This release model appears confused, backwards and self-defeating.

[Ranulfus]

Let's breakdown exactly why this release model is poorly thought out. There are two main issues present here, first is confusion of purchase and second is confusion of value .

Confusion of Purchase

The current purchase is a "preview", however it is has been titled "early access". These two things have very different connotations in the market; by calling the purchase "early access" you're giving the impression to customers that they are buying "the game" in its playable state.

That plainly isn't the case though and not only is the actual game supposedly free-to-play, but the preview does not even include the full offer of content on launch day. There will be no multiplayer, which was advertised as the true selling point. No amount of public relations word salad will make this confusion go over well with on-the-fence customers and onlookers come July 30th.

Even more concerning, based on the language in the ultimate pack, I am led to believe that you are selling chapters 2 & 3 which won't even be available at the time of the preview; making the highest tier effectively a dead investment for an additional $20-35. This will go poorly.

What's really absurd is that other companies have had better methods of marketing this sort of thing for a decade. Nowadays they call these things "supporter" tiers/editions and price them slightly above a regular purchase with some extra doodads that elicit little-to-no controversy. Whoever put together this release model didn't even try to make it palatable.

Finally, this sort of thing is reminiscent of confusion-based marketing which is the hallmark of knock-off shovelware games that aim to deprive grandma of her pension around Christmas time- it won't work in the modern market where the grandkids are old enough to make their own purchases and it's not good optics that you tried to take gran-gran's money anyways.

Confusion of Value

There is a confusion here created by all these editions and the free-to-play model. Is this game a prestigious AAA $60 with all the bells and whistles? Is it a scrappy AA $40? Is it a bespoke Indie $25? Is it a get-rich-quick F2P that's terribly insecure about its own playerbase? The whole "special edition tiers" game that companies try to pull is already widely despised, so we'll just move on.

What's more concerning is a multiplayer-focused game in which creating new "accounts" is free. Just look at what happened to Team Fortress 2. You're opening the floodgates to all spoofers, spammers, botters, maphackers and other varieties of trolls to repeatedly haunt your product for the low material cost of $0. What good are ban waves, review tribunals and all the coping mechanisms of moderation- when a throwaway account is free and immediate?

It's also backwards that you're advertising the multiplayer as the focus while trying to make your money off the singleplayer . If you wanted to entice a playerbase from outside the usual RTS audience then handing them the multiplayer while telling them to pay up for the singleplayer is the opposite of what they're willing to do. It would make far more sense to hand them the singleplayer for free, which is what many are willing to try and will use to gauge their interest, then entice them with the promise of additional content and custom maps through purchasing the multiplayer. What good is grabbing a bunch of players through F2P if they don't stay for longer than a single match and decide not to purchase based on that match?

Conclusion

Come July 30th, there will be an explosion of outrage and confusion regarding the release model. Come August 12th, there will be an explosion of review bombing. And come August 26th, there will be an explosion of bots, maphacks, and trolls. This plan is a bad idea.

[Exothermic]

"There will be no multiplayer."
There will absolutely be multiplayer in the 2 week preview window. It's everything in the EA launch, just 2 weeks earlier.

Yes, they are including things in the bundle that won't be available right away, largely in the form of the campaign chapters. It's basically a preorder, not a "dead investment." Now, maybe you just don't want to preorder. That's fine, you can buy them individually as they become available. Also, they had the "supporter" type things you referred to in the already very successful Kickstarter.

I don't really see what's confusing about any of this, tbh, but maybe that's because I've been so closely watching the game for so long, I'm not seeing it from the perspective of someone who doesn't already know these things.

Regarding free multiplayer accounts, it's not really that big of an issue in StarCraft 2, and that's been F2P for almost 7 years.

They have not been advertising multiplayer as the singular focus. It's just one thing they're doing, but it's also the easiest one to get working first. Thus, it's what we've been shown a lot of. The plan, at least in theory, is to focus equally in the long run on 1v1 multiplayer, 3v3 multiplayer, 3vE co-op, campaign (single player and some form of co-op), and the map editor. That's what they've been saying for years.

Also, some of the single player WILL be free. There's a three mission prologue campaign chapter that's basically a tutorial that will be free, so they're already doing the thing you suggested, kind of.

[Terotrous]

There is clearly a lot of confusion in the OP, so you're not wrong in that they need to be more clear about what you're getting for your purchase.

For starters, this game is not really F2P, and I feel they probably shouldn't call it that, because when people hear a game is F2P they have certain expectations about how they game will work. Stormgate is predominantly a standard "buy to play" game, however, you can play the 1v1 Vs mode for free, or play co-op mode with 1 character. Everything else in the game requires you to pay. Notably, it seems like there is no way to "earn" the purchasable content, as there would be in any other F2P game.

Secondly, multiplayer is obviously in the game from day 1, it's the single player content that will not be fully finished. It looks like the prologue and first chapter of the campaign, probably around 6 missions total, will be available, the rest is coming later. You're probably right in that this means the most expensive bundle isn't much different from the middle bundle at launch, but it does clearly state that the campaign content won't be there right at the start.

