PC Current Gameplay makes me wonder if TFP has a goal of 'Planned obsolescence' for 7D2D

[PoppaSmirk]

One of my longtime friends that had been in my Multiplayer group called me last week and during that discussion,  he made comments referencing the current status of 7D2D and how he felt it seemed related to a line of discussion that happened at a Comic-Con we attended 8-9 years ago.  At that convention, several game designers were among the guests and attendees for a 'Question and Answer Panel' about the process of designing games.  A wide variety of questions were given to the panel,  but one that seemed to generate a lot of dialogue back and forth with the audience;  was when one young man stood and asked;  "Do they really ever plan on putting things into gameplay to kill the interest of players after they reach a pre-chosen number of hours of gameplay?"    In other words,  do game developers plan...on their games making a big splash when launched and for gamers to enjoy it for the first playthrough;  but intentionally make it grindy,  or in other ways ...just distasteful enough to limit the interest in playing that game over and over? 

Many references were made to specific games and the conversation veered off track to discussion on the panelists 'role'  in the games they had worked on;  but one designer said yes; they had attended a meeting on "planned obsolescence"; which was geared to the goal of putting out some DLC after a game was released; but the goal being to put out material that would dampen the players enthusiasm for the current game,  while still planting the groundwork to generate interest in a possible...sequel to the game.  Processes such as nerfing weapons,  adding grindy boring missions, etc.  Many in the audience asked 'why would a game company do such a thing?  The reply was straight forward;  After they have sold the game, they want players to enjoy it, feel they got their moneys worth from it,  played it long enough (40-60 hours of gameplay in a playthrough) to spread the hype to friends to generate more sales....but then,  after 2-3 years...they want a multiplayer game to die,  because by that time maintaining servers to keep the game running becomes less attractive and simply "pulls from the bottom line of profits earned".

My friend and I ended up pondering that question and what is the likelihood that the recent drastic gameplay changes are an effort from TFP to put in a "planned obsolesence" because now the game is pretty enough to draw in new gamers and new sales;  but maybe they no longer care of what those that have been playing the game for years think about the gameplay.

It was just some idle thoughts from a couple of guys that have been playing 7D2D for the past 6-7 years.  It would be pretty crazy if it turns out that idea is truth.  But it would explain a lot.

 

[Arez]

maintaining servers to keep the game running becomes less attractive and simply "pulls from the bottom line of profits earned".

That wouldn't apply to 7 Days because people play solo, host games with a few friends or they rent their own servers. 

There could be database servers that TFP use but I can't imagine that would be too costly, seeing as it only hosts player data and not games.

The player numbers for 7 Days have been going up year after year. I started playing on A19 for a little bit and didn't like it. I tried it again with A21 and I have a near pathological obsession with the game now. 

Could this game eventually die to where TFP close shop and move on? Maybe. But it's been doing pretty well for 10 years and that's rare.

 

[meganoth]

As Arez said. I am not aware of any servers TFP operates. As such the cost of servers does not come into play as an incentive to shorten the life of the game. Once the game is published there will be no running costs (AFAIK) except for costs they might do without being forced, aka bug fixes or dlcs. Instead successful long-running games produce the "long tail" of sales which actually every developer wants to generate a safety net of income for bad times. Without a good reason no developer would endanger that source of income IMHO.

The only possible motives for shortening the lifespan would be:

* to sell more copies of a successor-game and that they would not like people to stay on playing the old game. A pretty weak motive as the fun people have with the current game would influence their incentive to buy the successor-game negatively. And I doubt any (happy) long-time player of a game would not at least buy the follow-up game to try it out so I doubt this would really generate any additional sales from that group. If at all such a move would have to be done in a patch or dlc AFTER the successor-game was released, not before even the original game is even released and a successor-game isn't even on the far horizon.

