Barathor
Emperor
- Joined
- May 7, 2011
- Messages
- 1,202
Maximus_Light, here's the integration info:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13731107&postcount=6
http://forums.civfanatics.com/showpost.php?p=13731107&postcount=6
[SPOILER] All Starships Unlockables for Beyond Earth
- Thread starter Ryika
- Start date
Maximus_Light
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2014
- Messages
- 50
Peng Qi
Emperor
I just wanna say that this kind of shameless money grubbing is making me seriously question whether or not I want to buy any more Firaxis titles.
Acken
Deity
Well I don't see why it makes you question it.
Either the game is interesting and you buy it or you don't. You certainly shouldn't give them money just to support hypothetical future games.
Either the game is interesting and you buy it or you don't. You certainly shouldn't give them money just to support hypothetical future games.
x2Madda
Prince
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2013
- Messages
- 346
I think it is was meant more along the lines of 'why should I have to buy a separate game, in order to get more things in the game I already own?'
I have mixed feelings as a whole because tech webs are not new, didn't Endless Legend have that? Cross promotional material isn't new either in fact, didn't Endless Legend & Dungeon of the Endless have that as well?
Like all companies Firaxis has to keep up with the times or risk going under but I want to feel like I am buying Firaxis games not angry birds clone #619. If I want Endless Legend, I'll go buy Endless Legend with all the "cross connectivity" games as well as DLC and a forum exclusive avatar if I pay double and get the 'founders pack'! Sheeh! At least Firaxis haven't gone that far.
With that said, I don't think Starships would have worked as an add-on/DLC for BE so as a standalone product in the same 'universe' as BE I am glad that some cross connectivity exists at all!
Peng Qi
Emperor
Exactly. There's no way in hell I'm going to pay fifteen bucks to unlock the full feature list of Beyond Earth, and I have literally zero interest in Starships. The "features" which it unlocks are so miniscule that I wouldn't be able to justify spending more than maybe a quarter or two to unlock them as "DLC," so I doubt they'll do that either.
It's content I will never have access to, and that's dirty dealing.
thecrazyscot
Spiffy
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2012
- Messages
- 2,750
There is a mod which unlocks the new BE stuff. You can also just do some quick XML edits and you'll have all those features.
None of the features are locked behind a pay wall given how zero effort was made to prevent you from unlocking them if you want them.
Lord Tirian
Erratic Poster
You know, I felt annoy at the idea of locking away interesting content (beyond some cosmetic stuff) behind another game and it certainly feels like corporate command had its greasy hands all over it... but you know why it actually doesn't annoy me that much?
Firaxis never actually advertised it, in fact, they went out of their way to keep the interaction between the two games secret (apart from there being one) and even now we know, it doesn't exactly say "buy Starships to unlock the latest content in Beyond Earth!".
I don't know why, but that makes me think it's more of a misjudged way to reward fan loyalty than trying to squeeze money out of it. Of course, there's every chance I'm wrong and it's a sign of things to come.
Acken
Deity
I doubt the game makes a check with starships to see if you bought that game every time you play. If the colonists are already in the files, unlocking them should be easy, even without mods.
Thanks, now I see it. Is it possible that we can get in trouble for doing that? IE get our game shut down? That would suck.
Ryika
Lazy Wannabe Artista
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2013
- Messages
- 9,393
I highly doubt that. As far as I know Firaxis is completely fine with people editing game files in general. (And after all, you can also use mods to get the same effect.) But even if they weren't, I can't see why they'd ever want to ban people for something like that. You're not harming anyone and I think Firaxis is very aware of the fact that it's highly unlikely that someone will buy Starships just because of the BE-bonuses.
And if Firaxis really wanted to "force" players into unlocking them via Starships, then they could easily have made that a lot harder. Basically anyone who's done some basic modding should be able to find out how to unlock these things, so they don't really seem to care. And on top of that, Firaxis has not marketed these bonuses to encourage people to buy starships (quite the opposite - they pretty much made a secret out of them), so to me it seems like their idea is to reward players who play both (although I still disagree with the idea of using strategic options for that), rather than "maliciously hiding stuff behind a paywall" as some have called it.