[Lelouch]

> It's also backwards that you're advertising the multiplayer as the focus while trying to make your money off the singleplayer .

War chests/cosmetics is for both for multiplayer and solo. But usually player buy more skins to show them in multiplayer.

Coop is also multiplayers.

Campaign has a coop mode too (and your friend does not need to buy the campaign to play with you, only one needs to buy it !)

Most people want to bring them friend with them on the game. If the basic coop/multiplayer experience is not F2P then usually friends will just not play the game at all (and an RTS on top of that)

[Wavefront]

if I buy deluxe EA pack, will I have all future heroes? if I buy ultimate EA pack, will I have all future campaigns? I will buy it now if the answer is yes. But I cannot find any statement about this.

[Proskill]

Originally posted by Wavefront:

if I buy deluxe EA pack, will I have all future heroes? if I buy ultimate EA pack, will I have all future campaigns? I will buy it now if the answer is yes. But I cannot find any statement about this.

lol no. the answer is no.

[Exothermic]

Originally posted by Wavefront:

if I buy deluxe EA pack, will I have all future heroes? if I buy ultimate EA pack, will I have all future campaigns? I will buy it now if the answer is yes. But I cannot find any statement about this.

There's a graphic on the store page for each pack listing the things you get.

[FrostGiantGerald]

Originally posted by Terotrous:

There is clearly a lot of confusion in the OP, so you're not wrong in that they need to be more clear about what you're getting for your purchase.

For starters, this game is not really F2P, and I feel they probably shouldn't call it that, because when people hear a game is F2P they have certain expectations about how they game will work. Stormgate is predominantly a standard "buy to play" game, however, you can play the 1v1 Vs mode for free, or play co-op mode with 1 character. Everything else in the game requires you to pay. Notably, it seems like there is no way to "earn" the purchasable content, as there would be in any other F2P game.

You are incorrect. To clarify:

- You can play ranked 1v1 with all three factions for free.
- You can play custom games with any of the three factions for free, including 1v1 and 2v2.
- You can play 3P co-op with all the Heroes in the game, for free, up to level 5.
- The first three "prologue missions" are also completely free.

[ChillFlame]

Originally posted by FrostGiantGerald:

Originally posted by Terotrous:

There is clearly a lot of confusion in the OP, so you're not wrong in that they need to be more clear about what you're getting for your purchase.

For starters, this game is not really F2P, and I feel they probably shouldn't call it that, because when people hear a game is F2P they have certain expectations about how they game will work. Stormgate is predominantly a standard "buy to play" game, however, you can play the 1v1 Vs mode for free, or play co-op mode with 1 character. Everything else in the game requires you to pay. Notably, it seems like there is no way to "earn" the purchasable content, as there would be in any other F2P game.

You are incorrect. To clarify:

- You can play ranked 1v1 with all three factions for free.
- You can play custom games with any of the three factions for free, including 1v1 and 2v2.
- You can play 3P co-op with all the Heroes in the game, for free, up to level 5.
- The first three "prologue missions" are also completely free.

It's basically multiplayer + trial for all PvE modes.
So you have to pay for campaign and commanders the same as P2P. You just get a trial for free.
If you're not interested in PvP, you get the worse version of P2P (you pay much more and have to wait for a long time to get a full campaign instead of getting it all at once).
I don't see any benefits for PvE players.

[ChillFlame]

To be fair, I would prefer P2P even as competitive PvP player. All PC F2P games' ladder is a nightmare. Cheaters, bots, scripters, smurfs. There's no real way to deal with it. You can only make the game P2P and ban them so at least you get some money and they lose some.
Edit: Let me finish with my favourite Alarak quote: "Free-to-play is a delusion granted to the weak by the strong"

[FrostGiantGerald]

If you're interested in playing a lot of campaign content at once, you should hold off and come back for our 1.0 release, so you can play through the entire Vanguard campaign and likely some of the Infernal campaign as well. Early Access is not for players looking for a complete experience--it's for players who want to be an active part of the development journey.

It's perfectly OK to take a "wait and see" approach and come back later if your preference is to have more missions available to you when you dive in. You can always check back in whenever you like, as the core game experience is free and you're at literally no risk to check things out and see how the game is shaping up.

[ChillFlame]

Actually good answer, thanks.
As official response suggests, if you're interested in complete campaign experience, DO NOT PRE-ORDER OR BUY THE CAMPAIGN VIA MICROTRANSACTIONS BEFORE THE GAME RELEASES. Wait, calculate the exact price, read the rewievs and decide for yourself if you want to buy it.

[Terotrous]

Originally posted by FrostGiantGerald:

You are incorrect. To clarify:

- You can play ranked 1v1 with all three factions for free.
- You can play custom games with any of the three factions for free, including 1v1 and 2v2.
- You can play 3P co-op with all the Heroes in the game, for free, up to level 5.
- The first three "prologue missions" are also completely free.

