Valve Says It's Working on a Free-to-Play Game

[Firehound]

Oh Mr. Funk is new to LoL huh? I hope the community doesn't chase you away. They are pretty obnoxious about new guys.

I'm a longtime DotA player. I'm used to it

Though John, you must admit you have over-sensationalized the topic of this news post. Valve isn't doing a F2P, it's a rumor, not a fact.

Can you share your LOL handle so I can play some LOL with ya?

Doug Lombardi was asked if Valve was working on any F2P projects. He said "Yes." That's pretty unambiguous to me, I think!

It's CFTFunk. Don't everyone add me all at once.

Quick, everyone add him at once!

 

[Wintermoot]

but what about Freeman?

 

[SomeBritishDude]

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MON...Oh, right, um...

 

[GeorgW]

I really hope DotA isn't F2P.
I love the developer and think they could do it well, but I still distrust F2P, and would rather they messed up a new IP than a good old classic.

 

[wildcard9]

So another F2P MOBA game developed and distributed by one of if not the best developer who also possesses the best online distribution system out there.

I am really looking forward to this title. Riot needs someone to light a fire under their asses and give them a serious run for their money.

 

[Callate]

One more thing they're working on that isn't HL2E3

Hear, hear. The one first-person shooter that most people actually want to see a sequel to, and can we get one...?

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--

 

[RanceJustice]

I'm increasingly worried about Valve. The company that has been one of the best trend-resisters in the last 15 years of PC gaming has dollar signs in their eyes, and that's not good.

Team Fortress 2 was an enjoyable FPS and all the new content could have been brought into the game through modding - hell, many of the new items were actually designed by players - instead of having to open one's wallet. It was a full-price shooter in its own right and a great deal included in The Orange Box; the old Valve would never have added real-money-transaction keys to open in-game content chests you already own.

Portal 2 is even worse with the Bot Enrichment - when there is cosmetic DLC that costs $83 dollars individually on DAY ONE, there is a bloody problem. Paying $8 USD for a pair of thick-rimmed glasses for your bot?! Paying $3 for a celebration gesture that one of the bots can use? None of these items save for two of the less-desired are unlockable in game. Every single one is already on disc/disk There is no bloody excuse. There used to be a time when your $50 USD title included ALL the "cosmetic" content too, so don't give me that pitiful excuse. This is a disease coursing through the veins of the industry and I thought Valve would be able to stave off infection.

I have absolutely no faith in what "Free to Play" Valve title will offer in terms of value. If they're willing to tell you "We'll grant you the favor of giving you ALL the content of Portal 2 on the day of release for a discount? Just give us another $38 USD after you finished paying the initial game fee of $50! Aren't we just so benevolent"? Valve needs to come back to its roots and provide exceptional PC game experiences for reasonable prices, enhanced with nigh-unlimited access to player modification. Valve was one of the last PC AAA companies to fall, but it seems that this loss of integrity is sadly ever present whenever the spectre of extraordinary ROI from drooling wallet-openers raises its head, damn ethics or ideals. They even have Steam's income stream to supplement their profits, so they could remain the paragon of developer-customer interaction by abstaining from these greedy procedures.


Edit: For what its worth, I'm a big fan of Alien Swarm which is designed as truly Free, and seems like a classic Valve "present", which gave me hope before the Portal 2 catastrophe that this plan would be limited to Team Fortress. I'd love to see more development on it..did they ever provide the full SDK or whatever was needed for users to have full mod access? Hell, I'd actually pay something for a much-extended and enhanced campaign of this game. Through in at least 5 missions each as long as the 1 included to start, 1-2 new classes, 3-4 new playertypes/crewmembers, variable armor types per class, tons of new weapons and devices etc... I'd be happy to buy a $15 or $30 title like this, based on the same cooperation as the original. However, due to past experience with Valve's "Microtransactions", I wouldn't want the same game with every character, map, item etc... available a la carte. Such an offering would be far too expensive.

 

[Lancer873]

I love them for getting me hooked on Spiral Knights and I'm sure I'll love them for this too.

 

[Arcanist]

Oh Mr. Funk is new to LoL huh? I hope the community doesn't chase you away. They are pretty obnoxious about new guys.

