3881

Re: equipping, what does happen sometimes that’s annoying is that, in the pre-Skyranger mission crew load-out screen, you’ll want to equip something (like a medkit, or an arc thrower) that you know you have somewhere, but you can’t see it to equip because one of your non-mission soldiers in the barracks has it. Unfortunately the only way to get the thing in question is to back all the way out to the barracks screen and find the soldier who’s got it in their loadout and unequip it so that your mission soldier can grab it, which is a pain.

3882

I went to his post expecting a rant but it turned out to be a pretty level-headed take on the game, so I’m not sure why you’re acting all dismissive. It’s clear he liked XCOM but like most of us he also had misgivings about several decisions, and it sounds like he’s actually played the game instead of parroting common gripes. Indeed he lists those aspects he finds great and even those that are better than his own design.

You either really like what they have done here, or you don’t.

There’s ample space in the middle for various degrees of “meh”.

3883

And to me, it sounded like he was literally parroting common gripes. /shrug

3884

I love the game (just finished my third full playthrough-- Classic Ironman victory at last) and I think that article is pretty fair. The original is my favourite game ever, but I’m not a purist. I don’t think most of the streamlining decisions they made can reasonably be called dumbing down, other than the Geoscape simulation.

On an unrelated note, last week I played through Terror From The Deep for the first time since it was released. Don’t… don’t do that.

3885

Listen to yourself. If they are common gripes, doesn’t that mean it would only be normal for them to be… wait for it… COMMON.

I agree with most of what he said, although probably a bit more negative.

For example, I hate the level design in xcom and find it one of its biggest flaws that all of the maps are generic and have nothing special in them.

Destructability is also a joke. From where does this desire to pretend Apocalypse never happened come?

I can’t say I really agree with the smaller squads being that negative either. Yes, it is somewhat silly that the earth sends its best soldiers to stop an alien invasion and it consists of one base, one transport, one interceptor at a time and 4-6 soldiers… ok it is really damn silly, but I think being able to pick skills and such for your team makes up for that.

Also he didn’t even mention the infamous freeze bug or embarrassing “Firaxis made the only game I’ve ever played in my life where they can’t figure out how to order save games by date” bug.

I also don’t consider myself a purist. I played Apocalypse first and then went to play the earlier games after loving it. Then I replayed apocalypse down the years, which remains my favorite xcom game by far.

3886

This is sort of my point - every item on his list is directly from some review or another, he doesn’t delve into the specifics like what you just did, really - he’s just saying what he’s probably read others write. I’m not really saying he’s wrong, it’s all his opinion. I’m not even saying he never played it, my point with that is simply he’s really not saying anything new, original, or helpful.

What I’m really getting at, with my initial post, is since he’s making a competing product, him making such a “mini-review” puts him in the hot seat to improve on all the things he doesn’t like with the competition. If not, I’d love to see Jake or someone from Firaxis take him to task on the negatives HIS game holds, and I’m sure there will be some.

I think it was ballsy to make such a post. I don’t believe you see developers review the competitions games all that often, and I’m surprised no one else commented on that aspect of the blog post.

3887

I sure would love to see that too as long as they keep it equally grounded. I don’t see the hangup here, it’s not that he viciously attacked the game or anything.

I think it was ballsy to make such a post. I don’t believe you see developers review the competitions games all that often, and I’m surprised no one else commented on that aspect of the blog post.

This is a small dev that started his reimagining of this holy grail of computer gaming well before the Firaxis tank came out with their own AAA remake. He doesn’t get a fraction of the media exposure, interview or budget. He relies on direct contact with the community, and many were indeed worried about the future of Xenonauts after the new XCOM entered the picture. I think it would have been weird if he hadn’t addressed the elephant in the room, and I think he did a good job looking at it from a gamer’s perspective -hence the “common” gripes - and pointing out the differences with his own project.

3888

Thanks for posting this. I just had the same issue, and the same fix applied.

3889

Is there a fix for the stupid locked temple ship doors?

