FingerGaming

Of all the announcements made at yesterday’s iPhone OS 3.0 preview event, ngmoco’s online multiplayer first-person shooter LiveFire garnered what could be the greatest amount of discussion, as well as the most criticism. Sure, downloadable content is a new frontier for the iPhone that possesses great potential, but many wondered if LiveFire’s DLC implementation would negatively impact its gameplay.

In particular, skeptics wondered whether players will simply be able to buy their way to victory, based on ngmoco’s provided example of being able to pause gameplay to buy a rocket launcher for $0.99. Not so, says Chris Plummer at ngmoco’s development blog. “We won’t use In-app Commerce in ways that break our games,” he assures, “but we do think there are a lot of interesting ways to use the feature to enhance our games over time.”

Plummer describes the rocket launcher example as a preliminary decision that could change prior to the release of the final version. “The point was to show in-app commerce working, not to imply the specific availability or pricing of weapons,” he writes. “It was a demo.”

Regardless of the final version’s downloadable content integration, the rocket launcher will still be available to those who choose not to purchase optional DLC. ngmoco plans to implement an experience system that could make all weapons and upgrades eventually available to all users, provided they can accumulate enough in-game currency. From the sounds of it, LiveFire’s DLC in its current state may offer a quick advantage over newcomers, but long-time players will still be on a level playing field.

“I think we need to keep all options on the table, even if it means breaking with certain conventions from packaged games if we can improve the entertainment value for the maximum number of people playing our games,” Plummer notes.

“We will probably end up with traditional expansion packs for LiveFire as well as individual player upgrades you can purchase from iTunes instead of earning them all through gameplay achievement. But we’ll definitely allow players to have a meaningful, balanced and fun gaming experience directly after download from the app store. We’ll closely consider each decision related to In-app Commerce to ensure we’re doing the right thing for the game.”

ngmoco has additionally released a video of LiveFire’s gameplay, which can be seen below.

LiveFire FPS multiplayer test demo from iPhone SDK3 event from ngmoco:) on Vimeo.

Tags: dlc, livefire, Multiplayer, ngmoco, shooter, Updates