* or if the successor-game were a subscription game or micro-transaction game where the income is directly linked with the number of actual ative players at the moment. This only works if the successor-game of 7D2D would move to a central server/massively-multiplayer modding-unfriendly system. Such a game would not draw the same crowd as this game, it hardly could be called a successor game to 7D2D

Also that this game is so modding-friendly makes it almost impossible to make the game undesirable for veteran players. A player can always install a mod that removes unfun changes or replace changes with something that mimics previous features. It usually is not possible or at least very laborious to implement exact copies of features of old alphas, but it always is possible to make very similar features. And if someone just doesn't like the longer duration of the early-game even the normal options are enough to change this.

 

[SylenThunder]

As meganoth stated...

I mean, it is really hard to claim there is "planned obsolescence" when the game has fully supported modding to a great extent since the beginning.  That's kind of like Bethesda saying that they planned for people to beat Skyrim in 10 hours, and then never play it again.

 

[theFlu]

Kinda agree with the mods there, doubt TFP is actually planning a "max lifespan" for the game itself. They're just trying to "settle" the gameplay / experience to a Good Pace (TM) - some of it does seem to detract from "forever games", but offering a "good experience for the average session" seems to be the actual goal.

Where I might mildly disagree; the "not wanting to compete with your next product" is a thing for sure, and it only depends on the company, how they make decisions with that in mind... TFP isn't in a position to compete with itself yet, but even decisions like "we'll do thing X* in the next game" (*for a realistic example, solid terrain) are basically already following the logic, driving development resources towards the "reusable" things, while reducing 'interest' in the current one.

That might not be "intentionally avoiding competing with yourself", but rather "actual development resources competing for priorities" but the end result can be quite similar.

 

[Laz Man]

Biased opinion here but I feel like 7D2D is starting to reach Skyrim levels of moddability which has done wonders for the longevity of that game.

 

[meilodasreh]

I was tempted a few times too, to give Skyrim another go, after all these years.

Never did it though, but with all the mods, and my new and much more capable rig, it should be a completely new experience...well that might be the case first and foremost because it must be 10 years since I touched it last, and I completely forgot everything 

...considering 7D2D moddability/longevity, I have to admit I hope .2 goes stable soon, because I'm really looking forward to DF5.0.

And the main reason for this is probably the core of what started this thread.

DF already has a long-term storyline to follow, and you have to keep on "evolving" and get more and more better stuff, just to be able to advance in this story step by step. 

Vanilla does lack that motivating factor - as of yet. 

I'm really curious what you guys come up with in the end though!

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

If you play every overhaul mod there is, you are busy for a really long time, pretty sure once the game is finished there will be a bunch of new overhaul mods aswell. There are for sure modders that don´t wanna have to adapt twice every year to the new alpha wich means a ton of work for them. (Kudos to all the mod makers who do that) And that it isn´t a live service game like WoW was clear from the beginning. That would mean DLC´s you have buy or skins and other cosmetical items, because TFP would have to maintain a stable income.

Everyone who is interested in this game pretty much already bought it. Sure there will be new customers, but there won´t be a huge mass of new players buying anymore.

 

[PoppaSmirk]

Its good to see some feedback, and more of it optimistic than negative.    I must admit, the changes recently have given a lot of "head scratching" moments between My (now former) group of players.  For Myself I suppose that its just difficult to see a long run of gameplay  (more than 2.5 years) with a group of steady players suddenly go into crash & burn mode when Alpha 21 came out.  

Maybe they just needed a change.  I really expected to see more of My Multiplayer group come back and say they wanted to try 7D2D again by now.   So far,  out of the 8 that had been playing regularly,  only Myself and one other have had interest in continuing to play.  Sad as it is to say,  I may have to look elsewhere to find others wishing to play.

I am totally up for using some Mods too;  but I think that was also part of the issue with My Multi-game players.   Several of them aren't the most "computer savvy" and didn't want to have any mods that needed Server and Client side installs.  So that limits things.  That was one big reason that My Multiplayer Game only used 5 mods.   I hosted them all on My side of things.

