Always joked with my friends that the ArcheRage Private server has technically been around longer than most live servers due to all the fresh starts and merges... Looks like they are going to be on track to be around longer than live. Such an amazing game - horribly mismanaged. AA will always be special to me because it got me interested in learning basic Excel/PowerBI and general economics/business skills. I would not have the job in the industry I’m in today if it were not for that.
Its funny you say that, because before 9/11 I was a teacher and I got my students (most the boys) interested in learning economics, supply and demand, spreadsheets, etc because of video games.
i played archerage... is sooo much better that the original. archeage still have it flaws even without the microtransation but man.. the game have so much potention to be good.
well after AA now closing its doors in June i went and registered downloaded the zip pack only to realise I dont have enough memory haha in my pc to run the damn thing so have to wait a while ...
At its core it was a beautiful game, but I think my very best, beloved, and favorite moments were all in the betas. Watching the game die was tragic because it could have been something amazing and been a force of change in what was a very very stale MMO landscape at the time. Seeing the way reckless greed beat the soul out of the game is something that has given me a long lasting distrust of MMOs despite my love for them. Because I want to call you a cynic that is only looking at the bad but that would be unjust, because you are absolutely right and as much as I would love to think otherwise I agree entirely. P.s. First time seeing your channel, amazing stuff and I'll be sure to sub.
Absolutely spot on with Beta being the best time. Beta was the 0.89 build. Having played the Korean version I knew people were going to flip their shit when they say the 0.9 (aka launch build and don't ask me why 1.0 isn't the launch build for some Korean games they start at 0.0)
I salute you. I though the writing was good, the pawns were a great way to make a single player game have the feel of a multiplayer game. I just could not get over the combat.
@waswuerdeJesustun did you buy eldin ring, if so, did you buy the dlc? Cause that was a full priced game with paid dlc, Cyberpunk also, a full priced game with a paid DLC, weird how games that ask for a full price, have, idk paid DLCs, the elder scrolls series, fallout series, most games that have paid dlc were full price games when they launched
Loved the game as well. I never played the first one, so it was a new experience, had a blast with the overall experience with well over 100 hours into it. Still jump in every now and then just to mess around, but certainly one of my favorites in quite some time. I could however see some division in liking the game, and that's all good. This is why I don't rely on others to tell me how good a game is, I prefer to make that call myself. I'm sure I have games that I am not a fan of that others would consider fantastic, and that's perfectly fine.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Combat is very similar to DD: Dark Arisen, so it felt at home to me. The combat isn't your typical hack and slash roll spam. It favors knowledge of foe and good positioning when performing skills. It may be slower paced skill execution but once you get immersed in the game, that is the least problematic thing. The real issue with combat is the lack of difficulty scaling or difficulty setting in general imo.
i have a massive problem with the 1$ per hour take. I can enjoy a game like "Last Epoch" or "Path of Exile" for well over 100 hours, but the level of enjoyment is very different compared to more compact games. There are many great games out there that show you everything they have to offer in 3-5 hours, but are a really intense experience that i value much higher then just 1$ per hour.
So, I'd be interested to know what game or games shows you everything in 3 to 5 hours that at the same time is good. I'm not saying they don't exist, but I can't think of a game that gives me everything in 5 hours that I'd keep playing. For a game like Path of Exile, if you can play for 100 hours, but pay $0 I'd say that's amazing because you are getting 100 hours for $0 and you can't beat free.
I give Dragon's Dogma a 2 out of 10. Really good writing, nice quest design, but the combat is terrible and lackluster and the pawn interactions are so repetitive it gets grating as well as the pawn AI being awful even when giving them manual controls.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork If you aim to be a review/discussion channel, you might want to refrain from voicing half-arsed opinions. You will just alienate potential viewers based on opinions you don't actually hold. 2/10 lead me to believe hated the RPG systems(unique in today's landscape), the world and exploration. I don't think you actually hold that opinion, because the games you chose to bring up as good games have some of the same core strengths as Dragon Dogma 2. Few examples: World design, freedom explore (without handholding), rewards for exploring.
Was pleasantly surprised to see Asmon centered a video around yours! Developers and especially publishers will posture towards whatever looks like it'll give the best return on investment as they're for profit entities. However, developers not taking risks or lacking the confidence to build live service universes in my opinion hurt the consumer. Tim Cain talks at length about how he's seen this first hand in the industry. Hopefully studios that take risks won't fade out of existence.
I agree with several of the things Zack said, the biggest being subscription fatigue, which isn't something I've personally ever considered. I tend to compartmentalize my expenses into "needs, wants, savings" so I don't equate my mandatory subscriptions (for example car insurance) with my entertainment ones (my games) but I 100% see how other people might do that.
That's fine if you feel that way, however, I think the combat was absolutely terrible. I think the pawns running to you and dragging mobs on top of your when you have ordered them to GO! is bad design. I think the action combat was pretty lackluster. I think the writing was strong; but i don't think strong writing overcomes the terrible combat.
Real talk, I alpha'ed archeage, it was an amazing unique experience and they fumbled out the gate with the cash grab changes they made at launch. Then the continuous lying. Auroria launch when 80% of the people were dropped and they kept insisting it was only 20% and Im sitting in a discord with 40 people plus those messaging in other channels and 1 of 40 gets in and we're playing all over the world, so it wasn't like one serve hub was the issue. Khrolan continuously making changes his 15 year old Bushi buddies were telling him to do. Its just so damn sad that it was just a whalefest. The pack changes so you had no strategy options to try and give pvper something to do ugh... I still miss playing, I hard stopped myself a month in UNchained when they started the same crap.
My best experience was when Big Data Dude personally banned me from the forums for dropping a truth bomb on all the fresh start exploits and then talking to the Community Manager, showing him the proof, and then he unbanned me.
