blizzard's hearthstone, more epic pay2win failure

[AyashiKaibutsu]

This from the company that canceled two projects that were pretty far in because they weren't up to snuff...

 

[styrafoam]

Here is a small scale game, made by a small team, the type that we don't typically make.

Translation:

This game is a low risk, low investment, high return project. We need to get into the freemium environment of IOS gaming, where people spend $10 in a sitting on pointless shit like smurf berries or whatever. We need to separate dumb people from their money.

Seriously blizzard, make a game where there isn't a catch. There is a project you have become unaccustomed to lately, challenge yourself with that. No pointless always online, no pay to win, no stupid tacked on Bnet services. I dare you.

Also, no andriod = no play. If i have free time to kill at the computer I sure won't waste it playing something like this.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

i am permanently all done with trading card games. last year i tried magic online and it was zero fun and zero balance. 1-2-3-i win. i was reminded of the guy that introduced me to magic - he quit the game when he got mindtwisted for 7 cards before his first turn

also, im all done with free2play/pay2win. if the damn game is any good, charge me a price and be done with it. i refuse to be nickel and dimed to death.

 

[TidusZ]

Bobby Kotick wants your moneys.

Design game based on microtransactions that can be developed in a few months with a small team, exploit popularity of warcraft brand and magic trading card games. Genius

 

[TidusZ]

This isn't project titan right?

Rumors are that Titan will be a cross between steam and an mmo where you play content made by other ppl and get nickled and dimed by microtransactions at every turn. Can't wait... lol

 

[chalmers]

Not even sure what a trading card game is. I collected baseball cards as a kid, they had bubble gum sticks in them. They hurt my teeth.

 

[Dumac]

They should reboot Starcraft: Ghost.

 

[Doppel]

I've never played nor will I ever a card game.

I'm not a fan of F2P at all, but if people allow it the publishers will keep doing it.

 

[ZaneNBK]

I've never played nor will I ever a card game.

I'm not a fan of F2P at all, but if people allow it the publishers will keep doing it.

Unfortunately I think it's here to stay. It's FREE TO PLAY! Except that it costs more to play than normal games usually. *sigh*

 

[smackababy]

Unfortunately I think it's here to stay. It's FREE TO PLAY! Except that it costs more to play than normal games usually. *sigh*

Except games like HoN and Dota do it well because you get the full game free and can use microtransactions to buy alternate avatars and taunts and such. Nothing game breaking and nothing you can't enjoy the full experience without.

 

[Wyndru]

nvm, it was already asked in this thread.

 

[ZaneNBK]

Except games like HoN and Dota do it well because you get the full game free and can use microtransactions to buy alternate avatars and taunts and such. Nothing game breaking and nothing you can't enjoy the full experience without.

Yeah, some games do it right but most don't. Most do something along the lines of giving you the option to pay to progress at a normal speed in the game or not pay and progress at half that speed or worse. Or there's LoL where you either need to grind for a long time to unlock other heroes or pay for them.

 

[Dumac]

Except games like HoN and Dota do it well because you get the full game free and can use microtransactions to buy alternate avatars and taunts and such. Nothing game breaking and nothing you can't enjoy the full experience without.

Exactly, Free2Play doesn't mean Pay2Win necessarily.

 

[smackababy]

Yeah, some games do it right but most don't. Most do something along the lines of giving you the option to pay to progress at a normal speed in the game or not pay and progress at half that speed or worse. Or there's LoL where you either need to grind for a long time to unlock other heroes or pay for them.

The fact that you don't get every hero in LoL without grinding for a thousand games is at the bottom of the LoL shortcomings list, as a Dota / HoN player. >_<

 

[Dumac]

The fact that you don't get every hero in LoL without grinding for a thousand games is at the bottom of the LoL shortcomings list, as a Dota / HoN player. >_<

Yet LoL wipes the floor with both in terms of popularity

 

[Chiropteran]

Yet LoL wipes the floor with both in terms of popularity

LoL has always been free. Before DOTA 2 existed, the choice was to pay $39 for HoN, or play LoL for free. Not too shocking that most picked LoL.

