Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Damned Registrations]

The penny arcade guy summed shit up pretty elegantly for once: Valve figured out that people buy a lot more hats when you give the heads away for free. Same principle applies everywhere else. You're much better off with a huge player base where a small fraction spends a lot of money than a small user base where a large fraction spends money.

 

[abija]

That theory is fine if the player base gets big enough but GGG don't seem to be designing the game around a casual audience.

 

[Stabwound]

There is a very fine line between "ethical F2P" and "pay to win" and they're already treading that line with $ for storage. I heard rumours of microtransactions for skill respecs as well. Those are possible in game, but are apparently a very rare drop and you need a shit ton of them depending on how far back you want to respec.

Once you start getting into microtransactions for "things you can do in game for an insane amount of time or pay $10 to do in an instant" you're crossing the line into shit nickle & dime territory and it's a slippery downward slope from there.

But again, we'll see. I like the game a lot so I sure hope they don't fuck with it.

 

[Angthoron]

There is a very fine line between "ethical F2P" and "pay to win" and they're already treading that line with $ for storage. I heard rumours of microtransactions for skill respecs as well. Those are possible in game, but are apparently a very rare drop and you need a shit ton of them depending on how far back you want to respec.

You can also buy them off a vendor in Chapter 2, although with this kind of a skilltree it's a magnificent pain in the ass, since you need to trade in another type of rare-ish token for it (which you can incidentally buy from the same vendor as well for a much more common item trade)

 

[Ulminati]

There is a very fine line between "ethical F2P" and "pay to win"

Ethical F2P -> Microtransactions buy you vanity items or small conveniences. EG: League of legends lets you buy skins (no gameplay effect) or champions (gameplay effect). But most people can unlock a new champion every 1-2 weeks just from normal play. (More if they're getting some of the cheaper champions).

Borderline unethical F2P -> Microtransactions buy you conveniences that would take agonizingly long to unlock normally. Game is crippled by design to encourage buying conveniences. EG: World of Tanks will take ages to unlock tier 6-10 vehicles, and if you're not paying for a premium account, chances are you won't be making any virtual currency after repair/ammunition bills from friving tier 7+ tanks. So you need to have several tanks to play (extra garage slots cost money) since your tank is locked until the round is over even if you get shot early. You need to drive low-tier tanks to earn credits without premium, but you need to drive the high-tier ones (often at a net credit loss) to get research. Unless you convert experience from uyour low-tier tanks (which again, costs money).
To make matters worse, there's pay-to-buy "gold tanks" (which are admittedly kind of shit) and "gold ammunition" which is basically just pay to win but thankfully not very widespread.

Unethical F2P/P2W -> Any game where the main way to remain competitive (since most F2P games are multiplayer) is to buy real-money items.

TL;DR the very fine line between ethical F2P and P2W is between microtransactions for convenience and microtransactions to be rid of crippling inconvenience. The second you can buy an immediate in-game PvP advantage for money, it becomes P2W

 

[abija]

So you start by saying LoL is ethical F2P and conclude it's P2W :D

 

[Ulminati]

So you start by saying LoL is ethical F2P and conclude it's P2W :D

That really depends on how you define an immediate PvP advantage. There's usually going to be several competitive picks in the free to play champions. Purchasing more of them will not give you a big advantage on the opposition unless you're specifically looking to counterpick.
Contrast this with, say, world of tanks where you can load up a tank with real-money ammunition (yes, you're actually shooting jewgolds whenever you click LMB) which has a markedly higher penetration, allowing you to deal damage reliably from far greater range and without having to worry about aiming for weak spots or flanking.
If LoL introduced special, slightly stronger glyphs that could only be bought with money or real-money health potions that healed you for more HP instantly, we'd be in P2W territory.

 

[Saark]

Well, depending on ones opinion, not being able to counterpick comes shockingly close to this ammunition you're talking about.

Coming back to Path of Exile, so far neither the chest-space nor the respecs make me lose interest in playing the game. In Games like these one constantly starts over new characters most of the time, until they find one that suits them most. From that point on, respecing requires you to farm stuff and trade them in for orbs which forces you to contact other people, thus enforcing communication between players, which by itself is a good thing. Diablo 2 had the same thing, by giving you a couple of free respecs, and from that point on you had to farm reagents to make it happen, which took quite some time. Since the choices in the skillboard are much more meaningful and not only make you do more damage, I can understand why GGG would decide against free respecs. Farming the orbs yourself sure takes a shitload of time, but there are plenty of characters out there who either don't need the orbs themselves since they pay for a respec, or who don't need them cause they don't plan on respeccing any time soon anyway. Regarding the whole chest-stuff: Since its F2P, you can simply create a new account and use that stash. Logging onto two accounts shouldn't be a problem then to mule properly, whereas other people pay money to do the same thing, just a little faster. And unless you're gathering rares to sell them 3 at a time with the same mods for better orbs, you don't even need that space, since your chest will most likely be filled with a variety of quality gems, orbs, and a few valuable items you couldn't or didn't want to sell immediately.

 

[Aothan]

I had some difficulty locating this thread after the recent and apparently ongoing changes to the forum layout (multi-platform and ah consoles ?). Even after some familiarity with the place I'll admit it isn't always easy to follow voguish Codex trends, either way it would be timely to mention there is a public weekend for the beta phase of Path of Exile beginning just about presently. For those so inclined to try the game which saved the genre in its darkest hours (/grandiose) in a form close to a final iteration the open weekend should prove apt and opportune. The simplest advice I can give to anyone is to actively evaluate and make use of at least two or three skills early in the game, they are not always needed but their use will prepare players for later difficulties and give some indication of the game's intended scope of design.