I joined in the betas (did no have the money for which ever founder pack it was for Alpha access) and immediately fell in love with it. Like you said it was a truly unique experience, particularly at the time. But they messed up launch so badly, and I stuck with it playing consistently till 2017/18 regardless but as you say you could just watch the player base dying off - and I completely understood why, because yes it was an amazing game but it was a money sink and one in which you kind of had to sink the money in order to get anything fun done. I truly hope Archeage 2 can build on the good and fix the bad, because deep down I still love the game, but I just couldn't honestly say I have faith in it.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Heavy hands in the forums for sure, assuming everyone was trolling and we just wanted them to fix our game we wanted to play lol
Heyo, coming in from the Asmon vid. I think you did a great job at diving into "why" devs can try to handle their monetization in certain ways. Just here to leave a comment about DD2. I see that you've responded to some comments to mention the combat in DD2. ***Tl;dr: combat good if you're creative, game can be boring if you just press attack.*** I understand that it's a feature of the game that can filter people. Even back in the original game, combat in DD rewards the player for being creative. The fact that you can beat DD2 without pawns and without attacking anything with your own weapon should be a testament to that. You can petrify enemies with a medusa head, drop meat to distract wildlife, kidnap NPCs to fight alongside you, ride enemies to different locales as shortcuts, bait enemies into environmental hazards or even set enemy groups up against each other when they're too strong for you and still triumph. There are so many more ways to go about things. I don't know how you experienced DD2 personally, but anyone who goes about it and just hits the attack button will likely have a bad time. There's an argument to be made that that's a design flaw also, but I'd counter it by saying that *almost* anything you can imagine as an approach to combat in DD2 is possible. At the end of the day, these experiences are subjective, so I won't say you're wrong. I do disagree that it's a terrible game. 140 hours for my singular play through maxing all vocations and doing as many quests as possible. Performance issues aside, I think it delivers on its box value. If you want to talk about DLC? Check out the DMC5 DLC options. You'll quickly see that they're the same type of "joke resource" purchases that were put in just to please top brass. It messes with public perception, but if you genuinely engage with the game, you NEVER have to consider spending that money. If DD2 box sales did well enough to cause a 5% pay increase across Capcom's ranks, I'd say it did miles better than SF6, Exoprimal and whatever Resident Evil content they put out in 2023.
So yes, while being able to get 2 groups to kill each other (among the other things you listed) is a great feature to be supportive of combat, if the combat itself is bad then the combat is just bad. I like games that have you problem solve other than combat. One that comes to mind is Alien: Isolation. While you can attack the androids, you absolutely cannot attack the Xenomorphs and win. Its literally a game over. So mobility, stealth, problem solving is good and creative, however, when your game has a core part of the game that is combat, and the combat is terrible, that speaks volumes. As far as the other things, I think the writing in DD2 is great. I think the quest design on paper are great although some execution may not be 100%. Where I find major problems though is that thinks like the pawns speaking becomes immersion breaking not immersive. I would say that DD2 in its current state would probably have been much better received at a $39.99 price point and not a $59.99 price point. Add on the fact that there was no new game start (and to my knowledge there still isn't a new new game its more like new game+) and they sold P2W items in a single player game, it shows that problems were built into the game to sell solutions. People will say "but you don't need to buy the items" and the answer should be "I shouldn't ever have to buy them with cash"
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Maybe never depending on how you play. Some games just aren't for everyone. Dmc can be pretty lackluster if you use one combo and weapon. Doesn't mean it is factually lackluster.
You have to remember that FF11 still has a subscription model that still brings SE in over 1.5 million per month. Very easy to maintain servers with that money.
This is very true, which proves the point for the second half of the video A 20+ year old game still brings in $18,000,000 a year. More than enough to maintain the servers and pay for a little development. No reason for devs to be afraid of the subscription model.
Never played it, because it has such a weird subscription model where you pay for each character you create per month. I have the install disc. Got it out the bargain bin. But didn't even install it after reading the subsciption terms. Wasted money!
@@skyknight0408 It's been maintained extremely well. It's still in the top 3 mmo that's available to play today. I do agree the sub model is a little weird. You have to remember that it's like FF14. 1 character can be all class/job. Now that I think about it, I can give a long term sub model price vs hours for J. So I've been paying on average $20 CAD per month for 263 months = $5260 for 17,000 hours. = 30.9 cents per hour. That's a lot of money but very little money per hour. Interesting how that works out.
While I definitely heard a lot of negative cynicism in this video, that doesn't mean you're wrong. I think there might be more to it than you're saying but overall I think everything you said here is correct. And, I don't think many games fans or their opposite haters will get it. It isn't just about whether a game is good or trash but also *why* is it that way. What are the driving factors, business motives, developer/creators goals etc?
Exactly this Why did a game turn out like trash. I think it is terrible how Throne and Liberty turned out, but I don't blame the people who developed it and made it work, I blame the people who counted the beans.
Im out of archeage since years and i didnt though about coming back. The shutdown news still hurts :( I always liked people who are speaking the truth, it may not give you millions subs, but you will always have mine.
I put in 140 hours in dragons dogma 2... I kind of wish it was live service so I could get more content in there. It's such an amazing world to live in like cyberpunk.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork The combat of the game is my favorite part. Admittedly the game does have a few weak points with storytelling but my favorite part was just fighting the monsters while exploring the world.
I played Archeage on western release. Had some fun, joined a guild that progressed really quickly, and was gearing for the whatever the early endgame was. Then after a month and a half I was banned. They didn't immediately tell me why, but found out much later. I was playing the Auction House/Marketplace since early people didn't know what to price stuff and hackers had duped loads of stuff and put them on the market. My appeal took 2-3 months before I got unbanned. At that point the experience left a bad taste in my mouth and never went back. I really liked and would've probably loved the game, but ya poor management and greed will kill games.
