No one forced you to play or pay before 'launch' day, or did they? So?
Ah OP, WoW had bugs (like getting stuck while looting or gathering) for 6-7 months AFTER release, that should have never survived beta.
Exactly like today
Only 6-7 months? STO seems to be plagued by certain bugs that have been there for years. You just have to accept that they might never be fixed.
If you think Neverwinter and their Pay 2 Win model sucks, check out Xbox Live. When it started, games with multiplayer were $50 or $60. They would release patches with new content, usually maps, called Downloadable Content (DLC). DLC was free. We are talking about 10 years ago. Then DLC become $5. Then $10. Then $15.
Now, for Call of Duty: Black Ops II (the most popular game on Xbox Live), they offered something where you could pay $50, in addition to a $70 game, which would allow you to get the 4 map packs that would be offered over the course of 2013 for $15 each (a savings of $10). So the game launched with about a dozen maps, and every 3 months they release a map pack for $15 for 4 new maps. So a person would pay $120-$130 to get about 30 maps over a calendar year, which is twice what this exact same content would have cost just 10 years ago. They make 28 maps, but they only give you 12 for your first $60, and then the other 16 maps cost you another $60--effectively charging people for two games.
Now Xbox One is going to do away with used games all together. I have been on Xbox Live for 10 years, but I do not plan to buy an Xbox One and I am looking at the PS4--because I hate what Microsoft is doing with its insane price gouging of loyal customers, and
[the point of this post]
THE ONLY VOTE WE HAVE IS WITH OUR WALLETS
I bought a used copy on eBay, and I will sell the game on eBay as soon as the next map pack is announced, ahead of the release of Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
THIS is the golden era of videogames... last year 15000 millions... yeah fifteen thousand million dollars industry...
I wasn't going to dignify this with a response...but...I couldn't...so...here it is... What in the name of everything holy are you trying to say??? Spit it out! Because you just made absolutely NO sense and I'm STILL trying to decipher it.
As has been mentioned time and time again, it is becoming an industry practice. The producers (not the devs) know that people will pay to play the game when it isn't quite polished.
Why shouldn't they go with it if the market will bear it? No one forces people to spend money on the games.
Lets see. Beta used to be you had to be on a short list of dedicated players or an industry insider. I have Beta tested TT games in the 90s-2Ks The method has changed even for them. To be a Beta tester used to mean you were recognized as dedicated player. I bought and played every Final Fantasy video game... ever. When a call came o be a Beta tester I was... ignored. I dropped $60 to be a founder on MWO and found out 2 months later I was also getting into closed Beta. I heard this game was having Open Beta and downloaded. *Shrug* Beta isn't what it used to be. If we are going to fund a incomplete game, the makers would be idiots to refuse money for nothing... or at least very little. It saves them from having to take out huge loans and pay back with interest, if the private sector is willing to foot the bill for the right to help test the game. Our money in is paying the workers, for a product incomplete. Would you pay up front for a car that is not more than 80% finished? Some would, I wouldn't.
tyr216Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
I don't see how the "open beta" soft launch is a scam. They are not forcing anyone to spend a dime. Just because some of us are either impatient, lazy, or a combination of both, doesn't mean that you're obligated to financially support this game in any way. However, there are plenty of responsible consumers who understand what "open beta" means and have decided to support the game in its current development cycle regardless. The only people potentially getting scammed are the parents of the 10 year olds whose credit cards have been unknowingly jacked to purchase Zen for a game their kids are going to get bored with in a month anyway. And who's to blame for that? Certainly not the game.
Would I prefer them to call it anything but open beta? Sure but does it really make a difference? Launching the game as "open beta" is just a marketing ploy so that if the game falls flat on its face the first month it's been out, they can just use the "open beta" scape goat while they compile a list of everything they need to fix before the game goes "live". It's just a way for them to stress test everything to the extreme, as if the game were actually live. The quality of closed beta testers has exponentially decreased over the years as most just want to get into a closed beta, play the game for 5 minutes, not provide any feedback, and never log back in. It's understandable that more and more companies are now embracing this idea of "open beta" because now they're actually getting large amounts of useable feedback. But if you think it's a scam, don't open your wallet until it officially launches. It's not like you have to. A foreign concept to the average impulsive consumer I'm sure, but take some personal responsibility.
There is a new numerical term: billions. Also, there are currency symbols. Try using them, as in, "$15 billion".
I know, but it turns out that "billions" in english and in my mother languages(catalan/spanish) aint the same, on saxon languages a billion=1000 millions, in latin languages a billion= 1.000.000 millions. (in spanish 1000 millions is a millardo,almost dissapeared word). Iirc, frenchies and italians have the same problem, so in order to be understandable to everyone, ive choosen that way of expression.
I think the trend is great. Players who KNOW that the game is a BETA product get to try it out FOR FREE before making a purchase. Game developers get a large number of people to test the game to help find bugs, exploits, imbalances, etc. Win, win for both parties. As long as players remember that they are TESTERS and not CUSTOMERS this is a great opportunity for everyone involved.
I also think that it is great that game developers are allowing beta test players to invest money into the beta testing cycle. This has a HUGE benefit that game developers do not feel the need to RUSH a game's release and can put in the proper time, care and testing before RELEASING the product. Having a FREE TO PLAY open beta allows those who do not have money to invest to still enjoy the BETA TESTING experience and for those who do have the money to INVEST in the product it gives them certain perks such as early access to beta testing, cosmetic upgrades, etc.
I am extremely grateful to Cryptic for allowing me to BETA TEST Neverwinter for FREE. I know that it was HARDER in many ways to develop a BETA PRODUCT which would also carry over into the OFFICIAL RELEASE instead of just wiping the game clean but it allowed me not to loose any of the time, items, etc which also encouraged me to BETA TEST more.
I have CHOSEN to invest my money into Cryptic because I enjoy playing Neverwinter. I know that there are plenty of people who invested a whole lot more than myself which I am grateful that they are able to because I directly benefit from their choice to do so. And to those who chose to BETA TEST Neverwinter for free without spending any money, you benefited even more from all of those who did.
