Lessons for PS2 in Blacklight's F2P model

[maradine]

I picked up Blacklight, and tossed a couple bucks into Zen to see what's what.

• I like that customization is immediate and visual. Buy gear, see gear.
  
• I like that some things you can purchase - particularly game-altering heavy weapons - still need to be acquired on the field of battle after sufficient performance.
• I very much do not like the concept of renting things.
• I very much do not like the concept of having to pay $10 for the privilege of storing each individual character loadout.

Leaving comparative gameplay off the table as much as possible, what parts of Blacklight's F2P model should be pointed at for SoE to contemplate? What parts should be labeled as blatant and ridiculous filth to be avoided in PS2 at all costs?

[thegreekboy]

I've never played it, but I agree with your points.

[Biohazard]

Originally Posted by maradine

• I like that customization is immediate and visual. Buy gear, see gear.
  
• I like that some things you can purchase - particularly game-altering heavy weapons - still need to be acquired on the field of battle after sufficient performance.
• I very much do not like the concept of renting things.

I think that point two and three only work in Blacklight because it is an arena based shooter. Other than that, I think it is an awesome model. Being that as a free player, I don't feel like I'm at a disadvantage to people that pay. The weapon customization is beautiful IMO. Being able to see REAL NUMBERS of how this compares to what you already have before you buy it is a huge plus.

[Mepper]

Renting actually is a brilliant system imo.

It allows several cool things:

-You can "test" your weapon before purchasing it. You'll never spend 10 bucks on a gun, and then find out it sux.
-Free players can get premium weapons. If you play 2 matches, you should be able to rent a weapon for 24 hours. This way you can get whatever weapon without paying, why complaining about free stuff

[Russ]

Originally Posted by Mepper

Renting actually is a brilliant system imo.

It allows several cool things:

-You can "test" your weapon before purchasing it. You'll never spend 10 bucks on a gun, and then find out it sux.
-Free players can get premium weapons. If you play 2 matches, you should be able to rent a weapon for 24 hours. This way you can get whatever weapon without paying, why complaining about free stuff

You have the issue of having to get on daily or X times out of the week to keep good weapons. Or having to grind for weeks to then buy the guns.

I like purchasing and owning. If you want to test weapons, have a system like in TF2 where you try them out then they get a discount.

[Xyntech]

Renting is good in Blacklight because you can rent something for an entire day on the amount of currency you get in a single game (or two, at worst). It's actually one of the fairest pricing elements that they have in the game.

[Mathiu]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Renting is good in Blacklight because you can rent something for an entire day on the amount of currency you get in a single game (or two, at worst). It's actually one of the fairest pricing elements that they have in the game.

Ya its definitely a fun game and i love the rental system, but their pricing model starts to fall apart when your spending several dollars just to buy one gun permanently not including all the customization options you then buy on top of that.

And don't even get me started on the node gambling system.

[Joe]

As TB said in his new video £8 for a scope is a bit much


like TB always says micro transaction should be very small amounts of cash like a few pence or maybe £1 not £5 on one part of a gun!

[Xyntech]

Originally Posted by Mathiu

Ya its definitely a fun game and i love the rental system, but their pricing model starts to fall apart when your spending several dollars just to buy one gun permanently not including all the customization options you then buy on top of that.

I feel like their real money pricing model is the weakest part of their whole cash shop. You're supposed to spend a few bucks to avoid a slightly annoying grind in F2P. I feel like their grind is about right (maybe slightly too far on the annoying side), but the cash shop is too expensive for what you get.

[Plunkies]

Don't charge 10 dollars for a scope.

Or in more general terms, make the player feel like they're getting value for their money. Supply doesn't matter with digital items and they don't cost money to make or distribute so be generous with the people who actually put money into your game.

There are some F2P games that I've genuinely wanted to put money into but couldn't because their prices were so bad that it'd make me feel like a chump to actually pay so much for so little.

[Trafalgar]

People love the renting system?

I tried Blacklight for about an hour (including the tutorial, which ran semi-okay until the robot suit thing, which resulted in graphical stutter somehow, which I also experienced in normal multiplayer all the time) and then uninstalled it because:

1. Instead of unlocking items with XP or in-game currency, you rented them, unless you earned a ludicrous amount of in-game currency to buy them (if that was even allowed for the item). I had enough of that in Battlefield Heroes, where I only wanted to play it occasionally, and the better weapons were necessary to not get killed constantly (because the defaults were terrible), and it was impossible to earn enough by playing a few hours per week to have them all the time using only in-game currency.

2. I didn't get to see how gameplay actually was, because it didn't run well - it stuttered constantly to the point that it was unplayable (besides that TTK seemed incredibly low, judging by how fast I died when someone showed up and shot me when I was trying to see if messing with graphics options would fix the issue). *

3. It installed punkbuster without asking permission or alerting me that it was going to do so, and left it running after I exited the game. If a game is going to install monitoring software on my computer, I expect it to tell me up front that it is going to do so.

All three factors combined into a giant "uninstall" rating for me.

* = I later tried Tribes Ascend and it ran perfectly smoothly, even after I changed the graphics detail from the default of low, to high - of course, I didn't find it particularly fun either, since my first match was over 2 minutes after I joined and my second match consisted of having our base camped for 40 minutes or so and our generator down the entire time with the enemy base guarded well enough that nobody could get their flag out of their base and there was no way to return it anyways because our base always had enemies in and around it. (And there was no way to do anything effective about it, because it's not like PlanetSide, where you could relocate and hit the enemy somewhere else, or call for reinforcements)

(I have a GTX 460 1 GB. It's not the newest and best thing, but at the time I got it, only the 480 was better (if you assume the 470 was worse). It's still an incredibly good card and there shouldn't be any games that require anything better.)

[DOUBLEXBAUGH]

Originally Posted by maradine

I very much do not like the concept of renting things.

I thought this was dumb at first too, but since it takes about 25 matches just to buy 1 piece permanently for your gun, spending 250 to rent a premade for a day is kinda nice. You get that 250 back in 1 match, and you have a better gun than you can build yourself for a long time.

[Comet]

I'm with you Plunkies.

Tribes Ascend was such a simple game that was so repetative and simple that I actually felt like I was playing a F2P game that was still developing content.

Consequently, I don't spend money on Tribes Ascend.

[DarkSkyes]

2. I didn't get to see how gameplay actually was, because it didn't run well - it stuttered constantly to the point that it was unplayable (besides that TTK seemed incredibly low, judging by how fast I died when someone showed up and shot me when I was trying to see if messing with graphics options would fix the issue). *

Turn off motion blur, you should be able to run on max settings with a 460 (gtx?) Motion blur also made my game run shit until i turned it off now im getting a 2:1 kd. Yeah market place model is terrible and very expensive, there is a lot of trash talk on their forums too as the servers keep going down, bugs etc..

[Khrakhan]

I couldnt stand blacklight. The hit detection seems way off, or the guns are way inaccurate, and I would empty half a clip into somebody, just for them to turn around and kill me with one or two hits.

Tried Tribes Ascend after, and it is by far, a much better game. I still suck at it, but it just takes getting used to skiing and flying all over the place while trying to shoot people at the same time. At least in Tribes, I feel that with practice I can get better and it is my own failings when I get killed; unlike Blacklight where I get screwed by the game's main play style, the spray and pray.