Isn't it just a bit wierd that they are asking you to pay $19.99 for a "free" game? So, we are PAYING for testing and getting early access but once the game goes live it is totally "free". Something is wrong here isn't it?
Anyway, I MAY get into early access but it will bother me. So please, do not call this a "f2p" game...because it isn't.
I just honestly don't understand the "pay for alpha" craze that has swept the MMORPG genre. It's okay for indie developers to charge for alpha for say, Steam because that is how they pay for the game, but a huge corporation like Sony who already has the funds to make the game? No, sorry, it's not okay. It's a bad business practice, and it's greedy.
To answer people's questions that go, "Why do you care? Don't pay for it and wait for it to come out!" I care because the people that support such practices send this message to big companies like Sony that it's okay to capitalize on greedy money making schemes such as paying for alpha, and because players support the pay for alpha system big companies will start to push the envelope. They'll see if next it's okay to charge for closed beta (some are actually already doing this)... And then, even open beta.
These practices worry me as a consumer. It upsets me that people just accept this as the "status quo" and allow themselves to be nickel and dimed, when if they just said no, and didn't pay for such things as alpha access from huge companies, than these companies would get the hint and stop charging for access to a game that is bare bones, and that you are literally paying to basically bug test. These are huge companies. They do not need to be paid for you to bug test their games. They should actually be paying people to test their games and contributing to the economy because they can afford to do so (something that used to actually happen).
Originally posted by BruceYee The whole 2 payment types for early access( basic & premium) really doesn't sit well with me. Think they'd learn from DCUO that segregating the player base with DLC hurts the game.
Read the OP -
If you don't like EA programs - DON'T BUY IT.
If you're expecting it to be better than DAY Z on day 1 - DON'T BUY IT.
Again - you can just wait longer until more features are added - the game will be F2P so you don't have to spend a cent if you just want to wait longer to play a more polished version.
IMO - I'm gonna wait for the final product - right now 7 Days to Die Alpha 9 is the best survival game on the market by far - I hope H1Z1 can come even close.
Just my 2c
Have to agree here. Then again there is no such thing as a f2p game, they are all free to try and if you like it, dive into the item shop, because the item shop holds the keys to most of the higher level gameplay.
Probably will take a wait and see attitude with this game. I don't expect it will be initially that good.
Oh and soon as the item shop goes live it is a release, not an alpha or beta because you know there will be no wipe.
Hopefully this will kick Day Z back into gear and they'll start pumping out more updates faster. Seems to me the DayZ devs lost some momentum, here is a perfect reason to get it back.
I still think Day Z has the greatest potential to be the king of zombie survival once again.
Seems like SOE have taken Early Access to new levels on this one !
Not only will you have to pay to "test" the basic game, but you'll have to pay extra to test certain parts ("tickets" for special game modes) of that game !
I suppose it was inevitable, really. Once paid EA became a generally accepted phenomenon, it's only logical that the acceptance be leveraged to sell at different price points, etc.
What's next, a special deal on Very Early Access ?
I just honestly don't understand the "pay for alpha" craze that has swept the MMORPG genre. It's okay for indie developers to charge for alpha for say, Steam because that is how they pay for the game, but a huge corporation like Sony who already has the funds to make the game? No, sorry, it's not okay. It's a bad business practice, and it's greedy.
To answer people's questions that go, "Why do you care? Don't pay for it and wait for it to come out!" I care because the people that support such practices send this message to big companies like Sony that it's okay to capitalize on greedy money making schemes such as paying for alpha, and because players support the pay for alpha system big companies will start to push the envelope. They'll see if next it's okay to charge for closed beta (some are actually already doing this)... And then, even open beta.
These practices worry me as a consumer. It upsets me that people just accept this as the "status quo" and allow themselves to be nickel and dimed, when if they just said no, and didn't pay for such things as alpha access from huge companies, than these companies would get the hint and stop charging for access to a game that is bare bones, and that you are literally paying to basically bug test. These are huge companies. They do not need to be paid for you to bug test their games. They should actually be paying people to test their games and contributing to the economy because they can afford to do so (something that used to actually happen).
That is why I care and others should to.
Ok, so I'll make a couple of points re: your arguments.
