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Author Topic: Interesting article on Goko launch  (Read 25950 times)

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polonkus

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #25 on: August 21, 2012, 02:50:48 pm »
0

The article also says "special individual cards exclusive to Goko are planned", which I believe DXV has elsewhere confirmed to be false.
There are zero exclusive cards planned at this time.

Oh god how I hate this. The MMO I played constantly said "we will never ever do micro-transactions" and then they said "there are no micro-transactions planned at this time" and then there were micro-transactions.

The problem is that there are absolutely zero consequences to them for lying through their teeth. Realistically pretty much no one is actually going to boycott them, and they're aiming for the casual market anyway.
We've already seen it during the aborted launch: on twitter they continually promised updates on the situation, but every actual bit of news about server status was posted here first.
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AJD

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #26 on: August 21, 2012, 03:30:17 pm »
0

The article also says "special individual cards exclusive to Goko are planned", which I believe DXV has elsewhere confirmed to be false.
There are zero exclusive cards planned at this time.

Oh god how I hate this. The MMO I played constantly said "we will never ever do micro-transactions" and then they said "there are no micro-transactions planned at this time" and then there were micro-transactions.

Donald hasn't said 'there will never ever be exclusive cards'; <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4080.msg92232#msg92232">he has said</a> 'there will never ever be exclusive cards without my permission, but I might consider designing a Goko-exclusive card at some time in the future if I think of a good idea for one.'
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Donald X.

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #27 on: August 21, 2012, 03:31:28 pm »
+5

Donald hasn't said 'there will never ever be exclusive cards'; <a href="http://forum.dominionstrategy.com/index.php?topic=4080.msg92232#msg92232">he has said</a> 'there will never ever be exclusive cards without my permission, but I might consider designing a Goko-exclusive card at some time in the future if I think of a good idea for one.'
"...provided it was something that couldn't be done irl."
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carstimon

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #28 on: August 21, 2012, 03:50:28 pm »
+1

Such as:

Transverse universe- $8
Play a game of Age of Empires II with all the players.  If you win:
If you got to the dark age, gain two estates.
If you got to the feudal age, gain two duchies.
If you got to the castle age, gain two provinces.
If you got to the imperial age, gain two colonies.
Trash this card.
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D Bo

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #29 on: August 21, 2012, 04:45:52 pm »
0

Such as:

Transverse universe- $8
Play a game of Age of Empires II with all the players.  If you win:
If you got to the dark age, gain two estates.
If you got to the feudal age, gain two duchies.
If you got to the castle age, gain two provinces.
If you got to the imperial age, gain two colonies.
Trash this card.

Which difficulty? I've never been able to master the most difficult one.
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Felendis

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #30 on: August 21, 2012, 05:01:09 pm »
+1

"...provided it was something that couldn't be done irl."
To me, that is the very exciting. There is bookkeeping you just cant efficiently do in a physical game. Take cares like Pirate Ship, what if cards like that were more powerful but the counters were tied to each unique instance of that card. Lots of cool possibilities... :)
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polonkus

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #31 on: August 21, 2012, 05:07:09 pm »
0

"...provided it was something that couldn't be done irl."
To me, that is the very exciting. There is bookkeeping you just cant efficiently do in a physical game. Take cares like Pirate Ship, what if cards like that were more powerful but the counters were tied to each unique instance of that card. Lots of cool possibilities... :)
Nonono.. don't you know it's cheating if you can't keep track in your head?
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() | (_) ^/

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #32 on: August 21, 2012, 05:16:27 pm »
0

.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2013, 09:50:11 am by () | (_) ^/ »
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adf

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #33 on: August 21, 2012, 05:18:06 pm »
0

You could also create fluid cards.

Roving Village - $4

+1 card
+2 actions

--

When you draw this card, it gains one of the following at random: (1) +1 buy (2) You may trash this card immediately. If you do +$2. (3) At the start of Clean-up, if you have this and no more than one other Action card in play, you may put this on top of your deck.

(Other villages are not as conducive to the wording, but it could essentially be any $4 village.)
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Felendis

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #34 on: August 21, 2012, 05:23:39 pm »
0

I'm not too concerned about Goko's monetization, honestly. They are positioning themselves as a platform for making HTML5 games, which means they can make both real games (e.g. Dominion) and lame "social" games (e.g. Catan World). Even if these run on the same platform, the monetization can be completely different.

The pricing they've chosen for Dominion seems pretty close to what I'd expect (I estimated $5 per pack, instead it's $6). It's a good pricing for serious players, because they can make enough money off fairly-serious players to afford to not do ridiculous Zynga-like schemes.

The only thing that bothers me are the Gokoins, which is a bit insulting.
1) Have they posted the monetization system somewhere or is that info just relayed by people that were in the Goko beta?
2) Zynga is hated for a lot of reasons. Most of them are fair (massive spam, blatant copying), but some are not. Not everyone likes free-to-play games, but they are here to stay and are going to be a bigger part of gaming as time goes on.
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blueblimp

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #35 on: August 21, 2012, 09:12:02 pm »
+2

I'm not too concerned about Goko's monetization, honestly. They are positioning themselves as a platform for making HTML5 games, which means they can make both real games (e.g. Dominion) and lame "social" games (e.g. Catan World). Even if these run on the same platform, the monetization can be completely different.

