Trion and their new ways

Junglecharly

I thought i would try this new moba coming out. Steam said it is free to play, gameranx on youtube said it's f2p. I join and then i realise i cannot buy a character with ingame currency if i don't buy the whole pack of characters which costs 20 bucks (minimum version).

I think to myself that i must be missing something, i go on steam and someone had already posted that this was a demo, not an f2p moba.
The dev answered this :
"Steam doesn't really have a well defined place for our unique business model to be. Free Mode is like a demo, but not quite, It's like a trial, but not quite. The closest thing they would fit us into was Free To Play. We're ahead of our time, and they are catching up "

Well, not quite this and not quite that. It's basically a trap with no prior information given to potential players. The funny thing is someone there compared it to Smite's business model. Anyway, enough with my rant, i thought it could be an interesting conversation.

xyzercrime

For wasting my time sake, let's just assume that I am Trion employee. Here's what I'll tell ya:

"You want to try our game (AR)? You're free to do so.
You want to get full experience from it? You can buy our game from Steam page.
You want to play our ENTIRE CONTENT of our game without spend any dime? Just bugger off mate, my company ain't charity foundation!"

Junglecharly said:

Anyway, enough with my rant, i thought it could be an interesting conversation.

...aaand no, it couldn't.

Plain and simple.

Junglecharly

I can play other mobas and pay for what i like in them. I won't pay money to buy all 20 packs of pixels because i have to. They should have been more clear about it. 

The company doesn't trust its game to make money in the f2p arena without forcing their potential customers to buy everything from the get go, i don't trust the game to have a community after the first month.
Plain and simple if that's how we discuss things here.

Also Sedryn glad he likes it, i played it for a bit, i won't have sleepless nights over it but it's a good game.

Junglecharly

DMKano said:

Atlas Reactor is buy to play - it is NOT free to play.

There is a free trial with following limitations:

- limited characters (on rotation)
- no ranked matches 
- no ability to use the cash shop
- lowest queue priority 

I got the full game for $5 back in Alpha 


Pre-release price was $20, now that the game is officially launched they said it would go up to $30, steam has a launch sale that is 10% off so you can get it for $27

Bottom line - free to try, but buy to play - once you buy it you get all the characters inluding future ones for forever.


Again not sure if OP just wasn't keeping up with the news but Trion announced this game as B2P months ago.

I wasn't keeping up with the news, that's my bad. My main issue here in case it wasn't obvious because of my phrasing is that steam has it as a free to play game.

Junglecharly

DMKano said:

Junglecharly said:

DMKano said:

Atlas Reactor is buy to play - it is NOT free to play.

There is a free trial with following limitations:

- limited characters (on rotation)
- no ranked matches 
- no ability to use the cash shop
- lowest queue priority 

I got the full game for $5 back in Alpha 


Pre-release price was $20, now that the game is officially launched they said it would go up to $30, steam has a launch sale that is 10% off so you can get it for $27

Bottom line - free to try, but buy to play - once you buy it you get all the characters inluding future ones for forever.


Again not sure if OP just wasn't keeping up with the news but Trion announced this game as B2P months ago.

I wasn't keeping up with the news, that's my bad. My main issue here in case it wasn't obvious because of my phrasing is that steam has it as a free to play game.

I haven't looked at the steam page, but I can see how a free trial can be confusing as it has no time limit. 

I do not have an issue paying for games, this would be illogical. Advertise it as a trial or a demo, fucking Trion - the Pioneers of the Future

Gruug

If you can't afford to play a game....don't play it. And, don't complain when it is not "free".

Junglecharly

Gruug said:

If you can't afford to play a game....don't play it. And, don't complain when it is not "free".

facepalm 

Junglecharly

DMKano said:

Here's the free mode explained back in Aug on the official site:

https://www.atlasreactorgame.com/en/2016/08/bringing-free-mode-to-atlas-reactor/


Also here's one article from May 5 when the original B2P model was announced:

http://www.pcgamer.com/atlas-reactor-ditches-free-to-play-is-now-a-premium-digital-game/



Way before May, the game was going to be F2P

In May they changed to B2P, and added "free mode" which is basically a perpetual free trial. 