As someone who loves to play the logistics side of games and control the AH, I was lucky I got an inside tip that they were banning people for it. Not because the players were wrong, but it was their automated way to deal with bots and gold sellers.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Damn wish I had an insider. Maybe I would've had time to dump my inventory. Ah well past is past. Thanks for responding and glad some innocent people were spared the wrath of the cheat system bots.
Every time a new game comes out, I see 70% Good, 20% Great but 10% WTF were they thinking. Sadly the 10% WTF were they thinking undoes the 70% good and 20% Great
I also think a lot of it is just a lack of developer ability, or rather the finance department running the development as the first focus. This results in them wanting to cash in on that quick buck rather than long term income, because they know they cannot keep players longer than the honeymoon period. As an example, I would happily pay £30+ a month subscription for a high quality, well developed MMORPG that I know is going to keep heading in the right direction. £30 a month isn't a lot of money by today's standards when you compare it to other forms of entertainment. However I don't think there is a single MMO developer out there that I would trust to continuously deliver on that quality. Most get too greedy after a period of time and corrupt their own game.
Just come from Asmon, just subbed and liked. You have to maybe refine some of you takes, but overall, I feel you did exceptionally well imo. That's my two cents, have a good one mate.
When this game first came out my entire wow guild came over to play, we had to make 3 guilds to fit all of us and the main reason we all quit was because of the housing. It was nearly impossible to beat the bots to get a plot of land, that 1 feature made a guild 150 people strong to quit. Most of them went to FF but I felt the combat is a bit too slow in FF even at end game so I don't have an mmorpg to play atm because wow is not enjoyable for myself anymore.
I do agree the bots were a huge issue. FFXIV is my main MMORPG but even I say the combat sucks at a 2.5 second global cooldown. My wife yells at me when tanking routine dungeons because I'm usually eating a sandwich.
Really great video. Good to know my divorce from Archeage will be final soon. I loved that game more than any game aside from maybe Everquest II. I hated the P2W and mismanagement of the Archeage. MMORPGS should be sub based with optional non P2W purchases.
I would say that MMORPGs should be box price (to offset development) with a monthly sub (to pay for operations and sustainment) I dislike cash shops, but I admit they are probably the wave of the future.
I'm sorry but Dragon's Dogma 2 isn't a shitty game and I will die on that hill. The microtransactions can be ignored completely, the game is fantastic mechanically and if you do the true ending then you get an extra couple hours of playtime with a NG+ system that lets you completely rebuild your character. There is plenty more that DD2 has done really well. At the end of the day I respect your opinion but it is wrong.
So you can't respect an opinion and call it wrong since an opinion that isn't based on inaccuracies can be neither right nor wrong. You like the game. No need to die on a hill because no need to fight about it. For you, it is a great game. For me, it is a terrible game that could have been at least average if not plagued with pay to win.
New World. Liked it very much. They avoided most of the issues that bothered me in ESO. My only problem with it was that it is a single player game masquerading as multiplayer, but without any real guild (company) support, no sense of community.
I would agree with that. Also, New World pivoted away from being a Full loot drop, fort building survival game in a persistent world. It was ahead of the curve, now there are 4 or 5 other persistent world survival games launching.
mass pvp involving loot, no raids for gold income, that might have turned away people in the long run. I just found myself farming away when hiram/garden came out.
You can't talk about how Dd2 is a "shitty game" and then bother playing Scam citizen on your channel lol Really makes your point kind seem weak when you play literal cash grab scams.
Can you please show me any Star Citizen gameplay footage on my channel? I'm guessing you saw a Star Citizen thumbnail, didn't check the video out, didn't see that I basically roast CIG, and just assumed.
just watched the video. I had stopped playing when gamigo took over. so now what game do I play? there's nothing out there like archeage. I usually liked the cooperation, I really did not care about winning, for me was all about helping people and being helped doing things in the game.
Agree with alot of this except for the random misinformed criticism of Dragons Dogma 2. Did you actually play dragons dogma 1 and 2? The game really is not pay to win. Beat the game no problem without any micro's. It's like calling dmc 5 a terrible game just because you heard that you could buy red orbs.
So yes, I did play Dragon's Dogma 2 and although I've not finished it, when time allows I do plan on circling back. I am interested in where the "misinformed" criticism is. I think people are throwing around "misinformed" a lot, but I've yet to be told where I'm factually incorrect about DD2. When you say something "really is not" that doesn't mean it isn't, it means it "kind of isn't." Simply put, does Capcom sell "Pay to..." items for DD2? The answer is yes. Can you beat the game no problem without them? Maybe. If you did, then you did. That doesn't change the fact that Capcom opted to have microtransactions for a single person game. Regardless if you used them or not it doesn't make it misinformed if I say they are selling pay to win items just because you don't need them. They are selling them. That's the only point.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork No but saying it is just a flatout terrible game is misinformed slander. You are welcome to criticise it with your opinion but if that opinion is made with little to no knowledge of the product you are talking about then you will be seeing alot of comments like mine. Any and all microtransactions are bad. Been saying this since horse armor. Again I liked most of the vid until you needlessly tear down Dragons Dogma 2 prior to building up Cyberpunk.
