Since April, Gameforge has been spamming this advertisement for Swords of Legends Online (SOLO) on their launcher. This one was from early June when they held the second closed beta for it (prior ads was a pitch for the preorder of this game).
While I know the game has been popular in China where it is developed, I really had not been keeping tabs on it (or most other titles for that matter). This continual spamming of these banners however, sort of forced me to look briefly on YouTube where I quickly said “no thanks”. Gameforge themselves has a dismal record with keeping their monetization out of any game they touch. They couldn’t even manage to hang on to Soul Worker (which is being self-published by the developer now) and after they took over TERA NA after EME’s closure, their monetization (unsurprisingly) crept in.
They are publishing SOLO as a buy to play title ($39) with a cosmetics only cash shop. Now where have we heard that before? (ArcheAge Unchained where every original promise they made, no longer applies). Gameforge is only slightly better than Gamigo (which has proven itself to be far worse than Trion in everything) which isn’t saying much since it puts them around the same level as Trion was. This is also like every other third party published title from Asia that the bottom rung of western publishers (like these two though Gamigo lucked out picking up Trion’s assets on the low) has vied for; an unmitigated cash grab where they usually fail to keep their original promises. Buy-to-play does not go hand-in-hand with lousy publishers like Gamigo and Gameforge though because their decision makers treat every other part of the business as if they were running free-to-play/freemium titles.
These companies also expect whales to pickup the slack in the west. Gameforge isn’t going to get that kind of recurring revenues from whales with this business model (Gamigo found that out with ArcheAge Unchained with a purely cosmetic cash shop). Part of their pre-order pitch for SOLO was including guaranteed access to the beta tests. $40 for a non-AAA title is already a stretch. I also doubt they are meeting internal objectives on those pre-orders either since they offered up a level restricted (up to level 15) “demo” of the game this weekend (up until the 22nd).
For a “demo”, it surely isn’t lightweight because you effectively are having to download all of the game assets (80GB) used for the full game (meaning it’s a half-assed client based restriction). I decided to humor myself and downloaded the demo and have to say it didn’t leave a good first impression on me. Yes, this is effectively still in beta with a release set for this SUMMER. Just the localization is all over the place though where you have NPC’s speaking english in one part, Chinese the next, and complete silence all within a minute of each other. This reminds me of Revelation Online which had a similar mess of localization late into their own beta cycle. The text font itself is horribly ugly and not the best for readability. The graphics is decent and will get better since they are working on upgrading the game engine (currently Havok) to Unreal Engine 4. It remains to be seen how well they will do in the optimization department though. The combat is ok but IMHO, didn’t feel impactful or visceral. Questing is standard fare (kill this, gather that, do this task).
While I get that this is an MMO that doesn’t really start until you hit level cap, there is something that all seasoned game designers know that they need to do; create an interesting game loop early on that hooks a player in whether it be impactful combat, interesting gameplay, interesting game mechanics. Bless Online (once it went free to play and I tried it) didn’t last me for very long (optimization was horrible along with the terrible combat system). Bless Unleashed (the initial PC beta didn’t hold me for long either because it felt like a half-assed port). V4 I didn’t even make it out of the starter zone since it played like a bad mobile port. Similarly, I only lasted until level 5 in SOLO because the game play loop was that boring (worse than Astellia to be honest). Everything except the graphics was UNREMARKABLE and UNMEMORABLE where even if the localization was complete, wouldn’t have made a difference with my initial impressions. The fact the voice production is all over the place this late (they intend to launch within the next 2-3 months which isn’t much time), isn’t what you call a good impression with a 80GB “demo” download (I spent more time downloading than actually playing).
Genshin Impact was the exact opposite; I expected a so-so mobile port only to be pleasantly surprised at how it felt like a PC game. And it had hook after hook of interesting story, interesting mechanics, extremely fun and impactful combat, and completely burying the gacha aspects and resource grind early on (you only hit that pain in the ass later). The exploration aspects was off-the-charts good where even though it’s a single player (with limited co-op) RPG, the game world felt like you were playing an MMO. The localization was perfection and the music is so good. And all of that wasn’t because I was following or even anticipating that game; I didn’t pay attention to it until after it launched and ended up being pleasantly surprised.
Digressing, I will commend the developers (Wangyuan Shengtang Entertainment) with their anti-P2W stance in terms of how they monetize the game in China (and how they hope to in the west). But it remains to be seen if Gameforge can be an effective publishing partner in being able to pitch this as a buy-to-play title with only cosmetics for recurring revenue (and meet their monthly metrics). I look at Gameforge and do not see this in their leadership. TERA is relatively easy for Gameforge because it has a niche demographic including whales that allow them to meet their monthly targets. Even to this day, there is a constant flow of new players trying it (how long they last is another matter). Early on, the combat is visceral. For those into wacky characters, that part of the game is an attraction (those who don’t bail early). The point is the barrier to entry isn’t that high (plus the leveling is streamlined now where it is trivial to hit level 65, and then 70). Retaining and attracting players on a continual basis is way more challenging with a buy-to-play title (and at $40, not an impulse buy decision). The developers also need to make this trial way more lightweight if this is how they intend to occasionally offer a way for new players to try the game before buying.
I wish them luck with being able to maintain some longevity; it’s just personally not my cup of tea