The pricing they've chosen for Dominion seems pretty close to what I'd expect (I estimated $5 per pack, instead it's $6). It's a good pricing for serious players, because they can make enough money off fairly-serious players to afford to not do ridiculous Zynga-like schemes.

The only thing that bothers me are the Gokoins, which is a bit insulting.
1) Have they posted the monetization system somewhere or is that info just relayed by people that were in the Goko beta?
2) Zynga is hated for a lot of reasons. Most of them are fair (massive spam, blatant copying), but some are not. Not everyone likes free-to-play games, but they are here to stay and are going to be a bigger part of gaming as time goes on.

1) The beta doesn't tell you anything about monetization. What's known is from people who managed to register and login during the launch attempt, at least for expansion pricing. As for zaps, I think that's mostly speculation (zaps will exist, but no one knows for sure how you get them).

2) There are lots of different varieties of free-to-play models, some I like and some I don't.

My favourite kind is essentially the same as the old shareware model: you get a substantial portion of the game for free, then seamlessly pay money to unlock the other portions. That's what Goko is doing for multiplayer Dominion. I like this model because it has no impact on gameplay and you get to try out a game before dropping money on it.

It's also fine if you pay money for cosmetic changes. This is what Valve is doing for TF2, right? (I don't play TF2.) Again, there is no impact on gameplay. I doubt there are many games that can make enough money this way, but if it works, sure, go for it.

I also have no issue with showing ads that can be disabled by paying money. I'll try it, and if I like it, I'll pay the money to turn ads off. People who don't want to pay can still play, and the creator will still make money from the ads. Everybody wins.

Where I start finding issue with FTP is when it becomes pay-to-win, for two reasons. In a multiplayer game, it puts one player at an advantage for spending more money, which seems obviously bad (although there are enough people who enjoy MtG that clearly not everyone agrees!). In a singleplayer game, it encourages the game developer to make progress too slow if you don't spend money, so that you are encouraged to spend money just to get a decent experience in the game--the opposite of good game design.
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Felendis

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #36 on: August 21, 2012, 10:12:53 pm »
0

I'm not too concerned about Goko's monetization, honestly. They are positioning themselves as a platform for making HTML5 games, which means they can make both real games (e.g. Dominion) and lame "social" games (e.g. Catan World). Even if these run on the same platform, the monetization can be completely different.

The pricing they've chosen for Dominion seems pretty close to what I'd expect (I estimated $5 per pack, instead it's $6). It's a good pricing for serious players, because they can make enough money off fairly-serious players to afford to not do ridiculous Zynga-like schemes.

The only thing that bothers me are the Gokoins, which is a bit insulting.
1) Have they posted the monetization system somewhere or is that info just relayed by people that were in the Goko beta?
2) Zynga is hated for a lot of reasons. Most of them are fair (massive spam, blatant copying), but some are not. Not everyone likes free-to-play games, but they are here to stay and are going to be a bigger part of gaming as time goes on.

1) The beta doesn't tell you anything about monetization. What's known is from people who managed to register and login during the launch attempt, at least for expansion pricing. As for zaps, I think that's mostly speculation (zaps will exist, but no one knows for sure how you get them).

2) There are lots of different varieties of free-to-play models, some I like and some I don't.

My favourite kind is essentially the same as the old shareware model: you get a substantial portion of the game for free, then seamlessly pay money to unlock the other portions. That's what Goko is doing for multiplayer Dominion. I like this model because it has no impact on gameplay and you get to try out a game before dropping money on it.

It's also fine if you pay money for cosmetic changes. This is what Valve is doing for TF2, right? (I don't play TF2.) Again, there is no impact on gameplay. I doubt there are many games that can make enough money this way, but if it works, sure, go for it.

I also have no issue with showing ads that can be disabled by paying money. I'll try it, and if I like it, I'll pay the money to turn ads off. People who don't want to pay can still play, and the creator will still make money from the ads. Everybody wins.

Where I start finding issue with FTP is when it becomes pay-to-win, for two reasons. In a multiplayer game, it puts one player at an advantage for spending more money, which seems obviously bad (although there are enough people who enjoy MtG that clearly not everyone agrees!). In a singleplayer game, it encourages the game developer to make progress too slow if you don't spend money, so that you are encouraged to spend money just to get a decent experience in the game--the opposite of good game design.
Interesting, cant wait to see it.

I am not sure a standard F2P CCG model will work well for Dominion, but I will withhold judgement till I can get in there and see it. I envisioned a pay-by-set system with some cosmetic stuff on top, but the problem with that is you get to a point where you tell the hardcore players to stop spending money. That is counter to typical F2P thinking, but just like most tower defense games (just to name another genre), I dont think microtransactions are the way to go.