First of all, H1Z1 is very much a Skunkworks-type project. We're not talking about a 300-person team, we're talking about 20 people. It might as well be an indie developer. IMO, I would much rather see companies attempt to do really cool and innovative things and go the route of crowdfunding, or allowing for paid Alpha or Beta access than sticking to the tried-tested formula. I'll look squarely at EA and Madden while I'm shaking my head over that comment, too. Sorry, but the animations are still so horrible. I haven't played any other sports games recently, but it's really underwhelming and uninspired. Would I pay $20 to support them in researching a wicked new animation engine, eff yeah I would!! Video game developers are so absolutely risk-averse these days that it's actually stifling any sort of progression in the industry. There's good reason for it, though. Look at the "Titans" in the industry that have fallen. Nobody can shoulder a $100 million, or even $60 million, budget and hope to be profitable. As far as companies going over the top in these types of schemes, I think that many are watching quite attentively (with popcorn in hand), the developments in the ongoing Archeage saga. Don't think we'll be seeing aggressive monetization like that any time soon.
*cringe* yup, you went there. Being that I'm in the software industry, I actually take a great deal of offence when people say things like, "You're basically paying to test their software for them." This is categorically incorrect on so many levels. Although developers certainly do appreciate when bugs are reports, the reality is that the expectation is that developers will get bug reports from, maybe, 5% of their beta participants. So, this basically means that they've paid staff to actually review thousands (or tens of thousands) of requests for invite, select suitable candidates, etc., only to have 5% or less report actual bugs. Additionally, even of the 5% that do report bugs, it's unlikely that these people actually have any practical experience in game testing, development, or even software testing for that matter, so getting a good bug report out of them is usually difficult. So, the real question is why would ANYONE pay someone to perform a job that they actually have zero experience in and will not be likely to provide any meaningful contribution? Would you pay your friend to do a surgery for you because they've played a whole bunch of surgery simulators? Probably not, actually you probably wouldn't even let them do it for free. Much of the time, this is actually the case in game development. It'd probably be better left to their internal QA team, because allowing it into the wild basically gets you two things, people who are converted into haters and people who are trying to exploit your system prior to release to gain an advantage. The people who actually make a meaningful contribution are, actually, pretty few and far between. There are probably more botters than people who actually know how to test.
So, I would ask you, why NOT make people pay for access? If they aren't providing any real contribution to the project, then why should they NOT pay for access?
Let's say you have a product. And while developing said product, you needed to get people trying it to give feedback and help figure out the best direction to take the product to please consumer demand.
Now, let's imagine you could go out and ask for interested persons and send out invitations to random people hoping they really do want to test your product and don't simply sign up for every product testing they see. Or, you could say "are you really waiting for our product?! Well if you'd like to help us test it out and shape it's direction for $20 we will give you an early version of our product with a special bonus for getting in early!"
Generally speaking, in that second scenario you only have people who are really into your product willing to pay to try it out early.
If you really thought people should be paid to play beta/alpha tests then that would mean you consider it to be hard work. If it's hard work, it's not fun. If it's not fun, why would you care that you can't do it?
Businesses have to take advantage of every single opportunity presented to them. So why charge for EA? Well... If you had a stake in SOE wouldn't you see these new early access things and say "hey, why aren't we trying that?"
I honestly think it holds developers more accountable early on as well. Basically on December 18th anyone can get H1Z1 and if it really sucks well... It's gonna be out there. No more hidden NDA covered hush hush beta tests right up until the last month before launch. It's all in the open now!
They call it release, then they call it early access then as you read into it it sounds more like paying for Alpha access - the way Sony try to spin things is just crazy.
How the game can't be as feature rich as Dayz is laughable seeing as Dayz is so terrible as it is and one of the more recent money grabs
Bad play by Sony imo, they are not a company that need the money yet seem to be joining the bandwagon of rich companies/people wanting players to pay them way before their product is anywhere near finished - this is one i certainly will not support financially for development
We'll be starting out with roughly 64k square Kilometers
Seriously? 64k square kilometers as in 64,000 square kilometers? Or a square of about 252 km x 252 km? Is that a typo or Smed really means 8 km x 8 km?
You're looking at it wrong. They aren't releasing it early in order to make money. They're doing so in order to give us, the community a chance to have a say in it's design. We're helping them test it. In the past, companies would have to hire on people to test and find bugs for them, now we're paying them to do the same thing. The difference? We get to play the game early and help make it better. They get to save a lot of money.
