Clarification Actually, concerning Diablo III, I meant horrific (as in horrible). If you look at the long wait time between Diablo II (LOD) and Diablo III, you'll see there is little improvement between the two versions. For all of the hype leading up the Diablo III release, the actual game fell far short of the hype. And I did love Diablo I and Diablo II (LOD). But after a 10-year wait, you would expect something more. Heck, Pocket Legends is even better than Diablo III. In terms of Infinity Blade II, what I really disliked was the developers publicly stating that they knew the game was terrible, but they released a crappy product early just to get it out there. To me, that is a HUGE example of a money grab. To forgo quality for the sake of making a mighty buck. Another example is Dark Meadow, which I loved at first. However, after paying $5.99, the developers released an upgrade, which required paying customers to then have to spend IAP in the game, even though they already paid a "one-time" fee for the game. The point to all of that is the paying models are not always better. I feel that the developers for Heroes Call put a lot of time in terms of testing the game and verifying the quality is intact. If you think about it, the one "flaw" posted on this forum is the slow movement rate (which I have not yet seen). Also, I haven't seen any glitches in the game thus far. I'm not saying there aren't any, but I haven't found any. I would give the game 4 (out of 5 stars). The game is challenging without being overbearing. There are many subtle nuances in the game which are fantastic. So devs, keep up the good work. You rock! Just my two cents, Frisbee10461
Suggestion To the Heroes Call Devs, I have a suggestion for the next upgrade: What about a comparison graphic when you are about to purchase a piece of equipment? Let's say I want to buy a sword. To see whether this sword is better, first, I have to go to my equipment graphic and make a note of the sword stats. Then, I have to look at the desired sword and remember whether the sword is better or worse. So, my suggestion is, as follows: When you are at the blacksmith, and want to buy the sword, you press the item. A graphic of it will appear with either a green upward arrow, signifying it is a better piece of equipment or a red downward arrow, indicating is is an inferior piece of equipment. Just my two cents, Frisbee10461
Yes. I mentioned the same suggestion. It is a pain flipping back and forth between screens (equipment and blacksmith) to see what's different about them. And there's some items, like generic helmets and sheilds, that don't give you any stats other than the level required to use them. In these cases, I just have to assume that the ones with higher levels are better. Also, there were a few questions regarding whether the dungeons are randomly generated as well as the difficulty. Well, I've found, going through level 5 that the dungeons aren't dynamically generated, but the enemies are. I went through that level with extremely difficult enemies swarming me (including Orcs, which for my level of experience and weapons were not easy to beat at that time). Ended up dying twice. Then I went in another time and 80% of the enemies I had were skeletons and the level, was, as another user said a "cakewalk". So if anything, I think the difficulty needs to be balanced in that regard. The same mission having very different experiences from difficult to a cakewalk is not idea. The difficulty should gradually increase from level to level so that it's not a cakewalk, but also not so difficult, it's hard to progress. Just IMO. My advice: If you have trouble with a level, try quiting and going back in. You might find it much easier the next go around.
Yeah, just read that one (3/5 for anyone who hasn't seen it). It's a little harsh on the freemium aspect. As I and many others have pointed out, sure, I'd much rather pay for a full game. But the only thing that's bothered me about the system so far is the wait-times. I still do wish there was an all encompassing wait-time unlock. However, with my gaming style (don't get to play for hours on end), it hasn't been a gamebreaker for me. I do also agree with their criticism of leveling up only between levels. Overall, I'm probably somewhere between the 148apps and AppSpy reviews. With as much as AppSpy criticized almost everything about the system, I'm actually surprised it still got even a 3. Hopefully someone will come along and give us a premium Diablo-style game that doesn't try the freemium route (right now, like others, looking forward to IB: Dungeons). I know Defiant was trying something new with the freemium idea, but frankly, this kind of game is for harder core gamers. And that audience is quite different from the casual audience that freemium succeeds so well at milking money from.
http://www.appspy.com/heroes-call-review "Heroes Call's problems all come down to its design around the worst aspects of the freemium model. If leveling up, identifying and questing were integrated back into the system and not so disconnected it would go a long way to this being a better experience. As it stands, it's kind of a fun hack and slash, and the tapping combos makes combat fluid, if not a little repetitive due to the slow unveiling of new abilities. It's just bogged down by its own systems, and thus makes it quite hard to recommend that players give this a go, regardless of its free price tag."
I agree. In this case it is, for my part, a want to get immersed in this game. So it is not a general discussion. And having to wait or meet a fake wall is not the way to enjoy this game. For this kind of game I want to be able to loose several hours and the forget about the game for a couple of days. Not having to play a limited amount of time and then wait. A shame, as I really like everything about this, and I would be willing to pay.
