Bragging rights, or maybe seal clubbing laurels?
I suppose we're going to have to wait a some days to find out..
I suppose we're going to have to wait a some days to find out..
Pay2Win made it to Elite
- Thread starter Einar Donarsson
- Start date
Yeah. A Python MK II for zero gameplay and zero effort, just cash. Before long ED is just a shop, not a game.
I don't think the backlash here is literally about a ship being sold—although the bait-and-switchiness of how the have handled the Python Mk II feels bad and will have flipped a lot of people into instant negative mindset. It's what it represents and where history has clearly shown this goes.
EDIT for afterthought:
I guess it's similar to the share market. Example: A bright new star of a company comes about with some innovative new product and its all about creating the best thing possible and how awesome it is to be making something people love and making bank doing it. Then they go public and a fundamental shift occurs; the customer changes. The customer before now becomes part of the product and shareholders are now the customer. At this point a downward spiral begins as the focus shifts from creating good products to farming the prior customers for cash to post good results for the new customer at any cost until eventually there is nothing left.
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I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised at this turn of events, there were enough people asking over many years for some sort of purchasable for real money content that would let them skip the grind, and as we all know, if you ask long enough and loud enough (PP2 anyone) you will eventually get what you asked for! Except for ELW landing and procedural life on planets and other stuff that I want.....oh well if I ask for long enough it will finally appear I expect!
At least we know what the new feature of the Python Mk2 is now that no other ships have, a cash register
At least we know what the new feature of the Python Mk2 is now that no other ships have, a cash register
The privilege of flying the ship months before the filthy peasants who merely bought the expansion. Though I'm not sure that's the most potentially egregious aspect of the proposed paid services.
Everyone has goals and if those goals are made easier to achieve by paying, that is pay-to-win.
Maybe I discover that iterating CZs for influence is six percent faster in a system that has no large landing pads with the Python Mk II vs. the next best ship that can dock in system (and yes, a fleet carrier can allow one to use any ship, but where it's possible to do so it is often more convenient to use extant outposts, for several reasons)...a single example like that is all it takes to cross the line.
A three month head start on anything the Python Mk II is better at.
I suspect it will be a potent ship--they are trying to sell it to people after all--but even if it's well within the realm of what already exists, chances are it will be better at something. That's a win.
The ARX gets you access to the ship early according to the statement regarding the Python. My guess is the ARX unlocks the ability to buy it with credits. The statements about the pre-built ships all call it instant access, whether or not that means said access allows you to buy it with in game credits or something else I do not know.
But the weird part is, earning your way through the ships, learning how to fly and how each ship is different for different jobs is one of the best parts of the game. Paying to skip one of the best parts of the game is lunacy! It's like Frontier don't actually understand their product. The game did not improve when they caved to the whiners and made Anacondas obtainable in less than a day. If it did, they wouldn't need to be pulling this stunt now Shirley? They should be fending off the millions of commanders attracted by a game with no long term goals or struggle.I'm not sure why everyone is so surprised at this turn of events, there were enough people asking over many years for some sort of purchasable for real money content that would let them skip the grind, and as we all know, if you ask long enough and loud enough (PP2 anyone) you will eventually get what you asked for! Except for ELW landing and procedural life on planets and other stuff that I want.....oh well if I ask for long enough it will finally appear I expect!
At least we know what the new feature of the Python Mk2 is now that no other ships have, a cash register
If no one's latching onto the "Great Goid Narrative" even with liberal splashings of ugly cosmetics and arx bribes, speaking for myself, it's not because I don't have the tools for it - It's because the entire way it's been done bores me to tears.
Yes it's a bit weird to quote my own post rather than edit but I think it's the best way to handle this as I don't want changes to my thoughts to get lost as I believe this is an important discussion.
The fears expressed in the original post are not unfounded. However, I will acknowledge that it was a bit of a knee-jerk reaction and perhaps I should give FDev the benefit of the doubt considering how long they have resisted predatory monetization in ED. I will also point out that FDev are spectacular when it comes to their inability to effectively communicate with the fan base.
Upon re-reading the news article I figure they have been looking at MWO and taking inspiration from their business model. Now I have played MWO extensively and have never had a problem with their monetization method (not even the notorious $500 gold mech drama). They were upfront and straight forward about how the game was going to be financed and it works; nothing about it feels predatory and they provide plenty of avenues for players to earn things in game as well and not just by opening their wallets.
One thing of note about MWO is they way PGI actually involve their community in decision making including monetization (Example: https://mwomercs.com/forums/topic/278433-mechwarrior-online-2021-monetization/). FDev would probably be well served by consulting the player base on how they would like to support the game because as far as I can tell there are plenty of people interested in ensuring this game stays alive and well for a long time to come but also views are quite polarized on how that should work. Ultimately open discussion could lead to multiple income streams that suit the needs of different facets of the player base; a situation where everyone wins.
