Free to Play (F2P) is not a cure all.
City of Heroes is currently scheduled to go dark later this year. There are many efforts underway to try and prevent this, and I won't knock them because there are a lot of people who really liked this game even if I didn't when I gave it a shot. But, I won't pretend they are likely to succeed either given that the Developers have apparently been shown the door. Although one assumes a caretaker crew is still in place to keep up the servers, spawn some insane critters in the last month/week, and then turn out the lights, I don't expect they're likely to bring an entire studio back from the dead.
City Of Heroes: Freedom - the F2P version of the game appears to have been launched Sept 27th 2011; it bought the game a little more than one year more of life. In that year, about half the press releases from the company were biweekly announcements about great things you could buy with "Paragon Points": the cash to game currency conversion.
Apparently that didn't work all that well.
There are other reasons floating around - ambivalence from ArenaNET/NCSoft towards maintaining a NA Development studio when their markets/offices are increasingly elsewhere is the prevailing one - but I'm going to go with the most obvious: CoH was an 8 year old game well into the tail end of it's player base; still beloved and in people's memories but no longer played nor paid for by many of those that flocked to it initially. Not only that, but the number of comments from people hoping they port the Character Generator to it's own engine and release that separately as a stand alone going away present still makes me wonder how many people were playing the game, and how many were simply playing Super-Hero Designer inside one of the best tools for doing it currently on the market by all accounts.
So, what we learn from this is that F2P has the potential to get people in the door and interested again but you need to be able to sustain that burst and get them to buy your perks in order for it to actually prevent your product from failing. Newer games may have greater success at that because they are the "new shiny", but they too can potentially run into problems over the long term because their continued existence is now reliant on keeping those free players entertained and shopping or enthralled enough to buy into the premium product.
Which raises the question: why do we even call this F2P? Because of the illusion that the game is now "free"? It would be easy to come up with some derogatory term for what this model actually is but that would only serve to get people combative so I'm going to skip that and just close with the following: the reality is that the game is only free to play to those that are not paying. Someone else is still paying the bills even if you are not and when there's no longer enough people willing to pay for you to be able to play, your game is still going to die.
Do enjoy the ride in the meantime though.
Showing posts with label Things You Learn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Things You Learn. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
TyL: Watching Your Package Travel.
View Larger Map
Apparently, it's cost effective to ship to Toronto, ON, CA, from Nashville, TN, US, via Calgary, AB, CA.
The Map should be enough explanation for why I find this surprising.
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
TyL: From Extensive Beta Experience.
People are apparently searching my blog for an answer to the following question: "what happens with characters mop beta"
I can happily answer this, assuming the inquiry is inline with wanting to know what happens when the beta ends: they get deleted. With extreme prejudice. It involves submersion into magnetic fields and the screams of billions of bits of virtual characters data snuffed out in slow, agonizing, torture.
You know that scene with the Shoe in Roger Rabbit? Worse.
So, no, you won't be able to take your level 85 Pandaren Monk over to the live server, nor your painstakingly grifted AH Gold, or anything else you get over there. Just enjoy your lead time, find - and report! - some of what's broke, maybe spot some of the things you might want to do/get ready to streamline your levelling, and get out when you're not having fun anymore.
I can happily answer this, assuming the inquiry is inline with wanting to know what happens when the beta ends: they get deleted. With extreme prejudice. It involves submersion into magnetic fields and the screams of billions of bits of virtual characters data snuffed out in slow, agonizing, torture.
You know that scene with the Shoe in Roger Rabbit? Worse.
So, no, you won't be able to take your level 85 Pandaren Monk over to the live server, nor your painstakingly grifted AH Gold, or anything else you get over there. Just enjoy your lead time, find - and report! - some of what's broke, maybe spot some of the things you might want to do/get ready to streamline your levelling, and get out when you're not having fun anymore.
