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Falconoffury
Member Posts: 555
I have been an Asheron's Call player for over 6 years, and I've been on their development forums for almost that long. Their motto, "powered by our fans" is no joke. I personally have never seen a game company listen to its playerbase and actually use ideas posted on their forums nearly as much as Turbine. I'm not talking about bug fixes, but original ideas for new content and functionality within the game.
I remember a long time ago, a bit after the Dark Majesty expansion, I made a long winded post about many monsters that were severely imbalanced and many that had abilities that didn't make any sense. Not only did they fix those monsters in question, but they rebalanced all monsters across the board about 2 months after my suggestion.
I personally saw someone suggest that Turbine let us have keyrings for our valuable keys. Keys were held at one per pack space, and they filled up our mules too fast. A month later, they made a crafting quest where we could carve golem hearts into keyrings.
I saw a guy who was complaining about how life magic was too powerful in the high level game, and that Turbine should make an island for people without life magic. Well, Turbine was aware of the problem, and they created the withered monsters. They have since made more improvements to make life magic much less necessary.
I also hit the AC2 forums a lot back in the old days. I made a huge post about how to make towns feel less dead. The towns were dull, and there was hardly any reason to even enter a town. I said that they should add animals and people doing all sorts of interesting and meaningful things in the town. Bring back cow tipping, and let us kick some chickens around. Attach a soccer ball to a rope that we can kick around. Just something silly to interact with makes a huge difference. There was no interaction or movement in the towns. I told them that a lot of stupid details really matter because you are trying to build a believable world, not just a game. It seems they didn't get a chance to use these ideas in AC2 because of the dying subscriber base, but they sure seemed to use some of them in this game.
Does lotro need pipe smoking? Does it need a variety of magical smoking shapes? Do we need a flock of birds that fly off when you get close? Do bears need to occasionally stand on their hind legs and scan the area? Do we need a master of apprentices wandering around the crafting room and checking on everyone? No. This is all fluff. A lot of game developers would say that this sort of stuff is a waste of development time. I would totally disagree. The fluffy stuff is a critical element to building an interesting world.
I might be totally wrong, but I can't help but feel that I had some small influence on some of their design decisions. So if any of you have a great idea to improve one of their games. Just post it on their official forums in a thorough and legible manner, and I can promise you that they will check it out.
I remember a long time ago, a bit after the Dark Majesty expansion, I made a long winded post about many monsters that were severely imbalanced and many that had abilities that didn't make any sense. Not only did they fix those monsters in question, but they rebalanced all monsters across the board about 2 months after my suggestion.
I personally saw someone suggest that Turbine let us have keyrings for our valuable keys. Keys were held at one per pack space, and they filled up our mules too fast. A month later, they made a crafting quest where we could carve golem hearts into keyrings.
I saw a guy who was complaining about how life magic was too powerful in the high level game, and that Turbine should make an island for people without life magic. Well, Turbine was aware of the problem, and they created the withered monsters. They have since made more improvements to make life magic much less necessary.
I also hit the AC2 forums a lot back in the old days. I made a huge post about how to make towns feel less dead. The towns were dull, and there was hardly any reason to even enter a town. I said that they should add animals and people doing all sorts of interesting and meaningful things in the town. Bring back cow tipping, and let us kick some chickens around. Attach a soccer ball to a rope that we can kick around. Just something silly to interact with makes a huge difference. There was no interaction or movement in the towns. I told them that a lot of stupid details really matter because you are trying to build a believable world, not just a game. It seems they didn't get a chance to use these ideas in AC2 because of the dying subscriber base, but they sure seemed to use some of them in this game.
Does lotro need pipe smoking? Does it need a variety of magical smoking shapes? Do we need a flock of birds that fly off when you get close? Do bears need to occasionally stand on their hind legs and scan the area? Do we need a master of apprentices wandering around the crafting room and checking on everyone? No. This is all fluff. A lot of game developers would say that this sort of stuff is a waste of development time. I would totally disagree. The fluffy stuff is a critical element to building an interesting world.
I might be totally wrong, but I can't help but feel that I had some small influence on some of their design decisions. So if any of you have a great idea to improve one of their games. Just post it on their official forums in a thorough and legible manner, and I can promise you that they will check it out.
Comments
But having a development company that listens to its customer base would be refreshing...
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You must not leave until you free Arlos and have gathered your party safely in this hallway.
