Developers have sold themselves as a commodity while still wanting to call themselves artists. These days indy devs (honest ones) are highly valued in the gaming community because they have almost no budget, manage to produce a generally enjoyable and nearly problem free game and are quite dedicated when it comes to support and fixes.
Large developers suffer from chasing the dollar because all of the power and decision making is in the hands of whomever they contracted themselves to. Then when their product invariably flops, they are the ones with egg on their face and dealing with the angry customers and generally they don't care about the customers anyway because the design team splits up and heads off to other projects.
It used to be that designers really wanted to create the ultimate game, to pursue the kind of game they were passionate about. What happened to that? Especially with the internet age, instead of declaring their independence from the soul sucking conglomerates they are happy just collecting a paycheck.
Sure there are stupid people out there that feel entitled to everything (that's today's society as a whole) but generally, if a game is good and the service is quality, people don't complain except regarding portions of the game that they are passionate about (it just shows how much they enjoy the product).
I look at Cornered Rat Software (with their dozen employees) that has managed to survive despite being royally screwed by publishers because of their top notch community interaction. I look at Star Wraith games and it consists of 1 guy and he makes a point of answering people directly as much as possible and his games are pretty much flawless in operation. I look at Infinity Universe and how they grew from 1 guy to 8 people and are using community created content to build their mmo which they hope to offer free to play. So many others as well.
I see 1 person doing greater quality programming and better customer service than the whole of EA from a desktop in his home office, then I see some self-important prick from a major company getting paid whether he accomplishes anything or not and he is the one complaining that customers expect to much.
While I sympathize with programmers that have to deal with a lot of unreasonable demands, I don't sympathize with them for having to face the wrath of disgruntled customers after having sold them an incomplete or non-functional product. There is no excuse for a job half done. Given the cookie-cutter nature of most recent games, there is even less wiggle room.
Please.If they cant do their jobs, and it appears very much so they cant,then they deserve every complaint they get.
The only thing stupider than a pitty party for the poor devs who turn out crap after crap,is the people trying to tell others the devs dont deserve to be held accountable for the product they sold.And thats all it is a product.Unfortunately for them, its a piss poor product.But thats their fault.NOT OURS.
Ive never in the 5 decades ive been on this earth,seen an industry so inept, and yet have so many foolish people keep saying "Its not their fault" ,"cut them some slack",etc..
There isnt a "AAA" single dev team in the industry right now that deserves to be payed for the product they delivered.wow is of course the exception, and NOT becuase it was quality,but becuase it at least manages to make a decent amount of the industries prospective customers happy enough that they continue to pay for the product.
Every MMO dev out there right now could become shoe salesmen, and the only people that would suffer ,would be the people who needed to buy shoes.The total absence of the devs would actually even improve the MMO industry, as even though the product would not improve,at least the customers wouldnt have to listen to their crying and excuses anymore for why the product is still crap.
To all the devs at Sony,Cryptic,Funcom,Turbine,Mythic,NCSoft,etc.... PLEASE find another industry to work in.There IS something else out there you DONT suck at.Your litterally killing the MMO industry.PLEASE, leave it and find that one your not a liability too.
Most of us,including you, will be happier in the long run.
If youre heading up the QA / testing of a development company, and repeatedly let major, game breaking bugs & performance issue get through and arent ensuring that these biggest issues are a top priority to get fixed, rather than minor details that very few would ever even notice anyway then you deserve all the hate you get.
Ahh QA.
I work as IT Support in a Game Development lab in a major university now, but i spent my formative years working QA at Rockstar.
Once again it all comes down to suits and the person with the final say so. Right up until release i was finding class A game breaking bugs but i run it up the flag pole and what i get back is. "Sony want the game GOLD by 24th of month" we have no time to fix this issue, should be release a patch for the game we will fix it then"
This was before online console gaming was so popular so there never would really be a patch. Go back and play GTA: San Andreas on PS2 and i bet there are 100 different ways i could kill the game. Games ship with herendous amounts of bugs, QA find them but its up to the men in suits still to say whats important enough to get fixed.
Other bugs are downright impossible to recreate, i spent 5 consecutive 12 hour days driving a taxi in San Andreas crashing into things trying to recreate a bug that would cause the sound to drop completely from the game, i couldnt do it just wasnt able to recreate it even though we all agreed it was a horrific class A game breaking bug.
Go read the gamespot review for san andreas and it loses points for all game sounds randomly dropping out of the game.
Game development is really very complex, things that fix one thing break another, if devs had infinite time we would end up with another duke nukem saga but we cant continue letting publishers shove games out early we need a happy medium but as people get more money hungry the devs and everyone else gets over worked so the man in the suit can get his investment back and more.
Yeah i get your point, and i suppose directing it at QA would be wrong, but what was meant was the people who make those decisions regarding testing & bug fixes, etc. Understandably it is a bit different with your example of GTA vs an MMO, where as you mentioned GTA didnt have patches. However MMOs go through alpha & beta tests, and major bugs still exist at launch that were reported by numerous people in both stages of testing. Of cours ei realize that not everything can be fixed by launch, or some problems might not come up until after launch due to last minute changes, however MMOs do have patching and updates. My main concern is that those things that make it through at launch tend to not get fixed in a timely manner, if ever, by many companies. They simply let the bugs or broken features exist, and spend their resources on adding things like new content, rather than making sure their existing content even works properly. It just seems like in the majority of cases, whoever is making the calls as to what bugs / issues are a priority goes about it completely ass backwards, and often have an attitude of "This is what I want in the game, and thats all that matters" instead of listening to the people that are actually playing their game.
