Shadow of Mordor (Shadow of War)

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

Ah, grand. Sure it'll be free outside of those 44 states so, surely?

Or they'll donate it all to charity of their own accord perhaps?

Does it count as profit if you use the money to make a bed out of it?

TBs suggestion was just that, if WB want to round on the controversy and come out looking sound they should donate out of pocket for every DLC purchase.

I dunno now, do we need a new poll? Because I'll certainly never buy a WB game after this.

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Does it count as profit if you use the money to make a bed out of it?

Yes it does.

What WB choose to do with income after the point of sale is their choice.

We both know what choice that will be.

It won't be charity.

Digital Solitude wrote: »

So the game is balanced, even though they didn't test with lootboxes turned on? How could that possibly be play tested as balanced?

They're trying to say "we haven't padded out the time investment required to force people into purchasing these loot boxes"

https://community.wbgames.com/t5/Official-Announcements/Forthog-Orc-Slayer-DLC-Upate/m-p/1674265/thread-id/663

interesting update regarding the Forthog Orc-Slayer DLC

Additionally, a factually incorrect tweet from our team exacerbated the confusion by stating that international funds would not be going to the family. For absolute clarity; our intention was always to give all profits from the DLC, worldwide to the Forgey family.

Safe to say the social media guy got the sack.

Probably the best outcome (well, except for the guy managing the Twitter account that night, can't imagine he came out of it too well). Still though, a lot of damage done and negative articles about the game came out of it, which is a shame considering what the DLC was pertaining to.

I was on the fence about the game but with South Park out near the same time, plus I want to start replaying Horizon Zero Dawn, I think I will end up not getting this at launch. Really want to see what the effect of the loot boxes and marketplace have on the game before buying.

I will still not get this umtil they sort out the pay to win sh*te..

TheDoc wrote: »

I don't understand the outcry at loot boxes or micro transactions.

They are clearly a method to just get stronger quicker or be more powerful quicker, for people who want to put the money into it.

Like in other games where its just skins or cosmetics, some games have actual tangible improvements or powerful items.

I've never played a game like that and a) Felt I needed to buy something to play through it or b)Felt the game was balanced around microtransactions.

I'm glad they turned it off, the assumption being if you are buying powerups or items earlier, you are going to plough through content faster and easier, but therefore why you are buying stuff in the first place.

I'll never get the outcry over it, apart from people thinking they are going to get burnt somehow, even though they likely never purchsae or contemplate microtransactions

The game has a PvP mode, where purchased power will be greatly beneficial to you. You also loose your purchased items if they are destroyed, pushing you into making more purchases of loot crates. Also, why would a AAA game NEED RM MT's in the first place for the SP campaign mode?

If the game is balanced with MT's turned off, why put them in in the first place? If the game is balanced with MT's in mind, then the SP aspect has been artificially stretched to require a lot more 'time to play' required to acquire the items in game.

Overwatch has MT's, which are purely cosmetic. No real issue with that. I don't really care what skin a character has when I play.

Putting powerful "Pay to Win" items in Loot boxes in a AAA title with PvP is poor form in most peoples eyes.

SolvableKnave wrote: »

The game has a PvP mode, where purchased power will be greatly beneficial to you. You also loose your purchased items if they are destroyed, pushing you into making more purchases of loot crates. Also, why would a AAA game NEED RM MT's in the first place for the SP campaign mode?

If the game is balanced with MT's turned off, why put them in in the first place? If the game is balanced with MT's in mind, then the SP aspect has been artificially stretched to require a lot more 'time to play' required to acquire the items in game.

Overwatch has MT's, which are purely cosmetic. No real issue with that. I don't really care what skin a character has when I play.

Putting powerful "Pay to Win" items in Loot boxes in a AAA title with PvP is poor form in most peoples eyes.

Plus encouraging people to pay to progress quicker is basically like saying the game isn't worth the effort of actually playing it to level up normally. That the grind it would take to obtain a comparable level of items would put most people off and so people are more encouraged to spend money to obtain items quicker.

