I went until 17:06 and I need to say you explained everything very much in detail :D I cant see how you need to say sorry for your "urrrms", ok maybe the first minute it really seems that you are not going too confident but as soon as you start explaining the loot boxes it feels absolutely fluent and your British accent is cool as well. As I have a battlepass in Valorant as well, I was quite familiar with it already as it seems that nowadays most games use similar mechanics for battlepasses. Overall, I found the video quite helpful and worthwhile, I guess if you manage to streamline a little and cut the time by 25% it would be perfect. However, I really cannot say that it was too long though.... I am completely with you concerning the prices they ask for skins. But, I need to say, Valorant skins are even more expensive, they are about 12-20 EUR per skin. It is just ridiculous, back in the days you bought a game for maybe 70 dollars, but these days games seems to be neverending money making machines. So only one questions remained so far, do you recommend buy the battle pass or just go with free stream battlepass and loot boxes? I understand you buy 100 items in battlepass for 1000plat, but the question is how valueable are those items? For example, in Valorant the battlepass is almost the same mechanic but I guess 95% of the items inside are just trash I will never use...
Thanks for the kind words :-) I used to play a lot of Q2 and Q3A back in the day and in those games (and other shooters of the day) we never had any of this "leveling for cosmetics" or "lootboxes for cosmetics" sort of stuff...we just got on with playing the games because we loved playing them so to me all of this cosmetic stuff is ultimately "bonus". Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really nice bonus...especially in regard to the weapon skins because they do allow you to taylor things more to your liking and that does improve your enjoyment of the game but how much that is worth to you personally is entirely subjective. My opinion is this... 1) The game is free to play and quite "niche", people who think they might like it should give it a go and play for at least 10-15 hours before considering spending money on it 2) The game (like so many these days) is not playable offline, you cannot (currently) disconnect your internet, fire up your own server and play against bots or your friends on a "private LAN" as you could in the old days...that for me is a huge red flag when it comes to spending too much money on something because you don't really own it, it could be taken away from you at any time. If they ever decide to take the servers away then there would be no game. 3) I was more than happy spending £20($25) on it (after about 10 hours of play) because I immediately loved the game, wanted to support it and knew that whatever happened I was absolutely going to get £20 worth of value from it...over 4 years later I've now had literally over 1,000 hours of enjoyment from this game so it's probably the best value game I've ever bought ;-) but if the game included a single player campaign and/or a decent offline mode against bots, the ability to setup a private LAN to play offline with your friends...basically if I knew I owned the game properly then over the years I would probably have been happy to spend 10x what I've spent on it. For me this "disposable service model" where the "seller" has full control over how you use their product, can alter or take it away at any time and requires you to be online when using it is not good for the consumer or, ultimately, the seller imo. I could talk for hours on this topic but I'm sure you get what I mean. 4) The quality of the items in the battlepass varies season to season (and again is highly subjective). I mainly bought the last battlepass because I wanted the railgun I'm currently using (the "Malediction") and that was one of the skins it included. For me personally, I do like the new "Christmas podium", I think the "jolly hats" are fun and the winter weapons are quite nice (RL, SNG, LG I think). I did strongly consider purchasing it (I would have needed to use real cash to do so) but ultimately it's all mostly seasonal and the points I made in (3) stopped me. Even now though I am toying with the idea because I just saw a video of the Winter weapons in use and they do like nice (and I've already had so much value out of the game that even if it stopped being available tomorrow I'd have had my money's worth 100x over ;-) For a new player right at this moment though, I wouldn't advise buying the current season battlepass unless you really like/want the winter weapons and are planning to play the game a lot. We're half way through the season (meaning unless you play quite a lot you might not make it to level 100 before the end...you could shell out 300 platinum for a haste potion that would give you a significant XP boost for a 7 day period though). *** Also worth knowing that when your 3 daily challenges pop up there is one that gives 10 platinum for completing 2 matches *** If it's not available in the three that you initially see you can try "re-rolling" one of them and it might come up, you can probably average getting this 4 times out of 5 and each time you complete it you get 10 platinum (in addition to the 20 platinum you get as a day 7 reward for logging in every day).
