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Which games really do listen to players, keep their word, and provide a quality service?
ArcAngel3
Member Posts: 2,931
O.k. last post for now lol. I've had all of these things in the back of my mind, but got distracted trying to convince people that the sky is blue. Now that I've switched my focus, I have so many things I've wanted to discuss lol. The topic says it all. If you've had good experiences with a game, especially where they do what they say, and listen to players, and the game is actually functional and entertaining, I'd love to hear about it.
P.S. I'm posting this here because I want to hear from SWG vets, we have similar preferences 
Comments
From their obvious success you would have to say Blizzard with WoW would be tops of the list. They are obviously doing something very right.
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Ten Golden Rules Of Videogame Fanboyism
"SOE has probably united more gamers in hatred than Blizzard has subs"...daelnor
I think Turbine (Lotro) would win this. They do actually listen to their players, or at least give the feeling that they listen. From what I've head (not experienced myself, I play Lotro Europe run by Codemasters), their customer service is also good. And Lotro is a quality game with stable servers etc.
But Codemasters (Lotro Europe) service quality is sometimes horrible (example: I bough a digital download edition of Lotro, and discovered that download wasn't included after making the purchase). Of those who provide service to us Europeans, I think Blizzard is the best. Their customer service isn't really that good, they don't really listen to their players that much, but their customer service isn't bad either, and they do listen their players somewhat. And most importantly, they provide us a quality game and keep constantly improving it.
EDIT: And I haven't played EVE enough to comment about CPP and wether it might be better or worse than Turbine or Blizzard /EDIT
EDIT 2: And I was very happy with CoH/CoV devs when I played those games. But I haven't played for a long time, so that's party old information /EDIT
CCP
Mostly because the Devs are just as dedicated to playing EVE as we are.
They love the game just as much as we do, unlike the SWG team which seem to love WOW more than their own game.
When everyone screamed for them to "fix the lag" guess what they've done? Fixed the lag... The game which is on ONE server has recently set a record of 45K concurrent players (which is tens of thousands more than ANY other single server of any other MMO will support) and we now can have fleet battles of a THOUSAND players in size (been in one) with relatively little lag!
No other game can claim that.
Defiantly Turbine, while many slander their name by breaking lore in lotro. There hasn't been one update that wasn't satisfying or added to the main story or game elements. Top notch service.
You know when I chat with my pals here in Toronto about this stuff, 3 games keep coming up, and I see them here also. People like WoW, EvE and Lotr, largely because they work, they're fun and players feel treated with respect.
Too bad I don't like any of them... Not saying they're bad games and don't deserve the praise... I just couldn't get into any of them. I REALLY tried to enjoy EVE though... it was just too hardcore for me - to each their own and all of that...
I suppose then it's not inconsequential that those are the top 3 subscription MMORPGs in the US and EU.
EVE btw is #2...
As I've said before, LOTRO is the ONLY successful WOW clone there is and will be, and it's a well done one, I played it for a couple months. EVE is there because it's the ONLY MMO on the market that isn't trying to be a WOW clone.
SOE, btw, would have to add up their total number of subs across ALL their games to get into the range of subs that LOTRO and EVE have, which surely tells the story of their failure more than anything else can.
This one is easy: CCP and Blizzard. You can find countless examples of where they have taken community input and changed their games to suit their playerbase.
One of my favorite examples is the old PvP system in WoW...it was a huge grind and players almost universally hated it. Blizzard changed it to something that while still a grind was nowhere near as bad as the old system. The best part of the story? The old WoW system is SWG's current PvP ranking system with decay.
Wow. City of Heroes has for most of its history been pretty good, with a few exceptions.
fishermage.blogspot.com
I wouldn't choose an MMORPG based solely on the quality of the developers. That said, as a SWG vet abandoned by SOE, I understand your position. My personal preferences are WOW and Eve online. Both are quality games, even if they don't specifically offer the type of gameplay that SWG was infamous for pre-NGE (or pre-cu depending on how much you hated CU).
Of the two, Eve feels more star-warsy, but only if you liked Jump to Lightspeed a lot, as I did.
You can't ignore the quality of the Developers. It's ALL important. The Devs ARE the parts that go into making the game, and no machine (or software) is better than the sum total of the parts that go into it.