That's why I generally don't care when microtransactions are used for cosmetic items. Nothing you buy or get from loot crates in Overwatch change anything about the game. This game however, you literally get high-level orcs from the chests. Orcs. You can actually just buy orcs, or win orcs in loot boxes. Just buy whatever orc with whatever strengths and weaknesses you want, rather than doing something silly like actually playing the game.

Yes, ultimately it's a choice, and if you don't want to buy orcs or loot chests etc, you don't have to. But when the items you can buy actually affect gameplay, it does cause an imbalance in the game.

gizmo wrote: »

For people who don't want to invest the time into unlocking and/or acquiring said resources/content.

To serve their purpose as a "pay-to-skip" item, as mentioned above. If it's balanced so that it takes a reasonable amount of time for the average gamer to acquire them, then they'll only appeal to those people who don't want to invest so much time. If, and I mean if, the game is balanced that way then I'd see no problem with it. The issue is if it's not balanced in such a way due to publisher pressure which leads to an utterly compromised experience for everyone not willing to shell out additional money.

It's SP content though, so, as Penn says above, the game isn't worth the time investment at a normal flow. Plus, it's SP content. There's no rush to finish it, no reason to rush to finish it, unless there are significant impacts on the MP side of things. Which leads into the impact purchased powerful Orcs have on MP. Again, as Penn says (thanks Penn, you covered my response nicely ), you can choose to not purchase, but 9/10 your are going to be at a disadvantage, which leads into 1 of 2 options:

1. You get so disheartened by loosing against purchased power that you succumb to the RMMT's or ...
2. You get disheartened by getting beat by purchased power that you turn the game off, never to return to it again, and so you are potentially feeling ripped off and out of pocket 60 quid.

If it was me, I'd be picking option 2, and feeling pretty sour about it.

SolvableKnave wrote: »

It's SP content though, so, as Penn says above, the game isn't worth the time investment at a normal flow. Plus, it's SP content. There's no rush to finish it, no reason to rush to finish it, unless there are significant impacts on the MP side of things.

Given that emotions tend to run high in this debate I feel the need to preface my reply with saying I'm not defending this stuff, I'm simply pointing out the reasoning behind it and who it generally appeals to rather than grabbing the closest pitchfork. So with that in mind, I guess the best way to answer this is to reply to Penn's comment first.

Penn wrote: »

Plus encouraging people to pay to progress quicker is basically like saying the game isn't worth the effort of actually playing it to level up normally.

This is similar to the Jim Sterling comment Generic Dreadhead posted above and is quite simply untrue. To be honest, it's not something I even considered until the last number of years where I began to see a non-trivial number of people lament that they'd love to play certain games but just don't have the time to invest in them due to other commitments. Some of these guys have then said they're more than happy to pay a couple of quid for these kinds of unlocks/boosters, whether they're SP or MP related, so that they can ultimately see whatever they're playing to completion or stay competitive when they can't afford to invest enough time in particular games. Sure, they'd probably prefer if these unlocks were free (that's actually part of a similar debate sparked by this article over on RPS recently) but ultimately, these are the kinds of gamers these things appeal to. They're not aimed at people like you, me, Penn or Sterling and I don't think any of us would even consider using them, whether it's on principle or not.

As I said above, the MP side of things is very different. If these bonuses give you a tangible advantage over someone else then they are game breaking by design and shouldn't be touched with a barge pole, there's literally no reasonable defense for them imo.

M!Ck^ wrote: »

I never get the argument in defense of this crap. It's a blight to gaming industry and I keep hearing "rising costs" and "Well you can earn everything in game".

It's all bull**** whatever you want to word it.

It's not about wording, M!Ck^, there's clear evidence to show development costs have continued to rise from generation to generation and yet the base price of the final product has not seen any significant rise. The yearly financials of the major companies are public and there's transcripts of various financial calls showing companies talking about how and why they're offsetting the situation by looking into other ways to generate revenue from their titles. Obviously we've seen some of these attempts be utterly awful and shouldn't be supported but I can't agree that they're wrong under any circumstances like Sterling et al often claim.