So its pretty clear Dragon's Dogma is on your "my game" list, which is fine if you enjoy it. I think that you calling my criticism of it "misinformed" now twice, but failing to provide an opposition argument about what I'm misinformed about says a lot. You like the game, I don't like the game. If I am misinformed about the game factually, please tell me where. You said what I did was slander. Slander needs to be a false statement. In my opinion Dragon's Dogma 2 is a terrible game. That's an opinion, its not slander. You find it derogatory because you enjoy the game and I called it terrible. My opinion that Dragon's Dogma is terrible is currently shared by 40% of all users who have reviewed it on Steam. Now someone could say well if 40% say its a bad game, then 60% think its a good game which yes, a majority of Steam players currently do think its a good game. That rating comes after the major patch that came post launch. Reflect back a month ago on 22 March 2024: "Dragon's Dogma 2 is getting absolutely savaged on Steam, with a 'Mostly Negative' rating, but the game deserves better than a launch with such bad optics." www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/dragons-dogma-2-is-getting-absolutely-savaged-on-steam-with-a-mostly-negative-rating-but-the-game-deserves-better-than-a-launch-with-such-bad-optics/ At that point 61% of people had left it a negative review, so at that time the majority of reviewers felt it was a bad game. Meanwhile Cyberpunk 2077 on Steam has a 83% positive review rating on 647,708 reviews and Phantom Liberty an amazing 89% positive rating on 13,983 reviews. I didn't "build up" Cyberpunk, I gave an opinion that the Phantom Liberty DLC was "worth it" and that opinion seems to be shared by 89% of the people who bought it. So now, that I've laid out objective empirical facts from Steam, is it really that I'm "misinformed" or is it that the numbers support at the very least my opinion on Cyberpunk, and could quite possibly, also support my view of Dragon's Dogma?
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork That link says can nit be found. So you actually touch on why I think it is needless slander. Cyberpunk you touch hard on because you played it all the way through and that's your my "games list". Still doesn't take back that the game was and still has not fully achieved what was advertised amd promised during the build up to release. To you dragons dogma 2 is subjectively terrible. I'm okay with you not liking it but it beimg terrible is not a fact. I find it funny people seem to need to tear something else down while building something up.
Fixed the link I had put it inside ( ). You called it slander again, but its an opinion. An opinion is not slander. Yes I played Cyberpunk all the way through, yes it absolutely 100% on "my games" list. I gave you the statistics. It's not just my opinion that that game is good, its 83% / 89% agreed upon. I do find it interesting that you ignored the statistics on Dragon's Dogma being 60% good now, but it was 61% bad a month ago and chose not to mention that. I would ask you a question though: at what point can I think a game is bad? If I play a game for 1 hour and 50 minutes (just inside the Steam refund window) and I think the game is bad is that not enough time to formulate an opinion? Do I need to play for 5 hours? 10 hours? When exactly am I permitted to have a negative opinion about a game. Do I have to endure all the way through and beat it before I can say "yup was bad at 2 hours and was still bad at the end"? If I do that, won't people just turn that around on me and say "Well you played it to the end, you must have liked it." I think its fair to say Dragon's Dogma 2 has at best lack luster combat, at worst terrible combat, the pawns while an amazing system on paper turn out to be an annoyance with their repetitive verbal queues and backseat driving and continually immersion breaking high fiving after ever fight, and of course the monetization of micro-transactions in a single player game whether needed or not is just a poor system to put in a single player game. Also you said "tear something else down while building something up." I talked about Cyberpunk at 9:16 in the video and then I talked about Dragon's Dogma 2 at 11:03 with both Baldur's Gate 3 and New World in between them. I praised Baldur's Gate and condemned New World. Unless you want to tell me where I'm misinformed though, I think this boils down to you like Dragon's Dogma and dislike Cyberpunk. I like Cyberpunk and dislike Dragon's Dogma. Those are opinions, neither one of us are misinformed. If, however, you want to press the notion that I'm misinformed about Dragon's Dogma and Cyberpunk, then I'm going to need some statistics or numbers that show people think Dragon's Dogma is a great game and not a 60% liked game.
archeage never was about the pvp, but always has been about the world, the interactions, that stuff. the problem was that they tried to copy black desert's pvp monetization instead of monetizing the farming, housing, even the bloody ships. so much detail that they could have monetized for each and everything.
Much love man! Archeage had two things going over every mmo on the market and both those things could still sustain Archeage with one easy change. Housing and what it did for you was epic and fishing. Fishing in that game beats evry pve activity aside from raiding in every pve mmo ever created imho...I am hoping a PVE emu pops up so I can go play house and fish till my hearts content.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Tell me about it. I lost several properties to people remote placing from halfway across the zone. On release of AA I got disconnected as I was about to place my property...not once but on Auroria release same thing DC'd as I was placing property. Then I lost about 8-12 demos to cheaters. I shit you not. My first property came when a guy demo'd his plain house to put a garden in and I stole it from him. I felt really bad but I was weeks in and had zero properties. Those guys camped me for awhile too lol. I went to Archerage to get away from retail and my buddy and I got landblocked by a bot there also. Went back to Unchained an was having a blast got my dream property set up and was having a good time then came Laughing Coffin....that was the end of my fun in archeage lol. Them adding those new giant housing areas was the best thing. Plus we could fish there, it wasn't worth much but it was fun.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork I hate to admit this but I just started on AA Classic and emu server. Will see how it goes. If I can do most everything I want without having to pay $200.00 bucks it might be worth loll.
