Today I Stopped Playing GD

Grim Dawn Ideas and Feedback
41

Guys, at the end of the day, it all comes down to business model.
Well, Crate definitely has projects for the future, GD2 hmm, why not? Staff salaries have to be paid, development processes might need funds to out-source stuff, blah blah…
Just look at the D3 & PoE’s business models for a sec. One comes from a big guy in the industry, triple A quality, undoubtedly huge amount of loyal fans, awesome PR strat… 1 of the best PC selling game to date. How’s the quality? Imho, it’s great, but becomes a Paragon grind fest recently but still milions of players are playing right now. How do they afford to keep it going? Ans: Expansion and micro-transaction (Chinese Server and would likely to come to NA/EU).

How about PoE? Indie dev, free to play. How do they survive? Ans: Micro-transaction.

How about the gold-mine of mobile gaming these days? Micro-transaction. But in the case of D3 & PoE they are all cosmetics and not game breaking, so every one wins, devs have the income flow to keep it going.

Dedicated server with false competition like a season ladder will keep MILLIONS of player around for years with expansion, items, cosmetic things etc… Everyone wins, the only drawback is connecting latency which could somehow affects the gameplay (fixable).

The OP has the point though, but the fact is dedicated server is not coming to GD. As I said, GD2 could be a “must be online” to play like D3/PoE. That’s the way to make money, that’s the way to survive in this industry.

42

I do think crate could use some help considering that they’re only around 10 people, but I don’t think making the game always online is the way to go. I for one, don’t always have internet connection, so making the game always online would end up denying me the right to play the game that i purchased. I doubt im the only one who thinks like this. ARPGs are in general, a single player experience. POE needs online because of its economy. Other arpgs (including d3) don’t really have an economy and pvp is really something extra, so there is no point in making single player games online. In addition to that, while this game isn’t perfect, the game is fun. Do you really want to deny others from having fun with this game simply because they’re not connected to the internet?

43

He never said he wants it to be online only as far as I know. He just wants the addition of online only servers. Which just isn’t going to happen anytime soon

44

Oh okay… I don’t really see how that improves the game considering that the game doesn’t rely on competition

45

maybe, but there is not just one model, nor does everyone who follows that model automatically succeed, just look at all the failed MMOs…

Just look at the D3 & PoE’s business models for a sec. One comes from a big guy in the industry, triple A quality, undoubtedly huge amount of loyal fans, awesome PR strat… 1 of the best PC selling game to date.

all hype and marketing, lost most of its playerbase due to being a crap ARPG, but yes, sold well and if you sell 20M copies and 10% of people enjoy the grind, you still have 2M players, even if the other 18M left in disgust

How about PoE? Indie dev, free to play. How do they survive? Ans: Micro-transaction.

clearly Micro-transactions

How about the gold-mine of mobile gaming these days?

you mean the crap shoot that is mobile games where 1 in 1000 brings in huge profit while the others struggle to recoup their cost, even though they are dirt cheap to create ? Might as well play the lottery…

Dedicated server with false competition like a season ladder will keep MILLIONS of player around for years with expansion, items, cosmetic things etc…

any idea how many players D3 actually still has ? I tried to find numbers but all I found were guesses by players. While they did give a reason for how they arrived at their numbers, they obviously can still be off… their numbers were around 0.7 to 1.5M (actually 0.7 was the high end, the low was 0.4, the rest is me adjusting for safety and because I do not fully trust their logic), in either case, I am not sure millions of dedicated gamers is true for either D3 or PoE, so if you could back up that claim, it would be appreciated.

As I said, GD2 could be a “must be online” to play like D3/PoE. That’s the way to make money, that’s the way to survive in this industry.

it could, but that would be a truly stupid idea, and it most definitely is not the only way to make money, it is the best way to risk and lose everything.

You talk about two successful games, what about the successful ones without servers ? They too make money. What about the failed MMOs ? more than actually made money… What about the fact the most players of closed server games still play solo if you look at statistics (provided the dev provides any) ?

I get it, you like closed servers, but that does not mean they are the only scenario that can offer success (let alone guarantees it like you suggest). That is just ignorance talking.

