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sabrage wrote:

MrPopo wrote:Which part? The part where I'm right because Tryn is only OP in low level play

Funny, that's the first time you've ever said that. Tryndamere is easily countered, sure, but if he wasn't countered and he was played by anyone with basic motor function then he could easily steamroll teams. If that's not overpowered... Oh wait he got nerfed to shit, so clearly it was.

Tryn's nerf was mainly on his Q, because with enough fury he could stay in lane forever. He wasn't necessarily useful in lane, but he could chill there as long as he felt like farming. He's only had one or two viable builds forever now, is terrible early-game, easily harassed to be useless late-game. People just complain because of his Endless Rage.

Given, there are some very OP champions. Sion comes to mind. Tryndamere however is not one of them.

AmishSamurai wrote:

sabrage wrote:

MrPopo wrote:Which part? The part where I'm right because Tryn is only OP in low level play

Funny, that's the first time you've ever said that. Tryndamere is easily countered, sure, but if he wasn't countered and he was played by anyone with basic motor function then he could easily steamroll teams. If that's not overpowered... Oh wait he got nerfed to shit, so clearly it was.

He wasn't necessarily useful in lane, but he could chill there as long as he felt like farming.

That's what laning is. That's all you need to do on a hard carry like Tryn.

J T wrote:That may be, but this is StarCraft II! The game sold 1.5 million copies in the first 48 hours of its release. It is the fastest selling realtime strategy game of ALL TIME. Surely, by most metrics, StarCraft II is still a huge success. I get the business logic Activision is using, I just find it incredibly sad that one of the top selling (and well crafted) games of our time is not even considered a success under the new business model that finds that trickling out content through a pay-as-you-go system is so much better for making money.

It's also sad that while game designers may strive to become the next Will Wright, Shigeru Miaymoto, John Carmack, Hideo Kojima, or Warren Spector, all of those dreams won't matter much in the new market if they can't help their corporate leaders become the next Zynga.

I hear you, I really do.

The problem is that there are successful sales metrics, and a successful bottom line. While selling one million copies of any game is a laudable achievement, it's less so if it's not providing an acceptable profit margin. It sucks that we're in an era where it costs so much to make top-tier games that even selling a million copies does not provide an acceptable (if at all) ROI!

If you compare games to say, the movie industry, they have multiple streams to recoup their investment. From the initial run in theatres, to consumer media sales, to streaming licensing deals, to hotels, to rentals, to television syndication, the list goes on! One product has multiple reaches. A game company can invest a similar amount of time and money in the creation of their product, and they've got retail sales and digital downloads. In that context, the importance of DLC, microtransactions, F2P becomes that much more apparent.

It seems to me that we need to figure out a way to roll with the industry changing. Freemium is going to be king for a while. What is it that we can do to ensure freemium doesn't become all there is?

sabrage wrote:There were 3-4 characters out of a roster of 70+ that could deal with him. The communities of ArmA, Paradox games et al. are far more accommodating and friendly than LoL. There's really no room for argument here, those are facts.

Every champion with a stun and every champion with a root counters him.

And I'm not disagreeing with that latter statement. It doesn't invalidate my statement. Every online game is full of assholes. ArmA might have less, but they're still there and still suck.

The main problem I have with majority of F2P MMORPGs is that the economy is fucked up, and the in game currency is completely devalued.

This is because the games require rare/unique gear and items to be competitive during higher levels (even against monsters), and most of said needed items cannot be purchased in npc stores, rather, they'd have to be farmed from high level monsters by high level players, bought through real money transaction, or bought from the high level players who would vend them.

The scenario has a few things that don't add up

- none of the in game currency is being spent on npc stores (or currency deleters), so they just revolve around all the players and accumulate (which results in the currency being devalued over time. Ragnarok Online is the worst offender in this. It used to be that 100k zenny was a huge amount, but nowadays the stuff that players sell for 100k zenny are sold for hundreds of millions of zenny, or not at all as the vendors prefer exchanging them for other high end items or real money/premium points)
- the market place gets manipulated by high level players who have a means of control over prices and will hoard high level items (one nifty trick they do is pepper the market place with vending characters that extremely overprice items, and then have another character sell the same items in slightly less, but still overpriced rates)
- the games eventually become inaccessible to newbies who don't want to use the premium or cheat (through 3rd party bots that let them farm low level items to be sold in bulk).


