Yes, confirmation would be appreciated. I stupidly preordered this game thinking that such a necessary feature would be included in this game since it’s in every other multiplayer game of the same genre. Now I have to hold off on playing the pre-release beta since I don’t want to go over the 2 hour limit in order to get a refund if Fat Shark was dumb enough not to include the feature.
Say SOMETHING, Fat Shark. I just want to know whether or not private lobbies will be available at launch. That’s it. We’re days away from launch, so it’s pretty obvious you have a definite “yes” or “no” answer to this question. That’s all we want. Yes or no.
I’ve been told that hours in the pre release beta don’t count for refund purposes though I’m still not sure that’s the case. Not really sure how to check for sure.
According to Valve, pre-purchased titles follow different rules, as long as they are refunded before the game releases. It doesn’t mentione pre-purchase betas specifically, but does mention both 14-day period and 2 hours played.
That’s good to know. Hopefully, Fat Shark will answer this question before launch then. I’d rather have an answer sooner rather than later though since that sixty bucks I wasted on this game can go to other games that are releasing.
Seriously hope we get some kind of news on this at some point. It’s kind of ridiculous that something like this isn’t addressed officially anywhere other than a passing comment on the Discord.
There is another thread in the beta section but for those that don’t see it:
You can refund a pre-order on Steam any time before release regardless of time played. It isn’t early access. Once released the two week/two hour rule applies from the release date.
I want to love this game but I can’t enjoy games with randoms forced on me. If there is a confirmation of private lobbies, I will buy it back in a frickin’ heartbeat. I was looking forward to this since I heard about it and was severely disappointed, legitimately sad in my chest, that there is zero information on private lobbies and that it’s been purposefully ignored when asking for an answer.
Good thing I saw this thread before me and two other friends preordered it. We don’t want to play with randos. Closed beta was a sh*t show with randoms constantly just running off and dying.
lack of info on whether or not post release classes will be monetised
They probably will be, and that’s perfectly fine. Games are significantly cheaper at point-of-purchase now than they were a decade and a half ago, despite production costs rising. The $60 price point was set during the PS3/Xbox 360 release cycle in 2005. Adjusting for inflation, that’s over $91 today.
Darktide is $40
They could release a dozen classes at the $4 price point they set them at for VT2, and if you bought all of them in addition to the main game you still wouldn’t be over the standard retail price for games 17 years ago.
Interesting how you’ve left the upcoming purchasable cosmetics out of that equation.
I appreciate your perspective on this, but Darktide is, in a lot of ways, a far far lower value prospect than VT2 was in terms of content and replayability. You’re having a laugh if you think classes will be $4, that was the base price in VT2 not including cosmetics, no way to know if they’ll offer that kind of split again. Even if they do so I won’t be surprised at all if the price is raised, we will see.
And again, we have 4 classes on base release. In what world is that not a complete joke for this type of game? With the exact same levels of customisation/build variety (if not less) than VT2.
You’re welcome to think this is good enough, but I can recognise a sharp downwards incline when I see one, and for what is looking to be actually in the game on release, charging for every additional class is going to be a massive step down from VT2 in terms of value.
Apart from the character creator classes are exactly like V2 careers at this point. There isn’t a single extra layer of customisation mechanically. You can’t pick a second grenade option, you can’t upgrade talents past 30 or something, it offers the exact same choice of three talents every five levels which if anything have been less interesting than a lot of V2s talents.
I’ve still got my fingers crossed that there will be things at release that expand on what’s available or surprise me in some way, but I am pretty disappointed by the talent system and class customisation. The cosmetics are implemented pretty similarly to V2 with one reasonable step down, many weapon skins are now just recolours, haven’t seen a single weapon skin that’s a different model to the base yet.
I’ve put over 1700 hours into VT2, and while I’m certainly a bit of an outlier there, it’s not uncommon for people to sink hundreds of hours into it. My cost per hour of game time, tallying up everything I’ve spent on the game, sits around $0.05. If you spent the same amount that I did and only played for 30 hours it would still only be ~$3/hour. No, I don’t really care if Darktide is a bit less “value” per dollar.
Games are an incredibly cheap form of entertainment, and while I hate to accuse people of entitlement, the opposition of the gaming community at large to price increases for the base cost of a game is precisely why game companies have opted for further systems of monetization. Companies need to make money to continue to produce anything, and the cost to produce a game is quite high because it involves a lot of specialized people and expensive equipment. It all has to balance out somewhere to allow them to continue to grow and produce the content that you consume.
