Chris Taylor's Kings and Castles free2play?

Discussion in 'Unrelated Discussion' started by Col_Jessep, April 29, 2010.

  1. Col_Jessep

    Col_Jessep Moderator Alumni

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    A large German game magazine reports that GPG's new game 'Chris Taylor's Kings and Castles' will not only bear CT's name in the title because he feels it is art and the artist's name belongs on the box but it is also supposedly a free2play client game. Whatever that means. Google translation

    If this is true it is a very daring move by Chris Taylor. Not only does he plan to finance the game privately but he wants to give it away for free as well? I still think it's either an elaborate joke (and let's be honest, that's a real possibility with Chris...), a major misunderstanding or he has found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. :D

    Best of luck to CT and GPG!
  2. neutrino

    neutrino low mass particle Uber Employee

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    I think this makes a certain amount of sense actually. I know there are multiple groups actively trying to make this kind of game work in the US market.
  3. eetmorsqrls

    eetmorsqrls New Member

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    it may be free to play, but that doesn't mean you won't have to pay for content >.> take http://www.kongregate.com they offer free flash games, but you have to buy kreds to get certain parts (adventure quest, runescape, the list goes on)
  4. Col_Jessep

    Col_Jessep Moderator Alumni

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    Yeah, it's the step many want to take but few dare to do so (atm). I wonder how they want to implement it. And I wonder if they can release map editing tools and enable modding at all. They will have to sell something and I'm afraid it might be meps and stuff. I guess SupCom2 was kind of a test balloon to see if we can create content without the tools.

    It certainly will be very interesting to see how this turns out. If CT is successful it would be so awesome: no large publisher to interfere with development and probably a huge playerbase getting regular updates and new content!

    What does free2play client game mean in your opinion? Will it be downloadable via web browser but run in the Moho engine? Or can you run the whole thing in the browser (doubtful imo)? Will they use Steam as online platform? (totonka said we'd have to pry Steam from his dead, cold hands. He likes working with it soo much... xD)
  5. Sm1tty Sm1t

    Sm1tty Sm1t New Member

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    I cant remember which game developer I read about, but YEARS ago one mentioned that "Microtransactions" would be the wave of the future.

    Guess he was right.
  6. scathis

    scathis Arbiter of Awesome Uber Alumni

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    That could be any game dev. We've known microtransactions have been coming for decades.
  7. Col_Jessep

    Col_Jessep Moderator Alumni

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    I read that League of Legends uses both systems, micro-transactions and a 'full' version. I think that's the best way for now as it lets the player decide. I find the idea to buy 10 small packages instead of one annoying. If I decide to buy a game I'll usually buy all the content.

    The worst thing however are pre-order boni like SE used them for SupCom2. They split up the 5 additional maps between several shops and here in Germany not a single DLC map was available and Steam had none. Only a single French store actually offered all 5 maps.

    If I like a game I want all the available content without searching for any special offers or the like. Every game should have a collector's edition or a 'get all stuff NOAW' version at launch imo.
  8. neutrino

    neutrino low mass particle Uber Employee

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    You guys do have to realize that all of this makes mods evil to the devs though right? Because now you are directly competing with items in the game for sale.

    I always thought it would be interesting to have a marketplace within the game for people to sell their mods. Who wouldn't pay a couple of bucks for a sorian AI for example?
  9. eetmorsqrls

    eetmorsqrls New Member

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    but then how do you police it so you don't have people stealing sorian's mod and selling it for a penny less, or sticking ads and such into their mods? apple app store fiasco anyone?
  10. nyx

    nyx Moderator Alumni

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    Don't people sell their created items in Second Life?
  11. Col_Jessep

    Col_Jessep Moderator Alumni

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    Yup, they did. It was one of the really important game mechanics in Second Life afaik (never played it).

    Not necessarily. Modders often create very unique content in ways the devs didn't expect. Take a look at Phantom or the defense maps in SupCom. Of course the developers have to create maximum quality for their DLC if they compete with modders, horse armor won't cut it. But in the long term the community and devs profit because there is regular high quality content that keeps the game interesting.

    Blizzard will just do that. They will sell high quality mods on the new Battlenet and the modders will get part of the money. And if you ask me: Sorians AI easily doubled the worth of FA for every offline gamer. I'm really glad Sorian got a job out of it, he really deserved it! Besides, without him we wouldn't have seen any good patches for Demigod. I don't know who worked on the patched before Sorian but they were a huge mess.

    I think developers should stop to view modders and mappers as competitors and try to integrate their work into the game. Give popular mods a chance to be added to an official patch. Stardock is doing it and the modders and gamers love them for it. Blizzard is even giving them a chance to earn some money to make it worthwhile to spend hours and hours of work on the mods.

    Or you can hash-lock your game against modding and be the only big RTS game without a map editor. I have already been contacted by several of the mappers I know and we will all move on to Starcraft II. Some of them have never before played SC but they have seen Blizzards map editor video... xD

    My guess would be that Blizzard will happily ban anybody who tries to exploit the system. They probably have enough people to do it too.

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