Nuff wrote:Razmoudah wrote:Not everyone who might be interested even knows it exists at present
Lets look at this bit first. That may be true but only in a tiny and insignificant way because Blizzard have been promoting this game heavily, it's been covered by all the major gaming outlets repeatedly, it's been advertised on Twitch, the original trailer has 6.6 million views. If there are people who don't know about Overwatch out there they are just not that into video games or live under a rock and those people you cannot get the attention of no matter what you do. A open beta or a first week trial at release wouldn't change that because how would they go to your proposed trial if they didn't even know that game existed?
The only reason I even know about Overwatch is because I occasionally play Diablo III and Starcraft II, Blizzard was also advertising it through the Battle.net launcher for them. I only watch streaming video, and although I do have a Game Informer subscription I get maybe 1 or 2 actually looked through a year, so I have a horrid backlog. I tend to just check the websites of the publishers who put out most of the games I like, occasionally take a glance at an unfamiliar suggested title on Gamestop's website, and typically hope for the best.
That is mostly because of lacking the finances to get new games very often. Also, as for your 6.6 million views, are those unique IP address views or overall views? And even if those are unique IP address views what about the people who watch the trailer at home, work, and the library/coffee shop/cafe? Right there are three unique IP addresses but only 1 person seeing the trailer. You need to lower that figure by probably a third, maybe more, to get the true number of unique individuals who have seen the trailer. Yes, that is a lot, but for people like me who are massively into games, but lack the finances to get much so aren't paying attention to what is going on right now, your counter argument still doesn't hold.
Nuff wrote:and now
Razmoudah wrote:and what about those who don't have free-time on the weekends? They couldn't participate even if they wanted to
I already explained that the open beta is not just a weekend beta. It's been running a few days already thus if you have troubles playing something for a couple of hours at the weekend you could still have played the open beta. Besides the chances of someone not having any free time at the weekend is extremely low and the amount of people this would effect is so small it's insignificant once again.
Okay, I didn't know the exact timescale of the open beta, as I haven't looked into it, but unless you can specifically state that it is a full 7 day open beta there are still people this would affect. Also, I have personally known a few over-the-road truckers who are into these types of games, they get maybe 3 or 4 days off (in a row) a month, sometimes more and sometimes less depending on the kind of route(s) they drive, and so unless it managed to synchronize with when they could take the time off they wouldn't be able to participate. Now, depending on who they drive for that isn't much of an argument, some companies pay well enough they can afford to buy a potentially bad game (Blizzard wasn't known for FPS or arena shooter titles before Overwatch) while with other companies they spend most of their time [censored] broke (I've driven for the latter, you can come out better living in a small town, or maybe even modest city, working 40 hours a week at minimum wage, of course if you want those kinds of hours you'd better be ready to work nights and weekends).
Nuff wrote:The important bit apparently because you made it bigger despite just repeating yourself for the first half of the sentence
Razmoudah wrote:Not everyone who is on the fence about this game is capable of taking advantage of the Open Beta weekend, thus a trial week or two starting at some point after release will be of benefit for getting them to buy it, particularly if their finances are such that they'd have to choose between this game and another, or they won't have a computer that meets the minimum specs until after the Open Beta ends
All your arguments hinge on them not being able to play this open beta which they should be able to. Though we can borrow some of your flawless logic to shoot down your own argument here because if they can't play the game at this particular time for whatever reason what is to say they could play the game with this magically fix every problem in the world trial you propose? Surely you'd have just as many people unable to play as you have with this beta... so it fixes nothing at all. As for not meeting minimum specs until after the beat ends this is another insignificant amount of people I mean honestly who is going to not have a computer that can play the game 2-3 weeks before release but will do within the first week of release to be able to play the magically trial? I'll tell you how many: very, very, very,very few people.
I didn't say the trial period only being release week. You have to use a Battle.net account to play, so Blizzard can keep track of how much time each Battle.net account has played on the game, thus they can offer a free trial period to anyone, that starts at any point after the game releases, by simply having a timer linked to the Battle.net account so that when the week is up, if they haven't bought it yet, they can't play.
Nuff wrote:to address this comment
Razmoudah wrote:The other valid option is to do like they did with Heroes of the Storm, where there is always a small group of characters available to play for free, with some of them being consta-free and others being on a 'trial' period, so that if you find a character that you really like, play well as, and want the extra skins (or is on a 'trial' period) you'll be encouraged to pay up, and the only reason I haven't is I haven't had the finances to do so
This is in no way a valid option. Overwatch is a completely different game to HotS. One of the largest and most important aspects of the game is you can switch hero during a game. You do this to do one last big push, or to counter their line up that they've switched to or because you need that extra turret to make sure they can't break your defence line. It's a huge part of the evolving tactical flow of the game and if you were to restrict players to only a handful of heroes is would cripple the F2P players compared to those who have paid for the content. Blizzard did not want to do this, the community did not want them to do this. They didn't want to go the full TF2 hats route either to sustain their game. As a company they invested a lot of money into creating the game and people buying it is how they recoup that investment and how they make a profit. This is how products work. I don't see how you being too poor should force a developer to make a game to suit your financial needs and completely compromise a huge part of their games core gameplay.
Well, if it is the community wanting to keep those players out then I'll just have to let the community have what it wants, but I'm hardly the only poor gamer around. There are a lot of us and we're very easy to find. Also, most of the characters fall into basic role types, such as tank, dps, support, healer, etc. They all accomplish the task in different ways, but they can all be classified that way. If there was one of each role always free, with a rotating cast of the others so you always had two or three in each role to work with, it wouldn't hinder how the game plays that drastically (as you still have to master playing as multiple character types to be good at the game, not just one as in most FPS titles), but since the community doesn't want the poor folks hurting their gaming experience I'll just let the snobs have their way, there are other games out there that are more my style anyhow.
