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Mistakes of the Past - What Not to Do
Dristol
Member Posts: 59
With the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, what five mistakes should developers try to avoid in the future?
I'll go first:
1. Releasing prematurely. (Dark and Light)
2. Aiming too far into the future graphics wise. (Vanguard)
3. Not having a tutorial for beginners. (EVE)
4. Changing system-wide mechanisms after the game has been released. (SWG)
5. Creating grinds that players can quickly identify (WoW post level 59)
Your thoughts?
I'll go first:
1. Releasing prematurely. (Dark and Light)
2. Aiming too far into the future graphics wise. (Vanguard)
3. Not having a tutorial for beginners. (EVE)
4. Changing system-wide mechanisms after the game has been released. (SWG)
5. Creating grinds that players can quickly identify (WoW post level 59)
Your thoughts?
Comments
Anyway here are my top 10 mistakes not to make:
1. Don't make multiple starting areas in several different and numerous places, effectively increasing the difficulty for new players to feel part of a community. Newbie grounds must be buzzing with people to hook the players into the game early.
2. Unless you DO have the ressources to populate, itemize and fill with (interesting) content a VERY large world, keep your world down to a nomal size.
3. You want to create a MMO? Take the most advanced desktop technology available when you first start to create lines of code - your game must run smoothly in all situations (groups, raids, cities). Don't try to be futureproof, it's a recipe for failure. Make a good engine, improve it later, and keep in mind that beauty and eye-candy must be sacrificed for performance.
4. if you come up with animal races, make them look animalistic, not lame human bodies with a fox/wolf head stuck on top of it
5. It IS ok to make trolls, ogres and other monstruous races look ugly, but stil fun. Just don't mix up ugly and horrible.
6. Regarding dungeons, there should be a main hub available to all groups, and different branches which are instanced. "All instanced" and "all non-instanced" designs are both bad solutions.
7. Do Not let one healer class be better than the other in everyday's situation. Yes, the guy in plate IS better than the guy in cloth, because he can take a beating, while the other can't, regardless if the healing power is equal for both.
8. Do NOt - NEVER, EVER - label a "kill 10 rat plz" task given by a NPC to hide the grinding as a quest. it's a task - a quest involves killing big bad dragons and other powerful creatures, not rats and lion's fangs.
9. PvP must be a major part of the end game. RvR even better. The days of hardcore raidings are over, because raiding all the time is boring.
10. Crafted items must matter, but must not replace adventure items - they must be an alternative (different stats, purpose and look...)
My addiction History:
>> EQ1 2000-2004 - Shaman/Bard/Wizard/Monk - nolife raid-whore
>> WoW 2004-2009 + Cataclysm for 2 months - hardcore casual
>> Current status : done with MMO, too old for that crap.
Err Eve does have a tutorial
Granted it only takes a few hours to do.
My three
1. Make the classes unique enough to not be interchangeable.
2. If your system goes down amd your customers can not play please do not charge them for the full month. (never happen)
3. Nothing worse than putting all your time and energy into a character to and up killing boars at level 62 when you did that at level one. (im not bitter)
Kings and Sons of God
Travel on their way from here
Calming restless mobs
Easing all of their, all of their fear
Strange times are here.
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one ..." - Thomas Paine
Err Eve does have a tutorial
Granted it only takes a few hours to do.
Yeh i rly wanted to shoot myself when i started playing the game and went through the tutorial, but at least it helped me get started.
Now back to the topic of what not to do:
1: Stop promising the world and deliver an island, know your limitations (budget,time, team size)
2: Stop making clones of succesful games; if its just a clone with another name theres no real reaDont charge your players for son to stop playing the game your playing simply to play a clone.
3: Listen to critical points your fanbase makes (having the community run the game isnt always good, but at least listen to the important matetrs)
4: Dont betray your fanbase by trying to grab more audience, bacause you may end up losing it all (SWG did it, and i see STO heading that way)
5: Dont charge your players for expansions when their not even completed.
Ill add more when i remember them.
1. The main thing to me is some range in game play. Have a wow-ish quest set up to get players moving through the game from the start. But have the option to go elsewhere and find something else to do. Freedom, but with a little guidence.
2. Class balance. I know its never perfect but in PvP every class needs to be as powerful as each other, they just do things in different ways, whether it burst dps or surviving long enough to out last your oponent's mana or whatever.