And honestly. Let's say 5,000 people buy into EA for this game. That's what, 100,000? They might cover a few pay checks and a week or two for the game development. It's not like they are making bank or anything.
They call it release, then they call it early access then as you read into it it sounds more like paying for Alpha access - the way Sony try to spin things is just crazy.
How the game can't be as feature rich as Dayz is laughable seeing as Dayz is so terrible as it is and one of the more recent money grabs
Bad play by Sony imo, they are not a company that need the money yet seem to be joining the bandwagon of rich companies/people wanting players to pay them way before their product is anywhere near finished - this is one i certainly will not support financially for development
A) It was always early access for Alpha. Read some and you'll find that out. The game is said to fully release in or around Nov. of 2015
That statement I think is their way of trying to not piss off any DayZ fan boys. From everything I know about DayZ, H1Z1 has already passed it. True, you cannot force people to drink bleach or a lift of other things. But you have a working, hacker free stable world where zombies don't glitch past walls or into the ground. Beyond that, they've been working on the game for less than a year and have already made it better than DayZ which has been in production for over 2 years.
C) I kind of agree with this, but I also enjoy it. The problem here isn't what Sony or other EA games are doing. The problem is the players mentality going in. People jump in hoping for a well balanced finished product not understanding what EA is. By placing a price tag on it, people are less likely to just jump in and flame the game for being incomplete.
Yes, this causes problems for a lot of games. It can actually kill a game. But if the community is good, it can progress the game to new heights much faster than if it remained internal.
Originally posted by Atomic SWG-Fans finally have their new home (Smed). I believe him /sarcasm off
Yeah, I still don't know what he was thinking when he said it last year =/
I honestly believe that Smedley enjoys trolling. Recent example. I was watching the twitch stream for awhile after the announcement and he actually said, "Hands up don't shoot. I can't breathe. ...Was that too soon?" I had to pick my jaw up off the floor on that one.
Isn't it just a bit wierd that they are asking you to pay $19.99 for a "free" game? So, we are PAYING for testing and getting early access but once the game goes live it is totally "free". Something is wrong here isn't it?
Anyway, I MAY get into early access but it will bother me. So please, do not call this a "f2p" game...because it isn't.
I paid $40 to get into Planetside 2's beta and I dont regret it but that did come with 4000 station cash too. Hopefully they will do that for this game too give you the same amount of station cash as what you paid for to get into the beta.
Honestly I don't really see the point for this title. Day Z was fresh with Arma mechanics, but in terms of post-apoc MMO with USA map Fallen Earth had a lot to be commended for, not least of which was actual terrain mapping - well before Day Z did it.
So ya, much as I have enjoyed games from Mr Smedley before, I will not be holding my breath for this. That and they very likely have completely botched virology, that would just annoy the heck out of me. And H1Z1 isn't even that original so sadly I do expect to be underwhelmed.
Maybe I'm just old school, but I'm not accustomed to paying to beta test a game. It's ludicrous. And greedy. Basically, they want our help discovering issues with in an unfinished game, and they want us to pay for the privilege? Yeah, good luck with that.
Well I guess it's a good thing that development for that game will never ever finish. The games garbage, broken , and will stay that way just like the mod. Check the numbers on steam, those people ARENT coming back.
Originally posted by satora54 Well I guess it's a good thing that development for that game will never ever finish. The games garbage, broken , and will stay that way just like the mod. Check the numbers on steam, those people ARENT coming back.
If you played the game since Alpha released like I have you would know this is completely false. The progress on the game is great. Idiots who buy Alpha and don't expect game breaking bugs are just that, idiots. Mostly likely you are one of them. It is laughable how many people don't understand a development cycle or the definition on Alpha testing. The Dev team has been on schedule with their Development Roadmap since day one with a full release schedules for Q1 of 2016.
Comments
Isn't it just a bit wierd that they are asking you to pay $19.99 for a "free" game? So, we are PAYING for testing and getting early access but once the game goes live it is totally "free". Something is wrong here isn't it?
Anyway, I MAY get into early access but it will bother me. So please, do not call this a "f2p" game...because it isn't.
Let's party like it is 1863!