Crappy developers=crappy game. The original SWG team had some of the most brilliant Devs in the industry. Most of them now are leading their own teams (and none of the notables are left with SOE), just some of the 3rd rate guys who were rookies then, such as Toilet Boy and Loche.
SWG hasn't had a quality Dev team since after the release of JTL. Talent levels dropped drastically until you ended up with the likes of Toilet Boy getting to make major gameplay decisions (such as the eternal CU Jedi nerf). Most of the Devs as we now know were actually working on the NGE, not the CU. And we know what an astonishingly "high" (as in the drugs they must have been using) quality release THAT was.
The current Dev team is an absolute joke, made up of entry level rookies and leftovers like Loche who probably only got to fetch coffe for Koster during Pre-CU development.
Want an idea of just how desperately low on talent SOE is right now? "Toilet Boy" Blixtev is now the lead Dev for DCMMO... Nuff said.
I would have to go with CCP and EVE first. As was stated above they love their game as much as the players. They have a vision and for the most part stick with it. They take into consideration their current playerbase as much as possible when they deviate to much from that vision. This doesn't happen very often, however. It's refreshing to see and it makes the devs appear to be with you instead of against you. It makes you feel appreciated, something some companies have a hard time understanding. I love CCP for that and will happily support them as long as I can. This company style should be encouraged, because it seems so rare now a days.
Turbine and LOTRO comes in a close second, the devs don't seem to be as active with the community as CCP devs, however the game was launched with a decent polish to it. Each book has been an improvement to the original. Considering how many quests the game started with, not many were bugged so bad you couldn't finish them. That in itself says a lot about the company and their QA department. Again, the appreciation level for their customers seems very high.
Since SOE was my first MMO, I was shocked when I realised games and expansions can actually be launched with polish and very few bugs. I thought it was normal to have quests bugged so bad you couldn't finish them, or the original game change direction quarterly, depending on who was running it at the time. If there is one thing this has done, it has made me appreciate the companies above that much more.
Turbine.
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"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
Mindarc.
While I take frequent breaks from Entropia Universe (pesky Micro thing), it's always the same when I log back in with very minor exceptions. And then, most of the exceptions are additions rather than NERFS.
Can't really comment on Customer Servics in EU. Never actualy had to use them.
For a short period of time CB in LotrO, the communication between us the community and Turbine was great, but it all halted atleast for me when OB started and the community that came into the game and forums. the communications kept going, just the community started to have a very different attitude towards Turbine/LotrO.
Overall I would say ALL gamecompany's/developers listen to the community, but from where I am sitting their not listening to the right set of people. Just my opinion. And based on what I see happening with this genre.
Arenanet. Jeff Strain himself are quite active on forums.
Blizzard and CCP as someone else wrote do it also, at least to a lesser dergree but Blizzard have dropped a bit the last few years. But I guess it is impossible to listen to so many different kind of players, you will piss someone off whatever you do.
SOE is unfortunatley the worst company in this aspect, Smedley seems to think that he knows best in all cases. As long as he is the boss, you can expect nasty suprises, like those micro transactions EQ 1&2 already got. It is actually too bad because SOE do have many good devs still.
This is really helpful feedback. I keep seeing CCP, Blizz and Turbine. I'm curious about arenanet, any more thoughts on them? Thanks!
If a player in LOTRO has an idea and rallies enough support among the forum users. They'll definately take a look at it. They're not gonna waste resources on something that wont add subs or help retain them, so a mob just cant change the game for the worse or change the direction of the game.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Blizzard is the best, numbers don't lie. If blizz did the SOE route WOW would be in the same boat as the NGE and EQ would rule the sword and board. I've actually seen people get pissed after waiting for 3 hours for a free char transfer in WOW. You would be waiting sometimes 3 days for a paid transfer from SOE and you don't get all your stuff. There is no problems with wow, it delivers what they say, i've never ran across a bug only minor annoyances it's relatively lag free with 20k+ people on a server. They update the game consistantly as well as the hardware it runs on. Endgame is pretty awsome, pvp is great it's a competative game, i don't think that most people that are hardcore pvp in the NGE could hack WOW. It's really alot more complex than "the people that don't play it but like to talk about how easy it is" would like you to believe. i've never had to talk to customer service but i know blizzard has listened to their players in the past and as far as support goes i've only heard of installation issues and don't ask for a free transfer on a weekend, other than that you have tools and you can do most things that need cs yourself.