With that said I think Turbine has some of the best develpoers going. I have never played Dungeons and Dragons online, but I follow their forums and the content that Turbine has added to the game. It's amazing. I'm hoping for a all in one package for turbine games...
AC2 at the end of life was the best experience I ever had in any mmorpg game to date. It's ashame what happened to AC2 Tthe Turbine Devs made a great game at the end, but it was too late. AC2 vets will understand.. MS.
I wish LOTR had the AC2 skill system. In that system you could be a defender(tank), but use your EXP points tin other skill trees. This made every defender a little different. OK, I miss AC2 but LOTR is shaping up to be a first class.
I miss DAoC
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
Turbine bought AC and it is still a good game. I'm watching their LOTR forums and they do listen to the fans. LOTRO just might turn out good. However, when it comes to DDO... I'm sorry. They release a demo in DDO and expected fans to pay for them to finish it. I have never been disappointed in any game more than DDO. I have played at least 30 free to play games that MUCH better than DDO. Turbine was given the golden opportunity to smash down WoW in DDO, but they botched it.
To me, Turbine lost interest in DDO when they got the license to make LOTRO. Once LOTRO was announced, it was as if DDO became a problem child for them and they were no longer interested in the development of the game. It appeared to become a burden to them instead of a passion.
I do wish Turbine well with LOTRO, but they really need to shut down DDO. They just didn't give that game the chance that it deserved. They rushed it and released it with way too many bugs and issues that the beta players were begging to get fixed. It could have used another six months to a year.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
As with any other MMO developer, the group that whines most, gets what they want (see SOE and Jedi....). I'll just give one primitive example: horses. no way where they gonna be implemented (from start), due to lore, bla bla. Gosh did people pount the boards about this once they got tired of running around.
And then in general: to be heard by the devs, you needed to play the US beta, the EU-beta was always behind, and by the time they realized their (our) suggestions where not implemented at all, or implemented in 0the opposite way, the US-beta had the next patch already (3-8 weeks time difference, even before introduction of language localization!).
The worst was, that it took Codemaster/Turbine several months to react to a more and more upset european-beta community due to lack of communication in general. Oh well, bygones are bygones.
And about DDO: Turbine did not listen to the players. They only started to listen, once the subs went down, and the game didn't bring in as much money as expected. E.g. Solo/PvP
Just like SOE......
I miss DAoC
I have to agree with Jack here. I've been in the AC1 beta, DDO beta, LOTRO beta, EQII beta, SWG beta and the Vanguard beta. In my experience Turbine has hands down been more receptive to the ideas of their fans than SOE has. Turbine has also been more upstanding in general as far as the handling of its games. No way no how have they ever pulled a NGE.
As for the person who said their worst MMO experience was in DDO, then be glad you didn't play SWG from the beginning. TO work a few years, not months, on characters to have them either taken out of the game completely or changed so much they don't resemble anything you have come to know, to have that change with a WEEKS (yes, one freakin week) notice and after you just dropped $40(US) for an expansion. Heh, Turbine has never done anything even remotely close to that.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Contrast this to SOE. Without thinking too hard about it I can think of at least three times major bugs effected players and were allowed to exist literally for WEEKS before being fixed. Even right now at this moment there is a major bug that prohibits players from gaining xp and levels with no fix in sight. No way would that have ever happened in AC1.
How many delicate flowers have you met in Counterstrike?
I got a case of beer and a chainsaw waiting for me at home after work.
Yeah, and so did a ton of SWG players the week of the Trials of Obi Wan launch. Difference is, anyone who has taken the time to review it know that Microsoft had a heavy hand in the demise of AC2. If you are gonna blame, then do it right and add Microsoft's name in there. Additionally, you didn't have the situation as in SWG with $OE constantly telling you it is for the betterment of the game and that we would like the fact they just stripped down characters we had been building for years to start over in a bastradized system of what once was. Turbine may have closed a game down, but they have never, years after release, taken a game and fundamentally changed it at its core and then tried to pursuade the players that it was ok they just changed everything they had known for the last 2-3 years.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
What i meant was, that the devs first go one way (acc. to their own plans and asgenda), and when they see it doesn't work/they loose money, they make changes to the point that contradicts what they initially said (i.e. DDO introducing PVP, etc, or SOE suddenly bringing in Jedi (not mentioning what came after)). Financially, DDO must be a disaster from an inverstors perspective. Then comes Archlord (or is that Codemaster only? can't remember, don't care) it was also a disaster from an inverstors perspective.
