Diablo Immortal is the real POE killer

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wjameschan wrote:

Because we Chinese fucking *love* gambling. Literally one of the best movies made about gambling is a Hong Kong flick called 'God of Gamblers'. The amount of liquid wealth nouveau-rich Chinese mainlanders spend in Macau on gambling would blow your mind. At a greater remove from obvious big spending, Mah-Jong is entirely acceptable as a social pastime and unofficial gambling there is as common as, say, poker in the West. So sure, there can be an anti-gambling stance by the government but good luck erasing what is likely one of the culture's most ingrained pastimes and self-identifiers.

Ah, the extreme gambling in DI makes sense now. Huh, I thought the US/Europe was the center of the gaming world. :D

I don't really remember "God of Gamblers". Is that where the card players would change their card by rubbing it? lol

The mah-jong movie, Fat Choi Spirit, starring Andy Lau is pretty funny too.

Yeah, Macau's gaming revenue is three times that of Las Vegas. Although, I think some of that money is money laundering.

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zakalwe55 wrote:

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wjameschan wrote:

Because we Chinese fucking *love* gambling. Literally one of the best movies made about gambling is a Hong Kong flick called 'God of Gamblers'. The amount of liquid wealth nouveau-rich Chinese mainlanders spend in Macau on gambling would blow your mind. At a greater remove from obvious big spending, Mah-Jong is entirely acceptable as a social pastime and unofficial gambling there is as common as, say, poker in the West. So sure, there can be an anti-gambling stance by the government but good luck erasing what is likely one of the culture's most ingrained pastimes and self-identifiers.

Ah, the extreme gambling in DI makes sense now. Huh, I thought the US/Europe was the center of the gaming world. :D

I don't really remember "God of Gamblers". Is that where the card players would change their card by rubbing it? lol

The mah-jong movie, Fat Choi Spirit, starring Andy Lau is pretty funny too.

Yeah, Macau's gaming revenue is three times that of Las Vegas. Although, I think some of that money is money laundering.

Honestly I don't remember it very well either, only that it had Chow Yun-Fat and spawned a billion sequels. And it had Andy Lau.

As for that last bit, far too down the speculation hole for me to comment other than some vague truism: once you hit a certain amount of wealth, it stops being about making money and becomes all about protecting it. Dragons are famous for guarding their hoards, not how they built them up.

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wjameschan wrote:

Tell me you can't see Tencent trying that on a player base already conditioned to equating money with game progress/quality of life.

I can't, because I very rarely have nightmares.

While I certainly do not view GGG/PoE as "the Mother Theresa of F2P games" (even though Blizzard are trying their best to make them seem so), I think the Chinese version and the "Western" version of PoE will remain different. Sure, if shit really was about to hit the fan and player numbers would plummet, I could see them alter their monetization line a little bit. But Chris (for all it's worth) has been pretty eager to market PoE as "non P2W" in several interviews over the years, and was quick to label D:I as "not a game". Seems like he has a line too.

Again, this may just be my naivety speaking. But I also said that we'll probably won't see a war within the western world in the foreseeable future.

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Phrazz wrote:

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wjameschan wrote:

Tell me you can't see Tencent trying that on a player base already conditioned to equating money with game progress/quality of life.

I can't, because I very rarely have nightmares.

While I certainly do not view GGG/PoE as "the Mother Theresa of F2P games" (even though Blizzard are trying their best to make them seem so), I think the Chinese version and the "Western" version of PoE will remain different. Sure, if shit really was about to hit the fan and player numbers would plummet, I could see them alter their monetization line a little bit. But Chris (for all it's worth) has been pretty eager to market PoE as "non P2W" in several interviews over the years, and was quick to label D:I as "not a game". Seems like he has a line too.

Again, this may just be my naivety speaking. But I also said that we'll probably won't see a war within the western world in the foreseeable future.

Oh. Another clarification. When I say domestic market and 'players conditioned to equating money with game progress/quality of life', I am speaking specifically of Tencent's Chinese version. There is exactly zero chance that a GGG-operated PoE would get any more p2w than it already is (which is by all metrics very, very little). And I don't say that because it would be 'wrong' or 'unethical', because I think GGG are already both in their own way, but because it would be against GGG's established parameters for the game. Perhaps worse than 'wrong' or 'unethical', it would be a betrayal of the original PoE's most basic identity...an identity that has no trouble opening more than enough wallets outside of the Middle Kingdom.