M!Ck^ wrote: »

What of the DLC created off the back of a dead man and WB attempted to make a profit off and then realised, "Oh right were being a extra **** here lets back out of this one as we got called out on our bull**** written in tiny text at the bottom of said DLC promotion"

This is completely over-blowing what happened. Firstly, the DLC was created by Monolith for one of their dev team. It's up to WB to handle distributing it.

With regard to making a profit off it, it took TotalBiscuit 14m51s out of a 20m42s to mention the "various legal quandaries" that he imagines has caused this situation which is bad enough but what about the utterly blindingly obvious issue with any publisher or developer saying all proceeds from purchases of a product made on Steam/XBL/PSN go to charity? Well what about the cut these platform holders get? Most of us know at this stage it's around the 30% mark so why the hell are people surprised when a piece of DLC on sale in the US for $5 results in a donation for $3.50 to the family?

He also mentions his knowledge of US charity law isn't up to snuff and while that covers the six US states where the promotion doesn't apply it doesn't deal with the fact that this game is being sold in territories across the world, many of whom have their own laws on this kind of stuff. As a result, it's utterly unsurprising that WB will want avoid that potential legal headache and just officially make the donation restricted to US purchases only.

As for the size of the text, when have you ever seen additional terms and conditions attached to a product or service not be in smaller text at the bottom of its promotional material? TB says it's also included in the video description too but that doesn't matter because people don't read that? Sorry but no, that doesn't fly with me at least.

In general though yea, the whole affair was still completely mishandled, I doubt anyone will disagree with that, but to suggest it was some cynical cash grab by the publisher is simply completely off base.

gizmo wrote: »

This is similar to the Jim Sterling comment Generic Dreadhead posted above and is quite simply untrue. To be honest, it's not something I even considered until the last number of years where I began to see a non-trivial number of people lament that they'd love to play certain games but just don't have the time to invest in them due to other commitments. Some of these guys have then said they're more than happy to pay a couple of quid for these kinds of unlocks/boosters, whether they're SP or MP related, so that they can ultimately see whatever they're playing to completion or stay competitive when they can't afford to invest enough time in particular games. Sure, they'd probably prefer if these unlocks were free (that's actually part of a similar debate sparked by this article over on RPS recently) but ultimately, these are the kinds of gamers these things appeal to. They're not aimed at people like you, me, Penn or Sterling and I don't think any of us would even consider using them, whether it's on principle or not.

The issue though is where it does affect people that these boosters/unlocks don't appeal to; the grind. The appeal of the unlocks/boosters/whatever is so you don't have to spend time searching for things, or doing side missions, or levelling up normally, because that would take too long and you either don't have time or don't want to invest that time.

But that tends to mean that in order to make those items more appealing, they stretch things out for everyone else. Levelling up takes longer. Having to repeat largely the same actions or go up against the same enemies repeatedly. Making the best orcs harder to find or more rare, while also dangling them in front of your face in the in-game shop/market.

Proof will obviously be in the pudding and it'll only be when the game is released that it can be determined how well it has actually been balanced between those who don't want to use/buy chest and stuff, but these things, especially when they're related to items which affect gameplay as opposed to cosmetics, are designed to encourage people to buy them. And the way to do that with the most amount of people is to increase the grind and make them want to skip it. And that's tantamount to saying that the game isn't worth the effort it would take to get those items naturally through gameplay, because the cost of buying the items monetarily is less than the time and effort it would take playing the actual game.

Hellblade is proof that if you don't get into bed with an absolutely abhorrent publisher and throw most of your budget at marketing.
You can make a game not only within the scope of a "Current AAA RRP of €70" (which is a €10 rise over the RRP a few years ago fwiw) but you can sell one at less than half that, and have success.

Going the route of signing to be published by Activision, WB Games etc means your integrity as a developer gets compromised as you find "other revenue streams" to ensure you can justify €40 of your €70 game paying for some advertising and marketing