I've been meaning to make a video on this exact topic myself for a couple of months now, and the shut-down news just pushed me enough to start working on it. Needless to say, a good chunk of it was gonna be pretty much a copy paste of this(before it came out, obviously), also covering the issues that ArcheAge ACTUALLY had and the players were taught to ignore, alongside with the fake ones that people mentioned just cause the masses did. The problems were SO DAMN OBVIOUS but the playerbase was either dumb and blind or so used to mentioning the ones that were "hip and cool" to talk about, that they ignored them. And the funniest part is that the same issues trickle into other games, as very well put in this video, and more and more games with great potential and passion behind them end up flopping hardcore due to greedy publishing and/or being forced down the throat of the wrong playerbase. Thankfully Archeage will live a tiny bit longer due to a quality private server, but it's still funny to see how a small player driven community handles it better than those multi-million, if not billion, companies. And don't forget, AA2 will launch with zero of the features people actually want and like, all of the features that killed the first game, and then will be milked for the money of the 5 people that'll play it. Anyways, great video as always, been watching you since the good old days of your AA guides/series, always on point, great content mate
One big problem with the "playerbase" is that Archeage's decisions were always for the Korean audience first, the rest of the world second. Apparently the Korean playerbase liked the changes over the years.
Nah a lot of what you say here about making money isn't right and quite flawed... it's simeple as this... make a good game and people will come, people are willing to stick around if it's fun more so if they're not being shafted at every corner like so many studios get forced to implement by insane levels of greed... HD2 is a prime example of this going well, game is from a mid sized studio and has plenty of issues however they're not bullshitting the fans with disgusting ways of milking you for money and just playing the game will easily net you enough money to get the BP's... I've intentionally grinded for the SC in game and have well over 5k now and gained this in 30 hours of grinding for the SC... that's 5 passes by itself. player base is leveling out currently and will hit around 100K per day I'm guessing in the next few months being consistent numbers... and crazy thing is it'll be profitable big time as the owner/studio head isn't some jaded C-level suit and knows they need to make money yet they don't NEED to make ALL the money just enough to be sitting pretty and not piss off the player base... why this is so hard to grasp is beyond me.
So what exactly did I saw that isn't right and is quite flawed. I quite literally said make a good game and people will subscribe to it. Instead of being worried about making money on a bad game (hence box price front loading) make a good game that retains players. Also remember, one thing you've said about making money is flawed. Its not the C-level suit who is worried about the money, its the shareholders. If the shareholders in a public company aren't getting the ROI they want, the C-level suits find they don't have a job when the shareholders vote to replace the top leadership. New top leadership needs someone to blame so they blame the mid level and down it goes.
I'm sure youve answered this before, but im curious why you have dropped coverage of Ashes of Creation? I used to really enjoy your insights and coverage of AoC. It's a shame that you've dropped it.
I will be back to doing Ashes of Creation content when they have a verified Alpha 2 date. At that point I will do a mass catchup on all the changes. After 6 years of following the game on a daily basis, it was clear there was another 4-5 years of development coming, so I wanted to not suffer from long term burn out.
The whole $1 to 1 hour thing is really interesting to me, personally I use it as a metric to determine value as well. but a 2 hour movie is like £9 and people are really happy to pay that for a lot of films. A trip to a zoo or theme park is like £30-£40 and your only there for a few hours. Games are really good value for money as far as entertainment goes.
You hit the nail on the head. People are ok with spending $250 per ticket to go a concert that lasts 4 hours, but tell them $250 buys them nearly 17 months of online sub time (even more if they bulk purchase sub time) and they say "no too much"
Remember though I need to get 1 hour of "entertainment" out of the game. If you don't enjoy the 90 hours of copy pasted chores, then you aren't enjoying it thus making it a bad game.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Who decides what is enjoyment? How do devs know what you will enjoy before you ever try it? They have their own vision that they believe you will enjoy, but you're imposing an expectation to stretch that vision to match the price. You're expecting them to compromise that vision to meet some arbitrary KPI. - Carrion takes 5hours to beat and costs 20$. Do you think it would be a better game if it was 20 hours long? - Original assassin's creed was like 10 hours. It was widely enjoyed and people were hyped about the next game. - Modern ones (identical gameplay) are synonymous with uninspired open world slop. How long can you consume identical gameplay loop before it becomes a chore?
Who's "imposing" anything. Its a rough approximation. If a game is $20 and has 5 hours of good content, then that would be fine. Very much like a movie is $15 and is only 2 hours. If a game is really really good and its cheap but hard hitting entertainment for 5 hours that's a win. How long can you consume identical gameplay loop before it becomes a chore? That depends. How many times do you wait in line to ride a different roller coaster? Is the gameplay loop leading up to something better? Or is it a loop for a sake of a loop. The person who decides what is enjoyment is each and every consumer. Enjoyment is going to be something each consumer can have an opinion on. The devs have to know the market before they make the game and they have to have the price pointing right. By your own statement a game with 5 hours of content that's $20 is probably ok, but if that same game had 5 hours of content and was $30 would that still be ok? $50? $100? Remember, my opinion of $1 per 1 hour is my opinion. Its my threshold. If you think $10 per hour is your threshold, that's fine, you can have that opinion.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork I see. I misunderstood your point. I took it to mean that is not just your personal filter/evaluation, but a standard you want companies to meet.
1 thing i want to say that the 1h/1USD doesnt work for me because i would rather tale a super solid 6h game over a mediocre 50 hour. Those 6h you play might be worth a lot more.
Sure absolutely there can be one-offs where something really expensive and really short is really good. I would absolutely rather than a stellar 6 hour game over a mediocre 50 hour game. Changes are; however, that if the game is coming out in 2024, and its really good, it probably isn't really short because it is made by people who care.
