Monetized Pokemon for the PC...

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PhoneLobster
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Monetized Pokemon for the PC...

Post by PhoneLobster »

Hey look. It's Moonrise, kickstarted no less, because hey this one is just that good about being independent on it's financing.

Hey look. It's promoting itself online a bunch lately as "the online PC pokemon game everyone has always been waiting for!".

Hey look. It looks pretty and stuff, might be good...

Hey look. It's coming out on Steam like, tomorrow.

Hey look. It's double dipping the speculative finance with Early Access.

Hey look. It's going the full hog on that with early access exclusive in game benefits.

Hey look. It's doing that but with tiered rewards to sucker you into spending more money.

Hey look. It's actually NOT a PC game, it's actually just a fucking phone game that's launching on PC first. So, a large part of the sheer beefy machine and advanced interface potential "pokemon but for the PC" could have is right out the window, don't worry I'm sure it will all be fine.

Hey look. Those packages mention random monster booster packs, monster quality by rarity, and gems, keys and tickets as currency.

Hey look. It's (eventually, after milking the overly impulsive) going free to play.

Hey look. Those fucking tickets are a "wait for energy to be allowed to play" facebook type mechanic. But don't worry they JUST NOW took that out. No mention of the bits where they didn't and actually its still in. You know, like say... the multiplayer bit.

Hey look. Keys and gems and such? They're your currency for being allowed to catch the monsters you find. Don't worry, you are allowed to catch one monster for free every 30 minutes of play. Out of 125 monsters. So that's up to a maximum of 62.5 hours barring evolution, free monsters and the odd free key, unless you pay.

Hey look. Thats 62.5 hours for a game already going to a form of paid release proudly proclaiming it's whole 10 hours of single player content, and it's wait for energy (or pay) gated multiplayer.

Hey look... ah just fuck it... NEXT!
Last edited by PhoneLobster on Wed May 27, 2015 7:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Shrapnel
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Post by Shrapnel »

That sounds... horrible.
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nockermensch
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Post by nockermensch »

Other than "battles that look more animated" what's exactly the difference between this and mobile money-grubbing trash like say, Rage of Bahamut?
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Just play the battling part of Pokemon with http://play.pokemonshowdown.com/
PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster »

nockermensch wrote:Other than "battles that look more animated" what's exactly the difference between this and mobile money-grubbing trash like say, Rage of Bahamut?
Basically nothing. While it may not be ported to Android and some other phones yet, there is some suggestion the thing is actually a port FROM a possibly foriegn language phone game in the fist place anyway.

Also it's even worse of a cash scam than I have so far depicted.

According to the steam forums you ALSO pay gold to enter dungeons, pay gold for all you items, pay gold to level up your not-pokemon, and pay gold to evolve your not pokemon.

Also, possibly most insidiously, when you overwrite your not-pokemon's skills you get to keep them forever to stick onto other not-poekmon. BUT it also costs gold to learn skills and if you don't pay when the opportunity pops up... you not only don't get to keep the old skill, you LOSE THE NEW AND BETTER SKILL FOREVER.

Now gold is an in game resource you earn by doing in game things. But you ALSO can just pay real money to have gold. So yeah, make one guess as to which side of "enough to level/evolve/learn skills ie JUST FUCKING PLAY" the gold earning rate without paying real money will likely tend to be on especially as those prices all inflate with progress.

And is that not scammy enough for you? How about this.

The game isn't free to play, it ostensibly will be but its in stupid paid beta early access (to pay to have access to the game you then get the luxury of paying more to continue to play).

But despite not being free to play it ACTS like it is on the steam store page. You look in the store, or at least I do, and it says I own the game and I can click play game and download it like any free to play. Buuuut... then when you go to play it... the play game button becomes a purchase button and yeah screw that.

That not scammy enough for you?

Well for a number of hours after release actually it DID act fully like a free to play and let people play for free. For just a few hours until they "fixed" the "accident" that was "totally steam's fault". And then their discussions were flooded with "wait... this isn't free", "just buy it, I bought it the moment they fixed the error that let me get just exactly the amount of taste that f2p bait and switch pay wall psychology uses to hook you!"

THAT not scammy enough for you?

The moment this game went to early access release the reviews section was flooded with seemingly exclusively glowing positive reviews short on useful details few/none of which mentioned pay walls and payment related mechanics.

Starting, oh, I'd make a wild guess and say approximately the moment the developers time zone all went to bed, the reviews coming in switched to far more detailed and exclusively negative, plunging the game's average rating all the way down through mostly positive to "mixed" which is just short of as bad as you get for a steam game that isn't actually made out of letters flat out spelling "fuck you" written in actual poop the user can genuinely smell and feel.

So yeah. My confidence in this game's "trustworthiness" to "get right" the balance points of some of the the most odious pay wall mechanics no company has ever "done right" or for that matter conceptually COULD "do right" remains pretty rock bottom.

I think having followed it enough to be this invested in it I now pretty much HAVE to play it and in some way, somewhere "report" on it "in person" as it were like some sort of raving loon with an "world is ending" sign on a street corner, but no way in fuck am I doing that until I can actually do so for actual free. Because potentially affordable prices aside, I'm pretty sure it is flat out wrong to throw money rewards at the assholes putting this one out there.
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PhoneLobster
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Post by PhoneLobster »

Update from SMIRKISTAN

The game, without leaving early access, is being discontinued, apparently because it had about zero staying power with players who in general dropped it after a day or to of "free play" bullshit instead of forking out millions in payments to not wait.

Those people who played in early access, paid for it. And will get dick all and the game will be flat out shut down, as an online thing, leaving nothing.

SUCKERS
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