Interesting (Splitting Single-Player from Multiplayer?)

What is the difference between selling Single Player Only SOTA and selling X-COM 2 as a pre-order? Answer, nothing.

 

If the single and mmo games are split, what use are the quests? Would there be different quests in each game? Port would need a team at least twice as large as they have now.

Sales would drop on one of the games, making development stagnate on one front, losing developers and interest. The two very similar games would be competing for our time.. I plan to play both single and mmo.. assuming there is reason to check both out. Eventually we'd have a thread like this wondering why sota DIDN'T stick with one game since all players end up playing one anyway. That's all speculation, just like many of these thoughts on how people will receive the game and how they will want to play.

I think it is important to try something new, not to cave and do the same old stuff everyone else is doing.. Just because star citizen and xcom 2 are doing something, doesn't mean we have to too!

So you want to call single player sota similar to pre-ordering? Isn't being in pre-alpha (early access) the exact same thing, currently? What makes you think selling a single player experience will sell better than an mmo rich (in people) world?

 

Pre-order is a rip-off in almost all cases.. I much prefer early access. Even though they aren't the same thing, neither should exist lol

 

Ok look, please let me try one more time to explain.

Currently you get Single Player, Single Player Online Mode, Friends Only Mode, and Multiplayer Mode together, correct?

All I'm saying is that Portalairum could easily sell Single Player mode by itself as an option. It's the same game, but you're limited to single player mode ONLY.

 

I could agree with you, ONLY if I knew the single player game was strong enough to stand on its own against the mmo we have currently. Can you fairly say that it is at this current time? Can you trust that it will be, once Port says it is complete? I sure hope it is! I am mostly interested in the single player game, fyi.

I don't think it is far from what they are building, since single player will be separate from the mmo anyway, what happens to your pvp town in this single player game and the map btw?.. but not sure if there is a need to split it and sell it separately.

I know getting 'two games in one' is more appealing to me.

 

All I know is that the devs have said that their intention is to have the single player game stand on it's own. It has to, if it's to be considered good.

Here's something that's really comical to me. I've pledged to the Bard's Tale and Underworld Ascendant. I have no idea what's going on in those games. I also pledged to Wasteland II and purchased X-COM 2, and Pillars of Eternity. None of these games "proved" anything to me before they were launched.

There's a forum post right now talking about how wonderful it is that Warren Specter is now full time on Underworld Ascendant. But really, that's all anyone knows. I mean, we know that RG is full time on SOTA. We know that Starr Long is full time on SOTA. But the difference is that here in SOTA we see day to day progress, we can actually go into the game and see progress month to month. And the lack of progress, the bugs, and the lack of content scares us (some more than others) to the point we would say "They need to prove that it can be a strong stand alone game".

Why do all the other games get a pass? We've seen less of them in their development life cycle. Is it just easier to think "well I'm sure it will turn out ok whatever they're doing?"

I think that SOTA, like any other game will either meet or fail to meet the expectations of the fans, and we won't really know what's going to happen until the game is launched. So Pre-order it if you like. Get into early access if you like. The only difference between our game and others is that we're REALLY SUPER OPEN about more of what we're doing.

 

I take it you don't read the Star Citizen forums, or the many other sites that are commenting on that business decision. To say that repeating that over here would not be met with the same divisive heated debates, both internally and externally, would be unaware of what's truly happening outside of this bubble we live in.

Really? It's getting the exact reaction I expected it to receive. Sure, one of your points was lost in the noise, about this simply being selling the existing offering but split in two instead of a bundle. But I think some great points are made here about in doing so, especially in not doing anything and simply repackaging, remarketing and reselling, among other great points.

In any case, Star Citizen's case is different. Those are indeed two separate games, two separate experiences that are bundled. Star Citizen is the MMO and Squadron 42 is the RPG. You do not get any story campaign in Star Citizen. You do not get to go online in Squadron 42 (there will be very limited co-op play post-campaign). To do the same for SotA, they'd have to do this in reverse and they would have to rip out the story campaign from the Online game as that would need to be exclusive to the Offline game.

 

Yes, really smack. I don't understand joe average gamer. They seem to want something for nothing. They seem to believe that they can have a game free from a traditional publisher that is not interested in making money. Which is kind of the point of being in a business to begin with. I don't see the downside to what Star Citizen is doing. I see it as an economic reality that is only ignored by people that don't understand the economic reality.

 

But why cater to 'joe average gamer'? That seems like a no-win situation for those of us who want something different. I thought you of all people would see the value there, but you are wanting to provide to the average gamer crowd? Why?

 

I just believe it's a reasonable way to make money for further development. I honestly don't understand why anyone would be against this.

 

Panhandling serves that need to.. and I'm pretty sure the addon store could be looked at like that! I don't believe they are in any financial need to consider splitting the game. Funds keep increasing and the game isn't even completed yet. No worries, if that was your concern.

 

What does it hurt though? What's the rationale not to split the game? We don't want more money?

 

There is too much mmo progression that a single player may wish for. One side will possibly have different and even better content, causing further arguments in the forums.. We have yet to see how the single player mode will turn out.. I can't wait to see how they will do things.

What are the real differences in the modes, since we don't know for sure yet, we can only guess and read what's given to us. Are the feature sets going to differ? How could they not? I think given the different gear in the different modes will make everyone want both modes. (for example, single player armour may be way more powerful, and won't it be fun to talk about it to your guild in mmo mode later on? bad and cheesy example, but I'm sure there are many other situations that could be said.. ?)

 

a 'crafter' in single player mode has NOONE to sell their stuff to... another bad example we just don't know what will happen with many things when single player mode actually shows up.. I don't think Port does either

 

SotA was promoted as a new blend of SP and MP. It would run counter to that vision to split the two.

 

Because Richard Garriot from 1996 would disagree with you: (skip to 2m 36s)



In any case, it would probably be a non-trivial effort to rip out the story elements and campaign from the sandbox/MMO and package that separately. Plus, another opposite thing that Star Citizen allows is to take your single player game into the Persistent Universe. Your progress in Squadron 42 can actually affect your character (perhaps ranking) in Star Citizen. In SotA's case, we are treating the two modes entirely different because offline can be purely offline and has no DRM.

 

Single player mode has nothing to do with MP mode. It's already totally separate.

I'm not saying to split up single player online and multiplayer mode.

This argument doesn't make any sense to me.

 

I think people are still confused about the two single player modes.
Single player offline could be sold as a stand-alone game.

As long as there were no changes to the game needed, only disabling online, it might be ok.
And then there'd be the addition to the add-on store to get the online portion for an appropriate fee.

However, single player online and friends mode must stay with multiplayer. Otherwise, selective multiplayer would be killed.

 

Thank you, Sir Frank. I thought that's what I was saying.

 

Yeah, so if we're talking purely business decision, then there wouldn't be a compelling enough reason to buy only the offline game, as it is not differentiated enough from the online game, and the online game contains the entire story campaign. I guess time will tell how that plays out.