46

Yeah… Online-only is the best way to make your game fail miserably. While also showing you care nothing about the few customers you do get.

47

I imagine would in theory be possible for Crate to offer GD both as a standalone version on your computer (as it is now), AND a client-based online-only version with competitive ladders and such (similar to PoE). You would still be able to play with mates on your “offline” version similar to how you do now, but characters obviously wouldn’t be transferable between the two. Anything you create on ladder or non-ladder stays there, permanently. Honestly, I could see it working out nicely.

The problem is, there’s really no point in doing it. Knowing the community, I don’t think there’s enough people interested in competitive ladders. I hope to god GD doesn’t ever into the cosmetic MTX scam beyond what was offered to backers. That sort of business model just leads to asset and graphics bloat. Opening strongboxes in PoE that are guarded by Rogue Exiles is unbelievably obnoxious, because the game ends up shitting itself for like two seconds while it’s trying to load all the advertisements goofy armor and particle effects they’re wearing. The whole thing is a big risk that could end up backfiring horrendously, in many, many ways.

I’m not afraid to be preachy about it. That’s what I like about this game. GD isn’t another Minecraft or PoE. It doesn’t justify an endless beta by treating it’s audience like children with ADD. It doesn’t jingle a set of car keys in front of you every four months in a bid to keep your attention. It isn’t a cash cow to be milked dry. It’s a finished product.

I like it just the way it is.

48

Could you elaborate on why Dedicated servers are so important? What do they do that is so useful? If you don’t want the game hacked, then just don’t hack it. It is as simple as that. You just need some self control. If you don’t want to play with people who have duped items then don’t play with them. Do you really need the server policing everything for you?

Edit: Have to add, when I saw the title of this thread I though of this song for some reason: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubKUP8c0FHE

49

Is this true though? D3 might be having some issues: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/20743104114

50

Yeah, looks like D3 is essentially dead. Sure, with 20M buyers, some people hang on, but not enough for Blizzard to still care.

The second expansion is overdue and nowhere in sight, I’d say chances are it has been cancelled.

Rumors have it work on D4 has begun, but of course nothing official just yet.

So much for the difference closed servers make…

51

D3 had a huge legacy to fill…and failed at every turn, as sad as that sounds. People would have been happier with D2 with updated graphics than the RNG fest that was D3.

I give Crate credit for this, their items are RNG protected with only slight deviations, just like D1, D2 or Torch Light. Make playing a joy when you don’t automatically destroy something because you are a barbarian and that lovely sword you just looted has int on it.

52

No they didn’t. People just worked around the hacks or accepted them as just part of the game. Farcast was one of the most annoying hacks but people either sat in town until they got bored and left or until someone (usually me) would desync them and force them out of the game. Considering I played D2 for over a decade and worked my way to the top ranks in JSP’s USWest PvP, dealing with the hacks was just part of the game. Now, sure my Charger’s Fort was e-bugged and I traded a ton of items for that one piece of armor, but it was the second-best e-bugged Fort in existence and it helped me beat HYPHY for the #1 spot for PvP Chargers. Sure my BvB, BvA, and BvC’s helms were all duped from my buddy (Motorhome) because it was the only blue Assault helm with +5 BO with life, str, dex, and resists, but it was either use my buddy’s duped helms or buy someone else’s duped helms.

Bottom line, cheating is rampant in every game, especially online games where someone might be able to get the upper hand with illegitimate means. You can dwell on this which apparently ruins your experience, or you can just work around it and play the game.

53

This thread makes me wonder what the OP might think of using real cash to buy in game currency in a game such as WoW or D3.

54

This is bullshit. First of all, even on b.net everyone and their mother had an Enigma in the same +15% armor, 12% durability Superior Dusk shroud (funny how they all had the exact same numbers on a very rare drop).

Secondly, PvP in D2 was mostly done on a “pirate” server which had item/rune drops and experience gained amped up by orders of magnitude. That way, people could PvP with optimal builds instead of farming for years before being able to beat someone who simply started farming a year earlier.

