap cannon and you get to insta-kill your opponent for only £5 or 100,000 e-coins (which cost to real money to buy).
With Horizons, you still have to spend game time to earning the access to the engineers, gathering the materials and then engineering the 'flying fudge' out of your ship to get those advantages. I'd be interested to know how much game time you would need to upgrade a (just as an example) stock clipper, with starting access to engineers, to a fully engineered ship. I'm betting it will be at least 30 hours of game time. I feel that having gone to that much effort, the upgraded ship is a decent reward for the extra effort you've put in. Horizon's just gives you access to the possibility of having an enhanced ship, not everyone who has Horizons has spent their time engineering a killer PvP ship.
Yes steam says it is an MMO.
Yes but that still actually makes it P2W doesn't it
I'm happy you're convinced of the plausibility of your suggestion. How about making it seem even more plausible by actually giving some examples of comparable games that have done it?
That's the TLDR. For a lengthier reply:
The brass tacks of this are: Providing tactical advantage by, in part, tweaking existing numbers and systems, is easier to do than creating perfectly balanced and novel additions, extensive narrative scenarios, and unique locations. They also make uptake of expansions more likely.
You're essentially insisting that dev houses should go to greater artistic lengths to receive less cash. It's a lovely sentiment, but I think you're in a 'wish in one hand...' scenario here
ED is clearly up against it in terms of lavishing scenarios on us content locusts in this proc gen environment, so on those grounds I don't blame them for using the simple hook of OP gear, alongside other additions. (At least they mixed it up and created a somewhat flexible and interesting system regarding the actual mods themselves. And did provide a variety of other experiential additions that weren't P2W, as you mention.)
There are far, far more insiduous forms of monetisation out there, which completely mess up game design and balance, such as the ability to buy top end gear straight off the bat etc.
Just spend the fiver to get back on the level playing field, if you haven't already. It's a lot easier than demanding that something deeply unlikely should suddenly become the norm
You're essentially insisting that dev houses should go to greater artistic lengths to receive less cash. It's a lovely sentiment, but I think you're in a 'wish in one hand...' scenario here
ED is clearly up against it in terms of lavishing scenarios on us content locusts in this proc gen environment, so on those grounds I don't blame them for using the simple hook of OP gear, alongside other additions. (At least they mixed it up and created a somewhat flexible and interesting system regarding the actual mods themselves. And did provide a variety of other experiential additions that weren't P2W, as you mention.)
There are far, far more insiduous forms of monetisation out there, which completely mess up game design and balance, such as the ability to buy top end gear straight off the bat etc.
Just spend the fiver to get back on the level playing field, if you haven't already. It's a lot easier than demanding that something deeply unlikely should suddenly become the norm
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Blackcompany
Banned
That's a valid point. I was not judging, just pointing out a simple fact.
Blackcompany
Banned
It's more pointing out that numbers are dangerously low for a large online game that requires a server farm and ongoing development in order to remain available and relevant.
If that was an issue, it would probably have come up at some earlier point prior to the bestest numbers ever.
Yep... Those 100+ people are no doubt costing a pretty penny each year. ie: Quite a few millions...