oog
Wannabe
Posts: 25 
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Post by oog on May 19, 2014 4:17:37 GMT
So I've been playing this game on ipad since it was launched in NZ, and its been interesting to compare it with the PC version which I kickstarted and have played since the first Beta.
Pretty much now apparent that we have been testing a mobile game, most of the annoyances with the PC were mobile mechanics gone wrong - where have you seen the 1hr to build a wooden hut before? Yep.
The tutorial is not skipable because that is the essence of the first few hours of mobile gameplay which allows them to ask a player to sign up and feel that they've had a fair taste of the game.
The so-called "Temple of discovery" simply forces you to sign up and tries to get you to add your Facebook with the promise of meeting other godus players, it's always a bad idea to ask people to create an account when they haven't really got to know whether they will want to keep your app or not.You get a reward of 100 gems for signing up, but a huge sticker pack you can buy also appears next to timeline.
You can buy gems for cash and use them to buy belief, $24.99 would get you 500 gems.When you compare that to someone buying the mega gem pack for $129, you can see how important your $20 is in the scheme of things.
It's possible to play without using gems, but it's very slow - actually it's quite a good simulation of the PC version, playing without using gems to speed up house building and belief accumulation - I've been playing without using gems to see how it feels. It feels slow.
Gameplay as we already know is the "go away and do something else while the timers run down" model.
The monetization is pretty cheesy and I can't see any sign of the "tempting you to spend money rather than requiring you to do so". Pretty cheesy in that no opportunity is missed to get you to use gems, which will mean buying gems when you burn through the free 100 you get for selling your soul sorry signing up to Mobage.
Stickers and the reluctance to change the mechanic are also explained by the presence of a big sticker pack you can buy for 10 gems.This is why your people do not create resources like wood from trees or stone from rocks or mud bricks from earth and water - so we can buy them from the god store.
Anyway, it seems that this wasn't thought through properly, it would have made more sense to have tools that you could buy for your followers to unlock new abilities eg ploughs activate farming, better tools enable better houses etc. if I can choose not to buy these tools I can still play the game, sadly as it is, once the larger buildings are unlocked that is what your followers build.These take ages unless you buy and use gems. So yes it's not pay to win, it's pay to avoid being bored .
Sticker packs cost more as you progress from 10 gems for the primitive age to 45 for the bronze.You don't know how many you get or what they are, you have to buy them blind.That 100 gems you got for signing up looks less and less like a gift.
Finally, I've got to the farming settlement card, which needs stickers to unlock and costs 10K belief to build. Because belief generation is so slow, this means you have to buy some or wait another couple of days to get up to 10k.
Oh and the reason we had a period where the camera didnt rotate is because, that's the mobile version. The camera does not rotate.
I've been racking my brains to see what the advantage PC gamers have over the mobile users by virtue of having paid $20 versus $0. All I can see so far is that the storms don't seem to drop chests, however it doesnt seem to cost wheat to build houses in the iOS version....
Long and rambling, so TLDR: The PC version of Godus now appears to me to have been a tester for the mobile game. As people suspected, things like the 24hr timers were mobile "buy stickers" mechanics that were left in the PC version. The monetisation is no different from any other iOS game where you have to pay to avoid boredom. So far I can see no advantages whatsoever that the PC gamers get for their having paid actual money upfront.

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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 19, 2014 4:51:03 GMT
Thank you for your enlightening and thorough assessment. I have to be careful to not get too enraged about all this for Godus has cost me enough already and I don't want to shorten my lifespan for it.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2014 6:42:13 GMT
It's funny to see how everything i suspected comes true now. I am so happy that i never tested their mobile game since Steam Early Access.