I was aware that you got the first 3 missions and a few levels in co-op for free, though I didn't really think it was relevant to the point. No one who wants the game for the campaign is going to want to play only the first 3 missions, similarly being able to level a character until level 5 isn't really very relevant to the co-op mode. Having played SC2 Co-op commanders very extensively with all characters, the vast majority of heroes don't really function properly until high levels. For example, Kerrigan is not really a character until you get Omega Worms at level 8 and she doesn't feel good to play until you get the increased energy regeneration at level 15. Playing a character who is locked to level 5 would massively limit your overall power and is really only useful to see if you like their playstyle (though even then, it may not do this well as in the aforementioned example, Kerrigan feels terrible to play at early levels). If you don't have any other characters purchased, you're almost certainly just playing Blockade.

In any case, I stand by my statement that unless you're only here for the main pvp mode, you're almost certainly going to need to buy content to enjoy the game, and it doesn't function like what most people think of when they hear "F2P" as you can't grind daily missions / login bonuses to earn the premium content. It also should be noted that most of the industry has an extremely negative connotation of Free to Play business models in general, so I would be careful about throwing that term around lest it put off potential buyers.

(This should not really be taken as a criticism of the game, I think actually most people would vastly prefer this game's business model to a standard free to play one, so pointing out that you generally have to buy the content is a positive for the most part).

[Kuro466]

The point I agree with most here is the confusion of the double-application of "Pre-Purchase" and "Early Access".

Early Access is something you can buy to get you immediate access to play an unfinished game.

Pre-Purchase is something you do to spend money now for something that isn't finished yet, but you will own once it's finished.

Pre-Purchase Early Access is spending money now for an unfinished Early Access, but you will own once it's "somewhat more finished than today" and released as still-unfinished Early Access. Does that make any sense at all? I don't think so.

I think many users who click that button are not understanding, and are thinking they will get immediate access, like every other Early-Access game they have bought.

Doubly add to the confusion that I'm a Kickstarter Deluxe Founder's Pack supporter, and Steam is showing me these options to purchase Early Access, which is confusing, as the email says I'll have access to the Early Access because of my kickstarter.... I suppose this will be resolved at some point, or maybe the Steam Developer Preview I have installed will just "work" on July 30th? All of this adds to the confusion. I'm not concerned this will affect the quality of the game, but it may affect the playerbase.

----

I also agree that making a game F2P for the multiplayer playerbase, who will for the most part, play the game 100x-1000x more than anyone else.. is weird. It was weird for SC2, which I bought all three releases of before it went F2P. I've played over 5000 ranked games, but I only spent a few hours playing a tiny bit of the campaign. If multiplayer had been F2P from the beginning, I think they would have lost alot of revenue. (Their skins model also sucks)

I think the reason they make 1v1 free, is that impediments to people being able to get into 1v1 make the 1v1 playerbase smaller, which is just worse for a competitive matchmaker. I get that people create multiple accounts and smurf and stuff, but (a) this is not a problem 1v1, because you don't have teammates to ruin your game, (b) in team modes like 5v5 LoL, I don't think smurfs are the biggest problem, I think it's the feeders who play 1 ranked game a week/month and never derank or get better.

Keeping these "uber-casuals" from ruining ranked games is a hard problem... but I think some fixes might include: (a) during placements, apply a boost-adjustment to their rank/mmr based on in game performance stats (aka league KDA, or SC2 income graph, or whatever), which would more quickly settle them out of too high a rank. Yes, performance stats like don't "matter", but we could tell players that it does during placements, and people who actually care could play accordingly. (b) make playing ranked always a "ranked series" where you have to commit to only play ranked for the next 10 games, (or maybe for the whole season!), this would keep people from pushing the ranked button once a week just to tank a game and then go back to messing around in normals, (c) never have both ranked and normal for the same game mode... The competitive game (aka 5v5 in LoL) should always be ranked. (d) charge some token-amount to join each ranked season (like $5) -- Though while these ideas might "fix something" it comes at the cost of breaking something else. Again, it's a hard problem.

That said, I'm not convinced Riot actually wants to stop the trolls and matchmaking issues in ranked... because the more they exist, the more LoL is a matchmaker gambling slot machine, which psychologists have proven is more addictive than a purely skill based challenge. (in the latter, players tend to quickly settle at their current rank, can see they are the limit, and tend not to want to do the work to get better, like in SC2 1v1 or online chess or go-weiqi-igo-baduk, so they quit and go back to League where they can blame the randomness)

[N'Zoth]

My question is if we buy rightnow do we have access to multiplayer? I see other people playing and honestly I’d like to experience it, I played SC:WOL all the way to the end years later, I’ve been dying for an era like this for years

[Nico]

Originally posted by N'Zoth:

My question is if we buy rightnow do we have access to multiplayer? I see other people playing and honestly I’d like to experience it, I played SC:WOL all the way to the end years later, I’ve been dying for an era like this for years

As you can see on the steam site, the release date for the Early Access release is on July 30th, so no, you can't play before that date.

Also, on Aug 13th is the free2play release date, the 2 weeks prior to this are called the 'preview weeks', for those who bought any EA bundles.