RE: the above problems, two F2p MMOs I can recommend are Champions Online and DC Universe Online.

Champions Online is perfect if you love character customization and hate grinding.

- The character creation is the best I have encountered in any game so far, I mean, the only game I know that can beat it in terms of what you can create is The Sims. You want your character to look exactly like Superman, Hulk, Iron Man, Adam Warlock, or even Son Goku? You can. Only problem is with the logos/emblems. Naturally, they won't include copyrighted stuff.
- The look of your character is not dependent on the gear you wear, and you can change/modify the costume anytime (for a cost, though - using the in-game currency, there's no need to pay real money.) The gears only improve stats.
- The game is not grindy at all. The max level is only 40, and you don't really need to fight random monsters at all as you can level up through quests, which kind of gives the game a bit more direction.
- you get travel powers at level 5 (immediately, if you skip the tutorial stage), so there's no need to spend money on mounts and warps
- The stories remind me of golden age plots (time travel, superheroes dying, vengeful gods, alien invasions, mobsters, etc.)

The catch with the game is just extra customization content and extra convenient items (like xp modifiers, bundled buffing items, etc)

DC Universe Online is pretty much the same, but with less customization.But you also don't need to depend on gear for your look. Once you get a specific gear, you can change into that look without changing the equipment you are wearing. Also:

- One of the game's "catch" actually works in its favor re economy. The game caps free players' wallet to 2000, when you have 2000, you won't be able to earn anymore and whatever else you earn is thrown to an escrow service, which you can only withdraw through premium purchase or by being a subscriber. The good thing about this is that the game doesn't become dependent on in game currency. And even market sellers acknowledge the cap so they have less of a tendency to overprice (if you price it above the f2p cap, the only people who will be able to buy your stuff are premium/veteran players, who are usually more familiar with market prices and stingy, and therefore, much harder to fleece)
- the game doesn't require you to be competitive against players, since you can disable PK and you won't be targeted. And instead of PVP, you can instead team up with other players for co-op missions.
- Like CO, DC Universe Online is not grindy. You can reach max level (30) without farming. You just go on quests or do instances with other players and you'll level up along the way.
- It's also not gear dependent until you reach end game dungeons/quests or if you want to PVP.

But my point was that LoL has the most vile, awful, hateful playerbase of any game I've ever played (though I never did much care for Xbox Live) and that point still stands.

sabrage wrote:But my point was that LoL has the most vile, awful, hateful playerbase of any game I've ever played (though I never did much care for Xbox Live) and that point still stands.

I've seen worse. And my experience with LoL's playerbase hasn't been too bad. The people on the forums are way worse than anyone I meet in game. I think it helps that I don't actually try to engage anyone in conversation. You'd be surprised how easily rage goes away when you don't feed it.

MrPopo wrote:I've seen worse. And my experience with LoL's playerbase hasn't been too bad. The people on the forums are way worse than anyone I meet in game. I think it helps that I don't actually try to engage anyone in conversation. You'd be surprised how easily rage goes away when you don't feed it.

I rarely spoke to my team when I played. That didn't stop them from raging at each other/the other team/themselves.

sabrage wrote:

MrPopo wrote:I've seen worse. And my experience with LoL's playerbase hasn't been too bad. The people on the forums are way worse than anyone I meet in game. I think it helps that I don't actually try to engage anyone in conversation. You'd be surprised how easily rage goes away when you don't feed it.

I rarely spoke to my team when I played. That didn't stop them from raging at each other/the other team/themselves.

I guess you must be encountering a lower class of player than me.

MrPopo wrote:

sabrage wrote:

MrPopo wrote:I've seen worse. And my experience with LoL's playerbase hasn't been too bad. The people on the forums are way worse than anyone I meet in game. I think it helps that I don't actually try to engage anyone in conversation. You'd be surprised how easily rage goes away when you don't feed it.

I rarely spoke to my team when I played. That didn't stop them from raging at each other/the other team/themselves.

I guess you must be encountering a lower class of player than me.

That must be it. I'll tell ya when I get to Platinum, because they were pretty terrible in Gold.