The way expansions and multiplayer interact creates a significant barrier to entry for new players. You can get the base game for a very reasonable price, but if you want to party or trade with anyone you need to be fully upgraded. So if I tell a friend “hey, this is a great game, you should check it out and we’ll kill stuff together” they have a $60 package to buy before that can happen. That makes it a lot less likely that they’ll join, which means a possible customer for future expansions who will never spend a dime.
Would it be reasonable to suggest rolling previous generation content into the price of the base game, so that a new player can always enter Cairn for the price of the base plus the most current expansion?
Wait for a sale then, you could get GD for 70% of, so $8 or so, and AoM also at a (not as drastically) reduced price when FG was released. There will certainly be future sales as well.
Alternatively, your friend buys GD and you then also play vanilla only and forego the expansions to play with your buddy
Would it be reasonable to suggest rolling previous generation content into the price of the base game, so that a new player can always enter Cairn for the price of the base plus the most current expansion?
no, this is ridiculous. Subscription based games do that, but outside of that I have not seen that model for a reason…
So, because it apparently needs repeating, for some unknown reason :eek:, wait for a sale or two and buy the game and the expansions.
I guess it would be reasonable. I would compare it to your boss showing up one day and saying “Hey employee, we’ve already paid you this far, so we decided to roll your remaining work time at Big Corp. into what we’ve already paid you. Thanks for being a valuable employee.”
It’s also possible I misunderstood your request here. That tends to happen to me.
Grim Dawn specifically creates copies of your char when you install AoM so that you can still play with friends in the base game without having to start a new char (not something other games even bother to do), simply untick the expansions, or use powbam’s switcher tool and then simply play.
Most games cost $60, so what if they have to buy a game plus two loaded expansions for the cost of some new game or a silly port of a game that came out a generation ago or more.
Just to note: my current tool that does that is still under construction and not quite yet available
In the meantime, for people who are unaware: You don’t need to untick the DLC in Steam. When you untick it, it literally completely uninstalls the DLC. Meaning you need to redownload 2 or 3 gigs to play again. Instead go to the games installation folder.
For people who own base game + AoM only: You will have two folders. “gdx1” and “survivalmode1”. Move both these folders elsewhere and the game will automatically load up vanilla. Put 'em back to play with AoM again, no redownloading necessary.
For people who own base game + AoM + FG: You will have 4 folders. “gdx1” and “survivalmode1” and “gdx2” and “survivalmode2”. Move ALL these folders elsewhere and the game will automatically load up vanilla. Put 'em back to play with AoM + FG again. Or, just move out the “gdx2” and “survivalmode2” folders to “downgrade” to AoM etc. You get the picture.
This is exactly what my tool will do except it automates the whole process at the press of a button.
Alternatively, instead of moving those folders you could also simply rename those particular folders to something the game doesn’t recognize.
