Guard Frequency Episode 222 | In One Word: Incredible

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3 responses to “Guard Frequency Episode 222 | In One Word: Incredible”

1. 

   Clown Bobo

   August 2, 2018

   hail Hammer returned!
   sweet, delicious, oversight
   #tonyisright

   Reply
2. 

   seannewboy

   August 3, 2018

   Wonderful show everyone.

   Can i just say that for a search and retrieval org, you guys do/consider a whole lot of creating large holes in things as a first option.

   Reply
3. 

   Ben

   August 8, 2018

   Hi all. Good show as always.

   I started listening to you all years ago when Star Citizen was pre-hanger module. Pre-helmet. Pre dogfighting module etc. So its been a long time!

   My PC is a piece of poop – can’t play much. So even though I grew up on the original Elite (on the BBC) I haven’t played it on PC. Nor can I run any of the Star Citizen stuff. I enjoy hearing all the space game content you do though.

   I still follow Star Citizen weekly though and enjoy all their content, even if nowadays I tend to watch it as a documentary since I can’t play it yet. I’ve no problems with that though.

   Recently though I’ve been feeling like the quality of your SC stuff has been getting less accurate. Its getting harder to listen to for people still watching most of the vids Cloud Imperium is putting out. I.e. the argument/discussion about Around the Verse becoming ‘new player’ centric. It became an argument about someone not reading that the plan is to diversify content, split it so new players (or just people clicking on youtube vids) have something short and light to watch while the heavier stuff is shifted to new content.

   Theres definitely debate around this, since people are used to the Around the Verse show, but the core SC community hasn’t even made their minds up yet since its new – people just haven’t seen how its going to turn out. If they move the deeper content to other vids and provide the depth the community wants then people will be happy, if not then they won’t. But the verdict is not in yet as we haven’t seen the more in depth stuff, just the lighter stuff. If they don’t produce deeper stuff in a week or so expect some backlash.

   But currently thats all there is to it. They’ve said they’re going to chop and change the formats a little. Said they’re going to have a shorter show with lighter stuff, but specifically said the more in depth stuff will still be done, but be moved to somewhere new players or people who don’t want it don’t have to have it all in bulk with the lighter material.

   So, what do us as Guard Freq listeners get? A debate about someone not having read stuff arguing with someone who has. Thats timeless across all subjects, but its also boring because we already know the answer no matter the subject – its to go and learn. Perhaps it serves a point as an allegory between lay people who also misunderstand something and an argument with someone who doesn’t, but surely the point of a news program is not to watch the news readers being educated on air.

   Theres been other examples like this in previous episodes too.

   Putting that aside though – the pay to win conversation. This has been annoying me for a couple of weeks now. I really don’t know what any company/game developer can do other than charge a subscription or sell content as DLCs if they cannot just allow those how can afford to pay pay. It seems democratic to me. No more hearing that your MMO is making $150 million a month etc. If people can and want to pay to skip time then they can, if you don’t want to then don’t.

   That can be defined as pay to win, of course it can. In many ways it is. I’ve only bought a starter package and a 300i about 4 years ago. Grand total $70 over 5 years – 5 years of weekly shows, forums, friends etc. I won’t spend any more before the game is out. Once it is out and if I really like it then I’ll set up a monthly payment of $5-10 a month or something, but only because it stands a chance of being my favourite game. That makes me stingy maybe. but $60-120 a year for a computer game is, I think, very generous. But thats it. Thats what I’ll pay, and if many other people do because they’re not forcing it out of us and if I hit hard times I can still play and just stop giving then it will be funded (plus Squadron 42 expansions etc).

   Do I care if someone has better equipment than me? The game will be 5% human players. 20/1 is the figure thats been given. It will also be zoned so I can choose my risk. If you join a year after everyone else then you’re a year behind. It still has to be balanced so that person has FUN.

   Pay to win. Its a hard term often defined just so that person can win the argument that day.

   I think its pay to win if there is something really good, a top tier item, that you can only get if you pay. I don’t think its pay to win if you can earn all items by playing the game – as a rule. I’ll break that rule and start seeing it as pay to win if you effectively cannot earn it in a reasonable amount of time.

   I’m very willing to let people pay to jump ahead of me if it funds my game and I pay less. Thats an important point to me – the game is getting funded and I can pay it because of those other people paying more than I have/or are willing to pay. I’ll compromise a bit because of that. I don’t care if I have to avoid someone in an Idris because they’ve played the game solidly for a year, or because they just spent $1200. Nice if you’ve got it. Sure, they’ll beat me. I’m not that bothered. Not if the game is big enough for me to go have fun.

   And therein lies my other allowance. The game is about fun. My own little goals come from playing it. If I meet someone with better stuff than me I don’t care if they got it through time or money. They have it, I’m going to play the game and use strategy to avoid, or I fight and probably die. If I’m having fun then I’m not bothered.

   So design the game well. Don’t flash up a screen when I die telling me I was killed by someone who bought something you can only get with money. Don’t put gambling in. Don’t have lootboxes that open infront of other players. Don’t make it a massive grind to get stuff (200 hours to get a gun, for example).

   So far I’m not seeing Star Citizen propose any of this though. It seems about as reasonable as it can be unless they change the funding model, which I don’t want them to do. I like the idea of no subscriptions – just make the game fun and make it feel like when I lose it happened because I made a mistake. Design the game well. I’ll be happy. All this pay to win poop doesn’t bother me, not unless they put in anything you can only get with money or disproportionate, unfun, grind.

   Reply

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