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Why have patience on new MMOs?
Neverdyne
Member Posts: 167
There seems to be a general idea that when a new MMO launches, you can't compare it to other already existing MMOs due to it being so new. People think we should forgive new MMOs for a lack of features, content, polish, etc., for at least a couple of years before we even judge it or compare it. That's plain nuts. New MMOs should already come with the features that make current MMOs successful, plain and simple. Bugs? It always happens. But features? There's no excuse for that.
And concerning content, I believe when an MMO launches it should already have enough content in it to keep players interested from level 1 all the way to end game; at least enough before the next major patch hits. The majority of players shouldn't have to level then stare at their feet for 3 months before having something to do. Why should we pay $15.00 per month for something that we'll completely enjoy "only after 1 or 2 years"?
It's this "oh no guys, don't be mean to the new guy" type of mentality that promotes half baked disastrous MMOs to come out and fail like so many have recently. MMO developers should know that if they want to compete in this arena, they got to have their stuff right from the get go; and we won't accept any "it's new" excuses for the fact that their game is not fun compared to what already exists.
Anyways, that's my opinion. What do you guys think?
Comments
I am sorry but do you have even the slightest bit of idea what it takes to make a MMO? Have you ever tried to make a decent single player RPG let alone a full commercial quality MMO? There is no way that a company could make enough content pre-launch to keep every one happy until the first content patch or expansion. Some people play pretty much round the clock 7 days a week thats 1000s of hours worth of content that would have to be created prelaunch.
Company Owner
MMO Interactive
Every 6 months I just change from WoW, EQ2 to AoC so I don't really wait for any new games to come out. After i'm done with one for awhile I look for any new ones etc. Citacel of Sorcery looks good and might drop AoC for it if it turns out to be any good. So, I don't really wait for anything to come out so to speak. Those asian grinders are the worst and should be wiped off completely from the market. I have seen some videos etc of them and they do have some nice artworks and effects but usualy lacking on content and dumb mobs + item shoppe which means instant fail for me.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
I think the impatience comes from the idea: Well, MMO's have been around for such and such a time, there have been so many, SURELY the new stuff is built on the lessons learned from all the previous ones!
And I think that is a fairly rational and fair idea to have.
However the reality is that the lesson learned from publishers is: These schmucks will pay for anything!!!!
Factor in the WoW effect which has shareholder screaming for ridiculous returns on their investments without the risk that goes with taking a risk and what you get is the same incomplete, rush-job, content lacking launch that the haters hate and the fanbois forgive everytime.
Yes that is true. I do think that there could be a huge improvement in amount of content, polish, and features of MMOs at launch however it is unfair to expect a MMO to launch with the amount of content that WoW has today. It took them 3 or 4 years of normal development time and then 5+ years of post-launch development to build up that amount of content.
Company Owner
MMO Interactive
Because it is all about the money, nothing more. The more patience players have with mmos the more money is being made. Its just that simple.
I agree with the OP.
Iam tired of Developers saying they will "release the game when its ready"
yet they always fail on this, and rush the luanch.
I have to disagree with it must have polish at the start, yes it would be nice but lets face it, im guessing no MMO has had polish from the start. Not even WoW the king of polished content now was like that when it first started. When it comes to features, you can argue about that as well. Not everyone likes the same features in a game so thats why game developers leave some stuff out that is popular in other games.
As for content to get to max, yes their should be enough content at launch to get you the the original max level and then some stuff to do while you are waiting for the next expansion. I have never been max level in any mmo I played because I enjoy exploring and crafting and im not just racing max level. Or I just got bored with the game before I got to max and quit.
I understand MMOs take much more resources and time to develop than normal games, but that's no excuse for not learning from the mistakes and hits from past MMOs. They think they'll reinvent the wheel and make this awsome original game, but what they end up doing is launching a disastrous unfinished game that won't get enough subscriptions to take it to the level the developers want. It's wishful thinking. I would rather have good, well rounded MMOs comming out, each taking the genre a small step further.
