Global Chat: October 9-15, 2011
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat!
While almost all of our news stories and columns are game-specific, the conversation that follows in the comments often expands beyond the game in question. Discussion turns to mechanics, development styles, and industry trends. Even if the game in the original story isn't your thing, you may find some interesting conversation, so follow along after the jump to see what some of our readers had to say last week.
One of our featured comments this week comes from our forums. Early last week Justin brought us a story about World of Warcraft's RMT loophole, and of course there was a huge discussion in the comments. The discussion continued in the forums with a focus on long-term player reaction, and Tanek, one of our community members, had quite a bit to say about the player mindset:
There are always going to be players who go to great lengths to avoid playing the game, whether it's through gold-buying, power-leveling, botting, cash-shop items, or just having a higher-level character run you through tough content. Shortcuts both legit and not have existed and will exist in just about every game I have seen.
If I am going to these lengths to progress in a game without actually playing it, then I can't be having fun and the game is not for me. If I am having fun playing the game, other people using (legit) shortcuts does not directly change the value of the game for me.
Check out the rest of his forum post as well as the full discussion in the forum thread.
As Star Trek Online approaches the free-to-play switch, the developers have been releasing dev blogs detailing their plans. The most recent one dealt with in-game currency and how it will be affected, and Sam Not Spam shared his thoughts on the reasoning behind it all:
The irony being, of course, that someone with money is more likely to be an ordinary working stiff, whereas someone with tons of time is likely not. Now, whether they're rich, retired, laid off, a student, a stay-at-home spouse, or playing when they should be working is something else entirely.
If anything, this is likely being done for the same reasons as EVE: to screw with RMT jerks while providing something people want.
Besides, how many businesses world-wide are based on "pay us money so you don't have to spend time to do something?" Restaurants, clothing stores (you don't make your own clothes, do you?), furniture stores, etc., are all easy examples.
All I hope is that they're at least consulting with an economist like EVE does.
A free-to-play conversion is always a bit of a controversial decision, and Fallen Earth is no exception. Seffrid pointed out a very strong upside in the conversation following the last Wasteland Diaries:
I think you have to accept that without the increase in population and revenue that the hybrid F2P conversion will bring, the game wasn't going anywhere and in due time would have ended in closure through lack of viable support.
I'm not a fan of the F2P model generally, but if adding it in as an option to P2P games is going to keep them going, then I'm all for it. There are no pure F2P games worth playing in my experience thus far, but the hybrid ones have been given a new lease on life and are actually pretty enjoyable now, provided the chat channels can be kept in line. That's another positive thing in FE's favour: The Help channel remains a pretty good community channel and is always moderated.
That's it for this week -- jump in and let us know your take on these discussions, and as always, if you see a comment on Massively that you'd like to see included in Global Chat, just send an email to rubi@massively.com!
Global Chat is the weekly feature that's all about you, our readers. Every Sunday we collect the best, funniest, and most thought-provoking comments from the Massively readers and round them up into Global Chat for discussion. Read over them for yourself, hit the comment button, and add your own thoughts!
