5punk

Just had a totally random thought. Not usefull to me in any way, but its now sat in my head, and I want top purge it by letting you guys rip it to pieces

Anyway; as some of you know, Ive been playing a lot of magic online recently. Dont worry, im not on another recruitment drive

For those of you who dont know, Magic is a trading card game, a bit like pokemon, but less shit.

Its given me a thought. Why dont other kinds of games use a similar system. Again, for those of you that dont know, to play magic, you buy a deck. This has 60 cards in it, and is ready to play right from the off. You dont have to play against people with the same deck as you or anything like that. You can by other decks (or little "booster" packs, containing less cards but for less monies) and either use the new deck instead, or swap cards about to make your own, totally new deck.

Thinking about it, a similar system is used in the tabletop games made by Games Workshop. You buy your units, and can mix and match them into whatever collection of things you like, according to a set of rules.

What occured to me, is I cant see any reason why a system like this wouldnt work for other games. Take, for example, the RTS. For the sake of this example, imagine Generals worked like this. You would go out and buy yourself a kind of miniture game, with the mechanics of the game (so you can play it) and just one of the armies (lets say you chose the standard American army). This would be a lot cheaper than the game as it stands today, but would mean that you could only play as the americans. However, you can play against anyone else, regardless of what army they are using. You could then buy the Chinese army, and play with them, or (for a very small amount of money) buy new units for your american army.

I know they wouldnt be able to release new units at the same speed as magic releases new cards, but if they only release one unit to every ten cards, thats still about 60 new units a year.

The advantages of this system is that poor bastards like myself can spend minimal monies and still play against rich bastards, and without that much of a disadvantage too.

Anyway, just a daft idea, its not like im in a position to do anything with it.

Depends on the costs I guess,

Episodic and download add-ons are growing in popularity, but seem to come under a bit of criticism as well

HL2:Ep 1, good value for money

Oblivion add ons, horse armour etc. and the BF2 boosters, not good value for money


If a game like this was to be totally based on paying for additional content the right balance would have to be struck so that it doesn't just seem like money grabbing.

I personally would rather buy a complete game then all the components separately. But then if they both ended up being the same price buying it a bit at a time would be an advantage if you couldn't afford the full cost right away.

Maybe if you could try a bit out for 1 match before buying it then you could see if you like playing with that particular side or unit then not bother if it didn't suit you. Much better than paying the full amount for a full game and having aspects of it you never use or play because you didn't like it.

mrbobbins wrote:Depends on the costs I guess,

Episodic and download add-ons are growing in popularity, but seem to come under a bit of criticism as well

HL2:Ep 1, good value for money

Oblivion add ons, horse armour etc. and the BF2 boosters, not good value for money


If a game like this was to be totally based on paying for additional content the right balance would have to be struck so that it doesn't just seem like money grabbing.

I personally would rather buy a complete game then all the components separately. But then if they both ended up being the same price buying it a bit at a time would be an advantage if you couldn't afford the full cost right away.

Maybe if you could try a bit out for 1 match before buying it then you could see if you like playing with that particular side or unit then not bother if it didn't suit you. Much better than paying the full amount for a full game and having aspects of it you never use or play because you didn't like it.

all true, however:


1) The way they make it so attractive in magics is you get a lot for very little monies. A whole deck only costs £6, and you could just buy that and play with it forever. A booster pack costs a miserly £2.

2)the difference between this system and, say, the beef2 expansions is that everyone can play everyone, regardless. In beef2, the exansion packs (weapon unlocks aside) can only be played against other people with the same expansion pack.

mrbobbins wrote:the BF2 boosters, not good value for money

you're right about euro horse, but armored fury IS worth the money.

Good point Joose. Games Workshop have been doing this with tabletop stuff since I was a kid and it doesn't stop loads of people buying every new thing they release in order to get one over on their mates. Having said that people are far less eager to buy little bits of software than they are to buy a little metal bloke.

Half the point of games is that, so long as you can afford the one-time purchase, real life doesn't matter, someone really poor can be a millionaire, in game.

What you're suggesting would also end up with people buying little bits of each game and not bothering to play it much, and then not playing more.

Sticky Label wrote:Half the point of games is that, so long as you can afford the one-time purchase, real life doesn't matter, someone really poor can be a millionaire, in game.

erm....

so long as you can afford the one-time purchase

As someone who can quite regularly *not* afford the one-time purchase, thats the exact problem that this system would negate. People who could afford it would buy a bunch of armies (in effect, a whole games worth), people who cant would just buy one or two.