3. No Expansions. I'm sorry but the monthly fee should be enough for all future content, there is just no excuse for making us basicly buy the game again every year.
2. Unless you DO have the ressources to populate, itemize and fill with (interesting) content a VERY large world, keep your world down to a nomal size.
4. if you come up with animal races, make them look animalistic, not lame human bodies with a fox/wolf head stuck on top of it
5. It IS ok to make trolls, ogres and other monstruous races look ugly, but stil fun. Just don't mix up ugly and horrible.
6. Regarding dungeons, there should be a main hub available to all groups, and different branches which are instanced. "All instanced" and "all non-instanced" designs are both bad solutions.
8. Do NOt - NEVER, EVER - label a "kill 10 rat plz" task given by a NPC to hide the grinding as a quest. it's a task - a quest involves killing big bad dragons and other powerful creatures, not rats and lion's fangs.
9. PvP must be a major part of the end game. RvR even better. The days of hardcore raidings are over, because raiding all the time is boring.
10. Crafted items must matter, but must not replace adventure items - they must be an alternative (different stats, purpose and look...)
Good points!
I shy from #1 however, being starter areas should give a feel and history for the race. And where you originate, as it helps you develop your class. I HATE how EQ2 just clumped everything together, and made it so everyone (race) could do everything (class). That being said, the concern about feeling part of a community at low level players should be able to hit the major gathering locals sooner rather than later, without a travel time sink. Say at level 5 or 10, they can hit the 'PoK Book' or some transportation to hook up with their friends.
#2, Indeed! VG has shown what a waiste of space can be. At minimum I would have placed HUGE herds of native animals roaming the countryside, with more NPC factional outbreaks (packs of lions hunting food, bandit spawns, remote camps). I have no issues with a Huge worlds perse, but travel over barren landscapes as a time sink IS NOT ACCEPTABLE.
#4/5, agree, EQ2 destroyed my impression of the Iksar, Troll, Ogre. Damn them.
#8. Another good point, I would simply label them "employment bounties" or some such. I also find that there are WAY too many 'quests' in EQ2/VG. It looses the flavor of just hunting and exploring.
I would add another point. I would like to see drops being used alot more in crafting ala EQ1, bloods, silks, ect. It gave the poor folks something they could farm to make money, and gave grinding some rewards...rather than the crapola misc. armor drops off every bug, tree, and snake.
Another thing I would add is simple and complex crafting to open the venue to more folks. I actually loved the old EQ1 style, with chance at a failure, and see it mixed with quality levels. But not the time sink in VG.
Until the tutorial was added, the population was barely growing.
After the advent of the tutorial, the population has been steadily expanding.
Newbie tutorials are a must in this age of computer iliteracy.
I recall collecting bat wings and skeleton bones in GFay and EC. Helped me get those Serpentine bracers.
Until the tutorial was added, the population was barely growing.
After the advent of the tutorial, the population has been steadily expanding.
Newbie tutorials are a must in this age of computer iliteracy.
Considering the tutorial is over 1.5 years old why was it in you list then?
**Fixed.I recall collecting bat wings and skeleton bones in GFay and EC. Helped me get those Serpentine bracers.
Man, WoW and VG, you go out adventuring and come back with a bag full of armor...'of the monkey'...ect. I remember when a good armor drop was something to link in /gu chat! Now it's oh, ya..yay, another epic /yawn. You came back with meat and rusty weapons (that dropped off humanoid MObs strangely enough). You made sandwiches and took sharpening stones to add a shine to the weapons!
...oh, gawd, i sound old
*grabs his cane and starts muttering to himself about the chipmunks in the gutters*
I recall collecting bat wings and skeleton bones in GFay and EC. Helped me get those Serpentine bracers.
Man, WoW and VG, you go out adventuring and come back with a bag full of armor...'of the monkey'...ect. I remember when a good armor drop was something to link in /gu chat! Now it's oh, ya..yay, another epic /yawn. You came back with meat and rusty weapons (that dropped off humanoid MObs strangely enough). You made sandwiches and took sharpening stones to add a shine to the weapons!
...oh, gawd, i sound old
*grabs his cane and starts muttering to himself about the chipmunks in the gutters*
LOL, ahhhh yes, memories...
Remember when fine steel weapons were like godly? OMG, now who sounds old. And you still couldn't kill a wisp below your level. "This weapon has no effect."
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."