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 19, 2014 7:05:35 GMT
It's funny to see how everything i suspected comes true now. I am so happy that i never tested their mobile game since Steam Early Access. If it hadn't been for your efforts they would have surely unleashed the mobile crapfest onto the world a lot sooner. So thanks.  |
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stuhacking
Master
Posts: 170
Pledge level: Partner
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Post by stuhacking on May 19, 2014 8:16:44 GMT
You can buy gems for cash and use them to buy belief, $24.99 would get you 500 gems.When you compare that to someone buying the mega gem pack for $129, you can see how important your $20 is in the scheme of things. Disappointing, but not surprising. (What is funny is how quick PM was to criticize Dungeon Keeper Mobile. Presumably he was just annoyed that DKM realised a 'delightful' game before he did) Cheers for the info! |
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Casinha
Master
Posts: 217
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Post by Casinha on May 19, 2014 8:30:44 GMT
You can buy gems for cash and use them to buy belief, $24.99 would get you 500 gems.When you compare that to someone buying the mega gem pack for $129, you can see how important your $20 is in the scheme of things. Disappointing, but not surprising. (What is funny is how quick PM was to criticize Dungeon Keeper Mobile. Presumably he was just annoyed that DKM realised a 'delightful' game before he did) Cheers for the info! Maybe when he saw DKM he lost all faith in the gamedev industry and what we're currently seeing in Godus is him spiralling into a depression that's causing him to forsake everything he thought necessary in a good game. "Why bother?" he thinks, "when all that matters about a game these days is how much money it will make." Maybe when he releases Godus he'll be wringing his hands as someone throws the "Release" switch and yelling "They said I was mad...MAD! I'll show them!" *fizz* *crackle* *lightning bolt* *raining money* |
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stuhacking
Master
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Pledge level: Partner
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Post by stuhacking on May 19, 2014 8:43:29 GMT
Every publicly visible event related to Godus has been so hilariously bad, I've been wondering if the whole thing has been the experiment. "How badly can we run a Kickstarter project? How will backers react to deviations from the proposed goal? How long can we stall development time? How will people react to a publishing deal? What about Play to Win strategies?" 22 Experiments about messing with backer and player expectations to find out just what the breaking points of crowdfunding are. And from that perspective, it's bound to have generated a lot of valuable data! (Let's face it... if anything it represents a decent worst case scenario.) About 30% of me is still curious about whether this will all turn out to be a big joke project where PM says "Haha, got you all, here's the real Godus game!" Even if it was the case though, it's been going on so long that such a game would have to be *phenomenally good* for me to care. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 19, 2014 9:18:55 GMT
That's something i thought about, too. The entire project seems to be so completly disastrous that i sometimes can't belief i am awake and not dreaming a terrible nightmare. Maybe it's a psychological science project? If it's something like this i hope they find the right moment to stop it before a horde of angry people storm the 22cans office with torches and pitchforks in their hands.
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Post by banned on May 19, 2014 23:50:59 GMT
Disappointing, but not surprising. (What is funny is how quick PM was to criticize Dungeon Keeper Mobile. Presumably he was just annoyed that DKM realised a 'delightful' game before he did) Cheers for the info! Maybe when he saw DKM he lost all faith in the gamedev industry and what we're currently seeing in Godus is him spiralling into a depression that's causing him to forsake everything he thought necessary in a good game. "Why bother?" he thinks, "when all that matters about a game these days is how much money it will make." Maybe when he releases Godus he'll be wringing his hands as someone throws the "Release" switch and yelling "They said I was mad...MAD! I'll show them!" *fizz* *crackle* *lightning bolt* *raining money* "Maybe when he saw DKM" except the gem costs and basic shop in the beta were already exactly as in the shop before DKM dropped. Most likely the fact that EA got their P2W mobile PoS out first that drove his depression. |
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Casinha
Master
Posts: 217
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Post by Casinha on May 20, 2014 7:35:09 GMT
Maybe when he saw DKM he lost all faith in the gamedev industry and what we're currently seeing in Godus is him spiralling into a depression that's causing him to forsake everything he thought necessary in a good game. "Why bother?" he thinks, "when all that matters about a game these days is how much money it will make." Maybe when he releases Godus he'll be wringing his hands as someone throws the "Release" switch and yelling "They said I was mad...MAD! I'll show them!" *fizz* *crackle* *lightning bolt* *raining money* "Maybe when he saw DKM" except the gem costs and basic shop in the beta were already exactly as in the shop before DKM dropped. Most likely the fact that EA got their P2W mobile PoS out first that drove his depression. Nah, they'll have brought him in as a consultant during the development of DKM only so that he could see what was happening to his beloved child. EA is evil, I tell you. EEEEEEEVIL! |
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Post by muumipeikko on May 20, 2014 8:52:48 GMT
I like DKM, I haven't spent any cash on it but still play it daily, it's a good game. But getting back on subject, the second I loaded DKM and played it and understood the mechanics including the guild it was immediately clear to me that Peter must have been in some was in the loop on DKM as everything he had talked about Godus being was in DKM.