@@tigerblue42 I think we are both from the same era, I used to play UT in the old days, of course I played Q3A as well. Later, I also played Quake Live for a while but overall I can say that I was a UT player, but I always appreciated some excursions to the quake world. I completely agree, almost every game these days has lootboxes, xp system, battlepass and overpriced skin shops. Although those customization options do offer some value, I have the feeling that developers these days much too often abuse those mechanics to push their cash flow further...
To be fair I think a lot of bad decisions were made during the development process of this game which has lead to an almost non-viable implementation. I love the game, it's my favourite of the franchise and I've been playing it for over four years...I will continue playing it as long as it's available and there are players to play with...but my hope is that all the mistakes that have been made with the development/implementation of this game help with the development of the next one (hopefully one day !). 1) If QC had a decent single-player campaign (like Q1/Q2/Doom 2016) then they could justify a decent selling price rather than it be "free to play" 2) If QC had a decent offline bot mode with increasingly difficult bot opponents (like Q3A) then they could justify a decent selling price rather than it be "free to play" 3) If QC allowed players to run their own server and/or a private LAN (like previous Quakes) then players would be more comfortable spending money on the game because they would know that they're not at the mercy of a company that could just hit the off switch...communities that love the game could run their own servers and set the game modes exactly to their liking...the game would be guaranteed much more longevity. If the above three things were true then there would be more interest from hardcore Quake veterans as well as new "more casual" players, there would be a bigger player base and there would be more money "in the pot". They could still market and sell cosmetic items but they could be significantly cheaper. Right now we have a free to play game that costs money to host but has no real way to make any money other than through cosmetic items...it's a terrible business model imo.
@@tigerblue42 I am not quite involved in the development process of this game. However, I guess you can be somehow happy as you got a relatively recent game, Unreal Tournament communities are suffering for about 2 decades now as Epic Games killed the franchise and I guess most players lost hope we will ever see a decent Unreal Tournament game again. What about QC? have they announced anything about a potential follow up project? I share your thoughts about the free to play mod and the corresponding monetizing mechanics but it seems that is how games are made these days. From what I have seen from QC so far, it still seems like lets say "okay" ^^. But if you want to make a petition with points 1-3 to hand it in at id I am gonna sign of course ^^. And honestly, the absence of a decent single player as well as offline bot mode just seems to prove my point that this game is mostly milking the franchise brand. Furthermore, especially the fact that the game platform is designed to give the company 100% control over the product, like you said, they can pull the plug whenever they want, is the biggest bullshit idea ever seen, but all games today are like that. My idea for a more sustainable monetizing option sums up like this: They shall add some official ranked game mode / ladders / cups where players can sign up for a small fee. No obligations, but if you want to compete for the official ranks you need to pay a small fee, I assume almost every player would be ready to pay for it if it is well managed and reasonable priced.
It's a huge topic...a friend of mine wrote some great suggestions for a much more workable business model that would please all types of players, attracting a bigger audience and generating more income for the developers in a steam thread a while back, I wont be able to find it now but it was very well done. I don't agree that "this game is mostly milking the franchise brand" because I'm pretty sure it's just running at a massive loss...I don't expect most players are shelling out a lot of hard cash on the game, hey I'm one of it's biggest fans and I've only spent £20 on it ! Sure there will be some players who spend money in the store but I expect that barely covers the cost of server hosting. I think the high price items is more a desperate attempt to stay afloat rather than an attempt to fleece the players...afterall, the game is free and over time it gives you a significant number of items for free, I'm sure most people are content to acquire the items as they go...and only a few regularly spend real money on it. It's the business/implementation model that's the problem.