Nice! Thank you for covering all of that ^.^ Side note: Can You please tell me the name of the outro ? Your other channel has lot of music, but I really just wanna hear this one. I would really appreciate it
I am also fan of games being concluded or drawn down to one server for a few years in caretaker status. I don't think its good to offline the last server of a persistent world game when you don't need to. I agree about the DLC waiting game. Personally I think each DLC should have a logical end just in case there isn't another DLC. Just like every book should have a logical conclusion and not leave you waiting on a sequel.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork yeah though that concluded game term works better for single player/offline games to be honest^^ or for games that utilize online there should be a patch that makes the content playable for the future, like a setup for private servers or something like that
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Every interaction is so important. Bad comment, thumb down, it all counts. I wish you the best and may the YT algorithm favorite you . O7
If you like a game, then why would you want them to pump out DLCs for it? DLCs are always lazy and overpriced. Pay $20 and get an extra 1 hour lol. You should be happy that the companies move onto a new game. You can get an entire new multiple digit hour game with an improved engine, graphics, and gameplay. Never imagined I'd hear anyone call a DLCless game "a terrible experience". Those horse armor devs created a whole new type of consumer; it seems.
So why would you assume all DLC is $20 for 1 hour of additional content? Why would you also DLCs are "always lazy and overpriced"? Every expansion for WoW, ESO, FFXIV, GW2 that is all DLC. Phantom Liberty for Cyberpunk? Great DLC and a great set of additional content. Most of the CK3 DLCs have been worth the price. Stellaris on the other hand, maybe not so much.
Exactly my point So if a movie can be $15 for a 2 hour movie, gamers are ok with spending $7 per hour of entertainment when it suits them, but then will say that $1 per hour isn't good for video games. Hell, with as good as BG3 was, I'd have spent $99 on it.
Watched this from Asmongold's channel, but i figured I should drop by and leave a comment and a like since it was a great video! Hope your stuff stays this quality and gets reccomended to me directly!
I need to agree that the goal of Archeage unchained was never to develop the game in the right direction, but more so to milk the IP one more time. It was a pattern for Archeage from the start. It started as a passion project and the early versions show but after that, every addition only existed to increase power creep and therefore more ways to spend money, either by buying power directly or circumventing grind features they implemented in the first place. But I disagree with alot of other statements you made. I don't see the 1$ = 1 Hour logic at all. Games should be made within the internal creative goals they meant to persway and monetised accordingly. The whole Cashshop ordeal is just a way to milk players. The only exception of it not being egregious is when the game povides f2p and the only thing you can buy is cosmetics and fun stuff that doesn't interfere with gameplay, like the Battlepass in fortnite.
I mean that's fair, but at some point you have to put a dollar per hour value on entertainment so you can say what something is "worth" Is a movie worth $12 or $15 to see at the theater? Well its about 2.5 hours and you pay $12. So way more than a dollar. Also, that is consumer goal not a pricing goal. Honestly if Bauldur's Gate 3 had been priced at $99 I would have bought it. Hell, I've paid $150+ for the 2 Final Fantasy Remakes.
There are so many legitimate things to criticize about dragon's dogma 2. But straight up calling it "terrible" with no nuance is so very cringe, especially when you're name dropping Cyber punk which took years of extra development to reach an enjoyable and playable state.
You are correct and if I was doing a video on Dragon's Dogma I would break down the more specific things (P2W in a single player game, lackluster combat for a game in 2024, lack of a new save at launch and even now the new save file isn't what player want and/or expect from a single player RPG) I think contextually the viewer can pick up the inference where I specifically reference the Phantom Liberty DLC as well as the overall rating of Dragon's Dogma and how Capcom didn't really care about long term health of the game and simply wanted high box sales as the overall talking points. If your perspective is that I need to ensure I break points down more simply for viewers, I can certain take that as feedback and in the future try to make 1-3 solid points for the why.
9:00 I coulnd't disagree more. You can't value a game by its length. Valhalla is the perfect example for this, the game is way too long. A short but intense game is worth much more than a long a dull game to me.
Absolutely. If a game is 50 hours but you only enjoyed 5 hours of it then it was a pretty bad game. You need to be getting x hours of "enjoyment" out of it. If a game company puts in 5 hours of chores on a daily loop, that's not going to be enjoyable. If a game company can put unique content in that lasts an hour each day, that has way more value than 5 hours of content for a sake of content.
So, are thy going to do the same for Archeage 2 when thy fail the game like Archeage 1 by making it mega p2w and RMT etc? Now, for Archeage 1 with good and bad, our progress etc of years are gone and the last around two years, we are forced to get credits in the process of lowering unofficial p2w options via RMT... And thy don't refund anything too. It was obvious the game is going to close because we play the same contents with no real major updates and contents even KakaoGames took the game... XLGAMES used Archeage 1 to get more funds to make the Archeage 2, so Archeage 1 is never cared by any developers and publishers at all... Thy never tried to fix this game really...
XL games didn't use AA1 to get more funds to make AA2. XL games had Civilization Online which the IP owner cancelled in-between AA1 and AA2. Have to remember AA1 stayed a top 15 MMO in Korea for like 7 years. That was the target audience. The western audience was due to Trion wanting to publish it. In fact the Archeage IP holder held up the western port for about a year because the author of the novels didn't want to export his story.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is a great game, I got my money's worth out of that game, couple good takes, some bad takes. I would never play a subscription game anymore.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Nah, Well I guess I should never say never. But in general I switched from playing games like World of Warcraft and sub based games to Free to play games like Path of Exile and have never looked back. I have over 500$ on POE over the past 10 years supporting the game with supporter packs and its a great game with a good free to play model. I guess there are so many good games out now I don't have time to play like I used to, so I find myself wanting to still play Baldurs Gate 3, Cyberpunk DLC, cheap games that are great like Death Must Die etc... With so many good Indie games making cheap and good games that you can dive into I just don't see any reason to pay a sub for a game. There are plenty of horrible games out sure, but there are so many great games I don't even have time to play them all.
