Sounds like a disgruntled SOE employee wrote this.
I hear this "WAHHHHHH, people expect our product to actually be fun and worth something. WAHHHH, people expect us to make our game better. WAHHHH, its so hard to earn trust from players we despise."
Yea, I guess running a successful business is hard. That's why not everyone does it.
Expecting customers to have patience is the fastest way to lose customers. We are not patient. We are not reasonable.
The attitude that the player is always wrong, and needs patience is an attitude that must change in this industry. No one likes to spend money and then be disappointed. That is not how businesses are successful. That is how a government workers treat us, and that's because we have no choice.
Every gamer is different. It just so happens that the majority of gamers out there like what the guys at Blizzard are doing. That's why they have an 8 million user base world wide. You can't please everyone. If an MMO is being built on a business model it will have to sacrifice certain things to make more money. The gaming company that can get closest to building a game that gives the majority of mmo gamers out there what they want wins. The rest of the games would probably find themselves better off focusing on a certain niche of players. There needs to be a variety of games out there, as there are a variety of gamers. Gaming companies like Blizzard have to listen to what the majority of their users want. I think one of the biggest mistakes a gaming company could make is listening to three of four whiners on the forum when the other 10,000 users are fine with the current system/design. Gaming companies should put out public polls on their websites and let paying subscribers vote on what they should be working on/doing. The gamers are the ones paying the bills and they are the ones that will leave your company bankrupt if you damage the game.
Luckely im not like you that would be a nightmare follow the mass and do what they do and if not im a whiner and should shut my mouth, becouse the mass is right and the few are wrong man some are realy evil minded:P
I follow darkfall and realy hope that game comes so i have not deal with all those carebears casuals who are the biggest whiners and crybabys out there (thats what mass mostly do ).
All those millions playing wow still manage to whine about anything they can, even wow is very easy, they still complaining:P
Hardcore pvp players dont whine they know how a mmo should be and becouse there is no game on market that can be home for hardcore pvp they come here and say how mmo should be for real gamers but darkfall is on horizon:)
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
Laura Genender returns with another Community Spotlight. This one looks at the crossfire between Players vs. Devs.
MMO players are always complaining that devs aren't giving us what we want. "You're releasing too early!"; "You said the game would be out a month ago!"; "Too difficult!"; "Too easy!"; "It's overwhelming!"; "There isn't enough to do!" Of course, the focus lately has been on the recently released Vanguard, though this has always been a debate for players and developers of MMORPGs. For players, the perfect video game would be one where we could invest as much time as we would like and keep current with content, yet still be competitive. It would have no subscription fee, the best graphics, frequent updates, free expansions, character customization, no lag, lots of space but it wouldn't feel empty (i.e. population would be spread out). You could progress via large-scale wars, raid content, group content, solo content, crafting, and all this with a perfectly crafted weather and season system, and NPC AI.
While I agree with some of Laura Genender 's article some of it is false. If it were all true what would her resoning for the downfall of Star Wars: Galaxies be? The gigantic changes made to it. IMO it was a very very well-made game when it was first released, or after you had given it enough time to get out of it's release day blues.
The problem was that they decided to listen to the whining of a minority of players as opposed to the praises or silence of the majority.
this was a very good article, very concise, and I definitely agree with it to a large extent. I think a lot of companies spread themselves too thin and don't focus on one single selling point, but try to have 7 or 8 selling points, which ends up making all of them look half-assed instead of one or two of them look really good. (Courtesy to Paul Barnett's for this last sentence since he put what I've always noticed into these words as opposed to my jumbled up concoction of an explanation.)
I think what a lot of companies don't understand is that it's OK and usually a better situation if you're a "niche" game with a small but devoted fanbase. Just look at EVE.
--------------------------------------------- I live to fight, and fight to live.
I disagree about WoW driving quality up, the number of down times, game errors, balancing fixes (rofl) that they have to do is not indicative of a quality product, add in things that were either forgotten or simply not put in the game even though they had previously advertised them and you have WoW at best an average dumbed down MMORPG (with very little emphasis on the RPG side of things.
Don't get me wrong I do still play and enjoy wow, but it is not the sort of game that stretches anyone the only feeling of acheivement in the game is the very first level 60 (70), there is no depth to the game (It seems the Blizzard name is enough to draw in people like moths to a flame).
I miss strangely enough the more difficult tradeskills from Daoc, also the guild/personal housing and meaningful PvP (all which are more RPG oriented). Wow has PvP but it is still little more than a poor FPS rip off, housing may appear at some point (roughly around the time Hero classes will appear is my guess), tradeskills are simplistic and still require instance / raids for mats or schematics.
At least (with the exception of some parts of TOA) Mythic did not invalidate the previous game content with an 'expansion' (With BC blizzard seem to be saying forget the original game and rush through it as fast as possible to get to our newest product (much like the Diablo 2 expension killed off Diablo 2)) Blizzard it seems don't understand how to design and launch a MMO expansion that is seamless to the original game and doesn't invalidate as much of the original game that BC does.
Any review that holds WoW up to be the example of all that is well and good in the world of MMORPGS is immediately starting out wrong in my opinion, just because it has numbers doesn't mean it is the most innovative, technically superior game, all it means is that they have a good marketing team and were profiting of the companies previous good reputation. After over 2 years playing the game Blizzard are not innovators in my opinion and they are poor at even looking at what else is being done out there and avoiding issues that other people have encountered (faction balance for one)
I'll stop ranting now, suffice it to say I am looking forward to several new games this year and will be trying AoC,CoS and WAR at the very least.