And if Firaxis really wanted to "force" players into unlocking them via Starships, then they could easily have made that a lot harder. Basically anyone who's done some basic modding should be able to find out how to unlock these things, so they don't really seem to care. And on top of that, Firaxis has not marketed these bonuses to encourage people to buy starships (quite the opposite - they pretty much made a secret out of them), so to me it seems like their idea is to reward players who play both (although I still disagree with the idea of using strategic options for that), rather than "maliciously hiding stuff behind a paywall" as some have called it.
Peng Qi
Emperor
This is the same line of logic TF2 players used when they used console commands to unlock achievements. They still got punished. It's a risk. I'd guess a relatively small one, but one nonetheless.
Maximus_Light
Chieftain
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2014
- Messages
- 50
Hmmm... you know as far as to whether it's acceptable to have unlockables in games like what's been done between Beyond Earth and Starships I don't think it's having extra things unlocked that's really the issue I think it's more of what kind of things we're talking about.
For instance if all the little bonuses were just different aesthetics I don't think there would be any issue at all as it doesn't really change the game play of either game.
Now that said if the little bonuses between games do change game play but they are both single player games it's again really not all that bad it's like having icing on a cake.
Where things really seem to get muddled is beyond that. Like in a multiplayer game I don't think it would be right to restrict content based on what other games you own or dlc you have because it mean more money put in makes you better. While that's being unfair the truth is they could do that. What's insidious about that kind of system isn't that you buy power it's the fact that you are sub-par if you don't give them more money, that does not make for a healthy relationship between your customer base/players or other players, even if it works.
That said what we have hear isn't so much wrong as it is somewhat unsavory. It's not bad or unethical because they are just icing on the cake again, I feel it's unsavory more because the extra things they unlock are really nice. Like the explorers crew option is actually really good game design and it sticks out so much because of how lack luster the other crew options are around it. Unlike other crew options this actually changes how you play the game and offers different style and strategy. Honestly, I think this is the kind of choice we were all hoping for initially with Beyond Earth. It's not bad that they put it in I think it more just highlights what could be done with the game as opposed to what we have now, I hope they make all the options like this in the future. But really at the end of the day mods are a perfectly legal way of unlocking them and frankly I don't think they'd ever bother stopping mods because frankly you could just design a mod to do the very same things in game with more options.
Anyways I don't think what they've done is bad at all, I just think it shows they can make this game better and that's something I think they already realize so I'm personally just not worried about it.
For instance if all the little bonuses were just different aesthetics I don't think there would be any issue at all as it doesn't really change the game play of either game.
Now that said if the little bonuses between games do change game play but they are both single player games it's again really not all that bad it's like having icing on a cake.
Where things really seem to get muddled is beyond that. Like in a multiplayer game I don't think it would be right to restrict content based on what other games you own or dlc you have because it mean more money put in makes you better. While that's being unfair the truth is they could do that. What's insidious about that kind of system isn't that you buy power it's the fact that you are sub-par if you don't give them more money, that does not make for a healthy relationship between your customer base/players or other players, even if it works.
That said what we have hear isn't so much wrong as it is somewhat unsavory. It's not bad or unethical because they are just icing on the cake again, I feel it's unsavory more because the extra things they unlock are really nice. Like the explorers crew option is actually really good game design and it sticks out so much because of how lack luster the other crew options are around it. Unlike other crew options this actually changes how you play the game and offers different style and strategy. Honestly, I think this is the kind of choice we were all hoping for initially with Beyond Earth. It's not bad that they put it in I think it more just highlights what could be done with the game as opposed to what we have now, I hope they make all the options like this in the future. But really at the end of the day mods are a perfectly legal way of unlocking them and frankly I don't think they'd ever bother stopping mods because frankly you could just design a mod to do the very same things in game with more options.
Anyways I don't think what they've done is bad at all, I just think it shows they can make this game better and that's something I think they already realize so I'm personally just not worried about it.
Just an FYI to anyone who considers doing this: I unlocked the content by editing the files. Today I validated the local files on Steam and it thought the files were bad and redownloaded them, undoing the changes.
player1 fanatic
Fanatic
That's nothing strange. Validating local cache would restore original files, as well as updating to recent hotfix.
Peng Qi
Emperor
I wonder if you could create dummy files that "pretend" to be the Starships files that BE checks to see if you have the unlockables to prevent cache verification or patches from disabling them again.
