Quote fromExactly. IMO, series like Warcraft and Starcraft already have a broad appeal. I can understand Diablo being darker and gritter and therefore having a smaller audience. But geez...
Yeah, that's why Batman doesn't do well as a movie -- oh wait. Well then what about Spiderman turns to the Darkside, or Superman's Evil Twin, or Anikin Freakin' Vader? Niche market. riiiight.
Maybe what'll really bring in the dollars is if we can sell this game to 5-year olds. For $80/pop. Their parents will buy it for them, I'm sure. All we gotta do is market it as the new improved baby sitter. Oy vey.
There seems to be an utter lack of games for the rather large demographic of over 21, and I don't mean gratuitous sex.
0
Yeah, that's why Batman doesn't do well as a movie -- oh wait. Well then what about Spiderman turns to the Darkside, or Superman's Evil Twin, or Anikin Freakin' Vader? Niche market. riiiight.
Maybe what'll really bring in the dollars is if we can sell this game to 5-year olds. For $80/pop. Their parents will buy it for them, I'm sure. All we gotta do is market it as the new improved baby sitter. Oy vey.
There seems to be an utter lack of games for the rather large demographic of over 21, and I don't mean gratuitous sex.
0
It is often mistakenly done backwards, like this: "I want my super-duper Vorpal Frizbee to be very expensive" -- and then assign a high price.
What would make that Vorpal Frizbee actually expensive? If getting one represented a lot of player effort, and having one increased player productivity (kills/hour or some such). Then it is truly desirable, and players would be willing to trade more other stuff for it.
Even in a single-player game this still applies. The 'trade' is a comparison of what else could be bought instead.
Video game Inflation happens because monster drops continually produce more stuff that lasts forever. Eventually even the most rare item will exist in great quantity throughout the universe, and even brand new players will be able to pick up anything they want for peanuts. Because everyone else has half a dozen of them in their stash.
0
Sword A is worst, and sword B is better, and sword C is best. And it's true for everybody. If I have sword B, I'm not going to trade it away for Sword A, and a person with sword C is not going to give me that in trade for two sword Bs.
But that's not how the real world works. In the real world, we do trade stuff. I am willing to give you one thing in trade for another.
Sword A has to be valuable to some people, and sword B to others. Not just a level-up thing.
0
It isn't sellable, tradable, or usable by anyone but the single-player who found it. Which is pretty much the opposite of multi-player.
Grouped Single Player.
And doing anything with other players is going to be fairly pointless in Grouped Single Player games.
0
But more important: Mounts are generally not money sinks, they are money pits. There is a difference between a gold sink and a money pit.
A money sink is buying potions, or paying for repairs. These are sinks. Some of the suggestions are also sinks: An expensive key for treasure drops, placing wagers on a combat, magic buff scrolls -- those are sinks too.
A money pit is buying a mount, bag, or house. They are different from a money sink, because with a money pit you will be done paying for it sooner or later.
0
0
If there's a bow guy, I'm home
0
0
The only thing that I've seen implemented in the Vista-only DirectX driver (dx10) is the god rays. And it took a hell of a lot of work for the Crysis guys and the Age of Conan guys to make that happen.
0
Employees must wash hands after wiping the blood off a looted corpse's equipment.
0
Was gonna suggest "Nerf casting time so the spell can fizzle during combat," but I'm not sure that's the direction they want to go. Cause that's all about scenes of fail, and the scenes they've presented are win.
0
I'm not actually the bard in the group I play with, but we do have one. He's married, and his wife plays too -- and they often sit around and chat and make "big plans" for what the group is gonna do next. Sometimes we'll just get drunk and talk about yesterday.
Sometimes we'll go questing. And he's all See ya later, bring back something. Just whatever happens to seem fun at the moment. I've bribed his wife (healer) to come with us before, by making her some magic armor. She tends to ramble on about her IRL daughter, but she does keep us buffed.
Since you asked, my favorite class uses a bow. In AoC I'm a Ranger, in Diablo-2 I'm an Amazon, in Perfect World I'm an Elf. I hope they make a good bow class for Diablo-3.
Salvo therapy
0
That's right: Me and my bros want to do exactly that. You go kill a bajillion badguys while we're talking about it. And when you're done, come back here and show off the head of your latest kill. We'll have stories to tell. Stories about you.
This is the place where Bards hang out, and the wives in town, and the blacksmiths and merchants. Adventurers are the centerpiece, but it takes more than adventurers to build a community.
What restaurant sells only Steak & Lobster?
0
Sure is popular though, isn't it?
Sounding good serves no game purpose.
And yet just yesterday you said:
So I'm not buying that "must have game purpose" argument.
0
What happens as you get lots of gold -- and everyone else does too?
The "standard" price becomes a drop in the bucket, compared to how much money you have. Everything will cost 0.0001% of your treasure chest.
Except for the newbies. But what can you get from a newbie? Everything they have is worthless to you, including their tiny little purse.
What I'm saying is that in games where the players get more and more gold & loot, hard-coded prices don't work. The way NPC vendors charge for stuff is the big culprit. (Stuff with level requirements 'windows' is the small culprit).
If they charged according to what players bought/sold things for yesterday, then the market would self-correct. A loaf of bread could cost $100, and everyone would be ok with it because they were actually buying/selling it to each other for that price yesterday.
Even better than yesterday's price would be to take the average price of an item for the last week. And throw out the top 5% and bottom 5% prices before figuring the average. This eliminates market griefers. Note that these are the actual sold prices, not the for sale offers on a trader.
Another major advantage of letting NPCs price according to what's really going on, is that the players will be able to look up the price that vendors charge. And knowing this is the last week's average, they will buy/sell at that price. End result? The price spread quickly narrows, and settles around the averages.
It can also be quite useful to the dev team. If the price of an object soars way out of what they thought it was worth, or if it drops to nearly worthless, then they can look into why. Maybe it's got too many nerfs and no one wants it. Or maybe it is really hard to come by, which could raise the price if it's worth having, or lower the price if it's just not worth the effort. Or maybe there's a better one for just five more minutes of playtime.
[Note: The game staff stated reduced griefing is a project goal]