So far I've been extremely happy with Neverwinter. Is it perfect? Heck no! Not even close. But Cryptic has been making many moves in the right direction and I'm happy to go along for the ride.
Maybe I'm just too old but I miss the days of buying a finished product. These days it seems that if you buy any software you know it will be six months before it begins living up to it's promise.
(Hope you don't mind me snipping, but I had to address this comment).
There is this myth that once-upon-a-time (normally pre-internet) games came in the box finished. This has never been the case for as long as I have been gaming on the PC. Leaving aside games you were never able to finish because you couldn't figure out what the hell to do and there were no online walkthrus, or friends also playing who had solved the conundrum, or a gaming magazine with the solution inside which you had to pay for...*breath*...there were still plenty of bugs in released boxed games.
The original Gabriel Knight (or something similar I was playing circa 1993) came with a bug that could only be overcome by calling support on a premium hotline number so they could take your details and send you a floppy disk containing the fix through the post. Eye of the Beholder II or III had a buggy door that wouldn't open and meant you couldn't get to the final boss to finish the game (a few years later when internet arrived, I was able to DL a fix and finally complete this game). Similarly, after investing a huge amount of hours on this massive game, I was unable to complete ES2: Daggerfall, as the man who was to give me instructions for my final mission, and whom I was supposed to meet at a very specific place and time, totally failed to show up!
There are far more games than the 3 mentioned, but those other games weren't enjoyable enough for me to feel motivated to go through the hoops necessary to obtain a bug-fix. Plus back in those days, you could walk back into the store with your product and get money back for a buggy PC game, no questions asked. That's probably the reason we feel games were better crafted years ago, but in reality it isn't the case.
Not so. GW2 wiped open beta toons and thats less than a year old. Possibly the trend is increasing for live launch to be marketed as open beta.
GW has a model all its own and is not a good comparison to make with regard to industry standards. All subscription MMOs in which I have participated in as a beta tester have only wiped at the end of closed beta, not open. I'm going back a decade though, not sure what the standard was prior to that.
I was just looking at that comment and it occurred to me that none of these games of late seem to have any staying power after the level cap with the possible exception of Rift. Not trying to derail the thread here but this seems to be the norm now. Is this a lack of developer vision or a quick buck making scam to avoid ongoing maintenance and server costs etc?
Part of the problem is that games are allowing the players to get to the level cap too quickly. It is becoming more and more common for people to say "the game begins at the level cap" but all that is ever found at the level cap is a gear treadmill (either PvE or PvP gear treadmill) designed to take huge amounts of time to keep people busy until real content is released. End game has never been anything but busywork to keep people paying the monthly fee (or in this case buying keys). After you run the treadmill in a few games you start to realize how boring and pointless it is. Games were a lot more fun when the journey to the level cap was time consuming and meaningful.
This is where I was wrong. The more I played the more game breaking stuff I came across. The player abusing things that were not meant to abuse made the problem even worse. I wont get into the myriad of bugs and issues that were in my mind pretty game breaking, but I quickly came to the conclusion I made a huge mistake.
I felt burnt and frustrated. I do in a strange way, feel somewhat scammed. I'll just chalk it up to a learning experience and never buy from an open beta cash shop again. Heck, I may even stay away from Open Betas all together because I already absorbed a lot of the leveling content with a negative experience attached to it which could have been avoided if I simply waited.
I learned this same lesson a few years back myself. I discovered that every single pay-to-play game that I beta tested resulted in my not buying the game when it finally launched. Playing the game during beta allows you to get over the hype while at the same time experiencing the game in the worst possible light (when it is buggy and terrible to play). Games that I waited to play until they were out for a year or more I tended to play for a long time, but those I beta tested I never played longer than the length of the beta.
Now I just stay away from pay-to-play betas since it appears to only result in ruining the game for me. Free-to-play betas I don't mind quite as much (though I tend to stay away from them too). I only ended up here because I was tired of Dungeons and Dragons Online and the message board of that game kept mentioning this game so I ended up trying it about a week after open beta started.
I know, but it turns out that "billions" in english and in my mother languages(catalan/spanish) aint the same, on saxon languages a billion=1000 millions, in latin languages a billion= 1.000.000 millions. (in spanish 1000 millions is a millardo,almost dissapeared word). Iirc, frenchies and italians have the same problem, so in order to be understandable to everyone, ive choosen that way of expression.
Btw... do you have anything to add to the OP?
Yes, I made a post responding to the theme of the OP. Sorry for being a jerk; I figured English was not your first language. However I still wish to impart that if you mean 'thousands of millions' in English, you would say 'billions'.
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sasheriaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 1Arc User
Part of the problem is that games are allowing the players to get to the level cap too quickly. It is becoming more and more common for people to say "the game begins at the level cap" but all that is ever found at the level cap is a gear treadmill (either PvE or PvP gear treadmill) designed to take huge amounts of time to keep people busy until real content is released. End game has never been anything but busywork to keep people paying the monthly fee (or in this case buying keys). After you run the treadmill in a few games you start to realize how boring and pointless it is. Games were a lot more fun when the journey to the level cap was time consuming and meaningful.
that is the issue with MMO. You can only do so much without "going off balance" single player can have a lot of stories and have fun, but when you pit against 10,000 players, you want to be the "best" and have the "best gear" (human nature) so people will race to the top and miss out great stories in between. In a single player game, YOU ARE THE BEST and thus have no "drive" to reach top level other than to get that next ability.
As for the OP, a "scam" is when an entity is trying to cheat you from something. "soft launch" and "open beta" is not really a scam. You KNOW what you are getting into. It was stated that there won't be any wipes (this mean launch in my mind) Open beta to me means the game is still buggy and can have issue. While I personally don't like the idea of open beta + cash shop, I don't use it until it is launched (that is just me)
Would I pay money in advance to support it? sure! I bought my packs, but I know that anything I spend on the pack (my AD) will get reset in closed beta to open beta.
