PC Valve’s first new game in 5 years, Artifact, coming in November, starting at $20 (update - beta pushed to November 19)

[Jason]

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018/08/valves-first-new-game-in-5-years-artifact-coming-in-november-starting-at-20/

[Brian]

Quote

What exactly does $19.99 get you? The game maker didn't answer this in its press release, so we reached out to Valve's Doug Lombardi, who broke down the exact package included in that cost: two pre-made "base" decks of 54 cards each ("5 heroes, 9 items, and 40 other cards") and 10 sealed packs of cards, which each include 12 random cards, one of which is guaranteed to be "rare." Additional 12-card packs will be sold directly by Valve at $2 a pop at launch.

 

One exception to that upfront cost will come at this month's PAX West. Anyone who waits in line and plays Valve's first public hands-on demo of the game will receive two free keys to unlock the game's base model when it launches on Steam later this year.

Someone hit me up with a PAX West base key

[HardAct]

Hoping for a half life 3 update, even if its 3 more years away 

[TwinIon]

I'm dubious about both the gameplay and the economics of the game, but I'm interested in how it will all turn out. The complexity alone might be too high a barrier to entry, but I'd be happy if it ends up being a new favorite.

[Keyser_Soze]

$20 is a good price but I'd be willing to pay more.

[Moa]

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

$20 is a good price but I'd be willing to pay more.

Oh, believe me, you will.

[Keyser_Soze]

1 minute ago, Moa said:

Oh, believe me, you will. 

 

Depends on how into the game I am. Otherwise probably not.

[Anzo]

5 hours ago, ManUtdRedDevils said:

Someone hit me up with a PAX West base key

My kids and I will be going. I'll do my best to get some extra keys.

[Spork3245]

The Lab came out two years ago...

[darkness35]

New Source Engine PogChamp

[elbobo]

Is this game available on any kind of mobile device, one of the big reasons hearthstone got so popular was that you could play it on your phone. 

[Anzo]

22 minutes ago, elbobo said:

Is this game available on any kind of mobile device, one of the big reasons hearthstone got so popular was that you could play it on your phone. 

Planned for sometime in 2019

[Scape Zero]

I wonder if Valve will continue good guy Valve and let you get additional cards for free, without a massive time investment.

[GeneticBlueprint]

Sigh

[TwinIon]

6 hours ago, Scape Zero said:

I wonder if Valve will continue good guy Valve and let you get additional cards for free, without a massive time investment.

I believe that because you can trade cards there is no way to get them for free.

 

Quote

Artifact will not function as a free-to-play game—you'll have to buy something akin to a "starter" pack of gameplay cards, another staffer later clarified, before you can load into a game. Further cards can be purchased in packs and singles, either directly from Valve or from fellow players. And this, Newell insisted, will do something important for how the psychology of its paid cards plays out. "When you’re in a free-to-play environment, you get into a tendency that rarity equals power," Newell said. He called this an "artificial relationship" and insisted that in Artifact, "that’s not the case at all. Lots of common cards will be super powerful."

Source

[Scape Zero]

16 hours ago, TwinIon said:

I believe that because you can trade cards there is no way to get them for free.

 

Source

 

Eeehh... Gonna have to wait on this one then.

 

It's one thing for a free game to require hundreds of dollars a year, it's another if a paid game requires it.

[TwinIon]

1 hour ago, Scape Zero said:

 Eeehh... Gonna have to wait on this one then.

 

It's one thing for a free game to require hundreds of dollars a year, it's another if a paid game requires it.

The idea is that the cards you open will have an intrinsic value that you could theoretically recover through the marketplace. So if you spend a bunch of money and open packs or purchase individual cards, you could recoup some of that if you stopped playing. I'm skeptical of how exactly that market will play out, especially over years of the game's evolution both as a game and as a marketplace.

 

I also think that it's a model that will really discourage growth. Even if you are giving the cards a real value, Hearthstone cards feel like they have value because they have value to you, and you can earn them for free. I think the biggest question is if the game is good enough to get people playing. If the game is good enough, people will figure it out and we'll start to have real dollar values for what it takes to be competitive (at whatever level you want to be). That last part is particularly interesting, because in Hearthstone you have an approximation for how expensive a deck is, but in Artifact we'll be able to say that a given deck currently costs exactly $X to build.

[Xbob42]

Being able to buy what cards I want already makes it a thousand times better than Hearthstone with its totally random bullshit. I mean, I could craft the card I wanted as long as I had enough magic dust, I guess, but boy was that a grind.

[misfit410]

Valves first game in years is a friggen card game? meh

I hope 8 years from now they decide it's the right time for a Battle Royale game.

[monkk]

On 8/3/2018 at 9:45 AM, Scape Zero said:

 

Eeehh... Gonna have to wait on this one then.

 

It's one thing for a free game to require hundreds of dollars a year, it's another if a paid game requires it.

If a free game requires hundreds of dollars a year, it isn't free.

 

As a Hearthstone player I'm super excited by the economics and I trust that Valve can make a good game. Also sorta hoping Hearthstone becomes cheaper as a result, Blizzard needs competition in this space.

[Scape Zero]

16 minutes ago, monkk said:

If a free game requires hundreds of dollars a year, it isn't free.

 

As a Hearthstone player I'm super excited by the economics and I trust that Valve can make a good game. Also sorta hoping Hearthstone becomes cheaper as a result, Blizzard needs competition in this space.

 

Right but if a 20 dollar game requires hundreds of dollars a year, it's even less free.