I'm a longtime DotA player. I'm used to it

As a longtime DotA player don't you find the terrible balance aggravating? No denies, people paying to gain advantages over you.

Honestly bro, Heroes Of Newerth is where the real action is at.

See, that's unfair. Denies introduced a game of politics that where really off-putting to new players, and while you can use money to buy champions in LoL every single champion is available with the in-game currency. Hell, you have to use the in-game currency to buy seals, glyphs, and quintessences.

 

[brazuca]

Will this F2P be HL2 Ep 3? No buying from Valve until Ep 3 comes out? HL series deserves better than Duke Nukem.

 

[Aprilgold]

-snip for too much length-

I read your post, and all can be canceled out with this: Everything that is buyable IN those games, is not necessary to have a good / fun / beatable experience with the game.
In TF2, you find items through drops, but they're completely random, so it hard to get a specific item without having a random result, so the shop is there if you only want a specific item. And the best items are usually the original ones, because they don't buff / debuff yourself to use them, so your talking out of your ass that people introducing a cash shop into a great game that already is GIVING everything from the start is bad.

For Portal 2, its a little harder to verify, but I can still beat every chamber in Co Op with or without items, all its doing is adding cosmetics so you can stick out from your buddy. You can get them so you look silly, and share the humour that way, almost like sprays.
Now, before you try to de bunk this, how often did you actually feel like you needed a weapon / hat / outfit to enjoy these games more? How genuine do you think that you needed that item to enhance your experience, and none of this SHIT was on the disk YOU bought, so you have no right to say you can't just ACCESS IT, its not DRM, because its only withholding cosmetic things out of your reach, DRM is bad when it withholds something BIG from the game, let it be online, multiplayer, tracks, monsters, dungeons, whatever. None of this is necessary to the game's experience outside of just showing that you love the game, and support the developer.

Now I love the hats in TF2 for 2 reasons
1: It shows that I love the game that they crafted, and many times, the hats ARE created by the pros, so I'm still seeing the games nature in it.
2: That I never have to buy it to get it, so thanks to trading or drops, I get the hat I want for what they want, see how that works?

For portal 2, its just to show you love the game and the developer.

Sorry if I insult you, but it felt like your trying to paint all this as a BAD thing, when its not bad or good, its just there for people to enjoy and to skip over. Their not forcing you to download hours of updates because they added all this content, their not asking to pay out of your wallet to continue to play their game. Also, the trade fiasco is usually only on shit servers or trade servers, so right there is where you can get your trade game.
And the F2P games usually either have one of these 2 options
1: The store where you can buy cosmetic shit
2: micro tranactions [similar to spiral knights energy tank, it refills over time, but your limited to how long you can play] to where they limit the amount of X you can do for Y time, it regenerates and is annoying, but if you want to play even longer, then a few bucks for hours more of gameplay is a pretty good deal. And you want to know why alien swarm was free, do you want to know? Because it wasn't truly finished, the company soon ran out of time or something, and valve wanted to still release the game, so they did. And your saying that valve has fallen off the PC gaming wagon, they haven't and your losing track of history because their still riding high on it.


*pant pant, breathing sounds* Ok, sorry for the long rant, simple version, its not necessary to get these items, so your complaint is null and void because I'm still getting everything from the original disk, if you say that they ruined the game with it, get the console version of the orange box and play only TF2, and you'll see what the vanilla free version was like.

 

[warfjm]

One more thing they're working on that isn't HL2E3

Honestly, I think it would make a lot of people feel better if they just what is going on with the game. If they just say they are not making another Half Life for a while, that would be fine with me. At least we will know what is going on.

Well I don't think it would make anyone feel better but it would be nice for Valve to be honest or at least forthcoming with thier plans for the game.

When I read the title of the article, I felt like Valve was trolling me. The lack of news regarding HL2E3 is quite disturbing. Just say what is going on with the game Valve. If you've gotten bored with the story of Gordon Freeman, just say it. Killing the Half Life franchise and you'll kill your fanbase. When that happens, the only thing that will be making you money is Steam.

Every time Valve makes a press announcement, I just have to wonder what the hell is going on in those studios. They are obviously spreading all that top notch talent around very thinly and nothing is getting done on the only game now people are interested in. Seriously, I don't think any more people will buy TF2 than already has.