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wjameschan wrote:

Oh. Another clarification. When I say domestic market and 'players conditioned to equating money with game progress/quality of life', I am speaking specifically of Tencent's Chinese version. There is exactly zero chance that a GGG-operated PoE would get any more p2w than it already is (which is by all metrics very, very little). And I don't say that because it would be 'wrong' or 'unethical', because I think GGG are already both in their own way, but because it would be against GGG's established parameters for the game. Perhaps worse than 'wrong' or 'unethical', it would be a betrayal of the original PoE's most basic identity...an identity that has no trouble opening more than enough wallets outside of the Middle Kingdom.

Quite a few people were surprised when GGG introduced the battle pass system just 3 months ago.

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3242840/page/1

That we were, but honestly it's just overdue. It's not pay to win -- it's purely cosmetic -- and it's aimed squarely at regular players/supporters since it doesn't affect anything before Maps. I know now from my little experiment, a casual player who doesn't do at least some research probably won't make it to Maps in the current state of the game. They would literally have to fluke a build that satisfies the game's current level of difficulty, and I don't think it's an overstatement at this point to say that we're in needle/haystack territory there.

As usual it's an attempt to buck certain industry trends. A battle pass usually augments the game experience from the very start, buffing drops or offering exclusive cosmetics, as a further enticement for a casual to invest. Instead PoE's battle pass is all about getting established supporters to just support a little more for a decent pay-off.

OP says diablo immortal isnt p2w this is some extremely low tier bait

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wjameschan wrote:

That we were, but honestly it's just overdue. It's not pay to win -- it's purely cosmetic -- and it's aimed squarely at regular players/supporters since it doesn't affect anything before Maps. I know now from my little experiment, a casual player who doesn't do at least some research probably won't make it to Maps in the current state of the game. They would literally have to fluke a build that satisfies the game's current level of difficulty, and I don't think it's an overstatement at this point to say that we're in needle/haystack territory there.

As usual it's an attempt to buck certain industry trends. A battle pass usually augments the game experience from the very start, buffing drops or offering exclusive cosmetics, as a further enticement for a casual to invest. Instead PoE's battle pass is all about getting established supporters to just support a little more for a decent pay-off.

Well, the Bottled Faith MTX from the first Vault Pass has a much more visible consecrated ground effect than the base mtx. Is better visibility a quality of life improvement or PTW? The Rumi Concoction MTX and the Void Battery MTX from the second Vault Pass also provide better visibility of status effects.

So with GGG introducing dynamic cosmetics, cosmetics might not just be merely cosmetics but useful status indicators. Imagine if GGG introduced a Exile Health Globe mtx for a Vault Pass. The player's health globe would turn green if they were poisoned, white with frost if they were chilled, iced if frozen or bubbling if effected by corrupted blood. Just cosmetics, right?

Of course, players would (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Some really intelligent discussion in this thread.

Didn't realize how potentially doomed we are, as far as receiving quality non p2w games in future if DI, disgustingly, takes off.

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zakalwe55 wrote:

Well, the Bottled Faith MTX from the first Vault Pass has a much more visible consecrated ground effect than the base mtx. Is better visibility a quality of life improvement or PTW? The Rumi Concoction MTX and the Void Battery MTX from the second Vault Pass also provide better visibility of status effects.

So with GGG introducing dynamic cosmetics, cosmetics might not just be merely cosmetics but useful status indicators. Imagine if GGG introduced a Exile Health Globe mtx for a Vault Pass. The player's health globe would turn green if they were poisoned, white with frost if they were chilled, iced if frozen or bubbling if effected by corrupted blood. Just cosmetics, right?

Of course, players would (╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

Indeed, they flirt with the cosmetics-->quality of life-->advantage-->pay to win progression far more overtly these days, especially now that visual effects are both out of control and as crucial as ever to perceive. Dynamic cosmetics is an excellent term for this if we consider that most if not all mtxes until Kirac's Vault were passive -- they did not really alter the playing field so much as give it a quirky, 4th-wall-breaking fun overlay. Glowing kiwi pets and ridiculously ornate sets of armour on a freshly-overboard Exile were and are absolutely imperceptible to the in-game world, and if anything make it harder to see what's going on. But once 'cosmetics' augment a player's perception of what's going on, then we are firmly in 'quality of life' territory. The process towards pay to win has begun -- but there is no proof it will complete. Only that PoE is, right now, closer to pay to win than ever before.

BUT you have to earn that by playing the Atlas, AND it's still worlds away from any other F2P's 'quality of life' mtxes, so if we want to call it a step or two towards pay to win, then I'd say we're still miles away from that eventuality.

And the advent of Diablo Immortal should only accentuate that. I'm half-surprised GGG aren't being more aggressive in their capitalising on the collective shockwave of horror DI is sending through the gaming community, but I suppose at this point it would be beneath them to acknowledge it. Still, talk about your competitors serving you their own head on a platter!