Then, another big-name title, like LOTRO, where it seems that it should be "a piece of cake" to make the make the fans happy, turns out though, it's probably even harder than anything else before. And yes, you can't make all happy, but I still feel the "loudest" (constructive/destructive) criticism is the one that made it into the game.
And speaking of sucking it up by the devs - you should read (if you have access) the Q&A forum on the EU boards and the answers given by Ramen, the US-Turbine community rep in thread one and in parts two. I felt almost like in good old SOE days there with the cocky answers given. Oh, did I mention, that these answers came like 8 weeks after asked by the long term beta testers? We got more answers from developer chats from open forums/websites, then us nda-bound testers. So if EQ2 beta or others where worse, then I don't want to know how bad, because I thought it was bad here.
Of course now, that it all is public, with tons of new beta testers, the communication and tone of voice suddenly got better, probably didn't want to scare of the new testers....
I am somehow happy I skipped most closed betas. MxO was quite okay I thought. DDO was so so, better than this at least. LOTRO since october was more than enough for me to never do a closed beta again. I don't look at it as gameing for free, I try to make an impact by using my spare time. And if I get treated badly (or don't get neither positive nor negative feedback), then I just get upset (as you can probably guess from long post here). Where I work, people acting like Turbine did to customers, would get fired. But we MMO gamers are so "ooohh, ahhh, thank you for the chance to let me participate in testing for free, I will gladly accept any shit from you. if you do happen to make a semi-decent game, I will even buy it". Sorry, of topic I guess.
PS: Nothing against the LOTRO-EU community people, Codemaster is bound by what Turbine dictates, so I don't blame codie for communication "problems."
I miss DAoC
I guess you didn't pay attention to AC2.... That is where SoE learned that move from.
Fear not fanbois, we are not trolls, let's take off your tin foil hat and learn what VAPORWARE is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaporware
"Vaporware is a term used to describe a software or hardware product that is announced by a developer well in advance of release, but which then fails to emerge after having well exceeded the period of development time that was initially claimed or would normally be expected for the development cycle of a similar product."
Yeah, and so did a ton of SWG players the week of the Trials of Obi Wan launch. Difference is, anyone who has taken the time to review it know that Microsoft had a heavy hand in the demise of AC2.
Yes and the research also says that Ken Trooper played a large role in the demise of DDO. Is it me or does anyone else notice Turbine hires incompetent people to work on their game? Don't be quick to point the figure. Remember, all this came about because of decision making of Turbine, which they still continue to do.
Turbine may listen to player base, but it hasn't done much for them since their player base continue to get smaller.
Yep, a few others I can think of as well, one in particular that I'm proud to say I had a hand in. Up to about B1 we had Mallorn trees and Mithril as harvestable or mining. Mallorn is specifically located in Lorien, and Mithril is supposed to be extremely rare. Well after I started a post on Mallorn being scarce, a patch came out with Mallorn removed. Mithril soon followed.
The Old Forest debate has sort of flared up--It's difficult I suppose being a dev team that wants to listen, but not knowing who to listen to. We'll see how that turns out.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
Yeah, and so did a ton of SWG players the week of the Trials of Obi Wan launch. Difference is, anyone who has taken the time to review it know that Microsoft had a heavy hand in the demise of AC2.
Yes and the research also says that Ken Trooper played a large role in the demise of DDO. Is it me or does anyone else notice Turbine hires incompetent people to work on their game? Don't be quick to point the figure. Remember, all this came about because of decision making of Turbine, which they still continue to do.
Turbine may listen to player base, but it hasn't done much for them since their player base continue to get smaller. Hmm Last time I checked DDO was still active. What demise are you speaking of? Could it be they made a game to simulate dungeon crawling just like a PnP D&D game? I know that could not be possible right? I mean why on earth wouldn't they have created a wide open "sandbox" style world for D&D. I sure know that is how we always played our D&D campaigns. Oh wait that's right they were each played as a campaign, you know where you would sit down and enter a dungeon and complete it and then be done. That seems pretty similar to what Turbine designed. Just because it didn't turn out to be a big hit with your everyday MMO player doesn't mean the game has had a demise.
