Shadow of War - Released

Middle-Earth: Shadow of War has been released:

OnlySP - Interview with Monolith’s community manager, Andy Salisbury:

New Nemeses and More Mechanics: How Monolith is Expanding Middle-Earth in Shadow of War

Gamepressure - Information:

Middle-earth: Shadow of War will take up almost 100 GB of your PC's disk space

Thanks Farflame!


More information.

this is a weird case of microtransactions in a single player game. I hope noone will ever follow this example.

No, thank you. Instead on this lootboxesbased fullpriced garbageware, I'm gonna spend my $ on hentai heroes which is a freebie browser (but basically phone)game.
Speaking of that one, anyone tried it already? I bet it's more fun than Warner's crap.

Of course, EA is desperately trying to sabotage Warner's worst company throne takeover attempts:
https://www.vg247.com/2017/10/11/let…re-pay-to-win/

Let’s not mince words; Star Wars Battlefront 2 loot boxes are pay-to-win

The Star Wars: Battlefront 2 beta is a solid example of what happens when blind boxes and RNG-driven progression systems infest a big-budget game, leaving good design by the wayside.
…
The pay-to-win scheme is so well integrated into the game there’s no way this was an accident
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You’re going to have to grind for even the simplest means of progression. Meaningful items like weapons and ability cards are fighting for space against victory poses and emotes in these blind crates

Pay to win is such a confusing thing. Pay to win what? The product is big team played. Personal performances are not going to win the day.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Pay to win is such a confusing thing. Pay to win what?

You're concentrated on the wrong word.
The keyword you should be staring at here is "pay".

See, there was a time games had cheats or could be busted by hexeditor or something. We called it cheating. Today, in some games, you - pay. We don't call it cheating any more as it doesn't require your brains, it requires your wallet.

Video products are meant to be sold. Devs look after getting the most money out of it.

Paying is a basic move. The extra to win is barely present in the mentioned product. You pay to get the product and you can pay to speed up the process of discovering the product. That is pay to see, not pay to win.

So just like any vid product, except that they monetize the dilution of content.

Products dilute their content to give the impression of value ( that many hours spent to discover content against that much money)

They find a way to monetize the dilution of content.
Instead, they offer to spend less time chasing for a diluted content against money.

That is like the others, the crowdfunded scene that turned specialist in content dilution.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Video products are meant to be sold.

Can't agree more on that statement.
However, there is a huge difference between sold and milked.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Paying is a basic move. The extra to win is barely present in the mentioned product. You pay to get the product and you can pay to speed up the process of discovering the product. That is pay to see, not pay to win.

The problem arises when they design the game to be extremely tedious and boring to progress without the "pay to speed up the process of discovering the product" as you called it. So, anyone who already paid for the game and want to see it to completion to have a return on their investment, only have two options, pay more or do it the slow, tedious way which decreases the entertainment and enjoyment value of the game, which was the main reason to buy it in the first place.

Not purchasing this giant pile of DLC lootbox scamorder garbage.
Interestingly enough there are already alternate versions that contain the dlc and pre order items available. I don't even feel bad for then.

Guys, were there recently some Gaming GreedCom or Gaming Greed Conference or something? Or is it some new disease? It seems like every big CEO loves paid loot boxes nowadays.

Assassins Creed Origins - microtransactions - loot boxes
Shadow of War - microtransactions - loot boxes
Star Wars Battlefront 2 - microtransactions - loot boxes
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next title?

Originally Posted by Arahael
The problem arises when they design the game to be extremely tedious and boring to progress without the "pay to speed up the process of discovering the product" as you called it. So, anyone who already paid for the game and want to see it to completion to have a return on their investment, only have two options, pay more or do it the slow, tedious way which decreases the entertainment and enjoyment value of the game, which was the main reason to buy it in the first place.

Also if they wont get enough flak for this they will become comfortable with it and more and more companies will use this model for SP games. Except some indies, of course. And you can be sure that after some time they will do exactly what you wrote about. To "encourage" players to pay, i.e. make games boring if you dont pay.

What a nasty scam made by arrogant management shit. Behold their "future" - you will pay for SP game to play and then you will pay again for some other things to have this game playable or fun or to be able to complete it.