Nuff wrote:Razmoudah wrote:If the game had a single-player mode so that I could play amongst a bunch of AI, and adjust their difficulty (emulated player skill) ratings so that I could get a chance to learn how to play the game well then I might consider it, but I can flat out tell you I never would've even considered buying it, even if it did have such a mode, if I hadn't had the chance to play it first because I know I don't have the right gaming skill set for this type of game. This is the type of reason why the game should gain a trial period a couple of months after release.
I wasn't in any of the earlier closed betas so I don't know if some of the game was missing but the latests closed (and of course open) beta had both a tutorial and the option to play against AI with options to set their difficulty. Actually a quick look showed me that at least from round 2 of the closed beta play vs AI was in the game. So you either missed it or are straight up lying. You go on to say how you need to be able to play it to see if you are any good at that type of game. Fair enough. That's what the open beta, which is on right now, is for. You can play it right now and find this out.
Okay, I hadn't known that they added this feature. I managed to get in on round one, tried to play a few games over a weekend, and I think managed to get 2 or 3 assist kills out of 8 or 9 matches. I need a mode to teach me how to play the game and do well at it, although with the feature I'll check to see if it is in the launch version and if so this game just jumped from "maybe, but no reasonable means to learn how to play it well enough to enjoy" to a "something to look forward to when my finances are doing better".
Nuff wrote:and lastly
Razmoudah wrote:Now, if the other game he compared it to isn't an arena shooter (I'd heard of the title, but wasn't familiar with the game-play) then I could see that they wouldn't be directly competing, but it is steadily getting harder for pure multiplayer titles to directly compete with one another without offering a trial period of some sort, whether it's a gift trial you can give to a friend when you buy the game or something else the threshold for getting gamers to pay out for it is steadily climbing. Yes, Blizzard is a company that has rarely ever had a title do poorly (not that DIII has done great with those of us who still love DII, but it has found its gamers to still be a massive hit title), which makes gamers more willing to try something sight-unseen, but there are still a few of us who are unsure about spending money on a game we're not sure we'll be able to fully enjoy, even when it is being made by a company like Blizzard.
It's not harder for pure multiplayer games than it is for pure single player games. And single player games almost never give a free trial to their games. The rest is just the same looped argument about needing a trial to test the game. There is a trial. It's the open beta.
Actually, depending on where you are looking trials for some single player games are becoming more common, so long as they aren't rated above T. In fact, the last several 3DS titles I've bought a trial was offered. I didn't know about the majority of those trials until after buying the game and it mentioning that you could carry over the trial save for some bonuses, thus I got the trial and played it for the bonuses, as I had already decided that "Yes, this game is in my niche. It's being added to my buy list and being pre-ordered when available, if I can afford to do so.", it's only the last 6 months where my finances haven't been doing so well. I'm starting in on a venture where if things go well I'll be doing better soon and I'll be able to start buying games again. I haven't been happy about having to miss out on Megadimension Neptunia VII, World of Final Fantasy (Explorers is rather lack-luster if you don't have friends to play with, and again I bought it before finding out about the trial or I would've canceled that pre-order as I don't have the friends to play with), the PS4 port of The Witch and the Hundred Knight (sorry, I've forgotten the sub-title now), Mighty No. 9, and the Nova missions of Starcraft II.
Nuff wrote:Well I think we are done here. Feel free to reply I'll be interested to see if you can bring anything besides "I want the trial at a different date not now! Waaaaaah!" to the table.
Peace.
Actually, my machine has more than enough power for the game. The only notable problem she has is a low read/write speed on the HDD, but she meets or exceeds the recommended specs for most games out today. I made it a point to invest in an overpowered machine when I ordered her 2.5 years ago. I wanted a machine that wouldn't need replaced for roughly 5 years if possible, and it's looking more and more like I succeeded, money very well spent. If the open beta will last into Monday then I can even get a chance to see if the 'learning' mode is scaled right to help me learn how to play the game. A tutorial has been there from the beginning, just not the option for playing against the AI. Also, the true purpose of an open beta, even if it does result in a 'trial' period, is to test the servers to be sure they can handle the load. By that point nearly all bugs should be worked out, the game balance should be close enough to require almost no tweaking (there might be some needed once you have large numbers of players, but typically it is rather minor and would require tweaks to several, if not all, characters/classes to keep from making things worse), and the only major uncertainty left should be "Are the servers capable enough?".
Now, as for what I've been saying. What they should do is a trial like they have for WoW or HotS, and if it doesn't initially become available until 2 or 3 months after the game is released I'd be fine with that. That would give word-of-mouth a chance to trickle through to those who missed out on the open beta as well as giving those who couldn't afford a powerful enough machine in time a chance to get the computer. Calling a week long open beta an adequate trial for the first couple of months, up to maybe six, I can agree with. Calling that an adequate trial on an indefinite basis for as long as the game exists, especially as they'll be expanding the game over the years (look at just how long they kept adding to/tweaking DII and WoW, I just wish we could get a Warcraft IV instead of everything being WoW). Hell, if they just announce that they'll be adding such a feature when they do the first expansion to Overwatch I'd be happy. The timing of the open beta works for me (and if I'd known about the 'learning' mode a few days ago I would've been in there), I'm just wanting to know that they'll do something for the sake of those who aren't being able to do so. Hell, the only Blizzard title that you can't try for free (I think, I could be wrong here) is Diablo III, all of their other titles have some form of free trial, and with the exception of WoW they all had it right from launch. I'm just saying that Blizzard should give Overwatch the same treatment.