PvP is about character building and tactics, not much/persistency required for getting the perfect stats on the right extremely rare drop. As such, GD is in the right place to have great PvP.

Obviously, cheaters (as in, people who have stats/items not available in the game) will ruin PvP, but the solution to this is the same as it was in D2 where they existed as well: make a community that tracks and bans these people.

55

Agree 100 %
PvP in D2 was the best thing that ever happened to me in 15 years online gaming. D3 was a very big fail, because a shitload of D2 PvP Players hoped so much for rebirth of pvp…but they´ve been fooled very hard by Blizzard.

Communitys like:
Duelliga, Art of War, EuroPvP, made a big Job by creating rules for the leagues!

I have a very big hope in GrimDawn, because it seems that CRATE listens to the people. Make me and much more People in the world happy, work on the pvp section please.

56

Yea… finding Superior armor wasn’t rare at all. Finding superior armor with high armor and durability was really common. Finding one already with four sockets and the armor and durability was uncommon, but still not rare.

What are you talking about? Nothing about this entire sentence makes one shred of sense. It’s as if you’ve never even played the game before.

I agree PvP would be extremely fun in GD but we just have to be patient and hope Crate wants to eventually add dedicated servers where this will be possible. The only thing that kept me playing D2 for over a decade was mostly helping people and doing MF runs then dumping the stuff I found in free games.

If you’re talking about JSP, even they couldn’t do anything about cheaters except ban them from the forums. People scamming other people for FG and items was an hourly occurrence when D2 was in its prime. No amount of neighborhood watches will stop cheaters nor will it deter them. Simple fact is, if you see a cheater in your game, either leave or accept that they are cheating.

57

DII is a bit of a bad example since it was a pretty old game at the time and so they never properly worked out how to protect their game from things like duping. Aside from that, keeping all information on the server is pretty reliable for preventing cheaters. MMORPG’s wouldn’t really work if this wasn’t the case.

Once Crate has enough time/money, they could implement their own version of something like closed Battle.net that will be ran entirely on the server and wouldn’t use any information from the client. Many other games have came out with making server-side a priority (PoE, DIII, etc.), so it’s only fair to have a game like Grim Dawn that makes single player/LAN a priority.

58

No. The probability of everyone and their mother having a rune combination that has a drop probability of 10^-12 (high runes required around a million monster kills to drop each, slightly higher probability if you account for transmuting) in an item with the exact same stats is exactly zero. All of those were duped.

What are you talking about? Nothing about this entire sentence makes one shred of sense. It’s as if you’ve never even played the game before.

Most PvP leagues and communities had their own servers which ran a modded version of the game where you could reach max level in less than a day, high runes and torches/annis were rewarded for quests, all the drops were rares/sets/uniques or socketed superior items etc. Some of them had a lower max level for low level PvP, though i never found that interesting.

The point of these servers was to give everyone equal opportunity in PvP instead of simply favouring those who farmed longer. Can’t remember the name of one I played on, EuPvP or sth like that.

I agree PvP would be extremely fun in GD but we just have to be patient and hope Crate wants to eventually add dedicated servers where this will be possible. The only thing that kept me playing D2 for over a decade was mostly helping people and doing MF runs then dumping the stuff I found in free games.

What does MF have to do with PvP?

If you’re talking about JSP, even they couldn’t do anything about cheaters except ban them from the forums. People scamming other people for FG and items was an hourly occurrence when D2 was in its prime. No amount of neighborhood watches will stop cheaters nor will it deter them. Simple fact is, if you see a cheater in your game, either leave or accept that they are cheating.

Screw JSP, I was talking about in-game cheaters who used scripts and such to lock you from across the map, have insane cast speed etc.

The great thing about GD is that your game is tied to the Steam account, you can’t simply make a new one. This allows easy tracking of cheaters by the community.

59

All of this talk really makes me miss D2 HC PvP, especially the LLD version of it. Best era was 1.09 HC duels. There was certainly hacking going on in HC but it was on a much smaller scale and of course, death deterred many of the cheaters.

60

That is a wise choice. I just facepalm playing GD. :undecided: