Ingame store

yes we know what this is all about. Do you want a ingame store?

Personally i wouldnt mind it if we had one, as long as its only cosmetic items (ofcourse).

- Commander Skins.
- Colour Patterns.
- Different Unit Models.

Right now the official commanders are pretty much "Basic", Progenitor, Alpha and Theta. They could easily build on this and give us the opportunity to get more or different types they can model out. Also could include structure models but i doubt that will be in any way profitable.

Colour patterns are a basic cosmetic item that many of the F2P games these days have. League of Legends is a good example, giving each champion a new skin which improves or changes the hero in some fashion. An example for Planetary Annihilation is Military paintjobs for units, and/or commander.

Different unit models! Since they are going for a big variety of units used by everyone, it can still become boring in the long run. If you want a improved or a cooler look to a unit, this could be one way of getting a change.

Now lets look at the positive sides of having a ingame shop.

- Newer look to vehicles and structures(doubt in this tho)
- Colour patterns that could be awesome
- Commander remodels/colour patterns etc.

And the biggest of all:
- Profits could go to improving and building up the game with new units, patches, expansions. ( space warfare?? )

This is the biggest point atm. If they dont earn enough money on selling PA to the fanbase and still need more, this is one of the most secure way to get more money, and the game will only change visually, making it entirely okay to do.

Now lets look at the negative sides of having a ingame shop.

- Command and Conquer, enough said. Generals 2 got scrapped, and EA surprised... Nobody. Let's face it, a RTS which has a ingame store would probably not be so popular. As C&C will become ( everyone expects this ) P2W, it werent accepted with open arms from the fanbase, more or less, killed the expectations and the dreams of a Generals 2.

- Microtransactions. There aint alot of people who like Microtransactions. Most are okay with it but then there are quite many who literally hate it, and would do everything in their might to avoid it. Personally i'm fine with this, but then again i have to include every point.

Talk, discuss, add opinions, Positive or negative, everything is welcome here.

Like me.

I was never a fan of ingame shops where you bought items with real money. Even the concept of cosmetic items is something I don't care for.

I don't object quite as much if it's a system where the items are:
1. Purely cosmetic.
2. Can be earned ingame without the need for real world cash.
3. Can be turned off so that you don't have to see them if you don't want to.

Also, remember that PA is being made to optionally run on LANs, or independent servers without an UberNet connection, so this idea would only be feasible on official UberNet channels.

No need for that. This is what the community could do after release.
And if we need an add-on, we spend another 2 million for that, right?

Micro-transactions are fine in F2P games. But in a game I bought and payed for I just feel like the company is trying to milk me.

No Ingamestore. We can mod the game so what?!

Agreed.

What?

Even if its " trying to milk you" its optional. its not like it says u have to use the store. Thats up to you. And if the money in this situation goes to improving the game, would it really be a waste?

Not everyone can mod. And not everyone likes dealing with mods. Personally i hate mods, didnt ever mod Supcom1/FA and i was happy with the game then. And i doubt i will start use mods with PA. Coz i simply probably wont like any mod anyone tries to make. (Sadly ive always been like this)

No, absolutely not! In-game purchases are for f2p only. If we paid for this game, we should get all content except maybe dlc

I mean, if the game is really good, Uber could start a new project on Kickstarter for an add-on.

As long as its purely cosmetic and the money they make goes into further support for the game (patching, expansions, etc) why not?

Even if i never buy any of it there are people that will, resulting in more money for uber, resulting in more support for the game.

... basicly for me personaly, a ingame store with cosmetic stuff would be pure win, since i wouldent bother with it and get all the benefits of its exisitance (longer game support).

I do not understand why some people would want this.

Somehow video game companies have actually convinced people that they would enjoy spending money on game content. Read that last sentence carefully- not that they enjoy game content, and are prepared to spend money on it. But for some reason the OP is actually requesting that Uber charge money above and beyond the purchase price of the game. The OP is actually requesting that Uber make content which will be locked without additional monetary purchase, as opposed to just making the content as part of the game.

Does the OP actually enjoy just the possibility of being asked to spend money on a cosmetic item? Wat? Why?

If you really, really want to give Uber more money, just increase your pledge. It's not like they'll turn it down.

Why would anyone want it?

Why would anyone NOT want it?

If they would add a ingame shop of cosmetic stuff:
Its not like they would not add something that was planned for release, they would simply make new skins models after release.

Its not something your forced to buy, it being purely cosmetic makes no difference to your game against others (no pay to win, just pay to be stylish), and by making the game more profitable increases the likelihood for proper expansions, a longer support time, etc.

Theres absolutely no reason to not include it, even if your not going to buy anything you will still benefit greatly and some of us dont mind making our army a bit more exlusive with for example a skin pack.

But... what if they just gave cosmetic items away for free.... as a part of owning the game...?

I fail to see why you would prefer paying for it as opposed to just having it with your game purchase.


You know what, I feel like I need to go into more depth about this. The above is a very obvious argument. Companies and other organizations are fundamentally governed by their income stream. Studios that make video games are no different. Even Kickstarters are ruled by their source of money- only in their case the backers are that source and it becomes a more democratic process as a result.

League of Legends is ruled by its microtransaction system. Players pay for champions, and skins for champions. As a result, Riot must (in order to remain solvent, let alone profitable) keep releasing new champions. This results in the current mess that is LoL. Unbalanced, with no hope of ever being balanced due to too much new content. Redundant champions and abilities that are unnecessary in terms of gameplay. Unstable metagame (if you can even call it that) due to constantly being disturbed (death of competitive scene). Speaking of the lack of a LoL pro scene- they have no interest in supporting or implementing features that will support one, even things as basic as REPLAYS, because there's no money in it for them. Poor, sloppy engine coding. Cheap, sloppy client. The client is written in bloody HTML for crying out loud. And they can't fix, or at least have no financial interest in fixing these things. But they keep on cranking out new champions they don't need because that is their revenue stream.

Strategy games are about gameplay. Even very bad graphics and UI won't keep players away from stellar gameplay (see Brood War, Total Annihilation, Age of Empires II). Strong gameplay stays fresh for long, long after the graphics and sound effects have become stale.

So when you say "it becomes more likely there will be a sequel/expansion" if the microtransactions are profitable, I don't care. Because the expansion is then going to be microtransaction-based profit. The devs should get money through large numbers of game sales because of the how well the original game plays. A sequel/expansion must be governed by the same forces in order to pressure the devs to create good gameplay. Not because people buy bunny suits for their battle mechs. However if that's how they make money, then there will be lots more bunny suits, so to speak.

The long and the short of it is we should demand that the game's monetary success be tied to its gameplay. Not the sale of cosmetic trash.

Seriously?

Suggesting this? I'm not sure if this is a troll thread...

... and even if it isn't, you should be banned for even suggesting such a ridiculous thing. :evil:


As for what ledarsi said:

Bravo!

No no no. Unless they do it like TA & Supcom where they release free units to people who bought the game. That is what makes a gaming company UBER!!!

Okey, why would they even bother making skins and new models for free?

Its not currently planned content as far as i know. Having it in a ingame store is something they would do AFTER release, not something they decide to cut out of the game before release, just to sell it after.

If they did cut something out just to make us pay for it later then yes i would protest too, but if they just added cosmetic dlc after release to help fund the game and further possible expansions then i see absolutely no harm in it.

As long as the micro dlc dont involve anything more then cosmetics your LoL example isent realy relevant, since cosmetics dont change gameplay (including balance).

While new models/skins can make it harder to recognize units if done in a bad way, no such problem exist if they are done in a good way.

So what if they add more cosmetic crap that you buy for the expansions? It just means even more support.

As long as they dont add game changing dlc any cosmetic dlc is GOLD for anyone that wishes the game to be profitable for Uber and wishes the support to last longer.

To make things clear, Im 100% against anything else then purely cosmetic dlc, but im 100% for purely cosmetic dlc.

Why bother making the game at all? Because people want it. People like you seem to enjoy having cosmetic features. So... why not simply include that with the purchase?

As for whether it is before or after release- it changes nothing. It's much easier to just distribute a patch to everyone that just gives them the cosmetic content than it is to have a patch that only unlocks it for people who paid.

No. It means more developer resources spent on cosmetic crap. There are finite resources, and every man-hour spent on cosmetic crap isn't being spent on something actually useful.

Even if this cosmetic crap turns a profit, it's moot if that profit is then spent making even more cosmetic crap, just ballooning the system out in a non-productive way.

I like this guy. Not only does he show a lack of intellect, but he shows up as a troll himself. Dont write if u dont have any arguments to show up with except your own ego

Strategy games are dying. Sadly there arent many companies making these kind of games anymore, and you might ask why is it so?

First of all, other game genre's has proven to be more profitable, and like with CoD; giving out DLC's for a sum of money etc etc you know where im going with this. Same with BF3. Have you seen any strategy games of late that seems to be of the same awesomeness as before? i havent. not since Shogun 2 Total war.

