I’ve long said that most of Crossout’s problems are baked into the live service business model, and will never be completely addressed because of that.
This is a problem across the gaming industry, where this style of monetization was once very lucrative, but is now experiencing a backlash, which is a big part of the huge layoffs and cutbacks at many gaming companies.
That background is why I’ve been looking at the Rust & Dust mode as potentially being an experiment in making something out of the ashes of Crossout that wouldn’t have to depend on that business model, and which could work as a “buy-it-once” kind of game.
Would you buy Rust & Dust if it were a standalone game? If so, how much would you think it could be priced at? And if not, what would the devs have to change or add to make it appealing?
I do miss the wider selection of structure parts that normal Crossout has, but I haven’t really minded the smaller number of weapons and movement parts.
If I had my way, I would add some spider legs, but I’m really enjoying the lack of cloaks and radar detectors. I don’t really miss the legendary and relic parts, or the space age parts at all.
If it were a standalone game, it would be nice to see some limited PVE modes, although I would argue that the endless-wave format would be less boring than raids, as long as there were enough maps in the rotation.
Thoughts?
By “stand-alone”, are you referring to the 90’s version of single-player games where you normally play against bots, but have the option to connect to a Lan to play against other live people, using IPX? Or would standalone R&D be Crossout Lite, running the same way that Crossout does now? If so, where would the servers come from?
Either way, a separate R&D would require a whole separate staffing team. Would it run on servers or off your own pc? If servers, how many years would their availability be guaranteed for? Would there be multiplayer options? Would there be updates or would the game be static? If you can’t get the game to work for whatever reason, who do you call?
I’m open to the idea of a one-time-purchase, single-player-with-multiplayer-abilities arrangement, because as I mentioned elsewhere, I’d like to still be able to play the game long after it shuts down. My issues would be expected longevity and support, and support means staffing, and staffing requires yearly revenue.
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There were lots of online multiplayer games before the live service model, and they all dealt with the server issue in different ways. It might be simpler on consoles, but PC players could better clarify how it would work for that platform.
The big difference would be that the game wouldn’t keep getting new content and constant updates, so wouldn’t require ongoing staffing.
So many games used to be something you bought once, and kept playing until you got bored. No reason we can’t go back to that, if you let go of the idea of constantly growing inventories and constant new content.
Personally, I’m happy to keep rearranging the existing parts into new vehicles, and challenging myself against whoever is online.
And I am really enjoying the lack of any P2W aspects. Veteran players have access to the same parts as new players, so what we see on the leaderboards is purely about what we can achieve on the battlefield, not what we’ve accumulated in our storage.