Is it underhanded? possible, the thing is that you have to look at the player base. People are willing to pay a little money (or a lot) to get ahead. Some are willing to pay to get into the game EARLY so they CAN be ahead. Some like the idea they can spend real cash and get items so they ARE ahead. Companies take advantage of these human traits. Is it bad? well, that is a different story. They are giving what the customer wants and get something in return (i.e. release near-polished game and earn money from it)
The only way to stop it is to get the player to actually STOP spending money in advance, but that floodgate is already open and it is not stopping. company start charging a lot of DLC and now even pre-pack DLC on the DISK and release on day ONE and charge for it (kinda bad deal really)
I recently saw EA is trying to change their image on that matter like releasing DLC on day one, always online and other issues. Maybe other company might follow suit, but as long customer continue to throw money at company, these thing will continue to go on.
Part of the problem is that games are allowing the players to get to the level cap too quickly. It is becoming more and more common for people to say "the game begins at the level cap" but all that is ever found at the level cap is a gear treadmill (either PvE or PvP gear treadmill) designed to take huge amounts of time to keep people busy until real content is released. End game has never been anything but busywork to keep people paying the monthly fee (or in this case buying keys). After you run the treadmill in a few games you start to realize how boring and pointless it is. Games were a lot more fun when the journey to the level cap was time consuming and meaningful.
An excellent point.
I can't think of another character that I felt as much attachment to as my little gnome enchanter in EQ. Nowadays I'm at level cap in a matter of days, or weeks at most of casual play.
I personally think what game companies are doing with this is a stroke of genius really. Call it what ever you will but look at it this way. Funcom's Age of Conan was released as a finished product which for all intents and purposes it wasn't. It was a disaster 6 months in with the player base raging on the forums. The game was playable but it was a bug filled mess. If you could go back and read the player posting about how they can't believe Funcom would release something that amounted to a beta as a full game. Then rage quitting and never looking back.
How many other games have come and gone since then that had similar issues? How many lost a significant amount of players in the first few months that will never return? SO, you get the "Open Beta / Soft release" model. It's free to play for those that don't want to invest any money. Brilliance.
Why? Well, you are going to get all sorts of players that want to try the game so a nice large influx of players to stress your servers and test your content. Those that just came to see what it's all about will be leaving (as they would anyway because some are just never satisfied) and those that will pay your company to gain some title or gift as well as to keep your company going because they like what they see. If something is found that is an issue? Well, hey, "it's Open Beta you know how these things go."
Absolute brilliance. If you the gamer don't like it then don't get involved. Those of you complaining about the situation? You had an option to not get involved until full release. Those that are talking about the consumer affairs? Really? You're serious? What exactly was promised when you purchased one of the founders packs that you didn't get? Was the game totally unplayable? Not that I can see. Yes, there are some issues with various things in game, paragon paths, spells not working as intended, etc.. BUT they game was playable and they offered you nothing more than that. In FACT they didn't even offer you that. They offered you early access to their "Open Beta" with a disclaimer that the game could change at any time.
Now before you go off on the "oh another fanboy checks in" know this. I had no intention of playing this game at all. Didn't even know much about it until some guildies showed interest. I bought in and have been having a good times since.
"The golden age of gaming" was Oregon Trail and Pong. Everything else has been a progression like it or not.
"Back in the golden days of video games, there was no such thing as a soft launch. Nintendo didn't send out test copies of Super Mario World to special "backers," and Sega didn't ship half-finished Sonic games with promises of further content updates. Games, for the most part, were played only after they were finished, printed, packaged, and shipped. Even on PC, beta testing was more of an earned honor exclusive to players that showed dedication to a title and its community.
Here in these modern times of Internets and always-ons, however, things are different. It would seem as though developers need only make enough game content to shoot a reasonably convincing trailer before the publishing team can begin collecting money by slapping a "BETA" sticker on the webpage and offering fans early access.
Over the last few years soft launches have become increasingly common -- especially for creators of online games. The line between "in testing" and "done" is becoming blurred, and publishers are reaping the benefits while players suffer."
all games are doing this nowadays. its not specific to neverwinter, just off the top of my head i can think of: path of exiles, war thunder, dota 2, smite, firefall, scrolls
im pretty sure there are more, im just naming a few ive played. another word for this is early access..personally im willing to put down money to get access to an early beta build of the game. this beats how it used to be where everyone had to wait till the official release.
when wildstar and star citizen offer these perks, you can be **** sure im hopping all over that soft launch train.
As for the OP, a "scam" is when an entity is trying to cheat you from something.
More specifically, a scam is where someone is trying to get something from you through deception or confusion.
Was Cryptic trying to get money from players? Yes.
Was the label of "Open Beta" deceptive or confusing? At the very least it was confusing, otherwise we wouldn't have had a couple of dozen threads and hundreds of queries in general chat asking if there would be a wipe at the end of Beta.
Also Cryptic made misleading statements about when the Founders packs would stop being sold. Also deceptive and done to drive sales.
So the only real question is whether Cryptic was intentionally being confusing in order to make money. Since that's a question of motivation, no one out here will ever no. But I think there's enough evidence to say that it's not ludicrous to assert that the soft launch was a scam.
"Participation in PVP-related activities is so low on an hourly, daily, weekly, and monthly basis that we could in fact just completely take it out of STO and it would not impact the overall number of people [who] log in to the game and play in any significant way." -Gozer, Cryptic PvP Dev
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filcMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
edited June 2013
I have 2 arguments on this topic ...
1) There is NOT single finished MMO on the market. All of them are in "beta" in terms of constant evolving content, patches and game play tweaks. You can't compare this to single player or even to simple multiplayer games. MMO's are agile service, ever evolving, never finished.
2) You can't compare old games to any current MMO on the market. That's silly. The production of MMO is much more complicated than Sonic.
It's clear, that author of that article doesn't understand that simply, coz he is journalist, not a developer.