My initial main point stands "Nurture the dedicated fan base you have; don't abuse it."
Actually there can be a lot of solutions to this problem other than 0 rebuy.
1. You pay the normal Cr rebuy cost based on their basic market value, but you cannot lose these particular modules, not even if you don't have enough credits.
2. You pay Cr rebuy for these modules normally as long as you have the credits. If you don't have the necessary funds, you don't lose these modules, they remain in outfitting/shipyard, but you cannot use them until you've redeemed them by paying off the Cr rebuy cost attached to them.
3. You've bought them for ARX? Cool, you'll pay ARX for the rebuy as well (5% of the original price). If you don't have enough ARX, no worries, you'll get a loan and you can pay off your debt from your weekly free ARX.
Come off it. You know P2W covers a wide range of bad practices that any sensible player should be wary of at a minimum.
P2W it a catch all term for: literal paying to win something, paying to skip content, paying to progress, paying to get in game assets that affect gameplay, etc.
Really we should find a different term for it just to stop the "what do you win?" response.
Will we now see an influx of Star Citizen backers now you can buy spaceships for real world money?
All this boils down to the same binary choice:
Either the buyer always has acces to the bought item, no questions asked. This is what I generically call 0 rebuy.
Or the buyer must sometimes jump through some hoops to get to the bought item (grinding credits, flying something else for a while, buy additional ARX, whatever). This could seriously backfire for FDEV and I just don’t see them doing it.
Lets hope so for Frontier sake. The amount of money those people have poured into a tech demo (!) is insane. A little of that cash to improve our game would be welcome.
focusing on the build is going to be difficult when the aspects of ship building and module assortment exists only to drive players to continue grinding the same basic 3 or 4 game loops. there's no need to build up a ship that much to excel in any game loop. there's barely any need to use more than one ship to do them all.
that's the real issue they would need to address. the ship building should be driven by the need to build the ship. not driven by the players desire to min-max some stats to stave off the boredom of having nothing new to do.
fdev created engineers so they wouldn't have to create real layered game loops on their initial assortment of launch level grind mechanics and perm placeholders. a cheap way to create more carrots to feed player's desire to have 'the best'. without addressing the more difficult task of creating good/new gameplay. and in the rare instances such new gameplay comes, it's always abandoned before it can be fully complete or is only implemented in some limited time opportunity that won't come again.
i look forward to what they end up doing. engineers only exists to keep people grinding so it'll be very interesting to see what it becomes when they flip the purpose around and what that does to active game play time for players who don't already have everything they want.
there's no pay to win in the game though. if there was it would have long ago been exploited by cheaters and purchased accounts and we would all already be living in a post pay to win game. either way, the conclusion is this won't change anything to any meaningful degree for players. the game is just an infinite loop of cyclic activity that doesn't actually matter to the game universe and doesn't really persist. if any aspect did, players would have already done it just to feel something in the game. it exists only for your personal imagined narrative. other players and their activity only matter if you choose to make it matter. the narrative only matters if you choose to follow it. it's why it all ends up feeling shallow and repetitive.
an attempt to include everyone's play style ends up including nobody's well.
that's the real issue they would need to address. the ship building should be driven by the need to build the ship. not driven by the players desire to min-max some stats to stave off the boredom of having nothing new to do.
fdev created engineers so they wouldn't have to create real layered game loops on their initial assortment of launch level grind mechanics and perm placeholders. a cheap way to create more carrots to feed player's desire to have 'the best'. without addressing the more difficult task of creating good/new gameplay. and in the rare instances such new gameplay comes, it's always abandoned before it can be fully complete or is only implemented in some limited time opportunity that won't come again.
i look forward to what they end up doing. engineers only exists to keep people grinding so it'll be very interesting to see what it becomes when they flip the purpose around and what that does to active game play time for players who don't already have everything they want.
there's no pay to win in the game though. if there was it would have long ago been exploited by cheaters and purchased accounts and we would all already be living in a post pay to win game. either way, the conclusion is this won't change anything to any meaningful degree for players. the game is just an infinite loop of cyclic activity that doesn't actually matter to the game universe and doesn't really persist. if any aspect did, players would have already done it just to feel something in the game. it exists only for your personal imagined narrative. other players and their activity only matter if you choose to make it matter. the narrative only matters if you choose to follow it. it's why it all ends up feeling shallow and repetitive.
an attempt to include everyone's play style ends up including nobody's well.
I think people must be pretty much used to things they purchased but cannot currently use (or things they bought but lost). My laptop was pretty expensive, but I cannot realistically expect to be able to use it even after I've accidentally dropped it into a river, for example.
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This is subtly hilarious
Well, not that subtly...
They should start selling pictures of ships, that one can hang in the captain's quarters of a FC.
For real money, I mean.
Of ships not in game.