But the core game is still B2P - not sure why steam has to make this confusing?

Thanks for gathering all the info. I agree with you but check out my original post about what Trion's dev said. It's probably their marketing department getting drunk on their kool-aid instead of talking to steam about it.

Forgrimm

Steam has it listed as a Free to Play game, so the confusion is understandable.

Mujona

Why doesn't Valve just put it under the Demo section?

LoveRemovalMachine

DMKano said:

- no ability to use the cash shop

Awesome!

This should be done for all games, demo, ftp, b2p, etc and let games be games again.

joeri123

They should just sell it for 20 as b2p with unlimited free trial. Lying to your customers is basically setting yourself up for failure no matter how good your game is.

Ramajama

Nobody lied, OP just didnt read the game information in detail. Fast food gaming. 

witchkiller

Forgrimm said:

Steam has it listed as a Free to Play game, so the confusion is understandable.

it is free.

if you want to unlock champions so you can play whichever one whenever you want, it becomes a pay for game. if you want access to the ranked ladder, you pay.


if you just want to play nonranked,  you can play on the free champions for as long as you want.

It IS FREE...

witchkiller

joeri123 said:

They should just sell it for 20 as b2p with unlimited free trial. Lying to your customers is basically setting yourself up for failure no matter how good your game is.

hey, why don't you do exactly zero research and then talk about something? oh wait you already did.

that is exactly what they are doing, except its $30

witchkiller

Junglecharly said:

I thought i would try this new moba coming out. Steam said it is free to play, gameranx on youtube said it's f2p. I join and then i realise i cannot buy a character with ingame currency if i don't buy the whole pack of characters which costs 20 bucks (minimum version).

I think to myself that i must be missing something, i go on steam and someone had already posted that this was a demo, not an f2p moba.
The dev answered this :
"Steam doesn't really have a well defined place for our unique business model to be. Free Mode is like a demo, but not quite, It's like a trial, but not quite. The closest thing they would fit us into was Free To Play. We're ahead of our time, and they are catching up "

Well, not quite this and not quite that. It's basically a trap with no prior information given to potential players. The funny thing is someone there compared it to Smite's business model. Anyway, enough with my rant, i thought it could be an interesting conversation.

You're a liar is the problem. The reason it's not a demo or a trial is because it is FREE MODE, you can play for free forever. Explain how it is a trap? They have page explaining exactly what free mode is. I'm not a smart man and when I logged in I could see right away how it works. You can play as much as you want for free on the rotated champions, just like league of legends. If you want to unlock champions permanently, that's when you start paying.

holdenhamlet

"You can play as much as you want for free on the rotated champions"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there is any rotation.  That's basically the reason for contention- MOBAs generally do a rotation so even if you want to play for free or just buy a few heroes, you get some variety.

As for the game, it's OK.  I like that they're trying something different.  Not worth a buy imo, and without the rotation, not worth playing as a free player.

holdenhamlet

DMKano said:

holdenhamlet said:

"You can play as much as you want for free on the rotated champions"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe there is any rotation.  That's basically the reason for contention- MOBAs generally do a rotation so even if you want to play for free or just buy a few heroes, you get some variety.

As for the game, it's OK.  I like that they're trying something different.  Not worth a buy imo, and without the rotation, not worth playing as a free player.

They do rotate the "free mode" champions weekly - but other limitations (no ranked/ladder play, no ability to do any microtransactions etc...) are all enforced for free players.

Oh they do?  Well that's not too bad, then.  Might play it a bit more knowing that.

Still not going to pay $30 for it, though.  Maybe $10 or $20 if I get really into it.

Octagon7711

Sounds like they know people go for F2P games so they put it in that category because they thought it was close enough.  Usually other players spell it out when going over the reviews and forum discussions to make sure you know what you're getting.  

Nilden

I bet this will end up like Infinite Crisis and Dawngate.

xpowderx

I love Grimdawn :-P

stalker989

*cough* F Trion *cough*

marksteele

For the record, the reason they don't put it under demos in steam is because steam doesn't let demo players play with people who have the full version