And again concerning content, they should launch with enough of it to keep the players entertained (and I'm not refering to the guy who goes 72 hours playing straight). The "just give us three more months and you'll have fun" line is old. I'm not asking that they have the content that 5 year old games have, but they shoulnd't be lagging behind player's advancement. Not even at launch.
Nicely said.
From what I've been through with games in this genre, I've come to realize that most of them require lots of evolution. Why would you expect such a huge development to be damned near perfect on release?
Pressure from investors is obviously not helping our beloved mmos either. Maybe things will improve in the not so distant future. Maybe we need a new revolutionary game to shake things up. Something completely different.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
Nicely said.
From what I've been through with games in this genre, I've come to realize that most of them require lots of evolution. Why would you expect such a huge development to be damned near perfect on release?
Pressure from investors is obviously not helping our beloved mmos either. Maybe things will improve in the not so distant future. Maybe we need a new revolutionary game to shake things up. Something completely different.
I don't think anyone expects that (ok, some do, but they're probably just a-holes about everything) but what's being delivered is absolutely no where near that. There is a huge difference between launching when dev is complete and having bugs, and launching before development is complete.
Ive always been one to wait a few months after release to buy a single player game (PC game that is, console is a different cat) with the idea it would be patched and running smoothly later on. WIth MMO's I have to say i take a pass until one jumps out of the pack, which sadly hasnt happened in sometime. Devs need to realize that releasing a game too early will leave a bad taste in peoples mouths that can last for a long time. AOC and Warhammer anyone?
What are you referring to with that phrase? I have seen far worse technical problems in multiple launches, SWG, EQ2 and vanguard to name a few. The main problem with AOC at start was mostly in regard to lack of content and broken sieges. Performance needed work, not as much as you seem to be suggesting.
Unless you are referring to crashes, but then that is always seen in MMOs and single player games. I am wondering what was so bad you "rarely" see it?
As for why should you have patience with a new MMO? Well that all depends on if you like said MMO. If you see potential there are plenty of reasons to support it. However if it feels bland and uninspired, there is not much polish is going to do to change that. I think the arguemnt is made in regard to not expecting as much content and polish as 5 year old games at release. Which I agree with for the most part, but again there is no reason to stick around if you do not like a games design.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
my point exactly. No more pay to play beta tests.
We are patient because they are usually not finished right out the door. Most games would take at least another year of development to complete to the point that they want, but there comes to a point where the profits do not meet the amount of money spent on the profit. EvE Was largly considered to be unfinished when ti first came out and only recently (about 2 years ago) started gaining a LOT of momentum. AoC is just starting to get positive feedback as well. Not every corporation is a big and has as much money as Blizzard and Bioware and we need to take that into account when we talk about the games.
There are some fundamental laws that must be understood when making an MMO. If you do not understand these laws and adjust to each market you intend to spread to you will probably not have much success. Most of these laws are the same exact laws that should be followed when making a single-player game of an epic scale.
I'm not going to list all of them, just some. Keep in mind these are just the laws I've come up with, but so far as I've gone back and applied them to games of note in the past they hold solid.
1. Combat must be visceral and engaging. If you have a system of combat that does not have the right 'feel' to it then you will turn people off. Feel, in this instance, is more or less a sense of realism. When I swing a sword and it connects it should 'feel' as if a sword has just been swung and connected. Achieving this is easier said than done. Keeping that in mind it still must as combat is going to be involved in 90% or more of everything in your game.
2. Leveling must be -fun-. Fun and easy are two completely separate issues and both are entirely subjective. The general purpose of this law is that leveling should be a function of gameplay not the other way around. Through the course of experiencing the world you have created your audience should, through virtue of these exploits (quests, dungeons, etc.), level. This is what I mean by a function of gameplay.
In other words - content should be done for fun, not explicitly for levels or skill points. When you create gameplay as a function of leveling then you create an atmosphere very opposed to fun.
3. Character development must be within the hands of the player and function to allow players to create an extension of their own desires. There are a vast number of ways to achieve this. This law is not to dictate that players tell the developers what skills to create (although in an ideal world it would), but rather that within the confines of a created world players have a generous level of character freedom.