I more meant that, with WoW's big number success, more developers are getting into the MMO industry. With more people vying for customers, quality has to go up or you just can't compete. I'm not commenting on the quality of WoW itself, or what game or games I think are "the best"
Laura "Taera" Genender Community Manager MMORPG.com
Expecting customers to have patience is the fastest way to lose customers. We are not patient. We are not reasonable.
The attitude that the player is always wrong, and needs patience is an attitude that must change in this industry.
Speak for yourself. I've been paying and playing MMOs for nearly 8 years now and not only do I consider myself to be both patient and reasonable in what I expect from the games and those who develop them, but it has been my happy experience to observe the same patience and reason in the great majority of the very many players that I've grouped and been guilded with along the way.
The impatient, unreasonable players have fast found their way ont oall our ignore lists, and I could only wish that that their ill-considered, impractical complaints and demands were likewise ignored by the developers.
My personal issue with the player/developer dynamic is with the drawing of lines. Players frequently make good points, and devs who listen to those and implement them help to make good games. Unfortunately, devs frequently seem to go two steps farther than necessary, nerfing too hard and dumbing too far down, sometimes in the same patch and on the same issue.
EQ2 is the shining example among all the games I have played of devs who have made effective changes as and when really needed; unfortunately it is also the game which was developed in the most cack-handed fashion imagineable in the first place, largely by the very same people.
Vanguard, a delightful and thoroughly absorbing game, is already, in its first Live week, morphing fast towards a more populist, less hardcore experience than the already watered-down from the hardcore hype MMO it prefessed to be. I have every confidence it will improve fast and hard, but I do hope that its devs know just how deep to cut.
Laura Genender returns with another Community Spotlight. This one looks at the crossfire between Players vs. Devs.
MMO players are always complaining that devs aren't giving us what we want. "You're releasing too early!"; "You said the game would be out a month ago!"; "Too difficult!"; "Too easy!"; "It's overwhelming!"; "There isn't enough to do!" Of course, the focus lately has been on the recently released Vanguard, though this has always been a debate for players and developers of MMORPGs. For players, the perfect video game would be one where we could invest as much time as we would like and keep current with content, yet still be competitive. It would have no subscription fee, the best graphics, frequent updates, free expansions, character customization, no lag, lots of space but it wouldn't feel empty (i.e. population would be spread out). You could progress via large-scale wars, raid content, group content, solo content, crafting, and all this with a perfectly crafted weather and season system, and NPC AI.
Comments
I hear this "WAHHHHHH, people expect our product to actually be fun and worth something. WAHHHH, people expect us to make our game better. WAHHHH, its so hard to earn trust from players we despise."
Yea, I guess running a successful business is hard. That's why not everyone does it.
Expecting customers to have patience is the fastest way to lose customers. We are not patient. We are not reasonable.
The attitude that the player is always wrong, and needs patience is an attitude that must change in this industry. No one likes to spend money and then be disappointed. That is not how businesses are successful. That is how a government workers treat us, and that's because we have no choice.
Luckely im not like you that would be a nightmare follow the mass and do what they do and if not im a whiner and should shut my mouth, becouse the mass is right and the few are wrong man some are realy evil minded:P
I follow darkfall and realy hope that game comes so i have not deal with all those carebears casuals who are the biggest whiners and crybabys out there (thats what mass mostly do ).
All those millions playing wow still manage to whine about anything they can, even wow is very easy, they still complaining:P
Hardcore pvp players dont whine they know how a mmo should be and becouse there is no game on market that can be home for hardcore pvp they come here and say how mmo should be for real gamers but darkfall is on horizon:)
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Read the entire article here.
While I agree with some of Laura Genender 's article some of it is false. If it were all true what would her resoning for the downfall of Star Wars: Galaxies be?
The problem was that they decided to listen to the whining of a minority of players as opposed to the praises or silence of the majority.
this was a very good article, very concise, and I definitely agree with it to a large extent. I think a lot of companies spread themselves too thin and don't focus on one single selling point, but try to have 7 or 8 selling points, which ends up making all of them look half-assed instead of one or two of them look really good. (Courtesy to Paul Barnett's for this last sentence since he put what I've always noticed into these words as opposed to my jumbled up concoction of an explanation.)
I think what a lot of companies don't understand is that it's OK and usually a better situation if you're a "niche" game with a small but devoted fanbase. Just look at EVE.
---------------------------------------------
I live to fight, and fight to live.
I more meant that, with WoW's big number success, more developers are getting into the MMO industry. With more people vying for customers, quality has to go up or you just can't compete. I'm not commenting on the quality of WoW itself, or what game or games I think are "the best"
Laura "Taera" Genender
Community Manager
MMORPG.com
The impatient, unreasonable players have fast found their way ont oall our ignore lists, and I could only wish that that their ill-considered, impractical complaints and demands were likewise ignored by the developers.
My personal issue with the player/developer dynamic is with the drawing of lines. Players frequently make good points, and devs who listen to those and implement them help to make good games. Unfortunately, devs frequently seem to go two steps farther than necessary, nerfing too hard and dumbing too far down, sometimes in the same patch and on the same issue.
EQ2 is the shining example among all the games I have played of devs who have made effective changes as and when really needed; unfortunately it is also the game which was developed in the most cack-handed fashion imagineable in the first place, largely by the very same people.
Vanguard, a delightful and thoroughly absorbing game, is already, in its first Live week, morphing fast towards a more populist, less hardcore experience than the already watered-down from the hardcore hype MMO it prefessed to be. I have every confidence it will improve fast and hard, but I do hope that its devs know just how deep to cut.
I lol'd when I read that part
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Read the entire article here.
There is always going to be someone complaining about a game. The saying, You can't please everyone, fits here very well.