I just honestly don't understand the "pay for alpha" craze that has swept the MMORPG genre. It's okay for indie developers to charge for alpha for say, Steam because that is how they pay for the game, but a huge corporation like Sony who already has the funds to make the game? No, sorry, it's not okay. It's a bad business practice, and it's greedy.
To answer people's questions that go, "Why do you care? Don't pay for it and wait for it to come out!" I care because the people that support such practices send this message to big companies like Sony that it's okay to capitalize on greedy money making schemes such as paying for alpha, and because players support the pay for alpha system big companies will start to push the envelope. They'll see if next it's okay to charge for closed beta (some are actually already doing this)... And then, even open beta.
These practices worry me as a consumer. It upsets me that people just accept this as the "status quo" and allow themselves to be nickel and dimed, when if they just said no, and didn't pay for such things as alpha access from huge companies, than these companies would get the hint and stop charging for access to a game that is bare bones, and that you are literally paying to basically bug test. These are huge companies. They do not need to be paid for you to bug test their games. They should actually be paying people to test their games and contributing to the economy because they can afford to do so (something that used to actually happen).
That is why I care and others should to.
Smile
Have to agree here. Then again there is no such thing as a f2p game, they are all free to try and if you like it, dive into the item shop, because the item shop holds the keys to most of the higher level gameplay.
Probably will take a wait and see attitude with this game. I don't expect it will be initially that good.
Oh and soon as the item shop goes live it is a release, not an alpha or beta because you know there will be no wipe.
Hopefully this will kick Day Z back into gear and they'll start pumping out more updates faster. Seems to me the DayZ devs lost some momentum, here is a perfect reason to get it back.
I still think Day Z has the greatest potential to be the king of zombie survival once again.
Seems like SOE have taken Early Access to new levels on this one !
Not only will you have to pay to "test" the basic game, but you'll have to pay extra to test certain parts ("tickets" for special game modes) of that game !
I suppose it was inevitable, really. Once paid EA became a generally accepted phenomenon, it's only logical that the acceptance be leveraged to sell at different price points, etc.
What's next, a special deal on Very Early Access ?
Ok, so I'll make a couple of points re: your arguments.
First of all, H1Z1 is very much a Skunkworks-type project. We're not talking about a 300-person team, we're talking about 20 people. It might as well be an indie developer. IMO, I would much rather see companies attempt to do really cool and innovative things and go the route of crowdfunding, or allowing for paid Alpha or Beta access than sticking to the tried-tested formula. I'll look squarely at EA and Madden while I'm shaking my head over that comment, too. Sorry, but the animations are still so horrible. I haven't played any other sports games recently, but it's really underwhelming and uninspired. Would I pay $20 to support them in researching a wicked new animation engine, eff yeah I would!! Video game developers are so absolutely risk-averse these days that it's actually stifling any sort of progression in the industry. There's good reason for it, though. Look at the "Titans" in the industry that have fallen. Nobody can shoulder a $100 million, or even $60 million, budget and hope to be profitable. As far as companies going over the top in these types of schemes, I think that many are watching quite attentively (with popcorn in hand), the developments in the ongoing Archeage saga. Don't think we'll be seeing aggressive monetization like that any time soon.
*cringe* yup, you went there. Being that I'm in the software industry, I actually take a great deal of offence when people say things like, "You're basically paying to test their software for them." This is categorically incorrect on so many levels. Although developers certainly do appreciate when bugs are reports, the reality is that the expectation is that developers will get bug reports from, maybe, 5% of their beta participants. So, this basically means that they've paid staff to actually review thousands (or tens of thousands) of requests for invite, select suitable candidates, etc., only to have 5% or less report actual bugs. Additionally, even of the 5% that do report bugs, it's unlikely that these people actually have any practical experience in game testing, development, or even software testing for that matter, so getting a good bug report out of them is usually difficult. So, the real question is why would ANYONE pay someone to perform a job that they actually have zero experience in and will not be likely to provide any meaningful contribution? Would you pay your friend to do a surgery for you because they've played a whole bunch of surgery simulators? Probably not, actually you probably wouldn't even let them do it for free. Much of the time, this is actually the case in game development. It'd probably be better left to their internal QA team, because allowing it into the wild basically gets you two things, people who are converted into haters and people who are trying to exploit your system prior to release to gain an advantage. The people who actually make a meaningful contribution are, actually, pretty few and far between. There are probably more botters than people who actually know how to test.
