Free to play?

[Ippolit]

Honestly I'd rather just spend $10 and own the game and everything in it than play a free to play game with microtransactions.

[Stroom]

From the Catan Universe forums you can find that:

The base game is free, you have to pay for expansions. With smaller microtransactions you can temporarily lock expansions. By paying more, you can unlock them permanently. I think around 25$ you can unlock all (current) expansions.

BUT! The base game is only free with the "default map". Meaning that to unlock the random map, you still have to buy something. Something around €4. What's the most fun part about this is that the map randomizer is not even working properly to ensure more balanced maps - two same numbers can be adjacent. Also, in PlayCatan the previous online Catan version, random map was already free and implemented correctly (spiral number placement). The developers have insisted that it be kept this way. As with many other feature requests.

[Ippolit]

Sounds like you're not a big fan of this game.

[Ippolit]

Originally posted by Stroom:

From the Catan Universe forums you can find that:

The base game is free, you have to pay for expansions. With smaller microtransactions you can temporarily lock expansions. By paying more, you can unlock them permanently. I think around 25$ you can unlock all (current) expansions.

BUT! The base game is only free with the "default map". Meaning that to unlock the random map, you still have to buy something. Something around €4. What's the most fun part about this is that the map randomizer is not even working properly to ensure more balanced maps - two same numbers can be adjacent. Also, in PlayCatan the previous online Catan version, random map was already free and implemented correctly (spiral number placement). The developers have insisted that it be kept this way. As with many other feature requests.

That makes me really sad. I was hoping for a good Catan game. I might just have to settle for Table Top simulator.

[Stroom]

I was a fan of the previous version, PlayCatan. The current version is a watered down version of that because the developers want to make PC gamers play on the same terms as tablet players. Therefore a lot of useful features had to go.

[Ippolit]

Originally posted by Stroom:

I was a fan of the previous version, PlayCatan. The current version is a watered down version of that because the developers want to make PC gamers play on the same terms as tablet players. Therefore a lot of useful features had to go.

Damn. Wasn't PlayCatan really buggy before they took it down and they stopped working on it?

[Stroom]

Not really. I never had issues with that game and I played there a lot.

The only major issues PlayCatan had for me was with people abusing the timer system and being jerks when the game did not go their way. The same thing was far worse in Catan Universe early access phase. Also in PlayCatan the server always needed a 5 minute restart every day for some reason. Not really that bad but still annoying. Other than that, it was awesome.

As far as I have seen, USM and exozet Catan implementations have always had bugs in them and fixes generally take at least 2 months, even for the most simple things. For instance the chat window did not have word wrap when it came out. If you write a long text, you can see the first 30 characters, the rest is hidden. Adding word wrap to a text area is literally one line of code. Taking all that into account, I would really like to see PlayCatan continue to be the official online Catan version for PC gamers.

[Ippolit]

Originally posted by Stroom:

Not really. I never had issues with that game and I played there a lot.

The only major issues PlayCatan had for me was with people abusing the timer system and being jerks when the game did not go their way. The same thing was far worse in Catan Universe early access phase. Also in PlayCatan the server always needed a 5 minute restart every day for some reason. Not really that bad but still annoying. Other than that, it was awesome.

As far as I have seen, USM and exozet Catan implementations have always had bugs in them and fixes generally take at least 2 months, even for the most simple things. For instance the chat window did not have word wrap when it came out. If you write a long text, you can see the first 30 characters, the rest is hidden. Adding word wrap to a text area is literally one line of code. Taking all that into account, I would really like to see PlayCatan continue to be the official online Catan version for PC gamers.

I hope so too. I love Catan :(

[Saarlouis Isreit]

Maybe for people who had not the luck to play on PlayCatan.de (like me) will like Universe because we do not know all of those comfort functions.

[SwagGoalleo]

Originally posted by MacMalarkey:

Honestly I'd rather just spend $10 and own the game and everything in it than play a free to play game with microtransactions.

There will be one time purchases only. You will be able to buy gold in game to unlock expansions or customizations options. Why Gold? All Purchases are connected to your account therefore you will be able to use the same unlocks on other platforms (e.g mobile)

[Stroom]

Can we get a refund if we do not like the quality of the game?

[Stuntman PixelJudge.com]

Originally posted by SandlerKönig:

Originally posted by MacMalarkey:

Honestly I'd rather just spend $10 and own the game and everything in it than play a free to play game with microtransactions.

There will be one time purchases only. You will be able to buy gold in game to unlock expansions or customizations options. Why Gold? All Purchases are connected to your account therefore you will be able to use the same unlocks on other platforms (e.g mobile)

Can you have that as a steam purchase and not only in game? At the moment if you remove the game it will disappear from your library but if we were to buy it it would stay.

[USM [CM]]

Originally posted by Stuntman PixelJudge.com:

Originally posted by SandlerKönig:

There will be one time purchases only. You will be able to buy gold in game to unlock expansions or customizations options. Why Gold? All Purchases are connected to your account therefore you will be able to use the same unlocks on other platforms (e.g mobile)

Can you have that as a steam purchase and not only in game? At the moment if you remove the game it will disappear from your library but if we were to buy it it would stay.

It will be connected to your account. Since we are aming for crossplatform this is the way to go if we do not want our useres to pay duoble let´s say if they also want to play on their phne in the future.

[Stuntman PixelJudge.com]

Originally posted by Catan Universe CM:

Originally posted by Stuntman PixelJudge.com:

Can you have that as a steam purchase and not only in game? At the moment if you remove the game it will disappear from your library but if we were to buy it it would stay.

It will be connected to your account. Since we are aming for crossplatform this is the way to go if we do not want our useres to pay duoble let´s say if they also want to play on their phne in the future.

That is actually a good argument...

...but for collectors like me, we can pay for games but want to have them on our accounts as free 2 play games don't tend to "stick" to it. Adding a DLC would also help as that would bind the game to each account. Ubisoft used to use DLC only for key distribution (and downloading) where you would still have to activate the key via Uplay.

Or better yet, how about adding an extra option to buy it on the cheap for those who want it (it adds a +1 to your game count). Even if its just for few weeks :)

[LordOfDarkFlame]

I absolutely hate inapp purchases to the point where I boycott games that do that horrible strategy. Cut the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out and just release your extra's as DLC even tho you are aiming for cross-platform. Figure out a system where the DLC register's into an account for multiple platforms than.

[Stuntman PixelJudge.com]

Originally posted by LordOfDarkFlame:

I absolutely hate inapp purchases to the point where I boycott games that do that horrible strategy. Cut the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ out and just release your extra's as DLC even tho you are aiming for cross-platform. Figure out a system where the DLC register's into an account for multiple platforms than.

And not to mention that buying via Steam in general is way more convenient too. Very few people (comparatively) bother with registering to buy ingame but a lot more buy DLC.