So we're comparing contemporary games to games like Mario from decades ago now? Kind of ridiculous when you consider that game development costs have gone up significantly with each successive generation along with game complexity. Pair that with more games being released per year now than used to be released in an entire console generation across all systems and you've got a much more competitive marketplace with much higher initial investment required... Call it a scam all you want, but the writing is right on the wall as to how they intend to get money out of you to make up for their investment. Some of you seem to think that this is a bad thing.
The open beta label *may* be silly... But, the idea that this game is a scam is a joke. The cash grab is A) to be entirely expected in such a case, and not covert in any way, shape, or form - you know exactly where they intend to get money from you and, simply put, you don't have to indulge them. Take a look at how the gaming industry has changed between now and Mario and take some bloody responsibility for your actions - problem solved.
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mitoteMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 42Arc User
1) There is NOT single finished MMO on the market. All of them are in "beta" in terms of constant evolving content, patches and game play tweaks. You can't compare this to single player or even to simple multiplayer games. MMO's are agile service, ever evolving, never finished.
2) You can't compare old games to any current MMO on the market. That's silly. The production of MMO is much more complicated than Sonic.
It's clear, that author of that article doesn't understand that simply, coz he is journalist, not a developer.
It's clear, that author of that article doesn't understand that simply, coz he is journalist, not a developer.
Following that argument, the opinions of the people on this thread mean even less. Way to go, you just logicked your own arguments down a big deep hole
Roo. Cleric. Mad as a bag of badgers, will heal for beer.
Following that argument, the opinions of the people on this thread mean even less. Way to go, you just logicked your own arguments down a big deep hole
I'm game developer for many years and yes, lots of ppl in this thread doesn't have a clue, but that's normal. Unless you work on the project you can never really understand how complex is to make an MMO.
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kalizaarMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 0Arc User
The article is spot on, I'm waiting for well formed arguments. But I fear it's just going to be more NW fanboys with their blinders on
Nothing really to argue. Gamers are willing to pay money to play games they're excited about whether that game is riddled with bugs or not.
Technology has allowed this to happen. Nintendo couldn't release a pre-finished game for people to play because there was no way to easily update the cartridge. With fast internet connections and fancy computer systems they can. So before it would be a gamer pre-ordering a game, handing over money before they had the game, just so they could play it a bit sooner than other people when it was finally released.
Well now the game industry has placed that theory on steroids. Pre-pay money in order to play the game a LOT sooner than other people. So much sooner in fact that the game isn't even finished.
Gamers still do it though. They act like they're shocked and offended that they're playing games that aren't finished yet they still paid money to do it even after warnings that the game isn't ready. Other gamers realize that's what's going on and pay anyhow because we're fine with playing buggy games before they're "done" because we really want to play it as soon as possible. Other gamers realize that's what's going on and decide to wait a few months before checking out games.
What's funny is that people used to hand money over to pre-order a game and not be able to play it at all for months or whatever. Now people hand over money months before release and are actually able to play the game instead of wishing they could play it and all they do is complain.
Gamers need to begin to realize that there are now 3 phases of a game that you can pay to play. "Broken" (AKA Alpha/Closed Beta Testing), "Buggy As Heck" (AKA Open Beta Testing), and Not Quite As Buggy (AKA Release). There's also a fourth phase called "Old and Soon To Be Replaced By The Next Game Coming Out" (AKA Been patched for the last 12 months). Gamers have to decide how badly they want to play a game.
Can't wait to try a new game and don't mind paying money to play a broken version of it and don't often complain about unplayable games? Pay to enter an Alpha/Closed Beta Test.
Can't wait to try a new game, don't mind paying money to play a buggy game but have a tendency to wine if a game is TOO buggy? Pay to play an Open Beta Test.
Can't wait to try a new game, don't mind paying money to play a slightly buggy game but have a tendency to wine if a game has more than a couple bugs? Pay to play a Released game.
Tend to wine at the slightest bug? Wait 12-24 months after a game is released and even then maybe not pay to play the game because it will still have a bug or two. Maybe go get a pack of cards instead since they have most of the bugs worked out in Solitaire. Or better yet try throwing rocks at the ground but watch out for your toes and avoid rocks with sharp edges.
Me personally? I realize software in general is full of bugs. I used to pre-order games and whine that I couldn't play it for months and whine more when the release was pushed back. Then I became a little more wise and realized how silly that was. Then technology advanced and I realized I could pay money early and play the game early with the understanding that it would be buggy. I'm fine with that. I may whine on occasion, but it's with the intention of improving aspects I feel need improvement.
Heck, I've even advanced to the next stage of evolution. I invest money in games that are just dreams still because of crowd-funding like Kickstarter. I'm back to that pre-order scenario where I pay money and can't play the game for a long time. Funny how life goes full circles sometimes...
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mooglebMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 3Arc User
1) There is NOT single finished MMO on the market. All of them are in "beta" in terms of constant evolving content, patches and game play tweaks. You can't compare this to single player or even to simple multiplayer games. MMO's are agile service, ever evolving, never finished.
"Finished" is far different than "beta". No one is arguing that MMO's should not evolve over time, but there are plenty of finished products. WoW, EQ, UO, EVE all come to mind as solid, finished products that continued to develop as all MMO's continue to develop.
2) You can't compare old games to any current MMO on the market. That's silly. The production of MMO is much more complicated than Sonic.
What about old MMO's? WoW is old. EQ is older than that, and you can go further back. D3, while not technically an MMO, would have had a very complex production as well.
The old gen console comparison isn't a valid one, but the point remains the same that NW should not have been released in the state that is was, and more importantly if they wanted beta testers to help test their game and find bugs, they should not have been charging for things like power respecs.
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sasheriaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 1Arc User
More specifically, a scam is where someone is trying to get something from you through deception or confusion.
Was Cryptic trying to get money from players? Yes.
Was the label of "Open Beta" deceptive or confusing? At the very least it was confusing, otherwise we wouldn't have had a couple of dozen threads and hundreds of queries in general chat asking if there would be a wipe at the end of Beta.
Also Cryptic made misleading statements about when the Founders packs would stop being sold. Also deceptive and done to drive sales.