 

[pApA^LeGBa]

If they can´t copy a folder into the game directory,  they should ask themselves if they aren´t better off playing on console tbh. It´s literally just copy/paste for many overhauls, for some you need to create the Mods folder first. I mean are there seriously people who own a PC and can´t do that? That´s PC knowledge 101 basically.

 

[meganoth]

Kinda agree with the mods there, doubt TFP is actually planning a "max lifespan" for the game itself. They're just trying to "settle" the gameplay / experience to a Good Pace (TM) - some of it does seem to detract from "forever games", but offering a "good experience for the average session" seems to be the actual goal.

Where I might mildly disagree; the "not wanting to compete with your next product" is a thing for sure, and it only depends on the company, how they make decisions with that in mind... TFP isn't in a position to compete with itself yet, but even decisions like "we'll do thing X* in the next game" (*for a realistic example, solid terrain) are basically already following the logic, driving development resources towards the "reusable" things, while reducing 'interest' in the current one.

That might not be "intentionally avoiding competing with yourself", but rather "actual development resources competing for priorities" but the end result can be quite similar.

I don't understand your point here. Is this a reply to my post? If it clears anything up I fully agree that TFP like any other game company would like to make any new game they put out look better than the previous one and surely wants players to forget the old one and buy the new one and play it.

But that wasn't the topic. And I did not say anything contrary to that in my previous post.

 

[theFlu]

I don't understand your point here. Is this a reply to my post?

Right, this seems to a habit of ours; I write a terse version of an idea of mine and spend the next two pages expanding upon it. Was it a reply, not really; that implies it was directed to you. But, in-so-far as it was a reply: I agreed on "not thinking there's actual planned obsolescence going on here", and "mildly disagreed" with your "the only reasons are sales and micro-transactions*" pointing out that other things, such as (development) resource allocation within the company/between products can lead to undercooked features - in favor of the future product. That may have the same effect as planned obsolescence would, but would be more "benign" in nature. Hence, "mild" disagreement.

If that's still too convoluted, then .. don't worry, the point is pointless anyway. Not spending another two-pager on this

* abbreviated, as people can read your post

 

[Pernicious]

Biased opinion here but I feel like 7D2D is starting to reach Skyrim levels of moddability which has done wonders for the longevity of that game.

Kinda reminds me of Todd Howard's quote : "If you want us to stop releasing Skyrim ports, stop buying them".

I've always played Skyrim on PC, but everything from the community created high res texture packs, to the Hearth and Home expansion brought me back for another play through. I think I probably have at least six full play throughs on Skyrim, and a handful of abandoned ones. That's dwarfed by the number of play throughs I've had on 7d2d though (Probably 20+, longest being about 180 hours, most around 70-80)

Then I had a a couple goes at Darkness Falls and Sorcery. While I was quite amazed at how much work went into them, progression and balance just didn't quite "feel" right, which I think goes to show the value of TFP tweaking the balance a bit. I honestly would not object to paying for "official" mods as DLCs once it goes gold for that reason alone.

So, about those endless ports... When is 7D2D being ported to Android? (Kidding)

 

[Laz Man]

Kinda reminds me of Todd Howard's quote : "If you want us to stop releasing Skyrim ports, stop buying them".

I've always played Skyrim on PC, but everything from the community created high res texture packs, to the Hearth and Home expansion brought me back for another play through. I think I probably have at least six full play throughs on Skyrim, and a handful of abandoned ones. That's dwarfed by the number of play throughs I've had on 7d2d though (Probably 20+, longest being about 180 hours, most around 70-80)

Then I had a a couple goes at Darkness Falls and Sorcery. While I was quite amazed at how much work went into them, progression and balance just didn't quite "feel" right, which I think goes to show the value of TFP tweaking the balance a bit. I honestly would not object to paying for "official" mods as DLCs once it goes gold for that reason alone.