I'm personally not a fan of the dollars per hour metric. I'd rather pay $100 for a good 10 hour game, than pay $70 for something that should have been 50 hours, but had 20 hours of bullshit tacked on to make it 70 hours. Partly due to the number of new games on top of the games in my backlog that I haven't played yet, I prefer shorter games. I'd rather play through 3 20 hour games than 1 60 hour game assuming they're equally good. I kinda hope the live service train derails for similar reasons. I play Genshin and FF14 when new content comes out, and play through new games or games on my backlog when they don't. I don't really have the time to spend on a bunch of games that want you to play them forever. I'd rather play through the game, finish it, and move on to another.
If the live service train derails, you will see an onslaught of terrible games. Once they have your money they made their ROI. They don't have to maintain a good game, they just need you to buy it.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork With live service it seems to be seen as ok to release them broken because they can fix it later. They're still fixing issues from launch for Diablo 4 nearly a year after the game launched. I've stopped buying most games on release because of it.
I wanted to drop a quick comment about an issue with your discord, hope you see it. I was in it a while back but left when I purged my discords. I wanted to join back in, but the link to your discord from your website page says its invalid. Hope that helps if you didn't know about it. Edit: the link here on YT worked,but it was extrordinarily hard to find on mobile unless you link it in the vid description or pin it in a comment. On mobile it shows all the way below the transcript which I would have never thought to look.
Am I arguing that box price is a bad thing? No. Am I saying that developers who are afraid of a live service model often times are afraid of the return they will get on the games they are publishing so they end up putting out lesser quality games they can make profit off a quick box price cash grab? Yes.
I agree that Cyberpunk is a good value and a good game. But I don't understand why people think BG3 is a "gold standard" when the game has 90% falloff. The game sucks and overhyped. It released with Act 2 and Act 3 incomplete and unpolished. As for Archeage, even without the P2W, the game is a total waste of time.
I would disagree that Act 3 is incomplete, but I would agree that Act 2 is a little light. I think I spent more time in Act 3 than anywhere else. As for why I think the game is the gold standard, without even a 100% completion playthrough it took me roughly 110 hours on my first playthrough, plus another 15-20 to do all the different endings. I personally thought the character immersion by romancing a character was interesting, making certain decisions at least provided the illusion of choice (and really did have some meaningful choice) the cut scenes were great, the voice acting was amazing, the fights were difficult enough to be enjoyable but not so difficult to be frustrating.
Value of box is wrong, they only get a small fraction of that revenue, it's even the reason there was such a massive push for online only games to begin with.
Not sure what you mean they only get a small fraction of that revenue. If a developer also self-publishes they keep all that revenue. If a developer uses a publisher, while yes the publisher takes a substantial cut they also pay the developer a licensing fee. This was really a big picture view, but either way the ratio remains the same. Now, if you include Steam in the discussion yes that is problematic because they take 30% of the first 10,000,000 (for $3M off the big cut) and Epic Games, IIRC takes 12%
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Physical copies are sold through stores. Those make up for the majority of the price tag, so much more so than steam. Oone more reason why publishers would rather deal exclusively with steam if they can't sell the licenses on their own platform.
You brought physical copies into "box price" by using a literal definition. Box price is a purchase price of a game be it in physical medium or digital sales. Most developers absolutely do not want to deal exclusively with Steam which is why Galaxy of Games and the Epic Game Store see so much business. Steam takes 30% of the first 10M, 25% of the next I believe 20M and then 20% of everything after that. Epic takes 12% That's $1.8M in your first $10M in sales. So, now sure where you are getting developers would want to deal with steam. Publishers don't deal with steam at all since Steam is a publisher.
another great video by a great person. i have missed your intellectual videos. The gaming community needs much more in-depth analytical videos like this one 🤓
Ah very sad. Found out when I logged in just now and saw the link. All those houses and mementos. Just like that. It'll gonna be deleted soon. What a waste of time.
looked around on steam just know and found 3 things to try out. ArcheAge LAY Dragons age 2 DEMO 2hours of gameplay(not much but finally i might decide if its worth paying to start playing it or not)hmm could mayby have put in less txt to say what i meant? So why are my steam showing games that are no longer on steam?? is there any settings to remove this at all? Its a bit depressing when i find something n find out its no longer on steam or put in its grave to be played never again... Thanks 4 all
one hour per cost play? just reminder reload per cost EA try before. greed lead to ruin experiment and DLC or box convenience choices easily go overprize basic features in games
While I think that a box price of $50 should give 50 dollars of value, I'm not sure that would turn into a supportive statement of $1 per hour per cost play. While I wouldn't mind MMORPG (as a service) subscription moving up to $19.99 a month if the quality is there, I don't think I want to go back to an era where you play online games by the hour.
Agree with most of what you said. Still think that Dragons dogma 2 is a good game, IF you have a high end PC. The combat at least, Story wise it was a bit all over the place, expecting you to know stuff from DD1 and not really finishing some of the storys they made. Character creation was great, even if they artificaly limited some options at the last minute and there was no good looking presets. Also the Anti Cheat in a single player game.... Not worth the 70$ I made 1,5 playthroughs and i am at 35 hours. I gues around 30 - 40€ would have been fine. Testet T&L in Korea and did not like the combat. It still felt like a mobile title. Seeing as it failed in its own country, i decided to leave the ship before it even startet sailing in EU. Tryed Pax Dei Loved the first Alpha but im not Ok with their monotization. Box price + Sub + Cash shop + Wow Tocken. For me, if a game has a Box price + sub, then there should be no cash shop. But adding a Wow Tocken system on top? Thats just Pay 2 Win.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork oh it wasnt bad. Just that for example the entire thing with the false arisen and the qeen was kinda sidelined after you where done with the investigation, only to have them play a minor role at the end. All the time you invested left without conclusion. Would have been better if they made you fight the false arisen at the croanation quest and have him flee. You chase and slowly get drawn to the final fight. It just reeks to me as half finished. Another was the village that you constantly safe from the lizzards. It was fine once, Ok twice but after the 4th time i was beginning to ask why they dont have any guards or people who can deal with the lizzards if they are constantly attacked. That in turn reeks of reused assets to increase the playtime. At the same time the main quest doesnt even bring you close to the elves. At least not before the Dragon fight.