Originally Posted by Farflame
Assassins Creed Origins - microtransactions - loot boxes

No.
Lootboxes in AC Origins do exist, but you may buy them only with ingame money at specific ingame vendor that sells rarities. No, you can't buy them with real money in form of a microtransaction, and they're used as moneysink mechanics.

Currently unknown however is if it will be possible to buy ingame money with real cash in that game. No official word from Ubi on this.
One of reasons I'm still unsure in buying ACO.

Funny, all the games listed as pay to win and I've never bought or played any of them. When it smells like a turd, it is a turd, and should be avoided as such. Being available on only certain platforms (Origin, Ubicrap, etc) is often a clear, strong signal of aforementioned stench likeliness.

Originally Posted by Arahael
The problem arises when they design the game to be extremely tedious and boring to progress without the "pay to speed up the process of discovering the product" as you called it.

Exactly - which is what Free to Play games have been doing for a long time now. And this one, from the sound of the reviews, isn't.

I can't say I'm happy with either side of this. The company was pretty dumb to put this in at all, IMHO, while the internet mob is overreacting in a massive way.

Originally Posted by Arahael
The problem arises when they design the game to be extremely tedious and boring to progress without the "pay to speed up the process of discovering the product" as you called it. So, anyone who already paid for the game and want to see it to completion to have a return on their investment, only have two options, pay more or do it the slow, tedious way which decreases the entertainment and enjoyment value of the game, which was the main reason to buy it in the first place.

It does not apply to the mentioned product.

The additional content does not change fundamentally the core of the product.
Players who find it fun and like it from the start might find it funnier and like it more once they have all the content.
Since they have fun from the beginning, completing the collection of all items come as a consequence of having fun.

Players who do not find it fun and do not like it will not find it funnier when they have the whole collection. So they can quit early, they miss nothing.

The offer is clear and additional content comes as a consequence of playing a product you like.

It is very different from the offer made by the crowdfunded scene: the product might be unfun but it will turn out fun once completed. Players might not find it fun right now but they are promised once it is completed they will find it fun.
Here players are called to endure unfun with the expectation fun is coming.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Funny, all the games listed as pay to win and I've never bought or played any of them.

Most vid products these days are pay to win. Players do not buy vid product to lose, they buy to win.

This has consequences on gameplay since the outcome loss is unwished by consumers.

It means that devs must focus on the winning side only and make losing as repelling as possible.

There can be less and less one good game session after losing.

Originally Posted by Zloth
I can't say I'm happy with either side of this. The company was pretty dumb to put this in at all, IMHO, while the internet mob is overreacting in a massive way.

In my opinion, it isn't even close to overreaction - I hoped these practices will result in an actual lynch mob and burning Warner's HQ, not just a few swears and spits on social networks and that's it, let's shift our attention back to Kim Kardashian's butt.

Well we shall see how sales and transactions perform. If they make $$$$$$ off of this approach then you should expect it to continue.

Deus suffered from it but not sure if it was due to the addition of micro transaction or the game did not live up to expectation. If steamspy is accurate it is so far got a bit of ways to reach the 4 million of the first game (pc). Naturally i expect the console shitheads to not care as MS crames this stuff down their throats daily.

Seeing how people like the game the future does indeed look grim.
Apparently you get +3% xp gains if you sign up for their newsletter.
Maybe in the next game you'll get 5% xp and a loot box a week if you watch 3 minutes of TV commercials every 30 minutes. Before long the bonuses will be gone and at best you instead pay extra to avoid the commercials.

Originally Posted by six
Apparently you get +3% xp gains if you sign up for their newsletter.
Maybe in the next game you'll get 5% xp and a loot box a week if you watch 3 minutes of TV commercials every 30 minutes. Before long the bonuses will be gone and at best you instead pay extra to avoid the commercials.

This is already happening in phone games. I hope the publisher that brings this scamware to the PC platform literally breaks a hip… and a neck.

Originally Posted by ChienAboyeur
Most vid products these days are pay to win. Players do not buy vid product to lose, they buy to win.

Actually, I do, in a way. Perhaps I don't want to lose the whole thing, but a game isn't very interesting if it doesn't hand me my own arse occasionally.