You’re welcome. Sadly, though, it’s easier to find a game with them than without. Most major publishers shove them in at launch now, or soon after.
There are everything from XP boosts to make the already super grindy game a little less grindy (that’s not much of a “boost”, in my opinion. You basically pay more money to make a game feel playable) to actual Pay to Win crap (buy this OP gun, and kill every one in Multiplayer) to Cosmetic “only” (like Loot boxes in OverWatch. But, as someone who loves character customization/cosmetics and feel they are part of the game, I find even things like OverWatch’s system to be a bit crap. Especially, because you only get 1 box per level up and they feel grindy, fast. The game is fun, but a bit of a bummer if you care about cosmetics too, like I do).
My point is, there is a lot of this bs stuff in Premium games too. Not to mention all the other crap they want you to buy: Season Pass for DLC they haven’t even made yet, Pre-Order “bonuses” that feel like something that should have been in-game already (ie, it was “craved out” from the game to make it look like a “bonus”), etc.
The Triple A game industry has gotten pretty toxic the last few years. Some games are as bad, if not worse, than some F2P titles. As I said, there are a few “saving grace” ones among them, like Nintendo’s stuff, God of War and Spider-Man for PS4, and such.
But, mostly, long seems to be the days where you buy a game for $60 and you get a full, well balanced, game. To quote Jim Sterling: “$60 is just the shell price” now.
If you are wanting everything asap, then it can become a chore. I always enjoyed this game because there was never a need to spend money on anything. Most other F2P I find you almost need to spend money. I buy the ring of wonder just to support the game.
I don’t play many AAA games. Overwatch has boxes, but after playing it for 8 months found there to be no reason to buy boxes. (though if you are not interested in collecting every item, there is no reason to buy boxes at all).
Many AAA companies release a game, and then continue to work on adding new things to the game. The $60 covers the game they created up to release, then it is either a shop for items to pay for the new content, or paid DLC season pass. The reason this was not the case years ago was when a AAA game was complete, it was released and the company started making a new game, instead of continuing to work on more content.
I took business and accounting classes in collage, so I often look at it from the company point of view instead of the consumer.
Yeah, but it’s pretty easy to get something PS2 era or earlier these days and that still gives you hundreds of dang fine games. That said, the most ethical of the new games tend to come from Nintendo on their consoles. The stuff they make on phones is just gacha garbage so yeah. Consoles.
Even there, they’ve toyed with some elements of taking payments. My favorite was what they did with Pokemon Rumble: “Free to Start”. It was an F2P game. You could buy stuff via microtransactions to deal with the timers and other limitations. But if you spent $30 worth of microtransactions… the store closed. Instead, you got a device that cut all game timers in half and generated free money every hour. So… it’s free to play, or $30 to convert it to a normal game. “Free to start”. It was a neat idea.
And if that’s not your gig, we’ve got about a century of film or several centuries of literature.
It’s the weirdest thing to me when people say they’re bored?
For me, the.guild life made it a chore to play…too demanding. So? I left my guild, formed my own guild and now? I play at my own pace…no pressure…the game is fun again!
Gems chore factor is pretty much down to the individual and his/her aspirations within the game. In the past, guild reqs were mostly no big deal as long as you had the desire and free time to do your bit and have fun experimenting along the way to mix it up. The bombardment of events has completely changed this as players, particularly in high end guilds become consumed by the ludicrous amount of content awaiting them on a daily basis. Free time becomes chore time and there is very little (if any ) time to work on new teams and have some fun. Even if you do have experimentation time, you are compelled to boost a class at a time because there is no flexibility on offer thanks to the 50 gem class change premium. It’s hard work…do your dailies, do your sigils on whatever weekly event is on offer and then try and squeeze in some play time before returning to the event at the end of the week when all free sigils have accrued. Delves have restricted ‘play time’ yet further because only a few classes are suitable and you’ve probably maxed those already. The grind is very real if you are an ambitious player but it’s down to you whether you burn out or not. Finding a guild that matches your available time and contribution level will keep things fun but if you want to compete seriously then you will reach burnout and despair sooner than you expected. Way too much new content and it’s getting worse all the time. New class event tomorrow, new faction every month and a new Kingdom on the way in the new year. Someone needs to put the brakes on sharpish and give players a chance to breathe. Great players are leaving in numbers and replacements are scarce. Implosion is assured if this ludicrous approach continues.