I would have to say Blizzard, followed by Turbine. As for CCP, well, they've done some shifty stuff to help out certain people and groups in game, so thats a hit against them. Other than that, the people who play and enjoy Eve seem to like what they have done with the game.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.
You can't ignore the quality of the Developers. It's ALL important. The Devs ARE the parts that go into making the game, and no machine (or software) is better than the sum total of the parts that go into it.
Crappy developers=crappy game. The original SWG team had some of the most brilliant Devs in the industry. Most of them now are leading their own teams (and none of the notables are left with SOE), just some of the 3rd rate guys who were rookies then, such as Toilet Boy and Loche.
SWG hasn't had a quality Dev team since after the release of JTL. Talent levels dropped drastically until you ended up with the likes of Toilet Boy getting to make major gameplay decisions (such as the eternal CU Jedi nerf). Most of the Devs as we now know were actually working on the NGE, not the CU. And we know what an astonishingly "high" (as in the drugs they must have been using) quality release THAT was.
The current Dev team is an absolute joke, made up of entry level rookies and leftovers like Loche who probably only got to fetch coffe for Koster during Pre-CU development.
Want an idea of just how desperately low on talent SOE is right now? "Toilet Boy" Blixtev is now the lead Dev for DCMMO... Nuff said.
I thought Kai was the lead dev for DC.
So I started to walk into the water. I won't lie to you boys...I was terrified. But I pressed on, and as I made my way past the breakers, a strange calm came over me. I don't know if it was divine intervention or the kinship of all living things, but I tell you, Jerry, at that moment ... I was a marine biologist.
Nope, the "Dork Lord" moved on. "Toilet Boy" was his replacement.
The DCMMO is going to be an utter disaster, and I think the final failure in SOE's coffin. As I said, no MMORPG is any better than the quality of it's Devs and despite being SOE's top priority, they not only can't keep TOP talent on it, they can't keep ANYONE on it. Devs there have been dropping like Ensign Redshirts, rumor being that it's due to excessive micromismanagement coming from the Smed level.
Blizzard and Turbine definetely.
I was there during LOTRO's beta, and from the feedback you got from devs in the forums, you could definetely tell that they really wanted to make sure LOTRO was not only a succesful game, but a fun game for their playerbase.
After playing a few other MMORPGs before I went to wow, I was really impressed with their service. I don't know if they are the best; but, they do listen far more to their customers far more than other companies out there. Even customer service has done a lot for me as well. I've had my account jacked twice on there by hijackers and they totally restored them.
I had that happen on SWG, the GMs ran me in circles for weeks till I got so frustrated I quit...true story. Then in the end they acted like I was the one who screwed up my account and were protecting the account from me, so they labeled their customer (me) as a villain. Really awesome business ethics! Imagine if 911 operators acted like that to a caller.
"911"
"Yes, I'm bleeding really bad and I can't feel my legs"
"Can I have your full name, social security number, date of birth, credit card you used 2 years ago, and your mothers favorite color"?
"I'm nauseated, I'm so dizzy".
"Sir, can you give me the information I requested, then I can assist you"?
"Fine, John Ray Doe, ###-##-####, 7-20-1960, I don't know what credit card you are talking about, my mom's favorite color is uh....blue...*cough* *cough*....".
"Sir I'm going to need that credit card number you used 2 years ago".
"Can't I just give you an up to date one"?
"No, you'll have to contact your bank and ask them to check their records for the credit you used 2 years ago"
"Right now? I think I'm going to die"!
"Sir, I can't do anything else until I have that credit card you used 2 years ago, if you could call your bank and get it I'd be glad to help you. If you don't call back we will assume that your problem has been taken care of. Thank you for calling 911 Emergency Service have a nice day". *click*
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
Blizzard probably. Most people fail to grasp that it is really hard to satisfy the crowd of a game that has 6 or 11 (6 for haters, 11 for non haters) million subs and yet they have done it.
This doesn't imply that they don't have their own fiascos ( Wow's forum is currently full of complaints and whines and yet there is not a tide wave of leavers.) but at least damage control is fast.
CCP and turbine are pretty good also.