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
TyL: You Can't Just Slap Things On Top of Fries & Curds & Call Yourself a "Poutinerie"
Dear New York Fries,
It is with regret that we must inform you that you are failing miserably in your effort to get into the whole "Poutinerie" business in which places like Smoke's have carved out a niche with custom toppings for their Poutine. There are a few reasons for this, which shall now be provided:
1) Smoke's remembers that, at the core, they're making poutine: which is fries with curds + gravy to melt it. You drop the gravy to be replaced your various toppings and hope it can do the same job; which it often can't because...
2) ... the toppings - particularly the pulled pork I tried tonight which formed up in the surface - are not liquid enough to get down into the body of the poutine and get to the cheese. This is where the gravy comes in to actually make the cheese curds melt but now you end up with just the top surface curds melting and the bottom ones never getting touched because...
3) ... of your insistence on throwing some chips in a basket and then hammering an ice cream scoop of cheese curds down on top as one solid mass. When your toppings aren't liquid enough to penetrate and melt that, you end up with unmelted curds at the bottom and none of the gooeyness you'd expect from poutine. If you'd separate the curds amongst the fries, you'd be better able to come at them from all sides and get them all to melt. With the right liquid heat source.
There are ways to address these issues, but they all involve realizing that what worked for when you were just doing basic poutine doesn't work when you're trying to throw steak chunks on top and you need to either make poutine, and then add steak chunks, or put a whole lot more thought into how you're going to get your curds to melt properly from your steak topping.
That said, we do appreciate that at least you've never tried (to our recollection), to make poutine with crispy fries...
Unlike some people.
Sincerely,
Concerned Poutine Lovers.
It is with regret that we must inform you that you are failing miserably in your effort to get into the whole "Poutinerie" business in which places like Smoke's have carved out a niche with custom toppings for their Poutine. There are a few reasons for this, which shall now be provided:
1) Smoke's remembers that, at the core, they're making poutine: which is fries with curds + gravy to melt it. You drop the gravy to be replaced your various toppings and hope it can do the same job; which it often can't because...
2) ... the toppings - particularly the pulled pork I tried tonight which formed up in the surface - are not liquid enough to get down into the body of the poutine and get to the cheese. This is where the gravy comes in to actually make the cheese curds melt but now you end up with just the top surface curds melting and the bottom ones never getting touched because...
3) ... of your insistence on throwing some chips in a basket and then hammering an ice cream scoop of cheese curds down on top as one solid mass. When your toppings aren't liquid enough to penetrate and melt that, you end up with unmelted curds at the bottom and none of the gooeyness you'd expect from poutine. If you'd separate the curds amongst the fries, you'd be better able to come at them from all sides and get them all to melt. With the right liquid heat source.
There are ways to address these issues, but they all involve realizing that what worked for when you were just doing basic poutine doesn't work when you're trying to throw steak chunks on top and you need to either make poutine, and then add steak chunks, or put a whole lot more thought into how you're going to get your curds to melt properly from your steak topping.
That said, we do appreciate that at least you've never tried (to our recollection), to make poutine with crispy fries...
Unlike some people.
Sincerely,
Concerned Poutine Lovers.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
TyL: Sometimes Free is all you Need.
Soooo, when I wiped my computer and installed OS X 10.7 earlier this year I threw away my VMware Fusion 2.0 install... just in time for tax season.
For some reason no one makes tax software for Macs that I can find (at least, north of the border), so I used to just load the software up in a Windows XP VM, plunk in my numbers, and get on with it. As such, I grabbed the install DVD for VMF2.0, slapped it in, and was greeted with a: "Sorry, we'll only install on Intel Macs!" error...
A short Google later I find out 2.0 won't run on 10.7 unless you boot into 32 bit mode. Yeah... no. Not wasting my time rebooting again and again for that. Some more Googling ensues and I find VirtualBox, a VM from Oracle ( and Sun before the purchase), that's conveniently free. WTF, give it a shot before dropping stupid money on a "commercial" VM.
30 Minutes later I'm up and running with no issues. Zippy, more responsive than VMF2.0 at least ever was, and entirely serviceable for the things I'm going to be doing with it.