Dog Pants wrote:Having said that people are far less eager to buy little bits of software than they are to buy a little metal bloke.

you sure about that? Ignoring for the moment Magic online (which has thousands of people regularly buying what is, in effect, *pretend* cards), look at Steam. A bunch of games, a lot of them quite small. And now, episodic content, which is *exactly* what you are saying people are less eager to buy, ie "little bits of software".

In fact, I think what im proposing is more a way of making a multiplayer game (like RTS's) work with an episodic content style payment/delivery.

I think what Sticky is trying to say, is that outside riches shouldn't give you the automatic advantage over others, when you say you can buy a full army's worth (or a full games worth), I think there'd need to be some kind of limit, so that people don't go shit crazy and make.. oh wait, thats exactly what the companies would want, people buying tons of stuff.. hmm, interesting idea.

If they were going to do this they'd add so much stuff that it'd cost you hundreds despite the fact you would usually get all that stuff for £25 or less, which is why I dont like this system.

Theyre going to do this kind of thing with the ps3, they'll have some extra weapons or levels for fpses for example that'll cost you maybe £1 each even though they shouldve included it in the game in the first place.

As far as RTS's go, I would have quite happily paid less and received a quarter of the campaigns in most of the RTS games I've bought. This is chiefly because I am never able to progress very far into them. Similarly, though - the multiplayer aspect does not interest me, because everyone in the universe is better than I am, it is difficult to find anyone to play against.

I would be interested in seeing the practise applied to RPGs - for instance Jade Empire featured an extra playable character in the Premium release, who kicked arse rather hard.

However I think it is in the MMONG world that somethying like this would be really successful. Notwithstanding the fact the games are expensive to play anyway, just imagine how successful extra playable races would be in WoW or Eve - they wouldn't have to be neccessarily better than what's already available, just different.

For me that's what would make it worthwhile - the add-ons to pimp up your horse in Oblivion are all well and good, but it would be so much more satisfying to ride that tricked-out pony right through the gates of Ironforge.

pixie pie wrote:I think what Sticky is trying to say, is that outside riches shouldn't give you the automatic advantage over others, when you say you can buy a full army's worth (or a full games worth), I think there'd need to be some kind of limit, so that people don't go shit crazy and make.. oh wait, thats exactly what the companies would want, people buying tons of stuff.. hmm, interesting idea.

quite

And I would have two things to say about outside riches giving you an automatic advantage:

1)If the game was done right, this doesnt really happen. For instance, taking the warhammer model, you can spend a fortune on models, but theres rules about how you make your armies. There can only up to a certain ratio of infantry/tanks/heros, for example, and each army is made up to a point value. So the only advantage the rich guy would have is more options with how he wants to make his army. Both armies, when you actually play the game, have the same total 'points' cost.

2)In magic, on the other hand, being richer means you can buy more cards, which means you have a greter chance of having some kick ass card. But a)that makes the buying aspect kinda fun in itself. Am I going to get some super rare like Niv-Mizzet, or just yet another bloody guildmage? who knows! and b) having a 'better' deck doesnt mean your going to win. Ive got roughly 1/4 the amount of cards most other online players have, and I still win a fair few games.

Like you say, its great for the companies, as some nutter will go bonkers and spend hundreds of pounds. But its also, in my opinion, great for the players, as they can pay a pittance and still get in on the action.

Joose wrote:1)If the game was done right, this doesnt really happen. For instance, taking the warhammer model, you can spend a fortune on models, but theres rules about how you make your armies. There can only up to a certain ratio of infantry/tanks/heros, for example, and each army is made up to a point value. So the only advantage the rich guy would have is more options with how he wants to make his army. Both armies, when you actually play the game, have the same total 'points' cost.

But it'd still give the rich guy an unfair advantage, as he'd have a greater range of troops to choose from. Once he'd seen what you have, he could easily beat you, as you wouldn't be able to counter anything.

Sticky Label wrote:
But it'd still give the rich guy an unfair advantage, as he'd have a greater range of troops to choose from. Once he'd seen what you have, he could easily beat you, as you wouldn't be able to counter anything.

only if the game has been designed by half-wits. sereously, thats the system games workshop have been using for many years now, and it works fine for them

(this post brought to you through the psp. hence the lack of caps)