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Well this is pretty interesting news for players of Albion Online. The closed beta which you can buy into has been extended, and it won't be free to play after release now.
Speaking in a forum post the founder basically said they will extend the closed beta to 1st August 2016, and the game will be pay to play after release instead of free to play.
The founder also said it won't have a monthly fee, it will be a buy once to play deal (you know, like normal games). This is great to see as I dislike free to play models, but I do wonder how they will stay alive if people don't have to keep paying, these sorts of games are expensive to run.
They have a lot planned for the game, and I think extending the closed beta period was highly needed considering the amount of work they want to do that will change the general feel of the gameplay.
They are still planning to wipe the game at the end of the closed beta, and probably at least once during it, so don't go buying into it if you want to keep your progression. I think it's already a pretty decent game, especially since it's in my eyes our only good only RPG type of game.
I do love it, but my issue is how much they are trying to implement, and it doesn't seem like a lot of time to do it. They just don't seem to have a really clear plan, as it keeps changing, and it's slightly worrying. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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12 comments
This is great to see as I dislike free to play models, but I do wonder how they will stay alive if people don't have to keep paying, these sorts of games are expensive to run.
Guild Wars (1 and 2) aren't based on subscriptions and they worked (well, GW2 is still working) very well. They are based on pay per content, like buying space to create more heroes, buying gems... a close approach to f2p. And with GW1 (not sure about GW2), they created 4 full priced extra expansions that were complete games by their own.
May be they are thinking about something like that.
ps I wish GW2 were ported to linux... :-(
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This ensures that I will never play this game. I was already not liking the sound of the game, but at F2P I could have at least tried it for free to find out for myself whether or not it's something I was willing to invest time into. With a price barrier in front of me, there's no chance I'll try it. Also, I guarantee this will have microtransactions, if not from the get go then somewhere down the line. There's no way a MMO is sustainable without either a sub or microtransactions, unless they plan to put out paid expansions every 3 or 4 months.
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To be clear, I'm not fully against microtransaction models. If a F2P game has gameplay I like and I feel the microtransaction model is fair, then I will gladly toss them some money for the time I've put into the game. As an example, I played Neverwinter back in the day when I still had a machine with a Windows partition and I liked the game enough and it had a really fair model where you could absolutely reach max level and do end game stuff without ever spending a penny and you would be at barely any disadvantage to people that spent a bunch of money. I wound up spending like $40 or $50 on stuff, not even gear that made my character better but mounts and stuff that I thought just looked cool. I thought it was a fair price for the 100 or so hours I put into the game. On the other hand, if the microtransaction model is aggressive then that company will never get a dime from me because **** them.
That said, microtransations in a game that you already have to pay up front for doesn't sit well with me.
Anyway, I've derailed this thread enough. Apologies.
That said, microtransations in a game that you already have to pay up front for doesn't sit well with me.
Anyway, I've derailed this thread enough. Apologies.
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"Also, we will not be charging a monthly fee to play the game but stick with our current premium account model."
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psycho_driver Dec 31, 2015
I'm guessing that it means you pay up front and then there will also be microtransactions and probably even p2w. Path of Exile is proof that a game can be successful using non p2w microtransactions and a free to play model. That's another one I wish was linux native.
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Avehicle7887 Dec 31, 2015
Buy to play has good and bad stuff, as a GW1 player with 25k+ hours I can say it works quite well. However can't say the same for GW2 though, ArenaNet...or as I call them - AssNet, has focused much of the game around the gemstore, with their expansion release they've also killed dungeons which was a good way to generate gold and over time they've transformed the game into a massive grind when it comes to skins, as if their greed wasn't enough they've left Mac users with a broken client, they still advertise the game as Mac compatible only to screw people over when they discover the piss poor performance the 3 year old cider-wrapped game is.
I might consider Albion if it's good enough, but I don't want to have the same issues GW2 now has. Overall buy to play is nice but it all boils down to how the devs handle profit income throughout the years.
I might consider Albion if it's good enough, but I don't want to have the same issues GW2 now has. Overall buy to play is nice but it all boils down to how the devs handle profit income throughout the years.