Don't know if it games - don't care - but if all you need is something to boot Windows Apps from time to time you should be playing around with this before paying for something else.
For some reason no one makes tax software for Macs that I can find (at least, north of the border), so I used to just load the software up in a Windows XP VM, plunk in my numbers, and get on with it. As such, I grabbed the install DVD for VMF2.0, slapped it in, and was greeted with a: "Sorry, we'll only install on Intel Macs!" error...
A short Google later I find out 2.0 won't run on 10.7 unless you boot into 32 bit mode. Yeah... no. Not wasting my time rebooting again and again for that. Some more Googling ensues and I find VirtualBox, a VM from Oracle ( and Sun before the purchase), that's conveniently free. WTF, give it a shot before dropping stupid money on a "commercial" VM.
30 Minutes later I'm up and running with no issues. Zippy, more responsive than VMF2.0 at least ever was, and entirely serviceable for the things I'm going to be doing with it.
Don't know if it games - don't care - but if all you need is something to boot Windows Apps from time to time you should be playing around with this before paying for something else.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
TyL: When $1 Billion isn't $1 Billion.
Rob Ford likes to say: "We've got $1 Billion, lets build the Sheppard Subway out to Victoria Park".
Small problem: he doesn't have $1 Billion. In anything other than monopoly money that is.
What Ford had was an agreement that would've done the following two things: see $333M from the Federal government previously pledged to the Sheppard LRT under Transit City and up to $650M from the Provincial government if there was money left over from tunnelling all of Eglinton; a conditional which, given the history of these kinds of projects, is a pretty big given to accept at face value. Now, City Council tossed that agreement to the curve when they began overruling the Mayor on this file and established their own agenda so, at this point, one has to question where that money really lands. I suspect you could make a fairly safe argument that City Council is now positioned to decide where that money goes and that the Federal and Provincial money will flow back to a Sheppard LRT they were originally intended to fund and no longer be available for anything else.
If that's the case at the end of the day, then there's no money for subway stops at all and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Small problem: he doesn't have $1 Billion. In anything other than monopoly money that is.
What Ford had was an agreement that would've done the following two things: see $333M from the Federal government previously pledged to the Sheppard LRT under Transit City and up to $650M from the Provincial government if there was money left over from tunnelling all of Eglinton; a conditional which, given the history of these kinds of projects, is a pretty big given to accept at face value. Now, City Council tossed that agreement to the curve when they began overruling the Mayor on this file and established their own agenda so, at this point, one has to question where that money really lands. I suspect you could make a fairly safe argument that City Council is now positioned to decide where that money goes and that the Federal and Provincial money will flow back to a Sheppard LRT they were originally intended to fund and no longer be available for anything else.
If that's the case at the end of the day, then there's no money for subway stops at all and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
TyL: We Couldn't Predict This...
... is a commonly presented viewpoint by businesses when "bad things" happen.
Lets consider a rather large "bad thing": The Fukushima Disaster last year. Supporters of nuclear power and TEPCO themselves like to fall back on the "unpredictability" of the event as their primary defence.
Sadly, the record proves them wrong.
An AP report from March 27 2011 gets to the crux of the issue1. In summary, in 2001 papers were first published detailing the geological information that was building up about the Jogan/Sanriku earthquake and tsunami of 869 indicating that it was both more dangerous than previously thought and that there appeared to be evidence of an 800 to 1100 year cycle period for it. This made the possibility of a similar earthquake happening soon increasingly likely as we moved into the 21st century. TEPCO's response was to ignore the evidence, going as far as to try and argue it was "unreliable":
This would almost be excusable in a: "Well, that's big business for you", sense of apathy if not for further reporting by the New York Times last week2. In this article, the Times spells out how the regulatory agencies were executing similar dances with presentations of data related to the Jogan earthquake as well:
At this point, we could stop and go: "Well, no one wanted to hear it. What do you expect?", but... at the tail end of the article we find out that TEPCO finally ran the numbers in house in 2008... promptly shat themselves, and then sat on the stinking pile for a year... releasing some of the revised numbers to the regulators in 2009... threw a tarp over the rest and fled the room for another two years before finally releasing what would happen if a 50' wave of the kind that eventually crippled the plant to regulators on March 7th 2011: 4 days before the fatal blow, and 3 years after they knew they were going to need to do something to address this.