Beyond that though, I personally have no issue with pay-to-win, if its done right. I am probably biased because I am in the industry and I have been one of those players that payed to win on other online games. I have played MTG since '95 and I wouldnt say that was your standard F2P or pay-to-win, its a game where a good strategy and knowledge of the rules will overcome someone that has a lot of great cards but not a great idea of how to play them. I suspect that will be the case in Dominion also. IMO, that is a sign of a well designed game.
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Piemaster

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #37 on: August 22, 2012, 06:03:30 am »
+2

MtG is not really a pay to win.  Once you have 4 of every card (or even just 4 of every tournament-standard card) there is no incentive to spend any more money.  Even though it is quite an expensive hobby, at least it is quantifiably expensive from the outset.

In fact in many ways it is more like the browser games of 5 years ago, where you could play a cut-down version for free, but if you subscribed for a nominal fee per month (usually worked out to about $5), you gained access to the whole game.  Free players could not really compete with subscribers, but any subscriber could compete with any other subscriber on an equal footing.  I really liked this model and was more than happy to pay a monthly fee for up to five games at once at one point.

But then suddenly a few years ago the entire industry cottoned onto microtransactions.  This was much worse for the gamer, firstly because it generally worked out more expensive to get anywhere near competitive and secondly because no matter how much you spent, someone else could always spend more and beat you.  Since then I have pretty much stopped spending money on browser games altogether, making it a lose/lose for everyone.  Unfortunately there are enough players out there willing to spend large amounts of money to be the best at a game that the business model isn't going anywhere any time soon.  After all, you're better off having 100 players spending $150 per month than 2500 players paying $5 per month
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Ozle

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #38 on: August 22, 2012, 06:06:52 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.
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Kahryl

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #39 on: August 22, 2012, 09:21:18 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

Sorry, offtopic.
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DStu

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #40 on: August 22, 2012, 09:25:56 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

No, that can't be. GC always tells how cool and exciting all this new stuff is...
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Ozle

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #41 on: August 22, 2012, 10:27:16 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

Sorry, offtopic.

Well yes, mainly WOW
But I'm sure there are still a few others with over 1m paid subscribers a month (Star Wars? Lineage?). Much less than there was though as they have realised FTP and micros are the way to go!
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Kirian

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #42 on: August 22, 2012, 11:32:24 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

Sorry, offtopic.

Man, I for one am somewhat excited about Pandaria.
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Ozle

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #43 on: August 22, 2012, 11:54:57 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

Sorry, offtopic.

Man, I for one am somewhat excited about Pandaria.

I love the pokemon petbattle game myself. Keeps me awake at nights thinking what an innovation it is!
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agrajag

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #44 on: August 22, 2012, 08:34:45 pm »
+1

I think the licensing of the game to a third party whose interests aren't necessarily aligned with RGG or DVX is a big problem will be difficult or impossible to solve.

If the digital version was totally owned by RGG (either made by an in-house team, or outsourced to another company doing WFH), then some of the costs of the game could be offset by converting digital players into physical players. Goku does not get money from real physical sales of the game (as far as we know, if they do then disregard the rest of this) so they have to offset all their costs through the digital version. This leads to annoying microtransactions and also probably means they are not as invested in making the digital version as good as it could possibly be (once they have your money, they don't care if you end up being disappointed whereas in RGG-owned scenario they want you to really love the digital version so much that you end up going and buying a physical copy).
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Beyond Awesome

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #45 on: August 22, 2012, 11:59:47 pm »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

Sorry, offtopic.

Well yes, mainly WOW
But I'm sure there are still a few others with over 1m paid subscribers a month (Star Wars? Lineage?). Much less than there was though as they have realised FTP and micros are the way to go!

Actually, Star Wars has now shifted to offering its service for free with micro-transactions. Happened about a week ago.
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Piemaster

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #46 on: August 23, 2012, 03:23:34 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW.
And Runescape

While it has introduced fringe microtransactions, it is still fundamentally a subscriber model and hopefully will remain so (players aren't that optimistic).
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O

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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #47 on: August 25, 2012, 03:23:25 pm »
0

While it has introduced fringe microtransactions, it is still fundamentally a subscriber model and hopefully will remain so (players aren't that optimistic).

This is what I was originally referring to actually. And if by "aren't that optimistic" you mean "quit, gave out 400M and fled before it went full out micro", then yes.  ::)
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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #48 on: August 25, 2012, 10:58:01 pm »
+1

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

Sorry, offtopic.

*cough* GUILD WARS 2 *cough*
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Re: Interesting article on Goko launch
« Reply #49 on: August 26, 2012, 01:14:51 am »
0

More and more MMO's arenow also going the FTP model with microtransactions as they have realised they cannot cope with big industry behemoths on subscriber numbers.

"behemoths" meaning WoW and only WoW. A friggin ten year old game that has stripped out most of its original game mechanics, where the writing is basically assembled by random phrases at this point, and developers are obviously exhausted and bored and waiting for people to go somewhere else so they can work on something interesting. Yet no company out there can summon the basic competence and innovation to unseat it.

Sorry, offtopic.

*cough* GUILD WARS 2 *cough*

Tell me in a year when GW2 and WOW each have 5M subscribers.  Heck, at least wait until NCSoft has released the game.  Every new MMO for the last five years has been hailed as the WOW-killer.  Conan, LOTRO, Rift, TOR, etc.
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