I loooked all over for a bad guy I may have missed. I Rifted behind the closed doors to hopefully killl any dudes that may have retreated behind them. I did mind control the initial sectoid commander, but ended up killing him.

All of these are factors/fixes I have read about for the problem of not being able to proceed. This is my second run through on normal ironman. Was going to move to Classic, but now I am cranky.

3890

I don’t know, I only had that problem back on my first run through the game. If your save game is already in that state, I doubt a patch would change it though.

If you kill your ‘chosen one’ you get the option to replay the mission, even on iron man.

3891

That’s right. I guess I can Rift myself into oblivion. No one has grenades or missiles left in my crew.

Thanks!

EDIT: Aaaand finished. I sure wish it kept track of those stats in some high score format. Seems stupid to give them to you and then they disappear forever.

3892

Here’s an article that really grinds my gears: http://adamrusselldesign.com/2012/11/08/xcom-should-have-been-free-to-play/

What do you all think?

3893

You can’t use that title, write it as if these would be good ideas that he believes people would pay for, follow up in the comments by saying you just wanted to get discussion going regarding F2P in games that are not and then act all shocked people say it is a horrible, horrible idea.

It is a horrible idea and the unanimous reaction is why. I can see for some titles that it might work. XCom was not a good choice on which to try his little experiment.

3894

I seem to be in the minority, but 99% of the time i hate “free” games.

I just want to pay upfront and not have to worry about being nickle and dimed at every corner. Especially since basically every “free to play” game i’ve played is SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive than an upfront cost game if you play it a lot.

3895

Yeah, horrible arguments for f2p in that article. Also, is it just me, or is it a guy who says he’s a game designer, but has no links to anything he has done? And his profile page goes off to a japanese site that when translated, is just odd poetry?

I mean, I could theoretically see someone trying to argue a way to make Xcom F2P, but the way he went about it was just awful, it’s like he chose every horrible F2P mechanic he could and listed them.

3896

Bah, armchair designer. It’s trivial to convert any game into a f2p title. Of course, if you want it to be a good f2p title, that’s a different challenge.

3897

I think the basic mission-based play would fit pretty well into an f2p structure. Those are precisely the distinct chunks of activity you want. The strategic layer would have to be completely different, of course.

3898

Are there even good f2p titles? Serious question.
I mean, either it’s possible to play free without being handicapped, missing out on (core)content or having to grind endlessly - in that case I guess you could say it’s a good f2p title - for the player.
But more often than not, this means the title is not exactly lucrative, because hardly anyone will be inclined to spend money - so it’s not a good f2p game for the developer.

The only ways around this dilemma seem to be either living off some whales who sink endless amounts of money into your game to the benefit of the majority of players (which still usually have to live with some amount of grinding in return) OR becoming crazy successful, so it becomes viable to sell strictly cosmetic stuff and live off that - TF2 seems to operate like that.
In the former example, it’d arguably still not be a good f2p game for the whales at least.
And in the latter one … there can only be very few crazy popular games like this at any given time, so it’s a bit like buying a lottery ticket.

Go play the f2p Jagged Alliance Online for a somewhat similar game and witness the negative ramifications firsthand.

rezaf

3899

Or it could be like the vast majority of free mobile games which follow a 3rd business model, squeeze everyone as much as possible.

“You can complete this game without paying.”

Oh you want to upgrade past conventional bullet weapons? only $9.95 per gun, on sale today for only $7.95!

Oh you lost some soldiers and want to recruit more? We’re having a sale today, $0.25 each recruit with a 0.0000001% chance that your recruit will be of elite quality!

3900

I think he doesn’t have any proof or any kind of argument about how the game would have been more profitable with a F2P system than a pay-all-upfront system.

In fact he fully skip that part, which is the first part you should do when thinking about changing the revenue system of a game.

Game design wise? yeah, of course you can put cheats (oops, sorry, I mean speed boots and premium items) in the game in exchange of money.