Here's where we hit the "stop" button on the "unpredictable" argument folks: people knew this was coming but they also knew what this was going to cost to fix. However, instead of paying that bill, they rolled the dice that it wouldn't happen "soon" and now we've got a 30 Km exclusion zone in north-east Japan to show for it. When it comes to failing at craps, I wouldn't let these guys within a 1000 KM of Vegas in order to ensure Japan stays a sovereign nation and not a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Inc.
Compare and contrast with this3 LA Times story from village of Murohama in the affected area: when the Jogan tsunami ravaged the area 1000 years ago many residents in the town went to the lower of two hills and were swept away by the waves. The survivors built a shrine on that hill and the story was passed down through generations of what happened that day. When the earthquake hit on March 11th 2011, the populace instead moved en mass to the taller hill this time and watched the other be inundated by the waves.
Imagine that: learning from and responding to history. Perhaps TEPCO should've done the same and then they wouldn't be in a position where they have to try and hand wave it.
1."Japan utility used bad assumptions to conclude nuclear plant was safe from tsunami": March 27, 2011, AP.
2. "Nuclear Disaster in Japan Was Avoidable, Critics Contend": March 9th, 2012, NYT.
3. "Japan's 1,000-year-old warning": March 11, 2012, LA Times.
Lets consider a rather large "bad thing": The Fukushima Disaster last year. Supporters of nuclear power and TEPCO themselves like to fall back on the "unpredictability" of the event as their primary defence.
Sadly, the record proves them wrong.
An AP report from March 27 2011 gets to the crux of the issue1. In summary, in 2001 papers were first published detailing the geological information that was building up about the Jogan/Sanriku earthquake and tsunami of 869 indicating that it was both more dangerous than previously thought and that there appeared to be evidence of an 800 to 1100 year cycle period for it. This made the possibility of a similar earthquake happening soon increasingly likely as we moved into the 21st century. TEPCO's response was to ignore the evidence, going as far as to try and argue it was "unreliable":
In a 2007 paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Pure and Applied Geophysics, two Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees and three outside researchers explained their approach to assessing the tsunami threat to Japan’s nuclear reactors, all 54 of which sit near the sea or ocean.In other words, when the facts don't fit our version of reality, discard.
To ensure the safety of Japan’s coastal power plants, they recommended that facilities be designed to withstand the highest tsunami “at the site among all historical and possible future tsunamis that can be estimated,” based on local seismic characteristics.
But the authors went on to write that tsunami records before 1896 could be less reliable because of “misreading, misrecording and the low technology available for the measurement itself.” The Tokyo Electric Power Co. employees and their colleagues concluded, “Records that appear unreliable should be excluded.”
This would almost be excusable in a: "Well, that's big business for you", sense of apathy if not for further reporting by the New York Times last week2. In this article, the Times spells out how the regulatory agencies were executing similar dances with presentations of data related to the Jogan earthquake as well:
One of those whose warnings were ignored was Kunihiko Shimazaki, a retired professor of seismology at the University of Tokyo. Eight years ago, as a member of an influential cabinet office committee on offshore earthquakes in northeastern Japan, Mr. Shimazaki warned that Fukushima’s coast was vulnerable to tsunamis more than twice as tall as the forecasts of up to 17 feet put forth by regulators and Tepco.Ahh, government happily falling back on: Hear No Evil, See no Evil.
Minutes of the meeting on Feb. 19, 2004, show that the government bureaucrats running the committee moved quickly to exclude his views from debate as too speculative and “pending further research.” None of the other 13 academics on the committee objected. Mr. Shimazaki’s warnings were not even mentioned in the committee’s final report two years later.