I wouldn't have had an issue with Peter et al making a DKM type game proving they had been honest and not told us they were going to one thing while all along doing another.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2014 9:03:23 GMT
I wouldn't have had an issue with Peter et al making a DKM type game proving they had been honest and not told us they were going to one thing while all along doing another. Exactly. Ok, i wouldn't have backed it when they told me it would be a mobile f2p game with such game mechanics, but i wouldn't have had an issue with it. And i think the bold part was the problem. |
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Post by muumipeikko on May 20, 2014 9:40:10 GMT
I wouldn't have had an issue with Peter et al making a DKM type game proving they had been honest and not told us they were going to one thing while all along doing another. Exactly. Ok, i wouldn't have backed it when they told me it would be a mobile f2p game with such game mechanics, but i wouldn't have had an issue with it. And i think the bold part was the problem. Exactly, I would have played the final version but wouldn't have backed it. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on May 20, 2014 10:43:29 GMT
So I've been playing this game on ipad since it was launched in NZ, and its been interesting to compare it with the PC version which I kickstarted and have played since the first Beta. Pretty much now apparent that we have been testing a mobile game, most of the annoyances with the PC were mobile mechanics gone wrong - where have you seen the 1hr to build a wooden hut before? Yep. The tutorial is not skipable because that is the essence of the first few hours of mobile gameplay which allows them to ask a player to sign up and feel that they've had a fair taste of the game. The so-called "Temple of discovery" simply forces you to sign up and tries to get you to add your Facebook with the promise of meeting other godus players, it's always a bad idea to ask people to create an account when they haven't really got to know whether they will want to keep your app or not.You get a reward of 100 gems for signing up, but a huge sticker pack you can buy also appears next to timeline. You can buy gems for cash and use them to buy belief, $24.99 would get you 500 gems.When you compare that to someone buying the mega gem pack for $129, you can see how important your $20 is in the scheme of things. It's possible to play without using gems, but it's very slow - actually it's quite a good simulation of the PC version, playing without using gems to speed up house building and belief accumulation - I've been playing without using gems to see how it feels. It feels slow. Gameplay as we already know is the "go away and do something else while the timers run down" model. The monetization is pretty cheesy and I can't see any sign of the "tempting you to spend money rather than requiring you to do so". Pretty cheesy in that no opportunity is missed to get you to use gems, which will mean buying gems when you burn through the free 100 you get for selling your soul sorry signing up to Mobage. Stickers and the reluctance to change the mechanic are also explained by the presence of a big sticker pack you can buy for 10 gems.This is why your people do not create resources like wood from trees or stone from rocks or mud bricks from earth and water - so we can buy them from the god store. Anyway, it seems that this wasn't thought through properly, it would have made more sense to have tools that you could buy for your followers to unlock new abilities eg ploughs activate farming, better tools enable better houses etc. if I can choose not to buy these tools I can still play the game, sadly as it is, once the larger buildings are unlocked that is what your followers build.These take ages unless you buy and use gems. So yes it's not pay to win, it's pay to avoid being bored . Sticker packs cost more as you progress from 10 gems for the primitive age to 45 for the bronze.You don't know how many you get or what they are, you have to buy them blind.That 100 gems you got for signing up looks less and less like a gift. Finally, I've got to the farming settlement card, which needs stickers to unlock and costs 10K belief to build. Because belief generation is so slow, this means you have to buy some or wait another couple of days to get up to 10k. Oh and the reason we had a period where the camera didnt rotate is because, that's the mobile version. The camera does not rotate. I've been racking my brains to see what the advantage PC gamers have over the mobile users by virtue of having paid $20 versus $0. All I can see so far is that the storms don't seem to drop chests, however it doesnt seem to cost wheat to build houses in the iOS version.... Long and rambling, so TLDR: The PC version of Godus now appears to me to have been a tester for the mobile game. As people suspected, things like the 24hr timers were mobile "buy stickers" mechanics that were left in the PC version. The monetisation is no different from any other iOS game where you have to pay to avoid boredom. So far I can see no advantages whatsoever that the PC gamers get for their having paid actual money upfront.  Here's the video of the Ios version The shop appears at 35 min with a delighful message that your datas aren't going to be collected etc, hum hum hum. So for 20$ people who have backed the PC version, they ll have the same game minus the shop "apparently". ^^ |
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Post by waiting on conway on May 20, 2014 16:47:57 GMT
It looked like players are asked to rate Godus but without the ability to choose anything but a fixed five-star rating. Is that right?
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Post by greay on May 20, 2014 18:27:08 GMT
It looked like players are asked to rate Godus but without the ability to choose anything but a fixed five-star rating. Is that right? I don't know how the actual dialog works, but iOS does not allow you to do that. You can't force a rating and you can't even pre-fill the rating. |
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Post by waiting on conway on May 20, 2014 22:20:47 GMT
Got it! Thanks for the clarification.
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Lord Ba'al
Supreme Deity
Posts: 6,260
Pledge level: Half a Partner
I like: Cats; single malt Scotch; Stargate; Amiga; fried potatoes; retro gaming; cheese; snickers; sticky tape.
I don't like: Dimples in the bottom of scotch bottles; Facebook games masquerading as godgames.
Steam: stonelesscutter
GOG: stonelesscutter
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Post by Lord Ba'al on May 20, 2014 23:37:35 GMT
It looked like players are asked to rate Godus but without the ability to choose anything but a fixed five-star rating. Is that right? It looked like players are asked to rate Godus but without the ability to choose anything but a fixed five-star rating. Is that right? I don't know how the actual dialog works, but iOS does not allow you to do that. You can't force a rating and you can't even pre-fill the rating. Got it! Thanks for the clarification. May I please point you in the direction of godus.boards.net/thread/190/star-rating. Watch the video. |
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Post by Monkeythumbz on May 21, 2014 10:52:17 GMT
You can find another video here:
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