There is also some controversy over recent changes to "Skilldrasil's" redesign, changes that have the community expressing their differences of opinion. And in my diffuse commentary I almost forgot to provide a link: http://www.pathofexile.com/publicweekend/

 

[Kane]

well aothan the easiest way to keep track of everything on the codex thats important is by following me

 

[Wulfstand]

Anyone got a spare invite? I'd love to try the game out!

 

[Father Walker]

So, apparently PoE earned around 1 million $$$ from supporter packs. It surely is enough to polish the game and make it even more kickass

 

[fuzz]

Yap, one guy posted that he picked up extra shifts for the $1k supporter pack.

 

[KoolNoodles]

So....those that have played the beta, does it scratch that hack n' slash itch? Is it playable solo or only best when in a group? How lame/good is the story and setting? I liked D1/D2 back in the day, Titan Quest and Sacred got boring fairly quickly, though could be salvaged with group play. Torchlight...eh, was too cartoony for my tastes.

 

[Raapys]

It still has problems( combat could be more fluid, desynchs, lots of smaller stuff) and it needs more content( more skills, more acts, more monster types, more 'randomness' in areas), but they're working on all of that. To me it easily beats the lightweights like TQ, Sacred, Torchlight and Diablo3. Cool character development system, ingenious skill system and great itemization and crafting takes it very close to Diablo2, despite it still being in beta. I used to be interested in Grim Dawn before I played this, but frankly it would take a small miracle for it to get even close to this game. If ever there was a aRPG/hack'n'slash with the potential to finally beat Diablo2, then this is it. Just hope the developers can keep their focus and mentality.

It's definitely playable solo, but group play is fun too. The timed loot system makes group play a bit hectic however, though I'm unsure if it's the final incarnation. As for story, I haven't really been paying attention. You're an exile, that's all I know ^__^ Setting and atmosphere is decent; not Diablo1 quality, but better than the likes of Sacred/TitanQuest/Torchlight.

Anyway, I have a couple of beta keys I could share if anyone's interested. For new players I'd suggest reading up a bit on the skill and currency system though. Also, protip: Get movement speed boots asap. Definitely makes the game more enjoyable, whatever your class/build.

 

[Machine]

I'd love a key if you have spare ones, been interested in this game for some time now, couldnt get my hands on key though Also hoping your description is true, sounds like one of better games this year (not like theres much competition though)

 

[spectre]

I've been having lots of desynch problems lately when I started playing a shadow char focusing on movement speed, attack speed and the spinning blade attack thingy to jump all over the place. It gets pretty bad especially with the latter vs. los of ranged mobs.
They seem to be onto fixing it at least partially in the next bigger patch, so here's hoping.

http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/48576/page/1/#p625356
Patch notes if anyone's interested. TL;DR, lots of interface tweaks and tooltip readability issues. Some reworking of the skill tree.
Also, two new skill gems and two new passive skills. Yay.

 

[Stabwound]

Is there any indication when this game will reach open beta? I have been playing the closed beta a little bit, but I hesitate to put a lot of time into it because everything is going to be wiped for the open beta. It was originally supposed to be in August, but clearly that isn't happening.

 

[Frusciante]

Next patch goes live in a week. Then there will be another patch with PvP, I guess this takes another month at least. And then I would say another month untill Open Beta. Just a wild guess but I would say something like late October or early November.

 

[Castanova]

Got into the beta today and played for a couple hours. Combat is indeed a bit clunky but it almost doesn't matter. The item system is so much fun so far. I haven't been this excited to play an action RPG more since Diablo 2 came out.

 

[fuzz]

Is there any indication when this game will reach open beta? I have been playing the closed beta a little bit, but I hesitate to put a lot of time into it because everything is going to be wiped for the open beta. It was originally supposed to be in August, but clearly that isn't happening.

You're having fun right now so why bother with the wipe? There's no guarantee that there will be OB soon. What you gonna do if it's still not live >2 months from now? I'd prolly regret that I wasn't playing.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Anyway, I have a couple of beta keys I could share if anyone's interested. For new players I'd suggest reading up a bit on the skill and currency system though. Also, protip: Get movement speed boots asap. Definitely makes the game more enjoyable, whatever your class/build.

Still got one of the keys lying around ? Waiting forever for open beta is taking a toll..

 

[Stabwound]

Is there any indication when this game will reach open beta? I have been playing the closed beta a little bit, but I hesitate to put a lot of time into it because everything is going to be wiped for the open beta. It was originally supposed to be in August, but clearly that isn't happening.

You're having fun right now so why bother with the wipe? There's no guarantee that there will be OB soon. What you gonna do if it's still not live >2 months from now? I'd prolly regret that I wasn't playing.

I'd personally be burnt out on the game if I played for 2 months only to have to start from scratch again. Also, I only got a beta key a little while ago, so I thought I'd try the game out and see if I wanted to blow money on the $10 supporter pack: this was when they said open beta would be in August.

The game is going to be some good loot grindan' fun, but I'll wait until we can play without being wiped.

 

[Gregz]

I played it hard for about 6 weeks, had a lot of fun, I'm stuck doing WoT pretty heavy right now so that has me occupied.

I will however be jumping into PoE like a lemming as soon as 'no more character wipes' day arrives.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I'd personally be burnt out on the game if I played for 2 months only to have to start from scratch again. Also, I only got a beta key a little while ago, so I thought I'd try the game out and see if I wanted to blow money on the $10 supporter pack: this was when they said open beta would be in August.

The game is going to be some good loot grindan' fun, but I'll wait until we can play without being wiped.

If you're playing in HC tourneys it's not much different anyways. I can see the allure of building up a stash though, and if that's what you want to play for yeah putting it off makes sense.

I've heard OB is coming quite soon though, they're putting off finishing some features until after that starts.