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This is great to see as I dislike free to play models, but I do wonder how they will stay alive if people don't have to keep paying, these sorts of games are expensive to run.
Guild Wars (1 and 2) aren't based on subscriptions and they worked (well, GW2 is still working) very well. They are based on pay per content, like buying space to create more heroes, buying gems... a close approach to f2p. And with GW1 (not sure about GW2), they created 4 full priced extra expansions that were complete games by their own.
May be they are thinking about something like that.
ps I wish GW2 were ported to linux... :-(
Yeah, they're not even going to go on Steam due to Steam's conditions (GW2 only). Actually, Guild Wars 2 works pretty well on Wine-Staging-1.7.38 , possibly even higher versions. A lot of Wine people are trying to improve its performance now that it has a Free 2 Play version.
I really hate that "Free 2 Play" gets such a bad rap, when it's mostly just multiplayer games and junk games that are the problem. A lot of Free 2 Play games become that way because they failed as "Pay 2 Play". The problem is that they try to profit the wrong way, making it "Pay 2 Win", or just listen to the masses of little kids, idiots, and people that know nothing about games. Others are junk scrapped together by random people hoping to make a quick fortune like all those simple games on smart phones.
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Avehicle7887 Jan 1, 2016
Yeah, they're not even going to go on Steam due to Steam's conditions (GW2 only). Actually, Guild Wars 2 works pretty well on Wine-Staging-1.7.38 , possibly even higher versions. A lot of Wine people are trying to improve its performance now that it has a Free 2 Play version.
I really hate that "Free 2 Play" gets such a bad rap, when it's mostly just multiplayer games and junk games that are the problem. A lot of Free 2 Play games become that way because they failed as "Pay 2 Play". The problem is that they try to profit the wrong way, making it "Pay 2 Win", or just listen to the masses of little kids, idiots, and people that know nothing about games. Others are junk scrapped together by random people hoping to make a quick fortune like all those simple games on smart phones.
I've been running GW2 on Wine since the early CSMT builds surfaced in mid 2014, it runs very well in 1.8 stable with CSMT and any previous versions. I run the 64bit client (sometimes even 2 at the same time) and the game remains playable well over 40fps on both - at medium settings.
@serjor:
I doubt they'll ever port it to Linux and here's the full story:
Soon after the game was launched in August 2012, they released a beta Mac client which consisted of the Cider wrapper (itself based on Wine). The game didn't perform that bad back then, but over time it grew more resource hungry and things started going downhill.
Fast forward to present day, especially when the expansion was released. The game on Mac has became very unstable, almost unplayable in certain cases with large groups, this is due to a memory leak that keeps sucking Virtual Memory and once it reaches the 32bit - 4GB limit then it crashes and it's reaching it quite easily. Windows users were also affected but were in the minority, so what did ANet do?
They released (a still in beta) but very solid 64bit client, this has solved the issues for many Windows users, but how about Mac? They are still stuck with the 32bit client since it's a 32bit wrapper. In over 2 years ANet hasn't bothered to develop a native OpenGL Mac port yet they still advertise and sell the game as Mac OS compatible.
Luckily for us Linux users we don't have to suffer the same fate - The game runs very well on Wine + CSMT, even better you can fully utilize the 64bit client of the game and the game doesn't crash in populated areas and events. If they didn't care about Mac in 2 years, I don't see how they will on Linux.
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My enthusiasm for this game has been eroding since I learned that questing and lore aren't really big parts of the game, and this just speeds the process along. I'll probably be skipping this one.
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Actually, this increases my interest in the game, as they needn't focus on stupid ways of making money as much now.
It does create an interesting situation though. I was planning on giving it a go to see if there was enough PvE content in it (I'm not very much interested in PvP), but now I can no longer do that, and need to rely on other sources to find that out. Looking at you, mr TheBoss.
On a side-note: This article's title is capitalised the way I like it, yet the DoubleFine one isn't. Just curious to your reasoning, as I find 'overcapitalising' very unclear when there's actual proper nouns in the title.
It does create an interesting situation though. I was planning on giving it a go to see if there was enough PvE content in it (I'm not very much interested in PvP), but now I can no longer do that, and need to rely on other sources to find that out. Looking at you, mr TheBoss.