So the only real question is whether Cryptic was intentionally being confusing in order to make money. Since that's a question of motivation, no one out here will ever no. But I think there's enough evidence to say that it's not ludicrous to assert that the soft launch was a scam.
It depends what you mean confusing. When I sign up for this game, I learn that this open beta will not be any wipes, but it will be full of bugs being open beta. The one thing I don't agree is opening the cash shop during beta (unless it is testing only and everyone will be compensated)
The AH issue and exploits to 60 was rampart. It would have been better to do a full wipe BUT since Cryptic stated that they were not going to wipe in open beta kind bite them in the butt (IMO) so they opt to roll back. If Cryptic didn't open the cash shop (where they accept real money) and never made the statement of "we won't wipe in open beta" I'm sure we would have wiped before launched. This would have been a better way, but oh well.
The founder pack that is marketing ploy. Not a scam. If you think about it, you get everything the pack offer. A scam of the founding pack would be that if the pack said offering 2mil AD and a mount, but you get 1mil AD and 10 certificate that "COULD" generate UP 100k AD each (but it is random so you could get 1k to 100k) and a mount, that would have been a scam since we were promised 2 mil AD flat out. not "upto 2mil AD"
The incomplete/bug software exist since software can never be "complete" or "final" there will ALWAYS be some sort of bug in the program (being as complex as it is) the main difference is that how much of a bug can we tolerate vs game breaking (can't continue at ALL due to a bug)
The magical question to which the answer isn't when "they start taking money."
Minecraft cost money to "test" basically from the alpha stages. The difference is the price went up the further it went into development. As far as I can tell there was no rhyme or reason to their choice of date to say it's alive other than to just finally say it is.
You can argue semantics all you want...
But when it comes down to it this is pretty standard in many aspecs of the world.
Really? Let's see....
One thing you have to understand is that Super Mario is no more comparable to Neverwinter than my shoe is comparable to my car. As video games become more and more complex the issues within them have become harder and harder to maintain. We have actually reached the point where consoles basically require internet access because games are consistently released with glitches in them.
That's not because developers are becoming lazy or aren't testing their content...
It's because glitches and the complexity of the game are intertwined.
Bull****, this is completely and blatantly wrong. I know a QA Manager for SOE who has said point blank that when they get a new game and it's rife with bugs, they tell development that it's not ready, and they just do not care. The response, SOP is that it doesn't matter, they will get their money and then some on box sales. To wit, that means that yes, Developers are becoming less interested in developing a quality product, and more in a quick cash grab afterwards. Complexity is only a issue when the comprehension isn't there to navigate it.
A single high school programmer can create a glitch free super mario using java within a month or so because while high tech in that time period the controls were rudimentary at best. MMO's require hundreds of staff members to create this quality content and the amount of issues which this level of complexity creates can't be fathomed by anybody who has never tried to program software.
This is one of those "sounds good on the surface things", but falls apart if you're a actual programmer. You keep babbling about complexity, but again, complexity is only a iussue when the comprehension isn't there to navigate it. Proper documentation as code progresses is essential. Knowledge of what is being done, and moreover, the capacity to fluently work with a given language is a must. If there is a lack of documentation and a lack of capacity to work fluently in a language, then yes, there is going to be scores of bugs. Competency is the key here.
With complexity comes bugs. Plain and simple. And we have reached the precipice where content has become so complex it is a virtual impossibility to avoid releasing with bugs. The line has to get drawn at some point and thus soft launches have become standard practice.
Complexity is really not a issue for talented programmers. As for content, please, do you think we're all just idiots out here? Most content save for new systems in a game (crafting additions, new classes, etc to name a couple) are done using design development systems. Hell some companies SELL their content development system. Check around, they aren't obscure or hard to find. Bottom line? It's not so "complex" as you'd like to make it out to be, and the complexity that IS involved, is not beyond a competent programmer's capacity to interpret and navigate successfully.
"Buy at your own risk" may not be what you like...
But it's not something consumer rights will step in on unless companies start truly scamming players rather than letting players decide whether they wish to pay for incomplete products.
Wouldn't believe this for a moment. First off, who's to say a company is or isn't truly scamming a player? You? What is the threshold for "truly scamming"? Incomplete content? A threshold of bugridden content? What? That's so ambiguous it's laughable.
And you can bet your left nut that the IRS in the USA is watching the enormous amount of cash flow in and out of MMORPGS due to RMT, micro-transactions, monthly fees, expansions, etc. What's going to happen is that it's going to become taxable eventually, and with that will come consumer protection and rights alongside it. It's incontrovertable, inevitable, inexorable. It IS going to happen and all these fly-by-night developers with a penchant for greed are going to; feel the burn the first time a **** product is released and consumers turn to those new rights and take full advantage of them. Remember: It's Massively Multiplayer.
I wasn't going to dignify this with a response...but...I couldn't...so...here it is... What in the name of everything holy are you trying to say??? Spit it out! Because you just made absolutely NO sense and I'm STILL trying to decipher it.
You need to be older. Used to be...there wasnt no billions or trillions....it was thousand million and million million.....
I havent decided if he listened to G.Gordon Liddy(google him) and just older than even I am.
Comments
Only 6-7 months? STO seems to be plagued by certain bugs that have been there for years. You just have to accept that they might never be fixed.
Now, for Call of Duty: Black Ops II (the most popular game on Xbox Live), they offered something where you could pay $50, in addition to a $70 game, which would allow you to get the 4 map packs that would be offered over the course of 2013 for $15 each (a savings of $10). So the game launched with about a dozen maps, and every 3 months they release a map pack for $15 for 4 new maps. So a person would pay $120-$130 to get about 30 maps over a calendar year, which is twice what this exact same content would have cost just 10 years ago. They make 28 maps, but they only give you 12 for your first $60, and then the other 16 maps cost you another $60--effectively charging people for two games.