2013 will barely be any different. Company of Heroes 2, Rome 2 Total war, PA. These are the games i have on the radar that may prove to be something to look forward to. How many FPS games do you think will be made in comparison?

Do you think a game could earn alot of money, on a fanbase that already will get the game from kickstarter, where FPS are the dominant category these days?

This one i liked. Valid way to go.

The decline in RTS games' quantity and quality can be attributed to two things. The larger player base generally means a shrinking minority of "hardcore" gamers, and the realities of consoles, especially their input systems.

Firstly, the widespread success of the video game industry has corporatized much of the industry. As a result there are many more players, and in order to be "more" successful than the competition, games must be made to appeal to more people. This means simpler, more streamlined, more accessible games. Shooters are superficially a lot simpler than even the most rudimentary RTS. Shooters also have a much more obvious and linear progression of skill, whereas becoming better at an RTS is like learning to play chess- and see multiple moves ahead. Strong RTS players are extremely intimidating to newer players in any RTS game. And we're talking about an increasingly casual player base as well, who may have 20 minutes or less to play.

Games are increasingly being made as a business, not as a passion. This is both good and bad. It's good because if they're profitable, then more funds are available to make games, and consequently more games get made. Not everyone has to be Toady (Dwarf Fortress) to make a video game- you can hire from a large pool of programmers, artists, whatever you need. And it's bad because those people you hire just do what you pay them to, not for a love of the project. They do what you tell them, not what is necessarily best for the game.

So when a big publisher is evaluating whether to make a title, and how to make that title, they are looking at how to make money, not necessarily at making good gameplay. So we get stuff like Age of Empires 3. While, while not a terrible game per se, it really is a very weak title, especially considering its heritage. It just feels like a cut-down AoE 2 designed for casual players by a committee that does not play RTS games. Add Games For Windows Live and you have a nightmare.

It's an old cycle now. Small team of devs risk it all to make the game they dreamed of making for years- they somehow scrounge up the funds to not starve while staying up all night working on the game. They make it the absolute best they possibly can because they are literally betting everything on it succeeding. Perhaps it catches on, perhaps it doesn't. The ones that fail, vanish. The ones that succeed go on to be purchased by giants like EA or Ubisoft, and get bad sequels made in their name by professionals who are paid to make whatever 3D models or write whatever code their boss tells them to.



Secondly, the majority of the video game industry is geared towards consoles, not PCs. And honestly, RTS games are a very poor experience on consoles. Mainly due to the limited input systems of controllers. And this is reflexive- because most of the games are shooters, next-gen consoles and controllers are designed to be effective at playing shooters. Thus we get this convergence on a particular type of game. Just happened to be shooters. Probably for the same reasons action movies are eternally popular.


Anyway. RTS isn't as popular among publishers because they aren't successfully making RTS games. And this is mainly because most of their RTS games are bad, not because RTS itself is dying. Someone could make a really great RTS game today and every RTS fan would eat it up. Perhaps not as large a market share as FPS nuts, but still a much larger number of people than it has ever been.

I have pinned most of my hopes for PA being the RTS of the year. Company of Heroes is quite a different animal, with Rome: Total War 2 being also quite a different animal from either. And those three are the only real RTS games on the radar for this year.

Also worth noting that a lot of Pubs/Devs try to just copy existing games, the MMO-scene is rife with this due to WoW's (continued) popularity. New MMO's pop up more often than weeds trying to steal away WoW's players by making games "Like WoW BUT ________" and then tack on whatever the marketing people say is popular at the time and hope for the best, the problem is these wannabes don't fully understand how WoW works, so when they add in whatever it is their adding it only makes the overall game worse.

Also for RTS there's the ever present StarCraft (II), again Pubs/Devs try to compete with Blizzard's monolith of an RTS Franchise and end up failing......hard.

Thing is that all the 'big' RTS games of late have been very much "Like ____Craft BUT..." aside from a few key titles, TA, Supcom1 and FA, focusing more of the large scale and not locking you into a limited UI to make the game "Harder"(IMO).

Some people like to say that Supcom1/FA wasn't successful, and depending on what you're comparing it to, yeah maybe it wasn't. Sure it didn't "Set the standard" for all RTS games of the future(but SCII has some features that obviously stem from the stuff that can be found in TA/SupCom) but it did things that no prior RTS game since TA even tried to do, and clearly it was successful enough financially to support an Expansion and an 'eventual' "Sequel".

Mike