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These are the first three and most important laws. There are more and I add to or subtract from the list as necessary. Any developer who does not understand these very basic laws will not enjoy any great success. I had once thought that these were obvious to anyone wanting to create any form of RPG, but now I'm not so certain.
I have considered, from time to time, adding proper funding as a law. It is too much of an issue to bother with though and is more obvious than anything else. Many production company's do NOT seem to understand the level of financial commitment that needs to go into creating an mmo that will have a good measure of longevity and growth. Of course I also understand that most production company's are only ever interested with money and as long as they make a reasonable profit they don't care about anything else.
These are foundational laws that can be bent and deviated from to some extent, but they cannot be ignored.
PS - Before anyone says anything drastic I would challenge them to apply these laws to your experiences. Judge for yourself.
Perhaps if developers stopped trying to make games that do everything, and tried to make ones that did only a few things, but did them extremely well. Actually, the upcoming failure that is Alganon is almost a good example of this. The high-end content, dungeons, raids, and PvP are all scheduled to be patched in later. This is an acceptable situation, provided that the content that IS released is excellent. There is no need to include every sort of feature from the beginning, only that the present ones be as good as can possibly be done. This is where Alganon falls short, but a future game could certainly go in this direction.
To the above post, I would add that a high level of writing is needed. An engaging setting and characters are instrumental to making a player interested in a game. I think a lot of games, especially those in fantasy settings, too often ignore the need for good writing. They just go with the idea that "humans, elves, and dwarves are the good guys, and function just like they do in dungeons and dragons, and everyone understands the basic fantasy setting." You can't just leave it at that. You need to come up with something that will draw people in. That's a solid reason why SWG and WoW in particular had such great success. They build on interesting and complex universes. Not every new game has so many previous sources to draw on, but this rich world must be created nonetheless.
Important facts:
1. Free to Play games are poorly made.
2. Casuals are not all idiots, but idiots call themselves casuals.
3. Great solo and group content are not mutually exclusive, but they suffer when one is shoved into the mold of the other. The same is true of PvP and PvE.
4. Community is more important than you think.
I would hardly lump SWG in with WoW when it comes to the category of success. SWG is, if anything, the perfect example of what NOT to do. Even with having a great deviation from the norm that is the fantasy genre post-CU (or NGE, take your pick) the mmo community at large has rejected it. The main reason for this is that, quite simply put, the Star Wars universe can be very much interpreted as having all the classic Fantasy elements (mana, spells, giant monsters, etc.). However, the main reason why Star Wars is..well.. Star Wars is because this interpretation is not played into.
What SOE did with the CU and subsequent NGE was to basically strip off most of the sci-fi feeling of the Star Wars universe. This left people with a game that ignored law 1 also, the combat was dismally unappealing post CU. Gives rise to another law - NEVER, under any circumstances, EVER completely change the way in which your game operates. It is better to grow slowly than to alienate your current players and destroy and chance for real growth later.
Eve is the perfect example of this. CCP could, if they wanted, completely change the way in which the game operates. They haven't though and as a reward have enjoyed slow, but reasonably steady growth over the years.
FFXI came pretty darn close and it is a game only designed for the console.The main reason is because the game is meant to be played,not to do every single quest to see how fast you can level.There is actually a reason to everything in the game,quests and missions again are not for speed leveling.FFXIV wil lonce again attempt to create a game to be played as the yare going to totally remove levels altogether,so most of these other developers would be lost trying to make a game like that.
If all we see is WOW copies then ya it is expected to be complete because all that is a bunch of point a to point B quests for speed leveling.It is also A ton easier to design instances because they are separate maps /zones,you do not have to worry about joining the area to the main map and worry about lag issues and how it will blend in.
