trippenbach
tanith6227
rustedangel
Pale HorseThere’s a trailer, folks:
The trailer is a bit lame, if you ask me, but it does explain the game concept fairly well. I laughed at the reference to these guys.
And there’s an article in Gamasutra where the designer talks all about it. Turns out there’s more to it than just buying customizable character bits, people - you can also buy power levelling. Here’s a quote from Ben Cousins, senior producer on Battlefield Heroes:
we think there are two areas where people would be interested [in buying things]. First is your customization items, to change the way your character looks. Maybe you want the gold helmet and a huge mustache, or something like that; maybe a monocle. Those will be micro-items.
The other thing is what we call convenience items: So let’s imagine that the two of us are playing the game, and you’re playing the game every night for four hours, you’re leveling up your guy really fast, but I’ve got like a wife and kids, and only play the game a couple evenings a week.
But I want to catch up with you, so maybe I’ll buy an item which gives me double the experience points for a couple of days. So I’m still playing the game, I’m still having to be skilled at the game, but I’m just leveling up my character slightly quicker. So those are the two categories.
Hmm. Powerlevelling for $$$? What do you say to that?
Filed under: Games | Tagged: Battlefield Heroes, EA, game, micropayment, microtransactions, trailer
The trailer’s old news - like, close to a month old. There were some complaints that it was too flippant in its treatment of its historical inspiration - is the game supposed to be a parody of the Battlefield series, or of World War II itself?
As we probably could have predicted, the microtransactions stuff has expanded beyond aesthetic changes into the realm of actual gameplay advantage. It’s too bad we don’t know what impact being a higher level has, but we can assume with reasonable confidence that it confers advantages such as the ability to inflict more damage, survive longer, use special abilities more often, and so on. If being higher level confered no real advantage, then there would be no impetus to “catch up”.
And as we discussed in our original post on the topic, this is where it becomes sticky. It’s not the same as being able to pay for a super-weapon, but it goes further than just getting a red beret instead of a green one. It’s a step closer to the Bad Company model that we’ve discussed recently, which (as others have said better already) stands to do more harm than is currently appreciated.
Good find.
I actually think the trailer is good. Funny, and a nice jab at the endless, noble, hyper-serious WWII games that have flooded the market over the past few years. The war was almost 70 years ago; I find it absurd that anyone would suggest that it’s too soon to make jokes about it. The very GIs whose sacrifices we’re apparently trying to honor by not making fun of the war were probably making ruthless fun of it while it was actually happening. So pish posh to the criticism of flippant tone.
As for paying for power leveling - now we’re disrespecting the Men. How dare we allow feeble n00bs to level up for money. The real GIs had to be real heroes; nub GIs were killed quickly! I understand that a headshot is a headshot, but if this game rips its abilities off TF2 (and it’s ripped everything else off TF2, so there’s no reason to think it won’t) then a team with a leveled-up medic will be a lot better than one without one. Sounds like “pay to win” to me.
I loved the trailer, My father, and two uncles where in WWII and they would definatly enjoy this better than the games that pretend that if you play you know what it was like. you don’t, you won’t, you can’t. Also, Not getting shot in the face over and over by power twitch teenage gamers sounds too good to be true.
Paying for higher level characters of course has been around since Ultima Online and E-Bay.
In this world you tend to have time or money, this way you get the choice as to which you spend.
I wrote a short story based on the trailer. I was inspired. If you want to check it out …
http://members.cox.net/beaucole/The_Fighting_Beagles.htm
In a trailer I believe he states that you won’t be using real money, but a currency you earn by playing the game.
You can also purchase the currency with real money and that will ofcourse be the source of the EXP upgraders, as they said you pay for more exp because you cant play as much so how will they earn the currency? Well I dont think double exp counts as “purchase power levelling” since you still have to play for the exp you just gain more during less time.
Maybe they should put a limit like if you play over xxx-hours a week you are not allowed to buy it but if you play under xx-hours a week you are allowed. Or maybe they should add the exp/rest thing WoW’s got, so the people offline more gain more. That should even things out.