Warrior General Games

i'm on the fence about coming back and I fear that's true of much of my coaching and playing staff on the Vase Breakers

It's very hard to justify the cost of the game, this is my far the most expensive MMO I've ever played and it's still in beta

I enjoy the game but the incomplete nature and lack of basic documentation means I feel the need to do a lot of scrimmaging to understand the play calling mechanics a bit better and that costs money

even just letting us do internal scrimmages (offense vs. defense) for free would help a ton and also help us get a better handle on what play A does and how one can get a zone to fire only in certain circumstances etc.

Boosts cost too much (for me) to keep affording on 20+ players - now that could mean I retire my guys and get folks from the marketplace to play, but unless you were to allow for full and free respecs of players that means that in general I'll get builds that are significantly inferior and thus will torpedo my team

Free internal scrimmages, free respecs - complete at least twice, then you can reduce them if you feel the need, cut boost costs a bit and I think you'd have a better and more profitable game in the long term because people would boost more of their guys if it was cheaper (so that would likely be a wash) and here is the deal, they'd play more seasons

at least that is my theory

anyway - that's my suggestion set

I agree with everything you've said. One of the reasons why I wish they would adopt some kind of subscription plan like other MMO's have at times.

Though I did buy more flex a season or two ago (200$!) Even though I love the game - I'm at a point where I just can't spend any more money on it. Particularly not multi hundreds at a crack.

At this point - even though I really like the game -- and think the sim is zeroing in on a very good place - and really enjoy the player building aspects and the game planning aspects -- the clock is ticking for me. It is just too expensive (yes - I've chosen to make it expensive by building my own team mostly - but I've found that just having players on a team isn't that interesting to me -- and recruiting is just not a fun thing for me)

for my older players - I haven't even bought the extra action points...just can't afford it -- and I'm already trying to consider which players I can reasonable stop boosting in a season or two without hurting too much.



(quick side note - I'd estimate that I spent 500-700 on GLB1...maybe more) So I'm about 1000$ invested into GLB probably - and I know I'm not anywhere near a 'big spender' for this game.

eh, the fact is, pricing's not going to change. you're simply going to have to recruit a wider network of agents if you want to defray the costs.

Game was priced to accomodate all manner of players. It accomodates the whales out there who do like to spend a car payment on their gaming habits. It's also completely free to play as well if you just run a single player and/or do coordinating.

The new team I'm organizing starting next season has exactly 1 player so far that will be built by myself. A Superstar Free Safety. I've got 18 other agents building players for the team. The builds are being discussed and hashed out well ahead of time, so expectations are known. They all know that if they don't build according to the plan, they'll lose their spots on the roster. The team's also being built in such a way that the coordinating time/effort involved should be incredibly minimal.

It's quite possible to put together a very well organized team with a large list of agents. The #1 mistake made by a young new network of agents, such as the loungers, is they build too many different teams, and exhaust their real world resources (time and money for player building, team ownership, and coordinating).

There's a reason you see guys like Adderfist get burned out. It was cool when he won 4 or 5 championships as a DC in season 2. That comes at a cost though. It's a very significant time sink. Most folks really shouldn't be involved with more than 1-2 teams from an organizational standpoint. Scattering players around is easier, so long as the money isn't a strain.

and, fwiw, the term beta is meaningless today. People are paying $100+ to get access to alpha tests as founders for games that might not even ever get released to a finished state. Anyone here really think EQ Landmark is going to be anything more than a glorified developers tool they built and sold as a game?

I can download the Unity engine for free and do the same crap you can do in Landmark.

We all complain about paying for unfinished products, but we're all clearly willing to pay more and more for a product at increasingly lower thresholds of completeness by gaming software standards. Why would gaming companies invest massive resources into finishing games when they've already gotten the money from the consumer up-front?

I hear horror stories all the time from folks I've known that buy spec homes still in construction. They have to jump through hoops to get the contractor to finish it out how they want. I just shrug my shoulders. Don't buy an unfinished product if you're not happy with it's current state.

Yeah I think it's silly to say "boosts cost too much (for me) to keep affording on 20+ players". Easy answer is to not own 20+ players. Maybe 5 is your healthy number. GLB accommodates for a wide variance of players. In terms of free respecs, that'd just be a mistake. That's a "hey we created this fun strategy-centered game, but by the way you can figure everything out with free respecs".

Also, the whole 'beta' thing that people bring up is just a language issue. We're not beta testers like we've gotten some invite to test a game and provide feedback. We're paying to play, the beta tag merely signifies the game being a fluctuating/changing environment.

I can't really give a great gaming example, but it's like how Gmail carried the beta label for years and years. It's basically a perpetual beta environment.

Originally posted by InRomoWeTrust
Yeah I think it's silly to say "boosts cost too much (for me) to keep affording on 20+ players". Easy answer is to not own 20+ players. Maybe 5 is your healthy number. GLB accommodates for a wide variance of players. In terms of free respecs, that'd just be a mistake. That's a "hey we created this fun strategy-centered game, but by the way you can figure everything out with free respecs".

I agree on the need for pay-to-respec players, however I wish it would be the entire career of the player instead of just the past season.

There has to be a better way than just the previous season...

Perhaps it could be all points since the last respec?

Originally posted by InRomoWeTrust
Yeah I think it's silly to say "boosts cost too much (for me) to keep affording on 20+ players". Easy answer is to not own 20+ players. Maybe 5 is your healthy number. GLB accommodates for a wide variance of players. In terms of free respecs, that'd just be a mistake. That's a "hey we created this fun strategy-centered game, but by the way you can figure everything out with free respecs".

