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Post by Qetesh on Aug 4, 2014 15:57:23 GMT
George this is just spin, I played games before F2p and never had the term been made so clear to me as it is is in F2p. It has indeed poisoned that well. I had this same discussion with 22cans btw, when the term GEMS first was mentioned and was sworn that did not mean they would EVER be for sale, so forgive if I don't buy the company line on this one.
I did play the FB games quite a few a them, and Settlers Online....they all have two things in common. Gems and Buffs. Nuff said.
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Post by Crumpy Six on Aug 4, 2014 15:58:58 GMT
In that case, can Buffs in Godus be renamed to something a little more immersive? Wielding the Staff of Incendiary Power sounds more fun than wielding the Staff of Stats Boost. I don't think we'd ever use the term "buff" or "stats" as is - that's just design jargon. We'd want to use bespoke in-game terminology. But.. there are already Buffs in Godus, named as-is. Do you mean this is going to be changed and is just a place-holder name? |
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 4, 2014 16:02:39 GMT
If you went on any RPG or RTS forum and used the term "buff", I don't think anybody would think of F2P. I certainly don't. It's just a word I used in a forum post because it made sense to me as a way of describing a mechanic, not an official sanctioned position or messaging point by 22cans. For clarity, the term buff as used in this context is older than I am - it comes from Gary Gygax's Dungeons & Dragons.
I mean, since I don't play F2P games (like, at all - not even Path of Exile) I was unaware of how the term had been leveraged in F2P titles. In future, I'll try to avoid using tech or videogames industry terminology as it seems evident that what I think is a locked down and clear term is actually open to misinterpretation by the community. As I said, I could have equally used any one of a number of other terms - "boost", for example...
...unless "boost" is a F2P-term now, too.
Lets go with "increased rate of yield". I don't know the exact terminology we'd use to describe it in-game yet.
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Lord Ba'al
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 4, 2014 16:02:53 GMT
That's good to hear, because if it look like a duck and quacks like a duck, more often than not, it is a duck. But be careful, because sometimes it is actually a hungry razorbeast. |
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 4, 2014 16:03:10 GMT
I don't think we'd ever use the term "buff" or "stats" as is - that's just design jargon. We'd want to use bespoke in-game terminology. But.. there are already Buffs in Godus, named as-is. Do you mean this is going to be changed and is just a place-holder name? We've removed Buffers in the forthcoming update. |
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Lord Ba'al
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 4, 2014 16:14:47 GMT
I first heard the term buffing about a year ago when I was introduced to the horror of Settlers Online. I tried the game for about an hour. All of a sudden some of my buildings started glowing or swirling or whatever and I wondered wtf was going on with them. Qetesh then explained to me that somebody had buffed them, which apparently meant that they were now producing more of whatever they were doing for a limited period of time. All I saw was ugliness and annoyance and I really didn't like the fact that other people were intruding upon my gaming experience. Since the game was already a weak version of the real game, I was immediately done with it and thank god. Think of all the time I could have wasted on that. Anyway, I don't like the term buffing at all. I think it's a stupid word. It sounds stupid. Even more so to me because it looks and sounds a lot like the Dutch words for eating pussy and/or ass. So, for me, buffing has a very negative connotation all around. |
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 4, 2014 16:25:08 GMT
I first heard the term buffing about a year ago when I was introduced to the horror of Settlers Online. I tried the game for about an hour. All of a sudden some of my buildings started glowing or swirling or whatever and I wondered wtf was going on with them. Qetesh then explained to me that somebody had buffed them, which apparently meant that they were now producing more of whatever they were doing for a limited period of time. All I saw was ugliness and annoyance and I really didn't like the fact that other people were intruding upon my gaming experience. Since the game was already a weak version of the real game, I was immediately done with it and thank god. Think of all the time I could have wasted on that. Anyway, I don't like the term buffing at all. I think it's a stupid word. It sounds stupid. Even more so to me because it looks and sounds a lot like the Dutch words for eating pussy and/or ass. So, for me, buffing has a very negative connotation all around. Here is the term "buff" being used in context in a review of BioShock Infinite: "Other, less-confident games would never let something as inherently daft as changing your trousers alter your character’s buffs (no, we didn’t just make that up), but BioShock Infinite doesn’t presume that you don’t understand games and how they work, just as it doesn’t presume that you’re too stupid or too impatient to consider its complicated and challenging themes."I can't explain why you hadn't heard of it prior to Settlers Online, but let me assure you it's been around since time immemorial and most (if not all) core gamers, gaming press and games developers have an agreed understanding of what it means. The fact that it's now supposedly an F2P term first and foremost is news to me... and I'd wager to most videogame journalists, too. |
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Post by Qetesh on Aug 4, 2014 16:28:41 GMT
I first heard the term buffing about a year ago when I was introduced to the horror of Settlers Online. I tried the game for about an hour. All of a sudden some of my buildings started glowing or swirling or whatever and I wondered wtf was going on with them. Qetesh then explained to me that somebody had buffed them, which apparently meant that they were now producing more of whatever they were doing for a limited period of time. All I saw was ugliness and annoyance and I really didn't like the fact that other people were intruding upon my gaming experience. Since the game was already a weak version of the real game, I was immediately done with it and thank god. Think of all the time I could have wasted on that. Anyway, I don't like the term buffing at all. I think it's a stupid word. It sounds stupid. Even more so to me because it looks and sounds a lot like the Dutch words for eating pussy and/or ass. So, for me, buffing has a very negative connotation all around. Here is the term "buff" being used in context in a review of BioShock Infinite: "Other, less-confident games would never let something as inherently daft as changing your trousers alter your character’s buffs (no, we didn’t just make that up), but BioShock Infinite doesn’t presume that you don’t understand games and how they work, just as it doesn’t presume that you’re too stupid or too impatient to consider its complicated and challenging themes."I can't explain why you hadn't heard of it prior to Settlers Online, but let me assure you it's been around since time immemorial and most (if not all) core gamers, gaming press and games developers have an agreed understanding of what it means. The fact that it's now supposedly an F2P term first and foremost is news to me... and I'd wager to most videogame journalists, too. I think that you should really try a few F2p games that utilize buffing and gems and then you will understand the distaste of those terms now. If you don't buff your stuff in a F2p it will die and most buffs are both available for purchase in the Gem shop and a tedious task/chore required daily. |
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 4, 2014 16:33:18 GMT
I think that you should really try a few F2p games that utilize buffing and gems and then you will understand the distaste of those terms now. If you don't buff your stuff in a F2p it will die and most buffs are both available for purchase in the Gem shop and a tedious taste chore required daily. The fact of the matter is that the term "buffs" is used in a much, much wider context and array of games than just F2P. Destiny uses buffs. Diablo uses buffs. World of WarCraft uses buffs. I don't think the problem here is with the term - it's a useful term and one that will almost certainly outlive F2P. Either way, most gamers - especially core gamers - would understand what that term means with nary a second glance. |
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Lord Ba'al
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 4, 2014 16:42:16 GMT
I don't have a problem with anyone using the term buffing, but as I outlined above I have my reasons not to like it. I am talking about the word here, not of what it represents.