Now Xbox One is going to do away with used games all together. I have been on Xbox Live for 10 years, but I do not plan to buy an Xbox One and I am looking at the PS4--because I hate what Microsoft is doing with its insane price gouging of loyal customers, and
[the point of this post]
THE ONLY VOTE WE HAVE IS WITH OUR WALLETS
I bought a used copy on eBay, and I will sell the game on eBay as soon as the next map pack is announced, ahead of the release of Splinter Cell: Blacklist.
I wasn't going to dignify this with a response...but...I couldn't...so...here it is... What in the name of everything holy are you trying to say??? Spit it out! Because you just made absolutely NO sense and I'm STILL trying to decipher it.
Would I prefer them to call it anything but open beta? Sure but does it really make a difference? Launching the game as "open beta" is just a marketing ploy so that if the game falls flat on its face the first month it's been out, they can just use the "open beta" scape goat while they compile a list of everything they need to fix before the game goes "live". It's just a way for them to stress test everything to the extreme, as if the game were actually live. The quality of closed beta testers has exponentially decreased over the years as most just want to get into a closed beta, play the game for 5 minutes, not provide any feedback, and never log back in. It's understandable that more and more companies are now embracing this idea of "open beta" because now they're actually getting large amounts of useable feedback. But if you think it's a scam, don't open your wallet until it officially launches. It's not like you have to. A foreign concept to the average impulsive consumer I'm sure, but take some personal responsibility.
Not so. GW2 wiped open beta toons and thats less than a year old. Possibly the trend is increasing for live launch to be marketed as open beta.
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I know, but it turns out that "billions" in english and in my mother languages(catalan/spanish) aint the same, on saxon languages a billion=1000 millions, in latin languages a billion= 1.000.000 millions. (in spanish 1000 millions is a millardo,almost dissapeared word). Iirc, frenchies and italians have the same problem, so in order to be understandable to everyone, ive choosen that way of expression.
Btw... do you have anything to add to the OP?
I also think that it is great that game developers are allowing beta test players to invest money into the beta testing cycle. This has a HUGE benefit that game developers do not feel the need to RUSH a game's release and can put in the proper time, care and testing before RELEASING the product. Having a FREE TO PLAY open beta allows those who do not have money to invest to still enjoy the BETA TESTING experience and for those who do have the money to INVEST in the product it gives them certain perks such as early access to beta testing, cosmetic upgrades, etc.
I am extremely grateful to Cryptic for allowing me to BETA TEST Neverwinter for FREE. I know that it was HARDER in many ways to develop a BETA PRODUCT which would also carry over into the OFFICIAL RELEASE instead of just wiping the game clean but it allowed me not to loose any of the time, items, etc which also encouraged me to BETA TEST more.
I have CHOSEN to invest my money into Cryptic because I enjoy playing Neverwinter. I know that there are plenty of people who invested a whole lot more than myself which I am grateful that they are able to because I directly benefit from their choice to do so. And to those who chose to BETA TEST Neverwinter for free without spending any money, you benefited even more from all of those who did.
So far I've been extremely happy with Neverwinter. Is it perfect? Heck no! Not even close. But Cryptic has been making many moves in the right direction and I'm happy to go along for the ride.
(Hope you don't mind me snipping, but I had to address this comment).
There is this myth that once-upon-a-time (normally pre-internet) games came in the box finished. This has never been the case for as long as I have been gaming on the PC. Leaving aside games you were never able to finish because you couldn't figure out what the hell to do and there were no online walkthrus, or friends also playing who had solved the conundrum, or a gaming magazine with the solution inside which you had to pay for...*breath*...there were still plenty of bugs in released boxed games.
The original Gabriel Knight (or something similar I was playing circa 1993) came with a bug that could only be overcome by calling support on a premium hotline number so they could take your details and send you a floppy disk containing the fix through the post. Eye of the Beholder II or III had a buggy door that wouldn't open and meant you couldn't get to the final boss to finish the game (a few years later when internet arrived, I was able to DL a fix and finally complete this game). Similarly, after investing a huge amount of hours on this massive game, I was unable to complete ES2: Daggerfall, as the man who was to give me instructions for my final mission, and whom I was supposed to meet at a very specific place and time, totally failed to show up!
There are far more games than the 3 mentioned, but those other games weren't enjoyable enough for me to feel motivated to go through the hoops necessary to obtain a bug-fix. Plus back in those days, you could walk back into the store with your product and get money back for a buggy PC game, no questions asked. That's probably the reason we feel games were better crafted years ago, but in reality it isn't the case.
GW has a model all its own and is not a good comparison to make with regard to industry standards. All subscription MMOs in which I have participated in as a beta tester have only wiped at the end of closed beta, not open. I'm going back a decade though, not sure what the standard was prior to that.
Part of the problem is that games are allowing the players to get to the level cap too quickly. It is becoming more and more common for people to say "the game begins at the level cap" but all that is ever found at the level cap is a gear treadmill (either PvE or PvP gear treadmill) designed to take huge amounts of time to keep people busy until real content is released. End game has never been anything but busywork to keep people paying the monthly fee (or in this case buying keys). After you run the treadmill in a few games you start to realize how boring and pointless it is. Games were a lot more fun when the journey to the level cap was time consuming and meaningful.
I learned this same lesson a few years back myself. I discovered that every single pay-to-play game that I beta tested resulted in my not buying the game when it finally launched. Playing the game during beta allows you to get over the hype while at the same time experiencing the game in the worst possible light (when it is buggy and terrible to play). Games that I waited to play until they were out for a year or more I tended to play for a long time, but those I beta tested I never played longer than the length of the beta.
Now I just stay away from pay-to-play betas since it appears to only result in ruining the game for me. Free-to-play betas I don't mind quite as much (though I tend to stay away from them too). I only ended up here because I was tired of Dungeons and Dragons Online and the message board of that game kept mentioning this game so I ended up trying it about a week after open beta started.