And wow for incompetent people they sure get enough funding to buy popular IP licenses and make MMOs. I know the Tolkien family would of never ever given them the IP rights to make a MMO if they felt they were incompetent. (and that decision obviously had to be based on the talent at turbine. Not their game track record. I am sure the family knew that Asheron's Call 2 wasn't doing well and I am sure they knew that Asheron's Call 1 wasn't anywhere near the success financially that EQ was).
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
What i meant was, that the devs first go one way (acc. to their own plans and asgenda), and when they see it doesn't work/they loose money, they make changes to the point that contradicts what they initially said (i.e. DDO introducing PVP, etc, or SOE suddenly bringing in Jedi (not mentioning what came after)). Financially, DDO must be a disaster from an inverstors perspective. Then comes Archlord (or is that Codemaster only? can't remember, don't care) it was also a disaster from an inverstors perspective.
Then, another big-name title, like LOTRO, where it seems that it should be "a piece of cake" to make the make the fans happy, turns out though, it's probably even harder than anything else before. And yes, you can't make all happy, but I still feel the "loudest" (constructive/destructive) criticism is the one that made it into the game.
And speaking of sucking it up by the devs - you should read (if you have access) the Q&A forum on the EU boards and the answers given by Ramen, the US-Turbine community rep in thread one and in parts two. I felt almost like in good old SOE days there with the cocky answers given. Oh, did I mention, that these answers came like 8 weeks after asked by the long term beta testers? We got more answers from developer chats from open forums/websites, then us nda-bound testers. So if EQ2 beta or others where worse, then I don't want to know how bad, because I thought it was bad here.
Of course now, that it all is public, with tons of new beta testers, the communication and tone of voice suddenly got better, probably didn't want to scare of the new testers....
I am somehow happy I skipped most closed betas. MxO was quite okay I thought. DDO was so so, better than this at least. LOTRO since october was more than enough for me to never do a closed beta again. I don't look at it as gameing for free, I try to make an impact by using my spare time. And if I get treated badly (or don't get neither positive nor negative feedback), then I just get upset (as you can probably guess from long post here). Where I work, people acting like Turbine did to customers, would get fired. But we MMO gamers are so "ooohh, ahhh, thank you for the chance to let me participate in testing for free, I will gladly accept any shit from you. if you do happen to make a semi-decent game, I will even buy it". Sorry, of topic I guess.
PS: Nothing against the LOTRO-EU community people, Codemaster is bound by what Turbine dictates, so I don't blame codie for communication "problems." Actually I have heard about a lot of problems coming out of the EU communication and they all seem to be Codemaster dropping the ball. Why would Turbine be so responsive to the US beta Community and then just purposely ignore the EU beta? I have been in the testing phase since Alpha and they have been as responsive as I have ever seen from a company. Also they were extremely responsive back when I played AC1 as well. The only company that I have seen similar communication quality from is Mythic. The companies that I have seen personally with horrible Community Relations (in regards to their MMOs) are Blizzard, SOE, Codemaster, and most of the small Asian games (although NCsoft has been pretty good in my experience).
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
What i meant was, that the devs first go one way (acc. to their own plans and asgenda), and when they see it doesn't work/they loose money, they make changes to the point that contradicts what they initially said (i.e. DDO introducing PVP, etc, or SOE suddenly bringing in Jedi (not mentioning what came after)). Financially, DDO must be a disaster from an inverstors perspective. Then comes Archlord (or is that Codemaster only? can't remember, don't care) it was also a disaster from an inverstors perspective.
Then, another big-name title, like LOTRO, where it seems that it should be "a piece of cake" to make the make the fans happy, turns out though, it's probably even harder than anything else before. And yes, you can't make all happy, but I still feel the "loudest" (constructive/destructive) criticism is the one that made it into the game.
And speaking of sucking it up by the devs - you should read (if you have access) the Q&A forum on the EU boards and the answers given by Ramen, the US-Turbine community rep in thread one and in parts two. I felt almost like in good old SOE days there with the cocky answers given. Oh, did I mention, that these answers came like 8 weeks after asked by the long term beta testers? We got more answers from developer chats from open forums/websites, then us nda-bound testers. So if EQ2 beta or others where worse, then I don't want to know how bad, because I thought it was bad here.
Of course now, that it all is public, with tons of new beta testers, the communication and tone of voice suddenly got better, probably didn't want to scare of the new testers....
