Paying money for items?

(BioSnark) #21

Purchasing new maps splits player base. Purchasing new weapons/abilities introduces balancing (& perception of _) problems.

(Humate) #22

[QUOTE=JeP;269845]

The only thing that worries me is Quake Wars : besides its long life, and the modding tools, only official maps seem to be played.
It’s possible that with the mega texture and the size of the maps, it’s more difficult to create new ones for it, though. I don’t know.[/QUOTE]

That was due to ranked servers and global stats. Players only stuck with official maps because thats where the stats were tracked. As for those who were willing to play new maps, there were a few issues with the way the game loaded them, but I believe SD have already addressed this issue in Brink - so it wont be a problem.

(Otto) #23

I’m sure we can all agree that having DLC for brink is a good thing. Whether the DLC is simple and low impact on the game, like added cosmetics or if it’s high impact things like New Weapons, added missions, added maps, etc. Is a different thing.

I have no problem paying for DLC if the game is good, it costs the developer money to make said content after all. There is a possible down side to adding high impact DLC to a game like Brink, If you add new maps and missions you have to pay for, not everyone is going to be as willing as myself to pay for it. It fractures the player community, which can lead to alienating a large portion of players from being able to play with every one online, making it harder to fill a server/game match. Adding new weapons and or class abilities can have a similar effect, even if they do not disrupt the balance in the game.

I have 1956hrs logged in TF2 since 2007. TF2 for all its faults in its latest updates has One big thing going for it: once you pay for the game once, there is nothing you can not obtain or access for free that effects game play. The game is constantly being tweaked to maintain balance when new content is added. And it isn’t hard to get anything you may want if you play the game a couple hours a week. Up until late last year, valve/steam wasn’t making any extra money from the game other then selling more copies of it, and yet still gave its player base countless numbers of new maps, and items, some of these things were made by community players true, but valve still made them part of the standard DLC which is obtained through valves servers as an expense.

In short, I am sure Valve/Steam is making bank from its latest pay items, and good for them, they need to make some money if they are going to keep giving us new free maps to play on. I hope that Brink is able to give us more story/maps/missions/game play modes through out the future DLC(every game no mater how good gets stale in time). I just hope they are able to do it in a manner that keeps it’s player base together.

(DoHo) #24

DLC is almost always over priced on the user end of things, and in the case of TF2 not only did it change the general tone and focus of the game, but it also saturated it with utterly pointless items (why does the Heavy need 5 kinds of melee weapons when they can’t even give him a proper minigun option?), as well as the ridiculous cross promotions that ruin the artstyle of TF2. After a while you get used to them, sure, but they’re still there and TF2 and Valve has lost the integrity that shipped with TF2.

BRINK looks like a fantastic game. I have it pre-ordered and I hope down the line I can see some new (hopefully free for a while) updates in terms of bug/gameplay fixing, and hell even some new content in the way of guns, attachments, character customisation and abilities, but ultimately when the time comes for content “updates” I hope they get a whole lot of stuff, bundle it up and sell it as an appropriately priced EXPANSION PACK. As I stated at the start, DLc is almost always a rip off. While it is supposed to serve as a quick and “cheap” update in content it almost always ends up being pointless stuff that could be forgotten about.

I think if players of TF2, or BRINK, are cionstantly demanding, asking for or paying for quick content updates that makem lor break the longevity of the game then that says something about the game. At first the TF2 updates where about offering similar, yet alternative, play styles to the original weapons, but now they’re about keeping the game alive. They can’t last forever. If you have to keep injecting content like that then it should pretty much spell out the state the game is in. Unfortunately people are buying into it and all the long time players I know don’t like it. I’d be quite worried if Sd felt that BRINK was dying and needed to keep adding new things for hefty prices in order to keep the game alive. Player bases die out, people move on. If a game is dying, let it die naturally. It wasn’t meant to be. Don;t drag it on and on and destroy any integrity you started with.

So that’s what I really want: bug/gameplay fixes for free, and down the line a proper expansion pack where I know they’ve spent time on it and not just thrown it in for a quick thrill ride to rejuvenate the game.

/2 cents of non-sense.

(Striker92) #25

i personally hate pay to play DLC…free updates (that are in reason, not like tf2) im happy to get. things that nerf out OP weapons or tweak gameplay jst a little bit, or remove exploits (3rd cheat anyone?). ithink brink can hold its own without having 10000000000 different new hats and 500 different new weapons. That stuff works for TF2, however i doubt it will work with brink.

(Seyu) #26

Paid DLC is fine by if it is unlockable in-game or available for free later. But seeing how Bethesda has nickle and dimed players in the past, I wouldn’t have high hopes.

(CVIChEK) #27

Knowing Splash Damage, they most likely won’t do any DLCs or even add new content to it. All we can expect from them are bug fixes. From our modding community, given that Splash Damage releases modding tools and such, as they always did, we will get everything we want and more.

(Seyu) #28

I think the onus lies with Bethesda rather than the developer.

(CVIChEK) #29

I don’t think so.
If bethesda (sorry if I misspelt it) will start to bitch, Splash Damage can always kick them out and get back to Activision or any other publisher.
But if Bethesda doesn’t agree on something, they can’t just leave as without Splash Damage, they have no game to publish.

(JeP) #30

I… really don’t think that SD can ditch Bethesda like that, in things like this, you usually sign contracts and all, tying the game to the editor (bethsoft), something like that.

I may be wrong though… or right with a wrong explanation.