I went until 17:06 and I need to say you explained everything very much in detail :D I cant see how you need to say sorry for your "urrrms", ok maybe the first minute it really seems that you are not going too confident but as soon as you start explaining the loot boxes it feels absolutely fluent and your British accent is cool as well. As I have a battlepass in Valorant as well, I was quite familiar with it already as it seems that nowadays most games use similar mechanics for battlepasses. Overall, I found the video quite helpful and worthwhile, I guess if you manage to streamline a little and cut the time by 25% it would be perfect. However, I really cannot say that it was too long though....
I am completely with you concerning the prices they ask for skins. But, I need to say, Valorant skins are even more expensive, they are about 12-20 EUR per skin. It is just ridiculous, back in the days you bought a game for maybe 70 dollars, but these days games seems to be neverending money making machines. So only one questions remained so far, do you recommend buy the battle pass or just go with free stream battlepass and loot boxes? I understand you buy 100 items in battlepass for 1000plat, but the question is how valueable are those items? For example, in Valorant the battlepass is almost the same mechanic but I guess 95% of the items inside are just trash I will never use...
Thanks for the kind words :-) I used to play a lot of Q2 and Q3A back in the day and in those games (and other shooters of the day) we never had any of this "leveling for cosmetics" or "lootboxes for cosmetics" sort of stuff...we just got on with playing the games because we loved playing them so to me all of this cosmetic stuff is ultimately "bonus". Don't get me wrong, I think it's a really nice bonus...especially in regard to the weapon skins because they do allow you to taylor things more to your liking and that does improve your enjoyment of the game but how much that is worth to you personally is entirely subjective.
My opinion is this...
1) The game is free to play and quite "niche", people who think they might like it should give it a go and play for at least 10-15 hours before considering spending money on it
2) The game (like so many these days) is not playable offline, you cannot (currently) disconnect your internet, fire up your own server and play against bots or your friends on a "private LAN" as you could in the old days...that for me is a huge red flag when it comes to spending too much money on something because you don't really own it, it could be taken away from you at any time. If they ever decide to take the servers away then there would be no game.
3) I was more than happy spending £20($25) on it (after about 10 hours of play) because I immediately loved the game, wanted to support it and knew that whatever happened I was absolutely going to get £20 worth of value from it...over 4 years later I've now had literally over 1,000 hours of enjoyment from this game so it's probably the best value game I've ever bought ;-) but if the game included a single player campaign and/or a decent offline mode against bots, the ability to setup a private LAN to play offline with your friends...basically if I knew I owned the game properly then over the years I would probably have been happy to spend 10x what I've spent on it. For me this "disposable service model" where the "seller" has full control over how you use their product, can alter or take it away at any time and requires you to be online when using it is not good for the consumer or, ultimately, the seller imo. I could talk for hours on this topic but I'm sure you get what I mean.
4) The quality of the items in the battlepass varies season to season (and again is highly subjective). I mainly bought the last battlepass because I wanted the railgun I'm currently using (the "Malediction") and that was one of the skins it included. For me personally, I do like the new "Christmas podium", I think the "jolly hats" are fun and the winter weapons are quite nice (RL, SNG, LG I think). I did strongly consider purchasing it (I would have needed to use real cash to do so) but ultimately it's all mostly seasonal and the points I made in (3) stopped me. Even now though I am toying with the idea because I just saw a video of the Winter weapons in use and they do like nice (and I've already had so much value out of the game that even if it stopped being available tomorrow I'd have had my money's worth 100x over ;-)
For a new player right at this moment though, I wouldn't advise buying the current season battlepass unless you really like/want the winter weapons and are planning to play the game a lot. We're half way through the season (meaning unless you play quite a lot you might not make it to level 100 before the end...you could shell out 300 platinum for a haste potion that would give you a significant XP boost for a 7 day period though).