On a side-note: This article's title is capitalised the way I like it, yet the DoubleFine one isn't. Just curious to your reasoning, as I find 'overcapitalising' very unclear when there's actual proper nouns in the title.
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Well, considering the current situation of GW2 (thank you for the explanations), I won't keep my faith in a linux port :-( (but, after knowing that the expansion meant no more dungeons, not sure if I'll miss it at all...)
Let's see if Albion becomes a decent MMORPG, and how they make money, but, the game has something (mostly the art) I still don't like.
Let's see if Albion becomes a decent MMORPG, and how they make money, but, the game has something (mostly the art) I still don't like.
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This is good news. In my unprofessional opinion, the game needs some significant changes and improvements if it's going to be the kind of game the designers are hoping for.
As far as I can tell, they want something that is at least in part a fantasy counterpart of EVE Online. I can see many design decisions in the game that are inspired by EVE Online (and playing Albion briefly helped me appreciate just how well EVE Online has been made in the years since its release). But by allowing f2p, they introduce a difficulty when it comes to advancement. An EVE style game gives a benefit to having more than one character. But if it's f2p, then what stops you from creating multiple characters? In EVE, it's the subscription cost. In a f2p, there's no such restriction. So what is Albion's solution? Grind to advance -- you must invest *your* time.
And the problem with grinding to advance, besides the fact that it's incredibly tedious and boring, is that it damages the in-game economy, because people are doing a whole bunch of activities they would not otherwise be doing if they didn't need it for advancement. Want to make and sell swords for a living? Too bad, every other crafter in the game is already doing that to level their crafting skill, and the market is flooded, so they're selling at a loss. The crafting process itself has value, so that the end product is worth less than the materials that went into it.
This is just one example. The moment there's some kind of grind involved to advance, this leaves the potential that there's someone out there doing something that reduces the economic value for the people who want to do it as their role in the world. Trying to farm mobs for gold? Someone else is already there killing them to level his sword.
My understanding is that they want to make changes to solve all these kinds of problems, and solutions to these problems are needed if they want to have a vibrant player-driven economy, and a game that's not going to be a tedious grind fest.
There's other poor choices they've made, like fast travel. This is another choice that damages the player driven economy. The article mentions removing fast travel to lower security areas, and introducing naked travel (just like jump clones in EVE). These changes are designed to increase trade opportunities. Good, necessary changes to make this the game they want.
The longer beta period is needed.
As far as I can tell, they want something that is at least in part a fantasy counterpart of EVE Online. I can see many design decisions in the game that are inspired by EVE Online (and playing Albion briefly helped me appreciate just how well EVE Online has been made in the years since its release). But by allowing f2p, they introduce a difficulty when it comes to advancement. An EVE style game gives a benefit to having more than one character. But if it's f2p, then what stops you from creating multiple characters? In EVE, it's the subscription cost. In a f2p, there's no such restriction. So what is Albion's solution? Grind to advance -- you must invest *your* time.
And the problem with grinding to advance, besides the fact that it's incredibly tedious and boring, is that it damages the in-game economy, because people are doing a whole bunch of activities they would not otherwise be doing if they didn't need it for advancement. Want to make and sell swords for a living? Too bad, every other crafter in the game is already doing that to level their crafting skill, and the market is flooded, so they're selling at a loss. The crafting process itself has value, so that the end product is worth less than the materials that went into it.
This is just one example. The moment there's some kind of grind involved to advance, this leaves the potential that there's someone out there doing something that reduces the economic value for the people who want to do it as their role in the world. Trying to farm mobs for gold? Someone else is already there killing them to level his sword.
My understanding is that they want to make changes to solve all these kinds of problems, and solutions to these problems are needed if they want to have a vibrant player-driven economy, and a game that's not going to be a tedious grind fest.
There's other poor choices they've made, like fast travel. This is another choice that damages the player driven economy. The article mentions removing fast travel to lower security areas, and introducing naked travel (just like jump clones in EVE). These changes are designed to increase trade opportunities. Good, necessary changes to make this the game they want.
The longer beta period is needed.
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