I am somehow happy I skipped most closed betas. MxO was quite okay I thought. DDO was so so, better than this at least. LOTRO since october was more than enough for me to never do a closed beta again. I don't look at it as gameing for free, I try to make an impact by using my spare time. And if I get treated badly (or don't get neither positive nor negative feedback), then I just get upset (as you can probably guess from long post here). Where I work, people acting like Turbine did to customers, would get fired. But we MMO gamers are so "ooohh, ahhh, thank you for the chance to let me participate in testing for free, I will gladly accept any shit from you. if you do happen to make a semi-decent game, I will even buy it". Sorry, of topic I guess.
PS: Nothing against the LOTRO-EU community people, Codemaster is bound by what Turbine dictates, so I don't blame codie for communication "problems."Actually I have heard about a lot of problems coming out of the EU communication and they all seem to be Codemaster dropping the ball. Why would Turbine be so responsive to the US beta Community and then just purposely ignore the EU beta? I have been in the testing phase since Alpha and they have been as responsive as I have ever seen from a company. Also they were extremely responsive back when I played AC1 as well. The only company that I have seen similar communication quality from is Mythic. The companies that I have seen personally with horrible Community Relations (in regards to their MMOs) are Blizzard, SOE, Codemaster, and most of the small Asian games (although NCsoft has been pretty good in my experience).
My experiences exactly. For a major game company, Turbine is surprisingly good at this. Usually I only find this sort of involvement with smaller indie and niche games. Some of the best community involvement I've ever had was in the MMO World War II Online. Devs are constantly interacting with the forums, or highly visible in the game playing along with other players.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
I meant it more in the overall theme, not single examples. If you want to take the old forrest as example, let's see what happens now, there are tons of peeps now whining that it is too easy. If that group whines long and loud enough....
Doesn't change the fact that tons of other suggestions have simply been ignored.
You feel like you've been listened to, good for you. Really. I don't feel like I have been listened and I give you also a personal example: When I suggested on day one of closed beta (well, 2 or 3) that crafting is a washed down and boring, how about a system as in SWG, EQ2 or the likes (as been heavily discussed in public boards in general), the answer was simply "no, this is what we have, there will be no revamp, live with it".
Here a A MAYOR, general, "example": many fans wanted a "life-simulator", i.e. a system as UO or, SWG, with housing, real-dependent-economy system, crafters not needing to adventure to an extreme extent, etc, not a "WoW-clone". Just read the old boards. But as alpha went on, and beta came out, it was obvious that it instead will be "no-risk-we-need-to-ensure-a-safe-income" type of MMO. Sure, it is not a WoW-clone, LOTRO has its own characteristics (it certainly ain't the so-called-3rd-generation MMO imho), based on fan-input, but that input was based on the system & frames given by Turbine, with only small details to change.
When I suggested on day one of closed beta (well, 2 or 3) that crafting is a washed down and boring, how about a system as in SWG, EQ2 or the likes, the answer was simply "no, this is what we have, there will be no revamp, live with it".
Well, from what I understand, Codie is bound to what Turbine allows them to say, not to say, and when.
And that is exactly what EU testers have been wondering about, why are they being ignored as they have been in the past?
Maybe you are right and it is Codie after all. You have any more hard proof" for that by any chance?
Whish I had been in the US beta - after they split the community into US and EU (way to go! best move ever! NOT!) I naively decided to stick to EU side.
there are 36 pages of links to Dev posts in the Dev tracker forum over on the US beta forums, 25 links per page. That is 900 posts approximately, and those are just the threads they replied to, I would bet every thread gets a read if not a reply.
I was just reading a thread on clipping issues in cloaks and a Dev went into great detail on how 3D art and clipping works and why if we wanted cloth simulation and sheathed weapons we would have to deal with the clipping issues with cloaks. Other than putting in a few million more animations the only solution was to put an option in to hide cloaks. I have been playing for years now and never realized why it seemed there was always clipping issues with cloaks, now I do. By the way the cloak animations are great and very realistic, it is just that staves and bows tend to poke through so if my character is wearing a stave or bow I turn off the cloak visibility.
Everything in these games are matters of compromise and not everyone will be happy with each solution, just like the cloaks and clipping. I still want player housing , but Turbine had to decide what priorities were where and make compromises with the time and money they have. Unfortunately player housing lost out, but it is still a good game and not a deal breaker with me. I plan on continuing my crusade as it is to get it introduced in the first expansion.
I miss DAoC
Turbine is a company that listens usually i think, but re-adjusting to imbalances and balances sometimes really ruin the game in itself.