So, about those endless ports... When is 7D2D being ported to Android? (Kidding)

My latest mod obsession is the 7D2D VRmod.  Being able to turn your head to look around while flying a Gyro over / through / in / out of a city is such a jaw dropping experience.  

 

[Pernicious]

My latest mod obsession is the 7D2D VRmod.  Being able to turn your head to look around while flying a Gyro over / through / in / out of a city is such a jaw dropping experience.  

Ever since I got my Samsung Gear VR, I've been waiting for the PC technology to mature enough to justify the investment into "proper" gear, and not just a fancy add on to my phone.

Might be time to revisit the technology and see if there are enough games to justify the cost.

 

[ElCabong]

I hope this game never goes good because as soon as it does I'm going to play through it and get tired of it. As it stands now, every year it changes and I never get tired of it

 

[Roland]

Its good to see some feedback, and more of it optimistic than negative.    I must admit, the changes recently have given a lot of "head scratching" moments between My (now former) group of players.  For Myself I suppose that its just difficult to see a long run of gameplay  (more than 2.5 years) with a group of steady players suddenly go into crash & burn mode when Alpha 21 came out.  

Maybe they just needed a change.  I really expected to see more of My Multiplayer group come back and say they wanted to try 7D2D again by now.   So far,  out of the 8 that had been playing regularly,  only Myself and one other have had interest in continuing to play.  Sad as it is to say,  I may have to look elsewhere to find others wishing to play.

I am totally up for using some Mods too;  but I think that was also part of the issue with My Multi-game players.   Several of them aren't the most "computer savvy" and didn't want to have any mods that needed Server and Client side installs.  So that limits things.  That was one big reason that My Multiplayer Game only used 5 mods.   I hosted them all on My side of things.

My advice is to just let them be until A22 releases and then extend an invite to try out the new update. Sometimes all this game needs is a several month's break and an update to feel fresh again. Find a new game to play together in the meantime so you keep your group together. That's the most important thing. 

I hope this game never goes good

Yeah, so far it is still in the realm of great. Let's hope it never slides down to just good.

 

[meganoth]

Right, this seems to a habit of ours; I write a terse version of an idea of mine and spend the next two pages expanding upon it. Was it a reply, not really; that implies it was directed to you. But, in-so-far as it was a reply: I agreed on "not thinking there's actual planned obsolescence going on here", and "mildly disagreed" with your "the only reasons are sales and micro-transactions*" pointing out that other things, such as (development) resource allocation within the company/between products can lead to undercooked features - in favor of the future product. That may have the same effect as planned obsolescence would, but would be more "benign" in nature. Hence, "mild" disagreement.

If that's still too convoluted, then .. don't worry, the point is pointless anyway. Not spending another two-pager on this

* abbreviated, as people can read your post

Well, I was listing reasons why a game company would actually manipulate a game to be less fun for long time-players (which by the way fits squarly unter unethical behaviour) as the OP was asking exactly about this (if I am not misreading). Now when you list reasons for something else happening which may in some instances look similar and tell me you disagree with me however mildly, consider me confused.

My latest mod obsession is the 7D2D VRmod.  Being able to turn your head to look around while flying a Gyro over / through / in / out of a city is such a jaw dropping experience.  

Please post a video of you when your gyro spins out of control 

 

[theFlu]

Now when you list reasons for something else happening which may in some instances look similar and tell me you disagree with me however mildly, consider me confused.

Indeed, I do. If the end result is the same, I don't really care about the motivations behind it; I was mostly just highlighting that. My statement of "mild" disagreement is probably more tangential than actual disagreement, but then again I tend to disagree with any claims of "the only possible motives", there are some nutty folks out there, with some really weird motivations

 

[Rotor]

"..... there are some nutty folks out there, with some really weird motivations

Geez, I am only asking for the ability to get water in a bucket/pot and carry it back with me.