Yes, I made a post responding to the theme of the OP. Sorry for being a jerk; I figured English was not your first language. However I still wish to impart that if you mean 'thousands of millions' in English, you would say 'billions'.
that is the issue with MMO. You can only do so much without "going off balance" single player can have a lot of stories and have fun, but when you pit against 10,000 players, you want to be the "best" and have the "best gear" (human nature) so people will race to the top and miss out great stories in between. In a single player game, YOU ARE THE BEST and thus have no "drive" to reach top level other than to get that next ability.
As for the OP, a "scam" is when an entity is trying to cheat you from something. "soft launch" and "open beta" is not really a scam. You KNOW what you are getting into. It was stated that there won't be any wipes (this mean launch in my mind) Open beta to me means the game is still buggy and can have issue. While I personally don't like the idea of open beta + cash shop, I don't use it until it is launched (that is just me)
Would I pay money in advance to support it? sure! I bought my packs, but I know that anything I spend on the pack (my AD) will get reset in closed beta to open beta.
Is it underhanded? possible, the thing is that you have to look at the player base. People are willing to pay a little money (or a lot) to get ahead. Some are willing to pay to get into the game EARLY so they CAN be ahead. Some like the idea they can spend real cash and get items so they ARE ahead. Companies take advantage of these human traits. Is it bad? well, that is a different story. They are giving what the customer wants and get something in return (i.e. release near-polished game and earn money from it)
The only way to stop it is to get the player to actually STOP spending money in advance, but that floodgate is already open and it is not stopping. company start charging a lot of DLC and now even pre-pack DLC on the DISK and release on day ONE and charge for it (kinda bad deal really)
I recently saw EA is trying to change their image on that matter like releasing DLC on day one, always online and other issues. Maybe other company might follow suit, but as long customer continue to throw money at company, these thing will continue to go on.
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
An excellent point.
I can't think of another character that I felt as much attachment to as my little gnome enchanter in EQ. Nowadays I'm at level cap in a matter of days, or weeks at most of casual play.
How many other games have come and gone since then that had similar issues? How many lost a significant amount of players in the first few months that will never return? SO, you get the "Open Beta / Soft release" model. It's free to play for those that don't want to invest any money. Brilliance.
Why? Well, you are going to get all sorts of players that want to try the game so a nice large influx of players to stress your servers and test your content. Those that just came to see what it's all about will be leaving (as they would anyway because some are just never satisfied) and those that will pay your company to gain some title or gift as well as to keep your company going because they like what they see. If something is found that is an issue? Well, hey, "it's Open Beta you know how these things go."
Absolute brilliance. If you the gamer don't like it then don't get involved. Those of you complaining about the situation? You had an option to not get involved until full release. Those that are talking about the consumer affairs? Really? You're serious? What exactly was promised when you purchased one of the founders packs that you didn't get? Was the game totally unplayable? Not that I can see. Yes, there are some issues with various things in game, paragon paths, spells not working as intended, etc.. BUT they game was playable and they offered you nothing more than that. In FACT they didn't even offer you that. They offered you early access to their "Open Beta" with a disclaimer that the game could change at any time.
Now before you go off on the "oh another fanboy checks in" know this. I had no intention of playing this game at all. Didn't even know much about it until some guildies showed interest. I bought in and have been having a good times since.
"The golden age of gaming" was Oregon Trail and Pong. Everything else has been a progression like it or not.
That is so old , it has been posted numerous times on the forums . Either quit posting it or find yourself another game forum to QQ on.
im pretty sure there are more, im just naming a few ive played. another word for this is early access..personally im willing to put down money to get access to an early beta build of the game. this beats how it used to be where everyone had to wait till the official release.
when wildstar and star citizen offer these perks, you can be **** sure im hopping all over that soft launch train.
The article was posted on the 11th, 2 whole days ago.
This thread is the only one I've seen on these forums regarding it.
More specifically, a scam is where someone is trying to get something from you through deception or confusion.
Was Cryptic trying to get money from players? Yes.
Was the label of "Open Beta" deceptive or confusing? At the very least it was confusing, otherwise we wouldn't have had a couple of dozen threads and hundreds of queries in general chat asking if there would be a wipe at the end of Beta.
Also Cryptic made misleading statements about when the Founders packs would stop being sold. Also deceptive and done to drive sales.
So the only real question is whether Cryptic was intentionally being confusing in order to make money. Since that's a question of motivation, no one out here will ever no. But I think there's enough evidence to say that it's not ludicrous to assert that the soft launch was a scam.
1) There is NOT single finished MMO on the market. All of them are in "beta" in terms of constant evolving content, patches and game play tweaks. You can't compare this to single player or even to simple multiplayer games. MMO's are agile service, ever evolving, never finished.
2) You can't compare old games to any current MMO on the market. That's silly. The production of MMO is much more complicated than Sonic.
It's clear, that author of that article doesn't understand that simply, coz he is journalist, not a developer.
The open beta label *may* be silly... But, the idea that this game is a scam is a joke. The cash grab is A) to be entirely expected in such a case, and
Your arguments are void.
Following that argument, the opinions of the people on this thread mean even less. Way to go, you just logicked your own arguments down a big deep hole
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I'm game developer for many years and yes, lots of ppl in this thread doesn't have a clue, but that's normal. Unless you work on the project you can never really understand how complex is to make an MMO.
Nothing really to argue. Gamers are willing to pay money to play games they're excited about whether that game is riddled with bugs or not.
Technology has allowed this to happen. Nintendo couldn't release a pre-finished game for people to play because there was no way to easily update the cartridge. With fast internet connections and fancy computer systems they can. So before it would be a gamer pre-ordering a game, handing over money before they had the game, just so they could play it a bit sooner than other people when it was finally released.
Well now the game industry has placed that theory on steroids. Pre-pay money in order to play the game a LOT sooner than other people. So much sooner in fact that the game isn't even finished.
Gamers still do it though. They act like they're shocked and offended that they're playing games that aren't finished yet they still paid money to do it even after warnings that the game isn't ready. Other gamers realize that's what's going on and pay anyhow because we're fine with playing buggy games before they're "done" because we really want to play it as soon as possible. Other gamers realize that's what's going on and decide to wait a few months before checking out games.