DOTA 2 is still "beta", though it's fairly easy to get access it's not as easy as creating a LoL account.

 

[smackababy]

Yet LoL wipes the floor with both in terms of popularity

Because that means a lot about opinions of a game...

 

[alcoholbob]

RMAH wasn't microtransaction based in the sense that the word is used with these types of games. Those were all items players found and decided to try and sell. Sure, Blizzard got a fee for offering this service, but who cares? And if you think you have to use RMAH to get good items in Diablo, you're playing the wrong type of game. It is a loot hoarder game. Your only goal is to find better loot. The D3 hate is amazing.

lol

 

[Craig234]

i am permanently all done with trading card games. last year i tried magic online and it was zero fun and zero balance. 1-2-3-i win. i was reminded of the guy that introduced me to magic - he quit the game when he got mindtwisted for 7 cards before his first turn

also, im all done with free2play/pay2win. if the damn game is any good, charge me a price and be done with it. i refuse to be nickel and dimed to death.

Couple problems with that. One is that as long as it's a dominant business model, some of the best games will use it, so you will miss out - like World of Tanks.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Sounds just like the shitpile diablo 3 then. Terrible game where you can use terrible items or pull out your credit card. More garbage from Activi$ion/Bli$$ard.

They ought to merge with Zynga and just embrace their newly evolved status of crappy pay2win micro-transaction content devoid of challenge and complexity.

You know, they could have made more money in items in the long run if they made a great game than single mindedly focusins on how squeezing as much money out of that RMAH, MBA style.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

You know, they could have made more money in items in the long run if they made a great game than single mindedly focusins on how squeezing as much money out of that RMAH, MBA style.

That's not the activision way.

 

[Ashenor]

Started playing a new Gameloft TCG that just came out Order and Chaos Duels. Suprisingly pretty good for gameloft, there is a money sink, but if you just unlock and play with a with heroes and build there decks up its not to bad. It came out last week for android and iOS.

Gameloft name is Ashenor, feel free to add me.

 

[zmhaha]

I hope they dont give a RMAH on this "free-to-play"

 

[Chiropteran]

It's been "out" in closed beta for a few days now. No trading, which seems odd, but I guess I can partially understand why.

Watching streams of it on twitch.tv it looks like fun, at least for now while everyone is new.

Solforge is also out in beta now, open beta and on steam. I've played a bit of solforge but the game servers seem to be heavily overloaded and the game is very buggy and laggy. Also solforge seems to be very heavy pay2win. It's expected somewhat for any card game, but it's most rare legendary cards are often simply outright overpowered compared to common or rare equivalents.

While hearthstone also has real money boosters I can't say yet if it's as bad as solforge, it doesn't look like legendary cards in hearthstone are arbitrarily stronger than the more common cards, they just have more interesting abilities.

 

[gothamhunter]

It's been "out" in closed beta for a few days now. No trading, which seems odd, but I guess I can partially understand why.

Watching streams of it on twitch.tv it looks like fun, at least for now while everyone is new.

Solforge is also out in beta now, open beta and on steam. I've played a bit of solforge but the game servers seem to be heavily overloaded and the game is very buggy and laggy. Also solforge seems to be very heavy pay2win. It's expected somewhat for any card game, but it's most rare legendary cards are often simply outright overpowered compared to common or rare equivalents.

While hearthstone also has real money boosters I can't say yet if it's as bad as solforge, it doesn't look like legendary cards in hearthstone are arbitrarily stronger than the more common cards, they just have more interesting abilities.

A couple things:

Rarer cards should inherently be better than common cards, but they should not be overpowered. I've played MTG for a very long time, and there are always rare cards more powerful than common. However, they usually cost more, have some sort of downside, or are situational; they need to be played on top of a base of common cards.

As long as Heartstone follows this, they'll do fine.

Trading cards games are, inherently, P2W. Sorry but I'm going to cream your 12th Edition white deck, unless we're doing drafts or closed box or something.