Back in 2003 Sony Online Entertainment released a uniquely interesting massively multiplayer online role-playing first person shooter known as PlanetSide. A couple of friends and I played for a few months. I think it was my first MMO, and I didn't even have a credit card. We payed with those pre-paid game time cards you could buy in a store.
What stands out most about PlanetSide is the sheer scale. The worlds are huge, the warring teams are massive, and the scale of the constant planetary war is awesome. On top of that, the game is simply fun. It's a shooter to the core, and you can shape and grow your character as you choose. It's a bit of an RPG in that respect; you earn experience and spend it on skills and abilities.
Astonishingly, PlanetSide is still active today. You can download and play it, though there's still a monthly fee.
A few years ago PlanetSide 2 was announced, but I never expected to actually see it come out. MMOs don't seem to be Sony's deal anymore. Let's face it, the days of Everquest are long gone. Not to mention the fact that an MMOFPS has limited appeal.
Interestingly, it's not necessarily a bad thing to sell a product with limited appeal. Just look at EVE. It may only have 400,000 subscribers but they are fiercely loyal and stick with the game for a very, very, long time.
Anyway, PlanetSide 2 sneaked up on me. It came out today, and I'm pleasantly surprised. I have numerous misgivings about it being free to play, but I'll give it a shot. Stay tuned.
Showing posts with label F2P. Show all posts
Showing posts with label F2P. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Questioning the Industry
One perk of working at a college is the constant stream of speakers, presenters, and authors who visit campus. Occasionally they'll bring in someone interesting. Today I sat through an hour-long presentation from a former Electronic Arts game producer.
Turns out he didn't work on massive, AAA titles but I did recognize some of his work. The talk, as you might expect, was focused at instructing college students what sort of skills and technologies they would need to be familiar with in order to get into the game development industry: C++, Lua, Python, and XML to name a few.
The most interesting - and disheartening - portion of his talk was about where the industry is heading. Most indications point toward Free to Play (F2P) as the future of gaming. I've never been keen on DLC, where publishers (not even necessarily the developers!) try to eke more cash out of consumers for a paltry amount of extra content. I'm even less keen on F2P titles where publishers literally nickel and dime gamers until outright fatigue sets in.
F2P encourages casual, pick-up-and-play gaming. It also encourages hurry-up-and-drop-it gaming because the content seriously wants for depth. There aren't any story-driven F2P games as far as I'm aware, and that's the sort of game I like to play most.
F2P titles where you buy items, upgrades, and equipment in order to gain a competitive advantage (Pay to Win or P2W) is another story altogether.
This alarming trend toward the casual and mainstream really got to me. It might soon be time to go back to playing cards. People don't play cards as much as they used to.
P.S. Bonus reading on Free to Play methodology
Turns out he didn't work on massive, AAA titles but I did recognize some of his work. The talk, as you might expect, was focused at instructing college students what sort of skills and technologies they would need to be familiar with in order to get into the game development industry: C++, Lua, Python, and XML to name a few.
The most interesting - and disheartening - portion of his talk was about where the industry is heading. Most indications point toward Free to Play (F2P) as the future of gaming. I've never been keen on DLC, where publishers (not even necessarily the developers!) try to eke more cash out of consumers for a paltry amount of extra content. I'm even less keen on F2P titles where publishers literally nickel and dime gamers until outright fatigue sets in.
F2P encourages casual, pick-up-and-play gaming. It also encourages hurry-up-and-drop-it gaming because the content seriously wants for depth. There aren't any story-driven F2P games as far as I'm aware, and that's the sort of game I like to play most.
F2P titles where you buy items, upgrades, and equipment in order to gain a competitive advantage (Pay to Win or P2W) is another story altogether.
This alarming trend toward the casual and mainstream really got to me. It might soon be time to go back to playing cards. People don't play cards as much as they used to.
P.S. Bonus reading on Free to Play methodology
Friday, July 27, 2012
Weekly Report - 07/27/2012
This is the first of a (hopefully) ongoing, down-to-earth series of posts which will describe my Backloggery progress each week. I normally try to post more thoughtful and philosophical content, but these reports are intended to be more concrete (and, perhaps, less interesting).
Last weekend a few friends visited from mid-afternoon until after midnight. We downloaded the Free to Play (F2P) shooter Tribes: Ascend. The vast majority of our time together was spent huddled around our laptops, reminiscing about Tribes 2 while playing round after round of this new F2P title. None of us earned much more than 20,000 XP which is barely enough to unlock a new character class, let alone some of the more valuable items. Naturally we weren’t inclined to spend any real money (Pay to Win). It seems a decent game and all three of us were productive members of our respective teams, but I probably won’t play it much more.
Late that night we discovered the Magicka collection sale for $7.49 was about to end, so we hurriedly purchased it with plans to play Magicka: Vietnam during our next gathering. I look forward to that.
Monday and Tuesday evenings I spent polishing off the last two achievements for Mass Effect 3 (5,000 kills for Veteran and weapon level 10 for Gunsmith). I’m 100% complete on the entire ME trilogy (minus a few DLC, which I rarely bother with).
No forward progress was made on GTA: Chinatown Wars or Torchlight, where I’ve been working on a very hard hardcore (VHHC) playthrough.
However, I did fire up the long-unfinished Call of Duty 3 on my 360. I plan a single frustrating playthrough on veteran to earn the worthwhile achievements and complete the game (multiplayer will be ignored given the age of this game).
Last weekend a few friends visited from mid-afternoon until after midnight. We downloaded the Free to Play (F2P) shooter Tribes: Ascend. The vast majority of our time together was spent huddled around our laptops, reminiscing about Tribes 2 while playing round after round of this new F2P title. None of us earned much more than 20,000 XP which is barely enough to unlock a new character class, let alone some of the more valuable items. Naturally we weren’t inclined to spend any real money (Pay to Win). It seems a decent game and all three of us were productive members of our respective teams, but I probably won’t play it much more.
Late that night we discovered the Magicka collection sale for $7.49 was about to end, so we hurriedly purchased it with plans to play Magicka: Vietnam during our next gathering. I look forward to that.
Monday and Tuesday evenings I spent polishing off the last two achievements for Mass Effect 3 (5,000 kills for Veteran and weapon level 10 for Gunsmith). I’m 100% complete on the entire ME trilogy (minus a few DLC, which I rarely bother with).
No forward progress was made on GTA: Chinatown Wars or Torchlight, where I’ve been working on a very hard hardcore (VHHC) playthrough.
However, I did fire up the long-unfinished Call of Duty 3 on my 360. I plan a single frustrating playthrough on veteran to earn the worthwhile achievements and complete the game (multiplayer will be ignored given the age of this game).
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