 

That's why I'm waiting. I don't want to spend money to find out it's the same old shit. I can play Hearthstone for free if I want to play a game where only those who dump all their money into it succeed.

 

This is why I don't like TCGs. They are fun, but they are more or less just a fucking scam. People whine and cry about games that have more or less useless lootboxes you can ignore and never really lose out on anything, yet go and spank it to TCGs who's entire business model is locking game changing cards behind expensive RNG lootboxes.

 

Maybe I'm just overly disappointed because I was expecting Valve to change this. CSGO is a cheap investment, that only has cosmetics. DotA 2 is free, only cosmetics. I was kinda expecting this game to follow suit, but it's sounding very much just like other TCGs, only you get more cards to start, and no way to get more without paying.

[monkk]

The current theorycraft is that if you want to have a full playset of every card, which makes no sense because you can always trade cards anyway, it will cost $100 at launch. Once you have that full set, if you didn't enjoy the game you could just go sell everything on the market, and end up only down ~$20. If you're above average you should be winning tournaments(ala Hearthstone's Arena, not like as in on Twitch live to millions) and it could end up "profitable".

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I just knew the game was going to be a cash mill before I even clicked on it. The days of Valve making a single purchase experience, like L4D, Portal, or HL is long gone. 

 

Obviously there is a market for this. I am just disappointed this type of thing is their focus. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Valve has pushed the beta to November 19.

[darkness35]

This sounds like Valve gacha.

[Link200]

On 8/4/2018 at 11:31 AM, Scape Zero said:

 

I can play Hearthstone for free if I want to play a game where only those who dump all their money into it succeed.

 

This honestly depends on the Meta. Currently you can rock your way up to legend with a Zoo Lock that is pretty cheap.

[Xbob42]

I mean the best part of Hearthstone is arena and the solo adventures, standard is incredibly boring. And your card collection has zero influence on either of these facets.

[TheLeon]

Yeah, you kinda have to make your own fun in Standard Hearthstone. A lot of the "best" decks aren't all that fun to play. I learned to embrace the RNG and mostly play decks like Burgle Rogue that can pull off really dumb wins out of nowhere. 

[TwinIon]

There was a preview tournament last weekend. You can see the VODs here. As part of it they walked through the tutorial.

 

I've watched a little, and my first impression is that there is a lot going on in this game. A bunch of different phases, three lanes, mana and money, heroes and creeps, spells and equipment and improvements, active and passive abilities. There is obviously a lot of strategy going on, so I imagine it will find an audience.

 

I'm not really convinced that the RNG is handled "better" in Artifact than it is in other games, given the very little I've seen. The random placement of heroes, the arrows, the effects of spells and things, all add in RNG elements that I think people will complain about, but are probably fine. I haven't seen anything quite like the super random swings in HS (cast a random spell, summon a random minion, etc.), as instead it seems like there are a bunch of 50/50 coin flips, but I don't know if that's necessarily "better."

 

The interface is pretty good looking, but I feel like it's rather crowded and the sheer multitude of stuff means a lot of info is stuck in the corners and not immediately obvious. Still, there are a lot of niceties like a preview of combat math, and I imagine some of it will be more or less second nature as you get used to the game. I look forward to finally trying it out for myself.

[Xbob42]

I'm very excited about this. RNG bothers me less and less the more "bigger scale" strategy I'm actually in control of, or if the RNG takes effect at, say, the start of a turn, rather than simply when an action occurs. (i.e. I get +2 damage at the start of my turn, rather than my attack randomly doing 2 more damage.)

 

I do hate a lot of the RNG in Hearthstone, but that's because it feels ENTIRELY based around RNG, and with only a single hero and 30 HP, a single bad RNG on some piece of shit mob on turn 2 can snowball into ruining the entire match. It feels awful. On either side. I know some folks are happy with a "win no matter what" kind of experience, but I like winning because I played better, winning because I got lucky and no other reason always just feels shitty and fake. Like a mechanic so that people who suck can occasionally feel the "thrill" of winning.

 

We'll see, all I've seen so far of the game is that early gameplay footage a while back and Kripp's video rating some heroes. I'm trying to go in with as little info as possible. I haven't found a card game I've hated yet, which I guess makes me glad I never got into Magic, or else I wouldn't be able to afford video games.

[Anzo]

Beta went live yesterday afternoon.

[TwinIon]

I wasn't watching much, but the first beta livestreams went very poorly, but it does seem like Valve was listening and is responding to the criticisms. We'll see how it turns out, but the game could be much more expensive to play than expected. My biggest criticism, not having played it, remains that it's a poor viewer experience, but I'm hoping that it becomes easier to digest once I've actually played it myself.

 

Am I correct in that there is no current constructed ladder? That seems very odd coming from HS.

[Brian]

I didn’t see any constructed ladder when I booted it.

[Link200]

Pretty sure they want a draft system to be their primary gameplay system.

 

The way I got into HS was by watching the game. I never played card games so it was an easy way to see what the game was like but also to learn how to play.

 

Watching Artifact isn't quite as easy or fun. Admittedly part of the reason is due to not knowing the cards.

[Brian]

Hearthstone is just so much easier to digest visually. If you don’t pay attention for most of the match, you can immediately understand who is in control from number of minions on board and cards in hand to players health. With Artifact, there are 3 lanes, multiple heroes with items equipped, lane effects, and gold. I look away for a couple of minutes and I feel lost. Hopefully with more familiarity it will be easier to follow.