House of ZAN Forum

[Plague]

http://starcraft2.pro/
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"Never fear, I is here!"
Jared Sellars (a.k.a. Plague)

[Prometheus]

Ok that sucks BLizz all ready makes a crap ton of cash off of Wow. I know they dont need to charge us to play stand alone games.

[musicman]

looks like one game that I won't be getting

[Ravage]

Mixed bag, really...

I tend to think it's mostly downside, of course, you won't have to pay to play SC2, just to play on Battlenet (or Battlenet 2.0, as teh case may be).

Oh, wait...they're taking LAN play out.

Yup, it's pay to play Starcraft.

There can be upsides to this, as the revenue generated from Battle.Net would be used to further make new releases. Also, there would now be pressure on Blizzard to provide new content. They did not do this really with the original Starcraft. Patches were mostly just fixes and tweaks, with an occasional bone thrown in like replays. Actual content updates would be worth paying for IMO. We're talking additional story, mind you, not just new shiny things like TF2 updates.

If this were EA, Sony, Activision, or pretty much anyone else but Blizzard, I'd really be hesitant. I'm pretty certain Blizzard has something very special planned if they're going to start monthly charges (or even one time charges for the service).

If not, then Valve just became my favorite game producer.

[commandertracker]

I'm at work so I can't read the link - I'll have to form my opinion off Ravage's synopsis for now.

This really looks like Blizzard has enjoyed monthy revenue from World of Warcraft and is possibly turning Starcraft 2 into a trial to expand that business model. I don't like it, especially because if Blizzard can successfully carry this out with a non-mmo game then other developers are sure to follow suit. Imagine pay-for-play for TF2?

At this point I won't rule out buying the game entirely, though this news item plus the previous one about making expansions/add ons out of each race really puts a bad taste in my mouth about this game. I would likely enjoy playing the single-player campaigns anyway so this pay-to-play business wouldn't bother me right off. Paying for additional content (if the point is indeed new content and not battlenet upkeep) may not be bad either depending on the price. I definitely will not be buying Starcraft 2 until all of the addon packs/expansions/whatever for all the races are finished and out, and I won't be buying it until after I see how the battlenet and pay-for-play functions work.

For the first time, I will not be buying a game from Blizzard on its release date with the confidence of knowing it will be worthwhile to pay full price for simply because it is Blizzard. If this was any other company (besides possibly Valve) trying to pull this I wouldn't even be considering buying this game at all.

Much more important to me is my suspicion that this may be a model to pay for the upkeep and maintenance of battlenet; if that is the case and the pay-for-play feature of Starcraft 2 is successful, then it becomes possible to expect that same model for Diablo III.

And I will say now - if they make Diablo III pay-for-play then Blizzard has seen the last of my checkbook.
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[Erik Dodd]

If there is no LAN play and you have to play to play I will probably not even buy the game. I don't see what the point will be.
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Είναι όλα τα ελληνικά σε με

[Dana]

[Grand Master Sef]

I'll wait for a concrete announcement but if its pay to play in anyway (yes, I AM a poet) then Blizzard will get the COLD shoulder from me.
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[Ravage]

I'm not nearly so hard set as you guys, but if it's just about making a dime and not putting something extra out there, then I wouldn't buy it either.

And Todd, I've heard this about D3 before, and I had heard this plan was designed specifically with D3 in mind moreso than SC2. Maybe something like how Hellgate's subscriptions worked?
With some tweaking, that honestly might not be bad at all...time will tell.

[commandertracker]

[Ravage]

The key difference between D3 and SC2 is obviously gametype. I'm not sure how a pay to play model could possibly work for SC2 without alienating all but hardcore RTS fans. Much as I love Starcraft, it's one of very few RTS's that I enjoy for extended periods...Hard to see paying for it.

D2 could certainly have had additional content added on in a Hellgate model. They did very well with updates there vs. Starcraft updates, as they added tons of loot and synergies via simple patches. However, it wasn't really worth paying for. Personally, I'd like to see D3 incorporate a little more customization. To go back to Hellgate, I'd LOVE to see D3 have online BattleNet servers where, while in town, you will see other players online, and be able to see their characters, etc.
I really felt the Dye Kit idea was probably the single greatest thing to come from Hellgate, as well. Take all your random assorted loot and color coordinate it! WoW would benefit from that in a big way!
It's also entirely possible to see D3 morph into a sort of DotA-style PVP. Wouldn't take much at all to go from their standard format to that type of gameplay, but you'd use your hard-built hero instead of built in ones.

There really are a ton of possibilities that I'd be willing to pay for.

[Admiral Trell]

So let me get this straight.... we'll all have to pay $50 for the game, and another $60-80 throughout each year for BattleNet? I'll ditto a lot of the sentiment being expressed on this topic: what "extra content" could they possibly add that's worth all this $$$? Unless Blizzard has something really awesome up their sleeve, this is going to backfire on them like a 20 megaton nuke! Oh sure, they're gonna have millions of folks who will buy the game and all at first, but after a while, their loyal base will abandon them. There are so few games out there that have enjoyed the longevity of SC (12+ years?) WORLDWIDE..... it is a shame, but I think this will kill the franchise.

[Dana]

I'm going to wait and see what Blizzard decides, because I don't think they'd risk alienating so many people by making SC2 largely pay-to-play. I mean, it's kind of a flawed business plan to make people start paying for Battle.net right off the bat when you've only got one game plugged into it. WOW has its own fee and doesn't really NEED Battle.net in any way since it's a static world. So you'd have lonely little StarCraft 2 using this new Battle.net system and that's it, until Diablo 3 and subsequent games are released.

I tend to think vague announcements like this are designed to test the waters and see how people react to that sort of idea. What we end up getting may be some watered-down version, or something entirely different altogether — neither of which would not be uncharacteristic for Blizzard. We could end up seeing a discounted rate for people who also subscribe to WOW, or a package deal for D3 and SC2 somewhere down the line. Who knows?

Plus, they HAVE to be aware how this will appear to 95% of their user base. They make tens of millions in revenue per month from WOW alone, and now they are claiming that they "kinda have to" make B.net pay-to-play? Whatever the real-world numbers are (and I highly doubt they would be that hard-pressed for funds), there's really no way they can sufficiently explain it to most consumers.

That being said, though, I don't enjoy StarCraft enough — in ANY form — to justify a monthly subscription fee, whether it's $5 or $15. Just build the game and let me buy it from you and play it! That's all I ask. MMOs are totally different and the monthly fee makes sense for them.
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