If you’ve been following the SMITE community since SMITE 2’s release, there’s been one major point of controversy surrounding the optimistic view of the future of the game. The elephant in the room is the transfer of SMITE 1 content – the vast amount of time and money spent won’t transfer directly to the new realm.
This is a touchy subject for some players who are heavily invested in the game, so to find out more, I sat down and asked executive producer Alex Cantore some questions about how Titan Forge Games achieved Succeed, and what OG gamers will you get when SMITE 2 finally launches?
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The conversation begins with Divine Legacy, where the team gives answers on how to reward players for their performance over the years. As revealed, all players will eventually be able to unlock all rewards. Since SMITE has been released on different platforms over the years, this is something the team is passionate about. If you’re a day-one Epic Game Store player, you won’t have access to content from previous years. After all, this is a celebration of SMITE for all players.
I wondered what unique things old-school players would earn for themselves – turns out there are unique rewards for old-school players! “You’ll earn skins in SMITE 2 as part of Divine Legacy, but you’ll also earn a number of badges that reflect unique things on your account,” Cantatore explained. “I think we’re tracking 70 things. Some of them are ownership of old limited skins, like Archon Thanatos, or if you had a closed beta SMITE 1 avatar, you got an icon.
Wait, it was revealed that new players get everything, right? Cantatore clarified: “They’ll get everything in terms of progress bar unlocks, so all ten skins. But there are some badges you won’t be able to get because you’re not a closed beta player. That’s a good point, and we could have been clearer on this .”
While SMITE 2 account badges are a nice recognition of valuable skins and achievements for veteran players, there has been public outcry over the transition to rarer tier five skins and limited edition skins. During the reveal, Forge of Titans explained why bringing everything over isn’t feasible, but what about some? real special? Unfortunately, Cantatore explains why that’s not a possibility yet.
“We’ve looked into this. I think the problem with these skins is that they are the most complex skins to produce and create. Each one has very specific and unique technology that was created in SMITE 1. Each one has very specific and unique technology that was created in SMITE 1. Both require more work than a god, and bringing them over requires more work than a god! So we’ve thought about it, and we’ll continue to talk to the community and work it out. At the moment, it’s more work than we can afford The amount of God we need to unleash.”
The discussion among some in the community stems not just from the rare rewards players have received over the years, but also from financial factors. To that end, Titan Forge Games is implementing Traditional Gems – a SMITE 2 currency that will match 1:1 the number of gems you spent in SMITE 1. These gems will be used to purchase half of the items in SMITE 2 – so it’s essentially a 50% off coupon.
Legacy gems in SMITE 2 will also have the same relative purchasing power as SMITE 1 – Cantatore made it clear that inflation or drastic price changes won’t affect the sequel. Most importantly, the new SMITE 2 currency should be fairer for those who purchase smaller amounts.
“We’re going to move to a slightly different number of gems per dollar. They won’t be called gems in SMITE 2, they’ll be something new that we’re not sure about yet. But the reason we’re making the change is, In SMITE, the currency scale is very strict, and if you don’t buy a $100 gem pack, you’re making a bad financial decision, because buying a $100 gem pack gives you a lot of bonus gem boxes.”
He explained: “We don’t want our players to feel like they have to give us $100 or they’re making a mistake, so we’re going to make the expansion smoother so you still get the purchase bonus in a bigger pack, but not as much Obviously. So things are changing, but the overall cost of a skin or something like that is going to be about the same.”
The team at Titan Forge Games found themselves in a tricky situation – one not many studios find themselves in. Unlike Overwatch or CS2, the ability to transition skins to the sequel isn’t that simple. The result is that, despite making the transition as smooth as possible, they inevitably rip the Band-Aid off.
“A lot of us come from the community,” Cantatorre said. “We were trying to come up with a plan that would make the community as happy as possible without us being able to do everything.” Cantatore said Titan Forge Games took various approaches to transition to NDA groups of community members until they The current strategy was agreed upon, which has been described by some in the group as “more generous”.
“At that point, we felt like maybe this is enough. Maybe we’ve found a good level where we can give players something in this transition that they’re happy with, even though we can’t give them everything. You’ll get 50 that can be used to buy % of all funds for new items you can show off your mastery with some specific SMITE 1 skins. Hopefully players will be happy with this and feel like there’s something waiting in SMITE 2 them.
