What made you decide to keep playing Pox?

With all the talk about the Steam launch and retaining new players, I started to wonder about this.

What was the moment in which you decided you would spring for a booster box, or that you liked the game enough to keep making decks and playing games? Basically, when did it change from "I guess I'll check this game out" to "This game's pretty fun" to "I'm really getting into this"?

For me, it was observing other players play with Ranked decks with all the bells and whistles, around the release of Grimlic's Descent. Previously, I had been wandering around in Training Grounds fighting people with starter decks and having a very loose understanding of the game. I didn't really know what the game was all about, I just knew what I was experiencing in my own games.

Once I saw what the game was like at its full potential - if you built a deck, for example, with Grimlic and Deep Elf Priestess and Sheoul Demon and used Sacrifice/Retribution and Demon Shields and your badass army descended on your poor opponent and you started wiping the floor with them like a BAMF - I wanted to play it a lot more.

Before that, I was playing with the old starter decks, which aren't exactly full of the most scintillating runes in the world. Wielding Jakei Frostwing and Frost Giant weren't as impressive as wielding Jakei Frost Queen and Jakei Elder.

I'm pretty impulsive about splurging for packs, always have been - once a game hooks me, I'm in and I'll start buying, building and learning. I got hooked once I saw the badass champs with their badass art and badass sprites doing badass things.

Seven years later I'm still here, though I'm waiting to play consistently again until things settle down.

What about you guys?

 

- Community? ... plus dem shirtless' ... amirite?

 

The artwork.

It's always been and always will be all about the artwork for me.

 

I got into it because Dota/HoN were crashing my computer.
The learning process was rough, though, and what kept me playing was the RPG feel of the game, combined with a unique gameplay style and nice art. Made some buds, got good at it, wanted to dump money and play more. I was encouraged to play ranked because I wanted to achieve Battlemaster.
I personally havent had any joy playing Pox for the last year, though. Thrill is over, no encouragement, some players are too toxic to be around.
Honestly, I just stay cause Pox helped me a lot through the toughest time of my life, and Im grateful to it, therefore I want it to endure.
I really want to get back into it, though, so Im really hoping some magic happens.

 

BurnPyro's posts

 

when I started playing there was no other option for this kind of game. I still haven't found anything that plays the same way, at least not coupled with an art style that I can stomach. then what kept me in was tryig to make good on my initial investment. now its just inertia and a sense of revenge.

 

I bought my first packs: The old UD starter (back before they included any exos, even) and a box, because a buddy wanted to play with me and the game wasn't f2p back then.

I started observing a few of the top-tier games (I specifically remember devils playing FF UD at the time and rolling faces with it) and started to get the hang of how I was supposed to be playing, which definitely increased my interest by a ton, but I'd say the tipping point for me really deciding to stay (and eventually drop $2k+) was meeting somebody (Dommikhail) who was willing to take me under their wing and into their guild (NWO).

 

The artwork. The initial thought that the game seems to be as complex as MTG. The fact I like all things turn-based and fantasy.

 

I keep going because I am addicted. I buy runes, play for a bit, feel guilty, and then give them away for free. I have been doing it since Pox started. I just gave away another build full of Legs and Exos, a Ragegana build. I just can not help myself.

 

just out of curiosity spikey and not to derail an interesting thread, but if you took the total amount spent and divided by the number of months actively playing the game, what would it be?

 

too much "badasses"...go play borderlands 2...

returning to the op...i never played Pox seriously, it was just a way of relaxing with friends and some random game
i started in the DoW expansion i think, when the dorfs and their phalanx made me love this game...unkillable champs and melee badassitude was all i wanted...an expansion after that the sharpshooter was released
after SoE got Pox i was really pushed out of the game and left for like an year...but every while i returned to see what was happening...just tons of new runes, powercreep and too much LEs...
then the revamp and DOG was announced and i came back to see what was happening
It's weird sometimes how things change for different people. My brother used to love the powercreep and i think after the tone down i was used to it too...the game have a total different gameplay right now.
I think, at the end, that the problem is - Poxnora is a niche game...the casual players will never bring the game onwards...and i have come to believe that sadly the playerbase will never be much larger than this whatever the devs make

 

I loved the gameplay style, drop a champ and move him around that's also in the style of TCG. I never liked the TCG's that just had your cards and no sprites, really unsatisfying to me.

I switched between each of the factions that were coolest to me, first I built up a FW bg because dark knight looked boss. Got a decent bg and then decided FW wasn't really doing it for me, too many rotten and broken legged bastards. Switched to SP and did the same thing, and now i'm here in UD land where everything is on fire and I can have the damage to beat faces in to a mushy substance while laughing manically. Too bad I suck still tho.

 

This entertainment is super cheap. This month's poker game I lost my entire $1000 in like 2 hours (lost an all in on a 3% card). Two months ago I got 2nd at 4700 but mostly I lose. In pox, I've spent $20 since Sok left.

What got me hooked? Saw a banner that featured Dwarven Sharpshooter. I really liked old school phalanx play.

Now I don't even care about themes and art, I'd settle for some balance.

 

Roughly $400ish/year

Which is still less than my music budget

 

so over 30 bucks a month. that's high, but I think youre investment represents the high end of the spectrum anyway. for the average pox player my guess is it would be much lower than that. obviously im trying to figure out what the monthly subscription fee COULD have been. ah well. even if the numbers worked out to give us more for less people wouldn't like the idea of subs anyway, so nm.

 

What got me hooked were the regular Imps and to a degree Deep Elf Assassins.

I loved to play with the thoughts of the players I played against, losing all my fonts, simulate to have lost the game, the occasional assassination of some big champ they were bringing in to finish me and then reveal my Imp next to their shrine and destroy it. Those are the really good memories I have with this game that finally made me stay and what made me fall in love with UD.

I admit sometimes it made me laugh as maniacally as in Maddening Echoes itself. I felt sneaky, bad and powerful. I had a blast!

 

pox was different. there was so much to do, so much to learn, so much more to play. when i decided i wanted to pay, i was making the decision because i realized i was being actively limited by my lack of payment. i wanted to plunge all the way in and i just couldn't do that without throwing some money in too.

as for why i stayed after the magic left, i had a lot of free time. not gonna go into why again, but i made a lot of... if not friends, then connections. there is and was a real community in pox and even now it's hard for me to just walk away from that. hell, i still game with ~90% pox players that have moved on (as much as you ever really can from this game)

 

The setting, characters, and races.

I wish we got more canon lore stories. I stopped playing back when soe decided flavor text wasn't important and just "slag slag slag slag" then got back on when DoG became a thing.

 

Nobody really leaves, they just take extended breaks

 

honestly i liked the "slag slag slag slag" bits, i thought they were funny and flavorful. somewhat overused maybe. sok struggled with flavor text iirc