Also, the whole 'beta' thing that people bring up is just a language issue. We're not beta testers like we've gotten some invite to test a game and provide feedback. We're paying to play, the beta tag merely signifies the game being a fluctuating/changing environment.

I can't really give a great gaming example, but it's like how Gmail carried the beta label for years and years. It's basically a perpetual beta environment.

not really silly, I said, from my perspective it's too expensive

the answer you propose is I should cut my players - ok that reduces my cost and also part of what I like about the game, it's a possible solution and this may shock you but one I have considered

free respecs for 1 or 2 is a great way to help people fix their builds so they can find teams - hardly overpowering and creates a gateway for more people to enjoy the game

does reduce, a tiny bit, the e-peen of figuring out everything via brute force I guess

'beta' - words mean things, gmail btw is free ... yes if you acknowledge the game has substantial issues with regards to documentation, bug fixes etc. it's fine to do so .. usually that equates to a lower cost model if you plan to transition to a broader audience.

not likely to be the plan here so they can price it how they want obviously, from my perspective I've made an observation that the cost outweighs the current status of the game and suggested a cost correction

with predictable response so far

What's the benefit of them lowering their pricing from the company's perspective though Rom_Fox? If they're going to profit less from such a decision, it's a non-starter.

Originally posted by InRomoWeTrust
Yeah I think it's silly to say "boosts cost too much (for me) to keep affording on 20+ players". Easy answer is to not own 20+ players.

Honestly, boosts cost too much on a single player. Have you ever really thought about what your getting spending $2.50 on one ability point for a QB/HB/LB? Going from silver to gold in one thing is 3 points. Thats $7.50 for what basically amounts to a 20%~ increase in activation chance and a couple of bonus points in whatever you took. That's worse than Horse Armor.

The benefit of lowering cost is always increasing the number of "converted customers" (f2p to paid) who are pretty much always your most invested focus group. Those are the people who create the content that keeps your game interesting, like writeups, like fansites, like wiki management, like whatever. Those people make the content that attracts more free players, who may become paid players eventually.

Honestly, GLB just doesn't leverage it's player base well enough. This game would be so much better if there was more interesting fan created content, like maybe a podcast about the ladder (GLB Radio?), or a wiki that actually was useful to new players - but there is no incentive to do these things.

If I could get FP for making a wiki, we would have a fucking wiki already.

Originally posted by Galithor
What's the benefit of them lowering their pricing from the company's perspective though Rom_Fox? If they're going to profit less from such a decision, it's a non-starter.

Increased # of customers.

The game really is more expensive than most other MMO's. Heck, there are plenty of MMO's where the entire base game is free to play, and the game is supported by people spending money on cosmetics and convenience items.

Contrast that with GLB2 where even scrimmages to figure out the game cost money.

Anyway, while I agree with most of the stuff Rom said, I suspect it's not going to matter. The game is too niche, has too many competitors, and isn't even getting full support from the company anymore. It's unfortunate. I had fun, but prolly not enough to justify another season's worth of boosts given that real football is coming combined with a few other games that are already starting to eat more and more of my free time.

Originally posted by Laggo
Honestly, boosts cost too much on a single player. Have you ever really thought about what your getting spending $2.50 on one ability point for a QB/HB/LB? Going from silver to gold in one thing is 3 points. Thats $7.50 for what basically amounts to a 20%~ increase in activation chance and a couple of bonus points in whatever you took. That's worse than Horse Armor.

The benefit of lowering cost is always increasing the number of "converted customers" (f2p to paid) who are pretty much always your most invested focus group. Those are the people who create the content that keeps your game interesting, like writeups, like fansites, like wiki management, like whatever. Those people make the content that attracts more free players, who may become paid players eventually.

Honestly, GLB just doesn't leverage it's player base well enough. This game would be so much better if there was more interesting fan created content, like maybe a podcast about the ladder (GLB Radio?), or a wiki that actually was useful to new players - but there is no incentive to do these things.

If I could get FP for making a wiki, we would have a fucking wiki already.

this is the economics that would offset the drop in money from an individual person - there are formulas that talk about the loss rate vs. cost etc.

for instance if Xav and I were both to stop paying that's probably, guesstimating, 60-70 dollars a season gone (it may be more, I'm afraid to total it up) and that loss is every season going forward so over a year that's a bit of lost revenue

if the game were 1/3 the cost say and we stayed you'd recoup in 3 seasons and be ahead in 4+ which might, or might not happen

it's a tricky thing to figure out the optimum price point of a service

my suspicion is, and this will sound cynical, that they don't care about loss of revenue because the plan is really to transition to mighty brawlers as the main game and to let this one go on with the minimum amount of additional investment possible (the 'small profit but all profit' model). If MB takes off it may well have a higher ceiling than GLB2 and that would make it the better vehicle in which to invest time and effort.

Originally posted by Aeir
I agree on the need for pay-to-respec players, however I wish it would be the entire career of the player instead of just the past season.

There has to be a better way than just the previous season...

Perhaps it could be all points since the last respec?



this +1000

The last season respec irks me...I don't mind the paying for a respec, but it should be for the whole players build or like you said to previous respec

Originally posted by Rom_Fox
it's a tricky thing to figure out the optimum price point of a service


I dont think that there was any effort to even try to find an optium in a price strategy for GLB. Has there ever been a change of prices in GLB1 or GLB2?

I guess they prefer to milk the few high rollers and dont attempt to get more micro payment players. The business aspect of GLB was always something that I would like to get an inside view. And I would like to know how they came up with the prices for GLB1 and GLB2, probably RNG

I for one am not spending more money on this game. I agree allot with the OP and I never spent much money on this game in the first place but I have 40 flex remaining on my account and I am not buying anymore. This game is incredibly expensive for what it is.

prices seem reasonable to me