I disagree. Casual PvP is something where you can be in and out in 20 min with minimal consequences for win or loss (like arena), that’s why all the Fortnite/Valorant etc are so popular. Full-loot pvp in a persistent world where your loss today affects what you do tomorrow is not casual in any way.
It entirely depends on what that loss represents. On top of that, they ended up changing the game entirely, so there was nothing keeping them from changing the full loot to inventory loot, or have an insurance etc. Overall it was not my point, my point was that the original excuse of the 180 change was just that, an excuse.
Again, I am not convinced. Rust/DayZ/EFT already have established communities and it is unlikely that most of those will abandon the games they are so invested in for some new MMO. Most of new players (like me) will read “full loot PVP” and not touch the game with the barge pole.
The perennial problem with pvp games is that people get invested in them much more than in PVE games, so the audience cannot be shared between different games as is the case with PVE. 3/4 of my FC in FFXIV plays GW2 or ESO between expansions, because most well designed PVE games do not require you to play it every day, unlike pvp games (EVE being exception where you can manage a lot of your activity via mobile app)
But if you won’t touch the game because it is written “full loot PVP”, others will. You assume Rust players won’t change game, but the players playing the 12 WoW clones will to play NW, a dumbed down version of any other PVE MMOG on the market today?
Also hardcore PVE games require daily involvement if you don’t want to fall behind. Haven’t touched one in years but I am sure this hasn’t changed.
Yes, I agree that’s why I said the decision was correct, but the execution was extremely poor. Had they made Wildstar clone with better graphics they would be printing money right now.
The whole point is that it started out as a PVP-centric game and that is my whole argument, not whether what AGS should have done or not at the beginning, but what it should have done once they had a game with a player base expecting that game. They should have stuck to what they had and they would probably have had less players at launch, but more players now that they are left with.
CCP in 2000-2002 consisted of ~20 people (AFAIK) and total outlay was something like 2 mln ISK (remember times before EUR?) so they could afford to sell ~40k-50k copies and recoup all dev costs. AGS with its 500 employees in most expensive place possible is not in a same boat.
First of all, while not good practice, Amazon can afford losing money. Secondly, AGS has 500 developers across many projects, some abandoned, some under development and unannounced.
My main grip is the change in direction to please a player base that they were obviously not going to please anyways, while keeping a semblance of an inkling of PVP to keep their original player base. They cash grabbed both groups and left both groups with nothing.
AGS with NW as a PVP-centric game had its chance, because it was a very casual “harcore” PVP game (and I have played most PVP-centric MMOGs for the last 20 years and developed MMOGs for the last 10 years). It was made very accessible, which is what most hardcore PVP games have never had - even successful games, such as Rust. The loss was never that bad because gaining items back was not that hard either.
From both alphas, they had a pretty unique game and a pretty unique approach to a PVP MMOG and I believe it would have had a good success.
My other grip is honestly that PVE players went into the alpha, complained about the game being PVP, got the game changed into PVE (or rather, AGS wanted to make more money), and then left anyways. Why? Because it was a PVP game in the first place, expecting it was going to become a great PVE games was a dream in the first place.
