Friday Facts #367 - Expansion news

[ssilk]

To the price: I bought Factorio for 15 €. I I played around 6000 hours, which I think is a very good price per hour.

And as I understood: Factorio 1.2 will cost 30€. Which includes 1.1. Two games for one?!

Wube has always fulfilled their promises.

[Zentay]

Does the expansion add content after the rocket launch, or before? Or does it add an entirely different scenario than "launch a rocket", like build an underwater base? The jellyfish-like creature looks like something living in the water.

[ickputzdirwech]

I don’t understand the discussion about the price. They clearly state:

The general goal is to make the expansion feel like as big an addition as the whole vanilla game. This is why we plan to price it at $30.00

The vanilla game costs $30, the expansion will cost another $30. There plan is to double the overall content, doubling the price therefore makes total sense. Selling both for $30 would essentially mean they would give away the expansion for free. Making a cheaper bundle would also defeat the purpose of their fixed-price-strategy, as it would essentially mean a permanent discount for everyone.

Also it is an addition, meaning you won’t be able to play the expansion without the vanilla game. People who haven’t played Factorio yet will be advised to buy and play the vanilla standalone game first (you shouldn’t start by playing mods like Space Exploration or A+B as well). They will then know whether they want to spend another $30 or not. Same for us, as we already played the vanilla game.

[brunzenstein]

Also it is an addition, meaning you won’t be able to play the expansion without the vanilla game. People who haven’t played Factorio yet will be advised to buy and play the vanilla standalone game first (you shouldn’t start by playing mods like Space Exploration or A+B as well). They will then know whether they want to spend another $30 or not. Same for us, as we already played the vanilla game.

Thats the very point - your right on the spot !

[CLion]

personally I am hoping for RTS elements, like different producable fighting units with patrolling routes and enemies that spy on you to find weak spots, forcing the player to make more complex defense building decisions

[enchant]

Yeah, that will be the question.
Just making more and more complex recipes and some fancy graphics won't cut it.

Yes, this will be a wait and see for me as well. Factorio is definitely one of my favorite all-time games, but I could see a new design crew taking it in a direction I don't want to go. I play with enemies turned off. That's simply not what I want in this kind of game. I'm into factory design and automation. I don't want enemies interrupting me any more than I want to be forced to suddenly play a game of tetris. The only preview graphics provided are of future enemies.

There are several things I'd love to see in an expansion. Foolish to list them here, but I'd love to know what they have in mind. But if there's a substantial amount added to the base factorio part of the game, $30 will be a bargain.

[tuhe]

I am really happy to see this update!

TBH, I am as excited to see what the expansion will do for the modding scene as what the expansion itself will consist of. I hope Wube will be able to give an indication of new possibilities without giving away too much

[Hornwitser]

The general goal is to make the expansion feel like as big an addition as the whole vanilla game. This is why we plan to price it at $30.00

Does this mean the base game will stay priced at $30 and the expansion is an additional $30, so that new players will have to pay $60 for the base game and expansion?

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

I only play without enemies, so if this picture means more enemies then I guess this expansion is not for me.

[Rubypoker]

I made a meme: Dimitri finds out about Factorio Expansion

[mmmPI]

I only play without enemies, so if this picture means more enemies then I guess this expansion is not for me.

I mostly play without enemies too. I wouldn't be surprised if new ennemies comes with new climates or other things that would still add gameplay elements to the non-slaugtherer player in their factory building !

[DanGio]

To the price: I bought Factorio for 15 €. I I played around 6000 hours, which I think is a very good price per hour.

And as I understood: Factorio 1.2 will cost 30€. Which includes 1.1. Two games for one?!

Wube has always fulfilled their promises.

As stated before, 30$ or 25€, if they apply the same rate as for the base game.

As for the expansion price, it's impossible they provide the base game + expansion for 25€ all included. That would mean stopping to sell the base game alone (because no one would buy it if they could get the base game + expansion for the same price), and would mean that no one should buy Factorio until they release the expansion...

Here's the plan as stated by FFF :

We will release the 1.2 update to the base game

This means that :

Lots of the quality of life (and other) improvements we prepared for the expansion will just appear for everyone

So Factorio 1.2 is free for everyone who bought the base game. The expansion must be purchased though :

The expansion content will be just a mod

But :

you couldn't just install the expansion mod without having the expansion executable

It's perfectly clear guys.