At this point, we could stop and go: "Well, no one wanted to hear it. What do you expect?", but... at the tail end of the article we find out that TEPCO finally ran the numbers in house in 2008... promptly shat themselves, and then sat on the stinking pile for a year... releasing some of the revised numbers to the regulators in 2009... threw a tarp over the rest and fled the room for another two years before finally releasing what would happen if a 50' wave of the kind that eventually crippled the plant to regulators on March 7th 2011: 4 days before the fatal blow, and 3 years after they knew they were going to need to do something to address this.
Here's where we hit the "stop" button on the "unpredictable" argument folks: people knew this was coming but they also knew what this was going to cost to fix. However, instead of paying that bill, they rolled the dice that it wouldn't happen "soon" and now we've got a 30 Km exclusion zone in north-east Japan to show for it. When it comes to failing at craps, I wouldn't let these guys within a 1000 KM of Vegas in order to ensure Japan stays a sovereign nation and not a wholly owned subsidiary of Trump Inc.
Compare and contrast with this3 LA Times story from village of Murohama in the affected area: when the Jogan tsunami ravaged the area 1000 years ago many residents in the town went to the lower of two hills and were swept away by the waves. The survivors built a shrine on that hill and the story was passed down through generations of what happened that day. When the earthquake hit on March 11th 2011, the populace instead moved en mass to the taller hill this time and watched the other be inundated by the waves.
Imagine that: learning from and responding to history. Perhaps TEPCO should've done the same and then they wouldn't be in a position where they have to try and hand wave it.
1."Japan utility used bad assumptions to conclude nuclear plant was safe from tsunami": March 27, 2011, AP.
2. "Nuclear Disaster in Japan Was Avoidable, Critics Contend": March 9th, 2012, NYT.
3. "Japan's 1,000-year-old warning": March 11, 2012, LA Times.
Monday, February 27, 2012
TyL: It's Not Me, It's You...
Sportnet Hockey Central Crew: Waaaahhhhhh!!!!! There've been no trades yet!!!! We have nothing to talk about!!!! Trade Deadline Day sucks if the GM's don't do anything!!!!!
NHL GM's: Maybe you whiney bitches should wait for the deadline before doing your show then so you actually have something to talk about, eh?
For reference, the banality of the 12 hour Hockey Trade Deadline show here in Canada has been discussed here before.
NHL GM's: Maybe you whiney bitches should wait for the deadline before doing your show then so you actually have something to talk about, eh?
For reference, the banality of the 12 hour Hockey Trade Deadline show here in Canada has been discussed here before.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
TyL: Balsamic Fig & Maple...
...marinade from Sobeys should have a: "Only Use in Well Ventilated Spaces" warning on it. Stuff is seriously fucking toxic on the senses. I just had to wash up every thing that I cooked it in and ate it off of 'cause it was starting to irritate my throat and make me feel like I needed to vomit well after the actual meal itself.
Then I bleached the sink because it was still wafting up the drainpipe.
I'm not remotely joking here. Avoid.
Then I bleached the sink because it was still wafting up the drainpipe.
I'm not remotely joking here. Avoid.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
TyL: Playing Dark Souls.
Third party edition:
Own impressions coming later.
Dragons are like cats. They are curious and will look for you if you seem to vanish. Much like a cat, if you surprise them, they lash out. Unlike a cat, a dragon does it with LOTS AND LOTS OF FIRE.
Own impressions coming later.
Monday, September 19, 2011
TyL: A More Apt Address I Could not Imagine...
The website for Dark Souls is at PrepareToDie.com.
You could make an argument that this is a reference to the gameplay mechanic that will see you spend time in the game as a "soul"; an astral being like state lacking in a physical body because it has died.
Anyone who's played Demon's Souls will shatter this delusion. The real reference here is to the reality that these games are utterly unforgiving and you are going to die. A lot.