What's funny is that people used to hand money over to pre-order a game and not be able to play it at all for months or whatever. Now people hand over money months before release and are actually able to play the game instead of wishing they could play it and all they do is complain.
Gamers need to begin to realize that there are now 3 phases of a game that you can pay to play. "Broken" (AKA Alpha/Closed Beta Testing), "Buggy As Heck" (AKA Open Beta Testing), and Not Quite As Buggy (AKA Release). There's also a fourth phase called "Old and Soon To Be Replaced By The Next Game Coming Out" (AKA Been patched for the last 12 months). Gamers have to decide how badly they want to play a game.
Can't wait to try a new game and don't mind paying money to play a broken version of it and don't often complain about unplayable games? Pay to enter an Alpha/Closed Beta Test.
Can't wait to try a new game, don't mind paying money to play a buggy game but have a tendency to wine if a game is TOO buggy? Pay to play an Open Beta Test.
Can't wait to try a new game, don't mind paying money to play a slightly buggy game but have a tendency to wine if a game has more than a couple bugs? Pay to play a Released game.
Tend to wine at the slightest bug? Wait 12-24 months after a game is released and even then maybe not pay to play the game because it will still have a bug or two. Maybe go get a pack of cards instead since they have most of the bugs worked out in Solitaire. Or better yet try throwing rocks at the ground but watch out for your toes and avoid rocks with sharp edges.
Me personally? I realize software in general is full of bugs. I used to pre-order games and whine that I couldn't play it for months and whine more when the release was pushed back. Then I became a little more wise and realized how silly that was. Then technology advanced and I realized I could pay money early and play the game early with the understanding that it would be buggy. I'm fine with that. I may whine on occasion, but it's with the intention of improving aspects I feel need improvement.
Heck, I've even advanced to the next stage of evolution. I invest money in games that are just dreams still because of crowd-funding like Kickstarter. I'm back to that pre-order scenario where I pay money and can't play the game for a long time. Funny how life goes full circles sometimes...
"Finished" is far different than "beta". No one is arguing that MMO's should not evolve over time, but there are plenty of finished products. WoW, EQ, UO, EVE all come to mind as solid, finished products that continued to develop as all MMO's continue to develop.
What about old MMO's? WoW is old. EQ is older than that, and you can go further back. D3, while not technically an MMO, would have had a very complex production as well.
The old gen console comparison isn't a valid one, but the point remains the same that NW should not have been released in the state that is was, and more importantly if they wanted beta testers to help test their game and find bugs, they should not have been charging for things like power respecs.
It depends what you mean confusing. When I sign up for this game, I learn that this open beta will not be any wipes, but it will be full of bugs being open beta. The one thing I don't agree is opening the cash shop during beta (unless it is testing only and everyone will be compensated)
The AH issue and exploits to 60 was rampart. It would have been better to do a full wipe BUT since Cryptic stated that they were not going to wipe in open beta kind bite them in the butt (IMO) so they opt to roll back. If Cryptic didn't open the cash shop (where they accept real money) and never made the statement of "we won't wipe in open beta" I'm sure we would have wiped before launched. This would have been a better way, but oh well.
The founder pack that is marketing ploy. Not a scam. If you think about it, you get everything the pack offer. A scam of the founding pack would be that if the pack said offering 2mil AD and a mount, but you get 1mil AD and 10 certificate that "COULD" generate UP 100k AD each (but it is random so you could get 1k to 100k) and a mount, that would have been a scam since we were promised 2 mil AD flat out. not "upto 2mil AD"
The incomplete/bug software exist since software can never be "complete" or "final" there will ALWAYS be some sort of bug in the program (being as complex as it is) the main difference is that how much of a bug can we tolerate vs game breaking (can't continue at ALL due to a bug)
Please review my campaign and I'll return the favor.
Really? Let's see....
Bull****, this is completely and blatantly wrong. I know a QA Manager for SOE who has said point blank that when they get a new game and it's rife with bugs, they tell development that it's not ready, and they just do not care. The response, SOP is that it doesn't matter, they will get their money and then some on box sales. To wit, that means that yes, Developers are becoming less interested in developing a quality product, and more in a quick cash grab afterwards. Complexity is only a issue when the comprehension isn't there to navigate it.
This is one of those "sounds good on the surface things", but falls apart if you're a actual programmer. You keep babbling about complexity, but again, complexity is only a iussue when the comprehension isn't there to navigate it. Proper documentation as code progresses is essential. Knowledge of what is being done, and moreover, the capacity to fluently work with a given language is a must. If there is a lack of documentation and a lack of capacity to work fluently in a language, then yes, there is going to be scores of bugs. Competency is the key here.
Complexity is really not a issue for talented programmers. As for content, please, do you think we're all just idiots out here? Most content save for new systems in a game (crafting additions, new classes, etc to name a couple) are done using design development systems. Hell some companies SELL their content development system. Check around, they aren't obscure or hard to find. Bottom line? It's not so "complex" as you'd like to make it out to be, and the complexity that IS involved, is not beyond a competent programmer's capacity to interpret and navigate successfully.
Wouldn't believe this for a moment. First off, who's to say a company is or isn't truly scamming a player? You? What is the threshold for "truly scamming"? Incomplete content? A threshold of bugridden content? What? That's so ambiguous it's laughable.
And you can bet your left nut that the IRS in the USA is watching the enormous amount of cash flow in and out of MMORPGS due to RMT, micro-transactions, monthly fees, expansions, etc. What's going to happen is that it's going to become taxable eventually, and with that will come consumer protection and rights alongside it. It's incontrovertable, inevitable, inexorable. It IS going to happen and all these fly-by-night developers with a penchant for greed are going to; feel the burn the first time a **** product is released and consumers turn to those new rights and take full advantage of them. Remember: It's Massively Multiplayer.
You need to be older. Used to be...there wasnt no billions or trillions....it was thousand million and million million.....
I havent decided if he listened to G.Gordon Liddy(google him) and just older than even I am.