Am a poor boy and when they stole my money I said hell no! Played unchained which I thought great only one price and I can play. Unchained wasn’t anything special and when they kept doing merges and fresh starts I just got tired of land grabs and just walked away. Than they locked down unchained which by than was sad but wasn’t playing. When they announced AA2 I thought not a chance they just going to steal my money again. I may play if my people want to give it a try but that don’t look promising either.
MMORPGS in 2024 are so horrible. I ended up back at Wow for some reason despite I frown upon Blizzard. I played ArcheAge at beta all the way up to garden release while following your vids. I really think that 'game development' has changed from 'Passion to a job with a high paycheck.' With technological improvements and programs it should be easier to make games not harder. And before someone jump in and defends these so called developers, just take a look at the stuff they are releasing. Yes corporation greed is a issue but like...its always been there. MMORPGS, a game that is not survival, instanced, (small servers 100 pop)...the future is grim. They see games that are easier to make, produce the same amount of money if not more so they just repeat the circle. And then we have single player games, a concept that you get what you pay for, but without the community we are looking for. Also raise founding and early access. People buying cosmetic and advantages of a game that is not even out. (Ashes Of Creation) And then they jump to defend the game, saying all stuff about how its different and such. If you don't have the finished product why support a game?, sorry a 'IDEA' It's not your job. They can take loans since its a 'business' nowdays and just deliver it. Alas...there are many things I want to say... ArcheAge was a amazing game, one that had massive potential. The dailies, pay to win and others were among many of its end but I blame that it was published for Korea, a different mindset to gamers here (We saw this with thrones of liberty autoplay) And you can't remove pay2win that easily I understand, if someone wants to swipe for advantage they will just RMT or Bot. .... Anyway...I also played Thrones Of Liberty closed beta, it was meh at best. It feels made for a mobile. I'm almost 30. Responsibility, family, and work make it harder and harder to spend hours on games, like I, we used to. Is the Era of MMORPGS over?
In EU there was a bigger problem than only P2W with ArcheAge. In EU release the Russian players were allowed to join again that already had their own servers. EU release was also behind with 6-12 months of version (so EU was behind with a lot of versions). Meaning cheats that was working in Russia now worked again, but had been patched later on, now worked again because EU was behind. That is the biggest with Korean MMORPG that they do not have good anti cheating system. Because in Korea they ban the person and not the account.
The fact that bugs and hacks and exploits ended up in each new build spoke volumes about AA and XL games. Each time a new build game out, I was standing in the casino with some coins hoping to get a full pulls before they took the server down and patched it.
Game Devs did nothing with feedback for 10 years. He modelled the game to be more pve.jake songs own letter 3 years ago. Result? Mass exit from 7 servers . Jake songs new big plan? Archeage 2 a pve centric game. He's a clown 🤡 he makes games for him self then inserts a casino to farm us. Jake songs a total clown 🤡
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork Someone using millions of casino farmed dollars for his own ego flex? Yea clown. I was in EU archeage legacy and unchained. I started in 2014 and im just done with the company and him. Just mismanagement from start to end.
Honestly im surprised it lasted even this long, considering Kakao just shuts down anything that isn't profitable. The game has been on life support for a while now so it was bound to happen sooner or later. I had some good times in it in the past despite all of its faults but it is what it is. No product lasts forever.
I don't think the genre is shitty. I think the games that have come out recently have been mad cash grabs. I think it is sad that the oldest games in the genre are still regarded as the best.
@@ParadoxGamingNetwork You don't understand the feel when you hard grinding gear turn into trash to feed other gear , got forced to do PVP just to please the whales. Player don't have any control in this genre , they can broken the game any time they want with just a bad patch and you can't even come back to play the version you want legally. Play MMORPG since 2004 , at first everyone hope thing going to be better , but nope , no hope for this genre , day by day it only got worst. Right now i mostly play old games or support indie game developer , checking AA just because i got email from Kakao about server down.
Archeage wasnt a horrendous game when it came out. It wasnt worth divesting a lot of time into in any regard and that was obvious immediately. But it had fun pvp at times and some dungeons were enjoyable. I dont want all games to have a sub. Thats a horrible idea. Too many subscriptions as it is. However, i believe if consoles and other distributors took stances like steam and didnt finalize wvery sale out of spite to the customer the ganes would probably be a bit better. Just zero way to hold these businesses accountable after the fact without regulation on these major companies which is desperately needed no matter what you feel about it. Also, horrible take on Dragons Dogma 2. Saw your other comments, cant do some call outs for being badly designed when in reality it was skill issues and a lack of understanding. Also, you have to keep in mind devs arent as mighty as you think. Imagine a McDonalds, the devs are just the cooks bro. They are given a recipe and get screamed at like the rest of us. The people you ACTUALLY need to be looking at is more likely to be the executives and the company paying those execs. I fully understand what you are going for and you make a good batch of valid points in your arguement. But to me it feels like a lot of misdirected anger in places which can make the other points feel less valid in the end. And i disagree with the dlc bits. Doing it for the money vs doing it cause you have more to tell is KEY to quality. Overall solid video bud. The biggest point i agree with is the pricing and value you discussed.
In a large studio, I don't blame the actual "makers" of the game because you are absolutely right, if the Management and top level leadership wants P2W its going to be P2W. That's why I think it sucks for some people, because they get the blame for the game but they didn't have the power or authority to make the necessary changes.
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