MudMan

But it IS a crazy conspiracy… theory. “Skate testing its MTX during an alpha means that they will be a scam at launch and/or impact gameplay because Multiversus also had MTX and that had a bad relaunch” is a complete non-sequitur. This is cavemen sacrificing goats to make it rain levels of random event association.

So I have to conclude the emotional layer is what matters here. Being mad loudly online at a frequent punching bag with a bad reputation is sheer mob-induced dopamine and that’s why that headline exists and why this conversation happens. And why social media exists and is killing liberal democracy, but that’s probably beyond the scope of this thread.

You just made all that up. None of that is even tangentially related to the thing that actually happened.

I mean, now we’re arguing that this weird ploy to extract more money for cosmetics is probably going to harm gameplay (even though it’s unrelated to gameplay) because a different game from a different company also had MTX which were also not related to the bad gameplay changes they made.

I don’t know what to argue there. It’s entirely irrational.

To be clear, it’s not irrational that F2P games often push monetization in intrusive ways that are annoying. It’s not irrational that Multiversus had a very weird history and a poor relaunch. But the way you’re connecting those pieces along with a healthy dose of entirely disconnected preconceptions based on branding is completely off the rails.

This is why this is so frustrating to me. People just want to be mad at things because some other things that are unrelated made them mad once and they want to just smear the anger a bit. It’s pure mob mentality and I fully admit that it pisses me off in games as a proxy for how much of it informs modern society and politics in general. Which I guess I’m doing, too, a little bit. But still.

The implicit perception of value in this comment is making my head spin. We all realize that in-game cosmetics aren’t real, right?

Also, yes, they are doing the free to play version of preordering. It’s called Early Access and it’s supposed to happen later this year. See also Path of Exile 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3.

People are working overtime to get their knee-jerk reaction to be retroactively justified here. The thing is, I would get being mad at this being a F2P game in the first place. I would get being mad at it being funded through microtransactions. Those are meaningful changes from the previous trilogy that I don’t particularly care for.

It’s the being mad on the spot at a haf-misunderstood headline depicting something entirely unremarkable that rubs me the wrong way.

I guess it depends a lot on your background. I thought it felt simple compared to the old X-Wing series but not necessarily dumbed down, they did a decent job streamlining it for a modern take.

I guess that means some people can find it too slow and intricate and others too arcadey. I imagine the Skate guys are having to make a lot of those same decisions for a lot of those same reasons.

It really, really isn’t. Guessing it’s testing.

As per the article, they’re refunding all purchases at launch.

It’s a free to play game, there is absolutely nothing newsworthy about this. Path of Exile 2 just launched on early access with a bunch of microtransactions AND a paywall and people were absolutely delighted with it.

Aw, man, underrated. Great in VR, too.

I mean… yeah, that’s normally when you add stuff to a game. Especially this stuff.