Path of Exile
I'm not a huge fan of the action hack'n'slash genre, but I do play games like Diablo from time to time. This year's Diablo III was a disappointment, even many people who liked it at first ended up complaining about the grind in the endgame later. So I was interested when a reader wrote me about Path of Exile having solved the endgame problems of the genre: Instead of running through the same story again and again, Path of Exile has a system which allows you to craft instance maps.
I was wondering if the Free2Play business model makes game developers care more about the endgame. After all, the great majority of people playing Diablo III did spend a lot more money on buying the game than they will spend on auction house fees. Thus as long as the game is good at the start and Blizzard gets the sales in, the longevity doesn't matter all that much. In a Free2Play game like Path of Exile, players tend to only spend money once they have played for a while, so longevity is more important for income to the game company.
Anyway, endgame systems in which the player has an influence over what kind of random dungeon he wants to visit are certainly an improvement over more static systems. Having lots of different tile sets, and ways to modify the dungeons appears rather interesting to me. It is something I could imagine working in other types of roleplaying games as well.
I was wondering if the Free2Play business model makes game developers care more about the endgame. After all, the great majority of people playing Diablo III did spend a lot more money on buying the game than they will spend on auction house fees. Thus as long as the game is good at the start and Blizzard gets the sales in, the longevity doesn't matter all that much. In a Free2Play game like Path of Exile, players tend to only spend money once they have played for a while, so longevity is more important for income to the game company.
Anyway, endgame systems in which the player has an influence over what kind of random dungeon he wants to visit are certainly an improvement over more static systems. Having lots of different tile sets, and ways to modify the dungeons appears rather interesting to me. It is something I could imagine working in other types of roleplaying games as well.
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