I've got plenty of money. That's so much not the problem. It's how designing the monetization model around compulsion, rather than a fair exchange (you sell me the game, I play it, if I want extra features I can buy those) makes the customers feel about it.
They stand to make a lot more money with an IAP model. The world revolves around money and the iOS game community is no different. There's nothing unfair about it. You download the game for free and if you dont like it, you dont pay for the extra stuff and move on. But there's a reason most of the top 10 apps are IAP freemium games. A great number of people do in fact pay for these things which must mean they consider such purchases a fair exchange.
No one's talking about whether they should have an IAP model. Nothing wrong with freemium or IAP, as far as I'm concerned. I think free-to-play, pay-if-you-like-it, pay-more-if-you-want-more-content is one of the greatest and best innovations in the game market. But, as the review I quoted says, the problem is with their particular implementation.
Can you provide a link to statement from the Devs of Infinity Blade II? That's the first I've heard about that. IMO Infinty Blade I & II are terrific games, with great support from the Devs and constant free updates. Also, their in-app model is far better than Heroes Call. Regarding Dark Meadows, if they pulled a stunt like that, they f#cked up royally. That can't reflect on the business model of the paying model of every other game though, that's just bad business and horrible customer service of those particular Devs. Havent played the game myself, so can't comment on the game itself. Regarding Heroes Call.. I only played an hour or so, so this is early impressions on my part. I absolutely hate the "play and wait", it takes all the joy out of a game for me. I've got no problem with a one time fee to get rid of it, but having to pay every single time I want to play with real money? No way! I like to sit down with a game like this for hours. In my eyes, it's akin to robbing the customer. The game itself have nice graphics, good combat controls and ideas, really, really bad storytelling and presentation of story, bad shopping interface as you can't compare items owned and shop items. Only one character, unless you want to pay for another. Pretty shallow, but a nice little game, marred completely buy their freemium model. They could have had at least 5 bucks from me, had they asked for it upfront for the full game, as it is, they won't ever see a dime from me, and I don't expect it to survive the week out on my iPad.
They did, but after an uproar, they changed it back sort of. So credit to them. As for this game, if it makes them money, great, but it won't be any of mine. It looks like it could have been good if they hadn't designed the game mechanics around generating IAPs instead of fun
It's still a good game - marred by a bad IAP system. Frankly, I'm having fun with it and the wait times are annoying but I never get to play 2 hours straight anyway. So, I'll have my fun for free. Too bad for the devs because they would have had some of my money too. But not with the system they have in place.
Seems like a lot of people don't like the freemium system to this game. I actually kind of like it, but I think I'm the target audience (midcore players). I play one quest at a time which takes about 10 min., and that works well with the amount of time I usually get to play. Leveling up and selling/buying items between quests I think works nicely as well. And so far (I'm at level 5), I haven't needed to make any purchases. However, has anyone been able to get the Tavern to work? Every time I try, it goes to facebook to link, then comes back to the game and says "Verifying Profile..". Yet, it never does. That text just sits there, even if I go to other screens. The only way to get rid of it is to try the Tavern again and then cancel or start a quest. A couple other things that could make the game better - add more tile sets (so far I don't think I've seen more than 2) and make the map easier to see (or allow you to tap on it to enlarge it).
Quite hard to recommend? For free, and considering the quality on offer here, I would find it hard NOT to recommend this to people.
Tavern screen isn't broken for everyone, but unfortunately it is busted for some people. We're looking at fixing that up now. Thanks for all the feedback and suggestions - looking into what's implementable through the next couple of updates.
Something I noticed last night while playing with a stylus. Tap once on a target and Squire will hit it until its dead. So what does that tip about tap on swing mean? The one tap auto-hit seems to be increasing in combo damage whereas repeatedly tapping a single target like the tip implies doesn't seem to add anything. Fast tapping also tends to shift focus to other goons in a swarm making mob battles harder. If you haven't tried a stylus with games like this on iPad you're missing out.
I think there are two: 1999 and 2007. Here's the quote I found from 1999 (@ 16:50 in the video): "With arcade games, our objective was to see how many quarters we could get the users to drop into a machine at an arcade. It was with this objective in mind that I created the Donkey Kong series." I don't see how this supports your point, or contradicts mine. They certainly wanted to generate revenue, but they don't rule out having some players play longer than others. Indeed, he goes on to say that games were unsuccessful when they tried to extract more and more revenue from the most skilled players.
The way it works is : tap once, and you'll keep attacking with your standard attack. Tap with the right timing (once per stroke) and you'll do a combo - standard attack, right swing, spin attack - which does more damage with each hit. You'll know you have the timing right if you see the animation change.