One game that stands out bigtime that should have been given time is Vanguard,what they accomplished in that game for the budget they had is unreal.I would say they accomplished at least 2-4 times what WOW accomplished and for 1/10th the budget,that is pretty much an embarrasment to Blizzzard ,shows how wasteful they are on spending.Heck Blizzard even had their own game engine already to go,witch should have saved them MOST of the cost.They even re hashed all the same artwork,man alive what the hell did Blizzard spend all that money on?I think CEO salaries and lawyers.
What bothers me more,is this simplistic trend to add PVP.What this does is give games a cop out for content,they pretend that is the goal ,to speed level to end game PVP,that is your content ,to PVP everyday.What did everyone complain about in AION???GRIND,that is because that is all players were doing was speed leveling to end game PVP.That is a game people were claiming polished yet it is only about40% complete,there is far too much content missing from a RvR game,like at least 2 more playable races for starts and then of course more starting areas,player housing witch they knew their fanbase wanted over 18 months ago,plenty of time to have that implemented.In a game like Aion you are not just waiting for the rest of your game to be finished you are going to pay them EXTRA in the form of an expansion pack to get it,that is where the problem starts.
Where as you saw a giant game like Vanguard charges nothing extra to polish the game,but your time,that separates the two games in a big way.You can stick 4-5 Aion's inside of Vanguiard that is how pathetic the Aion effort is,and liek i said yo uare going to pay yet more money and will stil lhave less than 50% of whjat VG is,sad that people would support that type of developer.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I have to agree, the more we drop our expectations the more the devs slack off. I hope devs have learned lessons from all the tanks that happened recently, well maybe alganon didn't but ye how much more do they really need to get there heads out of there ass and actually release a good product? Even with perfect games and releases i very rarely buy a game at release mostly because like stated before it runes better and has more content while many bugs are gone. I think about 6 months to a year is more than enough time on waiting and then buying. The only time i make an exception on any of these things is with indie devs, because well lets face it there the only innovation that is gonna be coming to the genre so i support them.
Maybe the dumb devs should look a bit further than to make the road to evel cap last maybe few weeks for an average player...
If it takes long to get to level cap, less people will rush through the content.
ADD kids won't like it, but who wants ADD kids in their game? Not me!
The reason these games are being released in such piss poor states is because people buy them. If you don't stop paying full price for a half of a game, the cycle will never end. It's getting worse too, now some developers are charging players to beta test. Think about it, these momos are charging us money to test their game for them. In essence, we're paying them money to work for them.
If you're really tired of playing half finished games, speak with your wallet and don't freaking buy them. Buying unfinished games only serves tor reinforce the fact that people are so desperate for a new MMO, that they are willing to put up with anything.
Funny thing about this is, back in the day, developers had 1 chance to get it right. ONE. What they shipped to customers had better be god because most did not have the internet yet and their name was on the line. Skip ahead a decade and now even single player games are allowed to be buggy and full of mistakes because of patches.
I totally agree with this. There are some very shady and just straight criminal movements in the gaming industry. Half of the games released don't even release with features labeled on the box. It is criminal. MOST are from two well known publishers, and I refuse to buy from them. One of them has ruined all of my favorite studios one by one.
You are correct Heartless. Gamers are the only people I know who pay and continue to pay for half finished inferior products and accept it as the norm. The Xbox 360 is another example of this acceptance that continues to amaze me. I know consoles and MMO's are a different thing but both deal with gamers and go to the point being made. Not only do gamers buy the junk, they defend it as if it were their child. Any other industry would be bankrupt with this type of track record. As long as people are willing to buy shit, it will continue to be shoveled. In most industries the market culls the lame but not in this one as the lame continues to make money along with the few that do a good job due to the fact that junk sells.
If I dont like an mmorpg almost immediately, I'm most likely going to quit, whether that be after an hour, or a week. I think it's ridiculous to play a game because others tell you it gets better after you get to a certain level or reach a certain area. I may revisit the game at a later time to see if it's gotten any better, but wasting money playing a game you don't like is stupid. It has nothing to do with patience. It has nothing to do with giving the devs a chance or comparing it to existing games. If I don't like a product, I stop buying it. I'm not going to create thread after thread about how much the game sucks. Some people probably like it, so what's the point? I move on.