The first game was awesome though; with some unparalleled atmosphere and compelling gameplay. If they've boxed any of that in here it's ending up on my shelf in short order.
You could make an argument that this is a reference to the gameplay mechanic that will see you spend time in the game as a "soul"; an astral being like state lacking in a physical body because it has died.
Anyone who's played Demon's Souls will shatter this delusion. The real reference here is to the reality that these games are utterly unforgiving and you are going to die. A lot.
The first game was awesome though; with some unparalleled atmosphere and compelling gameplay. If they've boxed any of that in here it's ending up on my shelf in short order.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
TyL: When A Family Member is in the Hospital
Telephone: $3.35 per Day
"Basic" TV: $9.20 per Day
"Premium" TV: $11.20 per Day
Free wireless guest Internet upon which to stream TV and make Skype calls? Priceless.
The thing that really gets me? For all that money, they're still only giving you the same 7" CRT's on a swivel arm from about 1982...
"Basic" TV: $9.20 per Day
"Premium" TV: $11.20 per Day
Free wireless guest Internet upon which to stream TV and make Skype calls? Priceless.
The thing that really gets me? For all that money, they're still only giving you the same 7" CRT's on a swivel arm from about 1982...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
TyL: Comparison Shopping...
Amazon seems to have switched to UPS for their shipping for some unfathomable reason.
The good news is that these people know how to use the Entercom.
The bad news is that the package showed up looking like someone ran it over with a truck in order to browse the contents.
The good news is that these people know how to use the Entercom.
The bad news is that the package showed up looking like someone ran it over with a truck in order to browse the contents.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
TyL: Sometimes I Forget Who I'm Being Playful With
Me: Please, I can't be mean to you; you're going to set me up with your sister! *
Her: *all excited now* Really!!!! **
Me: err... no... ***
* this is me referencing our conversation earlier in the week
** this is her thinking I've changed my mind
*** this is me panicking as I realize I probably shouldn't do jokes involving context with someone whose English is excellent, but is still acclimating to the overall culture and doesn't quite have banter down.
Her: *all excited now* Really!!!! **
Me: err... no... ***
* this is me referencing our conversation earlier in the week
** this is her thinking I've changed my mind
*** this is me panicking as I realize I probably shouldn't do jokes involving context with someone whose English is excellent, but is still acclimating to the overall culture and doesn't quite have banter down.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
TyL: About Stored Food
1) You don't microwave mayonnaise.
2) You definitely don't microwave mayonnaise after it's marinated in tomato juices for 24 hours.
Yeah...
2) You definitely don't microwave mayonnaise after it's marinated in tomato juices for 24 hours.
Yeah...
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
TyL: Why I'd Never Own A Condo
"Her monthly fees have now reached $900 per month but at least she isn’t a newly-landed immigrant or low-income parent, like many of the other residents. In his affidavit, Bisaillon also wrote that each unit could be on the hook for almost $20,000 before the condo’s finances are back in the clear."Read on.
Seriously, a 30 year old building where you're paying essentially one bedroom apartment monthly fees for that part of town just in maintenance simply because apathy and disinterest in actually dealing with issues on behalf of the owners has let repairs build up to the point where there's "millions of dollars" worth to be done.
And this is a credible investment?
Screw that. Own a freehold house, pay your taxes, and then if you don't feel like fixing the walls or mowing the lawn at least it's your own damned fault when they fall in on you and the raccoons are advancing upon your trapped body from the overgrowth. I'd propose government address this through legislation to ensure it can't happen but this idea that we can push repairs and maintenance off onto the next guy as long as we don't have to pay for it has such a prevalent mindshare amongst "leadership" there as well that we've a $123 billion Infrastructure Deficit* that's going to come back to haunt someone.
They'd probably wonder what exactly the problem is they're being asked to solve.
* And that was just to stabilize things. In 2007.
Friday, May 20, 2011
TyL: Just a Reminder...
Common Sense very rarely survives contact with Good Health Policy once "Morality" intervenes
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