[firestar246]

I only play without enemies, so if this picture means more enemies then I guess this expansion is not for me.

I mostly play without enemies too. I wouldn't be surprised if new ennemies comes with new climates or other things that would still add gameplay elements to the non-slaugtherer player in their factory building !

Me too. I like to plan big and build slowly. I've tried having biters, and the land restraints and extra resources I need to spend for defenses just isn't my preferred way to play. Though whatever they decide to do with the expansion, I plan to try it out. Just hope while it may have new enemies, it isn't based around them and combat.

[Qon]

Generally the fact that the team size has increased, and there are a lot of things in the engine that we already solved, should hopefully imply that the expansion takes way less time than the base game.

Factorio, took 7 years to be made (crowdfunding campaign in 2013 and 1.0 release in 2020). Will it take 5-3 years to make this expansion?

Also how frequently should we expect to get information about the expansion?

Are you paying for the years they spent or for the value the game brings to you? If they spend more time making the expansion, but intentionally makes it bad, does that mean you are willing to spend more money on it because they are wasting theirs?
Isn't the expansion worth more if it arrives sooner, instead of later when the game is dead and there's no one to play with and you don't care anyways? Shouldn't you pay more if it takes less time to make the expansion then?

[Qon]

I only play without enemies, so if this picture means more enemies then I guess this expansion is not for me.

The expansion will likely have more of everything. But if it also has more enemies that you won't even see with your settings then you don't want all the other things? Do you not like Factorio at all then following the same logic, since it has enemies that you can turn off?

[Bones.Justice]

$30 is a perfectly reasonable price. The fact that the base game also cost $30 (or less!) only means that the base game was a friggin’ steal and could (should?) have been priced higher. I wouldn’t have blinked at spending $45.

Using the base game price as a benchmark effectively says, “because your pricing was exceedingly generous once, we expect the same for all future content.” And that sounds pretty entitled to me.

[Sander_Bouwhuis]

I only play without enemies, so if this picture means more enemies then I guess this expansion is not for me.

The expansion will likely have more of everything. But if it also has more enemies that you won't even see with your settings then you don't want all the other things? Do you not like Factorio at all then following the same logic, since it has enemies that you can turn off?

I don't know what they added which couldn't have been done with mods.

The biggest gripe I have with Factorio is that the 'doing research so you can do more research' loop is very dissatisfying. I would like to have interesting goals that 'coincidentally' require things to be researched.
Launching a rocket just doesn't feel exciting to me. So, if they make the gameplay more meaningful then I will consider it despite the very high price of €30,-. That is the equivalent of two AAA games on sale.

[jodokus31]

The biggest gripe I have with Factorio is that the 'doing research so you can do more research' loop is very dissatisfying. I would like to have interesting goals that 'coincidentally' require things to be researched.
Launching a rocket just doesn't feel exciting to me. So, if they make the gameplay more meaningful then I will consider it despite the very high price of €30,-. That is the equivalent of two AAA games on sale.

If factorio had more story and lore, would it be significantly more successful? Maybe. I think, it would add a lot. Currently, the game is explicitly empty of story or any meaning other than, launch a rocket. But it also tough to add a good story afterwards.
Maybe, the expansion shifts the story completely somewhere else?

BTW: 2 AAA games on sale might equal to trash. Or you take the chance to have a "short" pause from factorio
But I understand: If you look into the steam store or similar, then one sale after another is happening and 30$ or 25 Euro looks much compared to that, because you eventually get most gems for lower than that. Actually, its quite sad. I really love Wube's approach to this, because you still have the impression, that you bought a game, that is worth something. And you weren't stupid to not wait for a sale.

[SoShootMe]

The biggest gripe I have with Factorio is that the 'doing research so you can do more research' loop is very dissatisfying. I would like to have interesting goals that 'coincidentally' require things to be researched.

Such as? Almost everything I can think of (either in Factorio now, or potentially in the expansion) could be described as "doing research so you can do more research" with varying degrees of indirection. The only clear exception is doing research to avoid getting killed by evolving enemies.

I only play without enemies

Ah...

[pointa2b]

Seeing people talk about $30 like they're taking out a home mortgage is pretty amusing. I get the feeling the people complaining about price will fade to nearly zero once more FFF's come out detailing the new contents and features. Have a little faith.