If I ever made a game and had to use this sort of terminology in one way or another, I would never use the term buffing but try to come up with an alternative. I'm not saying that's what 22Cans should do. I'm not being argumentative here but merely stating my personal preference.
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Post by Deth on Aug 4, 2014 16:53:02 GMT
I also have to disagree with that buff is a F2P term or that most people link it to that. It is much more of a MMO term then any other game style, that to me has linked over to games in general. I first learned about buffs was back in my Darkage of Camelot times, I played D&D for years before and never heard buffs used before.
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Post by nerdyvonnerdling on Aug 4, 2014 16:56:49 GMT
'Buff' is pretty common terminology in rpgs, or games with spellcasting of any kind. Spells that aren't attacks tend to be buffs - haste, elemental resists, etc. Anything that acts as a temporary stat boost.
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 4, 2014 17:19:35 GMT
I played D&D for years before and never heard buffs used before. Yes, my bad, you're right about this. It turns out the term originated with MUDs, which in turn were fashioned around the dice-rolling rules of the Dungeons & Dragons series of games. |
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Post by Qetesh on Aug 4, 2014 17:33:12 GMT
When you combine Gems with buffing , you get F2p.
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Lord Ba'al
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Posts: 6,260
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Post by Lord Ba'al on Aug 4, 2014 17:35:27 GMT
When you combine Gems with buffing , you get F2p. You already said that. |
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Post by rubgish on Aug 4, 2014 17:44:48 GMT
Just to chime in, I really don't associate buffs with free to play games at all, buffs have always been a part of strategy or RPG games.
It's fine to accuse Godus of going down the free to play route (and I don't deny that some of the decisions do seem mainly focused on the mobile version), but buffs don't make me think f2p at all.
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Post by Qetesh on Aug 4, 2014 17:49:02 GMT
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Post by Danjal on Aug 4, 2014 17:53:40 GMT
Sure, but most people now equate them to F2p, just like the word "gems" did not originate from F2p but is now equated with it. You guys seem to want to veer from the profile of F2p but yet you keep using terms that are very much linked to the average F2p and sorry. "farming buffs" screams Farmville and regardless of what you say, you know that. I have to disagree with you here. Personally, I've never played FarmVille or the like, however I do play a lot of Diablo, hence my use of the term in this context. I don't think it's fair to extrapolate your experience with term to cover the whole of the community (myself included) and certainly not the design team. Please bear in mind I'm just using a commonly understood term to describe a potential feature - I could have easily said "improved", "boosted", "sped up" or "increased rate of yield" and it would have meant the exact same thing. After all, I wrote that post in my own style, not the design team's. Seconded, I at no point made a connection to FarmVille (or similar) from the word buff. Especially not in relation to a buff caused by rivers. It seemed pretty obvious to me that the general idea likely is that you can divert streams around your farm area's and farms near the water would likely get an increase in production (or growthspeed) or something of that sort. Which is a buff. Not a "Pay $$$ to improve". |
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Post by Qetesh on Aug 4, 2014 18:02:18 GMT
If it is not avertable by utilizing the gem shop, then I stand corrected. If however it is any type of bump to an asset or daily chore that can be bought by gems in any way shape or form , I don't. The word gems was around for centuries before the F2p games tarnished it, but they did and the gems in Godus mobile are just what I said they always would be, for sale.
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Post by Monkeythumbz on Aug 4, 2014 18:03:19 GMT
Just because a term is used in one context - even if it's abused in that context - doesn't mean that it's suddenly incontrovertibly tied to that context, especially when it's used in a variety of other places, both historically and currently. Having read the above links it seems at first glance that FarmVille and Settlers are using the term in a non-standard way. It's a shame that your first exposure to the term was in such a context. This is the actual definition of the term, despite how you may have seen it used elsewhere. As it stands, Godus on iOS/Android is a F2P experience. To answer your question, on mobile you can use gems to speed up the rate at which building/farming/mining completes. That said, for an example of how a buff works in Godus, planting trees near houses will buff how much Belief they yield. In the future, redirecting a river so that it provides water to a field may buff the rate of wheat production of nearby fields. Neither of these mechanics require or even utilise gems. Therefore, I don't think buffs are inextricably tied to gems in Godus. |
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