*** Also worth knowing that when your 3 daily challenges pop up there is one that gives 10 platinum for completing 2 matches ***
If it's not available in the three that you initially see you can try "re-rolling" one of them and it might come up, you can probably average getting this 4 times out of 5 and each time you complete it you get 10 platinum (in addition to the 20 platinum you get as a day 7 reward for logging in every day).
@@tigerblue42 I think we are both from the same era, I used to play UT in the old days, of course I played Q3A as well. Later, I also played Quake Live for a while but overall I can say that I was a UT player, but I always appreciated some excursions to the quake world. I completely agree, almost every game these days has lootboxes, xp system, battlepass and overpriced skin shops. Although those customization options do offer some value, I have the feeling that developers these days much too often abuse those mechanics to push their cash flow further...
To be fair I think a lot of bad decisions were made during the development process of this game which has lead to an almost non-viable implementation. I love the game, it's my favourite of the franchise and I've been playing it for over four years...I will continue playing it as long as it's available and there are players to play with...but my hope is that all the mistakes that have been made with the development/implementation of this game help with the development of the next one (hopefully one day !).
1) If QC had a decent single-player campaign (like Q1/Q2/Doom 2016) then they could justify a decent selling price rather than it be "free to play"
2) If QC had a decent offline bot mode with increasingly difficult bot opponents (like Q3A) then they could justify a decent selling price rather than it be "free to play"
3) If QC allowed players to run their own server and/or a private LAN (like previous Quakes) then players would be more comfortable spending money on the game because they would know that they're not at the mercy of a company that could just hit the off switch...communities that love the game could run their own servers and set the game modes exactly to their liking...the game would be guaranteed much more longevity.
If the above three things were true then there would be more interest from hardcore Quake veterans as well as new "more casual" players, there would be a bigger player base and there would be more money "in the pot". They could still market and sell cosmetic items but they could be significantly cheaper. Right now we have a free to play game that costs money to host but has no real way to make any money other than through cosmetic items...it's a terrible business model imo.
@@tigerblue42 I am not quite involved in the development process of this game. However, I guess you can be somehow happy as you got a relatively recent game, Unreal Tournament communities are suffering for about 2 decades now as Epic Games killed the franchise and I guess most players lost hope we will ever see a decent Unreal Tournament game again. What about QC? have they announced anything about a potential follow up project? I share your thoughts about the free to play mod and the corresponding monetizing mechanics but it seems that is how games are made these days. From what I have seen from QC so far, it still seems like lets say "okay" ^^. But if you want to make a petition with points 1-3 to hand it in at id I am gonna sign of course ^^. And honestly, the absence of a decent single player as well as offline bot mode just seems to prove my point that this game is mostly milking the franchise brand. Furthermore, especially the fact that the game platform is designed to give the company 100% control over the product, like you said, they can pull the plug whenever they want, is the biggest bullshit idea ever seen, but all games today are like that.
My idea for a more sustainable monetizing option sums up like this: They shall add some official ranked game mode / ladders / cups where players can sign up for a small fee. No obligations, but if you want to compete for the official ranks you need to pay a small fee, I assume almost every player would be ready to pay for it if it is well managed and reasonable priced.
It's a huge topic...a friend of mine wrote some great suggestions for a much more workable business model that would please all types of players, attracting a bigger audience and generating more income for the developers in a steam thread a while back, I wont be able to find it now but it was very well done. I don't agree that "this game is mostly milking the franchise brand" because I'm pretty sure it's just running at a massive loss...I don't expect most players are shelling out a lot of hard cash on the game, hey I'm one of it's biggest fans and I've only spent £20 on it ! Sure there will be some players who spend money in the store but I expect that barely covers the cost of server hosting. I think the high price items is more a desperate attempt to stay afloat rather than an attempt to fleece the players...afterall, the game is free and over time it gives you a significant number of items for free, I'm sure most people are content to acquire the items as they go...and only a few regularly spend real money on it. It's the business/implementation model that's the problem.