 

[RanceJustice]

-snip for too much length-

I read your post, and all can be canceled out with this: Everything that is buyable IN those games, is not necessary to have a good / fun / beatable experience with the game.
In TF2, you find items through drops, but they're completely random, so it hard to get a specific item without having a random result, so the shop is there if you only want a specific item. And the best items are usually the original ones, because they don't buff / debuff yourself to use them, so your talking out of your ass that people introducing a cash shop into a great game that already is GIVING everything from the start is bad.

For Portal 2, its a little harder to verify, but I can still beat every chamber in Co Op with or without items, all its doing is adding cosmetics so you can stick out from your buddy. You can get them so you look silly, and share the humour that way, almost like sprays.
Now, before you try to de bunk this, how often did you actually feel like you needed a weapon / hat / outfit to enjoy these games more? How genuine do you think that you needed that item to enhance your experience, and none of this SHIT was on the disk YOU bought, so you have no right to say you can't just ACCESS IT, its not DRM, because its only withholding cosmetic things out of your reach, DRM is bad when it withholds something BIG from the game, let it be online, multiplayer, tracks, monsters, dungeons, whatever. None of this is necessary to the game's experience outside of just showing that you love the game, and support the developer.

Now I love the hats in TF2 for 2 reasons
1: It shows that I love the game that they crafted, and many times, the hats ARE created by the pros, so I'm still seeing the games nature in it.
2: That I never have to buy it to get it, so thanks to trading or drops, I get the hat I want for what they want, see how that works?

For portal 2, its just to show you love the game and the developer.

Sorry if I insult you, but it felt like your trying to paint all this as a BAD thing, when its not bad or good, its just there for people to enjoy and to skip over. Their not forcing you to download hours of updates because they added all this content, their not asking to pay out of your wallet to continue to play their game. Also, the trade fiasco is usually only on shit servers or trade servers, so right there is where you can get your trade game.
And the F2P games usually either have one of these 2 options
1: The store where you can buy cosmetic shit
2: micro tranactions [similar to spiral knights energy tank, it refills over time, but your limited to how long you can play] to where they limit the amount of X you can do for Y time, it regenerates and is annoying, but if you want to play even longer, then a few bucks for hours more of gameplay is a pretty good deal. And you want to know why alien swarm was free, do you want to know? Because it wasn't truly finished, the company soon ran out of time or something, and valve wanted to still release the game, so they did. And your saying that valve has fallen off the PC gaming wagon, they haven't and your losing track of history because their still riding high on it.


*pant pant, breathing sounds* Ok, sorry for the long rant, simple version, its not necessary to get these items, so your complaint is null and void because I'm still getting everything from the original disk, if you say that they ruined the game with it, get the console version of the orange box and play only TF2, and you'll see what the vanilla free version was like.

I'm sorry friend, but my point still stands in its entirety - I used to be able to get ALL the cosmetic items in a game I've paid for, for the price of entry. I'm not getting "Everything" from the disc or download - its obvious that the Portal 2 gestures are already in the game, on my hard drive - nothing new needed to be downloaded to access them. After all the "shop model" of the gesture is displaying something from the installed game! Even if it had to be downloaded, it wouldn't make one bit of difference because day-one DLC means by nature that certain content was already available by launch time, but was removed from the game and sold to you separately. Thus, its not "new" content that was developed post launch and required extra time.

If I can upload or link a pic I'll show a pretty good infographic on this.

However, my central point stands that all the cosmetic stuff is obviously game content and is enjoyable (otherwise, why would they expect people to pay for it?) and all that stuff used to come for the price of entry. There also used to be free content patches where the developer thanked the PLAYER by including a new level or item in a patch. We players used to thank the developers by buying the game and considering buying their next offering; this idea that they have the right to basically withhold parts of the game for players who have paid the full price of entry is a new, dangerous phenomena.

It is a money grab, pure and simple. Since there are so many people who are too young to remember before the "DLC/"micro"transaction" era and so many apologists, developers/publishers can't seem to resist all that money regardless of the ethical considerations. However, those people affect MY gaming choices - because these people buy, I have to put up with a game that has content chopped out of it and sold for additional $$$. I expected better of Valve and hope they'll improve in this field.