So, I would ask you, why NOT make people pay for access? If they aren't providing any real contribution to the project, then why should they NOT pay for access?
Crazkanuk
----------------
Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
----------------
Now, let's imagine you could go out and ask for interested persons and send out invitations to random people hoping they really do want to test your product and don't simply sign up for every product testing they see. Or, you could say "are you really waiting for our product?! Well if you'd like to help us test it out and shape it's direction for $20 we will give you an early version of our product with a special bonus for getting in early!"
Generally speaking, in that second scenario you only have people who are really into your product willing to pay to try it out early.
If you really thought people should be paid to play beta/alpha tests then that would mean you consider it to be hard work. If it's hard work, it's not fun. If it's not fun, why would you care that you can't do it?
Businesses have to take advantage of every single opportunity presented to them. So why charge for EA? Well... If you had a stake in SOE wouldn't you see these new early access things and say "hey, why aren't we trying that?"
I honestly think it holds developers more accountable early on as well. Basically on December 18th anyone can get H1Z1 and if it really sucks well... It's gonna be out there. No more hidden NDA covered hush hush beta tests right up until the last month before launch. It's all in the open now!
They call it release, then they call it early access then as you read into it it sounds more like paying for Alpha access - the way Sony try to spin things is just crazy.
How the game can't be as feature rich as Dayz is laughable seeing as Dayz is so terrible as it is and one of the more recent money grabs
Bad play by Sony imo, they are not a company that need the money yet seem to be joining the bandwagon of rich companies/people wanting players to pay them way before their product is anywhere near finished - this is one i certainly will not support financially for development
Yeah, I still don't know what he was thinking when he said it last year =/
You're looking at it wrong. They aren't releasing it early in order to make money. They're doing so in order to give us, the community a chance to have a say in it's design. We're helping them test it. In the past, companies would have to hire on people to test and find bugs for them, now we're paying them to do the same thing. The difference? We get to play the game early and help make it better. They get to save a lot of money.
And honestly. Let's say 5,000 people buy into EA for this game. That's what, 100,000? They might cover a few pay checks and a week or two for the game development. It's not like they are making bank or anything.
He admitted it was a dumb statement. He was talking about an open world where you can build towns. Sadly, he didn't mean SWG2 =/
A) It was always early access for Alpha. Read some and you'll find that out. The game is said to fully release in or around Nov. of 2015
C) I kind of agree with this, but I also enjoy it. The problem here isn't what Sony or other EA games are doing. The problem is the players mentality going in. People jump in hoping for a well balanced finished product not understanding what EA is. By placing a price tag on it, people are less likely to just jump in and flame the game for being incomplete.
Yes, this causes problems for a lot of games. It can actually kill a game. But if the community is good, it can progress the game to new heights much faster than if it remained internal.
I honestly believe that Smedley enjoys trolling. Recent example. I was watching the twitch stream for awhile after the announcement and he actually said, "Hands up don't shoot. I can't breathe. ...Was that too soon?" I had to pick my jaw up off the floor on that one.
I paid $40 to get into Planetside 2's beta and I dont regret it but that did come with 4000 station cash too. Hopefully they will do that for this game too give you the same amount of station cash as what you paid for to get into the beta.
Ahh I missed that admission. That had me pretty riled up back then, lol
Honestly I don't really see the point for this title. Day Z was fresh with Arma mechanics, but in terms of post-apoc MMO with USA map Fallen Earth had a lot to be commended for, not least of which was actual terrain mapping - well before Day Z did it.
So ya, much as I have enjoyed games from Mr Smedley before, I will not be holding my breath for this. That and they very likely have completely botched virology, that would just annoy the heck out of me. And H1Z1 isn't even that original so sadly I do expect to be underwhelmed.
Maybe I'm just old school, but I'm not accustomed to paying to beta test a game. It's ludicrous. And greedy. Basically, they want our help discovering issues with in an unfinished game, and they want us to pay for the privilege? Yeah, good luck with that.
If you played the game since Alpha released like I have you would know this is completely false. The progress on the game is great. Idiots who buy Alpha and don't expect game breaking bugs are just that, idiots. Mostly likely you are one of them. It is laughable how many people don't understand a development cycle or the definition on Alpha testing. The Dev team has been on schedule with their Development Roadmap since day one with a full release schedules for Q1 of 2016.