I work in a seperate IT field, but things should really work the same way. In my company, if things are broken and our employees cannot use certain features or do things they were told they should be able to, the shit really hits the fan and weve got directors, VPs, managers, and sales people all jumping down our throats to get it fixed, and guess what, it gets fixed ASAP. We are also constantly changing within the company to suit the needs and desires of the employees we support as far as adding new features to our sites/applications, making things more efficient, and many other things based on feedback from them. We dont view feedback as a bad thing, regardless of the attitude (how much a of a douchebag theyre being) the person giving the feedback has. We take the feedback as something that should be looked into, because if it really is a problem, fixing it will make things better for everyone, including ourselves, and will only increase our profitability. Ive been with my company about 3 years, and compare dto my first year here things have vastly improved and we have very few technical issuesthat come up and our efficiency has easily tripled in that time due to smooth operating from the IT side and little to no downtime for most of our systems (compared to many of our core systems being down at least once a week). This is the type of service my team and i provide, and i generally expect to be greeted with the same effort & willingness to accept feedback from others
God damn I can't agree more with number two... I've been in countless debates with someone about how something, say, widespread and complete character/racial customization (so you could play as anything and customize anything to your hearts content) just isn't possible... or rather reasonable, or at the very least very labor intensive even if you somehow do get it down to a science. It's not like you can just magically take a pen tablet and pump out a model within seconds, then instantly drag and drop that model in 'ye 'ole rigger and magically have it appear in game with attributes you'll guess on your first try, second if it incorporates an entirely new game mechanic.
-_-
People that put themselves above others put me in a bad mood. http://www.surrealtwilight.com/index.php ^Has nothing to do with that retarded Vampire Novel Series, I swear!^
I do agree with this article a lot, however I think you could write a book trying to explain this and many of the most out of their mind players will still never get it. They will expect it all, it all right now, it to work everytime on the first try, and it to be cheap, have directx 11 and the best art ever in history at the same time.
Some people just can't grasp this kind of thought process.
On the AC forums I occasionally see someone suggest an idea and follow it up with "It seems to me this would be quick and easy to implement and wouldn't take much developer time". How can someone say that without seeing the code/dev environment? It's irritating to see. Luckily there are more people who are smart enough to make a suggestion and also make points to their own idea on why it might be challenging to implement.
I get tired of reading the people who say "I pay my sub fee so X". X is often why the devs should change the game they want, let them break the rules because they pay a sub, etc etc etc. Nice to see an article try to get through to those people for once.
I wasn't aware that consumers were obligated to listen and look out for the devs or whoever is in charge of developing + marketing games?
Sure, we all have some decency and righteousness to give people space for their opinions and time for their solutions. Except, we as consumers, pay for what we were told to receive. If we don't receive what we were expecting, it means our money is going to waste. WHO THE HELL LIKES THEIR MONEY GOING DOWN THE DRAIN? NO ONE!
Tidalkraken, your first reply in regards to Holice's opinion, is a disgrace amongst the world of devs. Consumers are your first priority, not your own self opinions and benefits. We work our ass off to obtain the money needed for a game we want to be entertained by, that means you're meant to work your ass off to provide us with the game we want. You weren't hired to argue with consumers, you'd be fired immediately if your employer knew about this.
I must remind to people that if the user thinks the program sucks or such, it is the designers fault. It is a cruel world for the designer but simply it's their fault (assuming the user is one of the target group). Also if the game devs do want to improve the game, the player feedback is invaluable for the designers.
But because MMO games have such a large target group to handle, and most of the feedback doesn't even say what's wrong, it usually seems that they don't even listen to the players. That is of course a stupid mistake from the devs to have their user base to think they aren't important.
So if the user thinks there is a problem it's a design flaw, but do try to remember that designers have like 8 balls in the air as they are trying to please the users, the devs and marketing.
To sum up, never shut up about the flaws of the program, but also try to actually say what's wrong and if possible add some ideas how to make it better. And for the devs or to be devs, hire people to the player - game interface to listen what they have to say and never let the players feel that they aren't heard or important (and that includes those f:ing automated bots). That way players are happy and they keep playing, which should make you happy.
There is only one thing every MMO gamer should remember.
If the game sucks,take your money and leave.
Who gives a shit if some poor dev is out of a job?
The hamburger flipper at McDonald's makes sucky burgers, he gets fired.
No difference.
Make a good product, and you devs get to live a decent life.
Make a shitty product, and enjoy eating ramen while your wife leaves you for the neighbor.
Developer deserve no more sympathy than any other product and/or service provider.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
I guess iagree with all of those. I don't honestly think i have ever complained rigourously to the dev team early in a games development, and find it pretty funny when people want a perfect game from as early as closed beta.
Seems to me the majority of MMOs makers want to have their sales revenue and a free army of beta testers but, when it all falls over, the last thing they want to be is accountable to their customer base.
This isn't about polish or features or anything as trivial; this is about games that should just bloody work. They install, they connect to their servers, they don't lock-up, they don't need a half gb patch 2 days after release, they don't have issues from launch still outstanding a month, 6 months or a year later and they have devs that talk, openly and honestly, about what's going on.
If the game's rubbish, fine. I can accept that. I've bought shite games before, as well as movies and music. I feel no resentment about this. But if I buy a dvd and it doesn't play, I don't give a toss how bad the film on it is, I expect something to be done. Fix it, replace it or give me my money back. Is there anything else where you're almost expected to wait weeks and months for your problem to be addressed, let alone resolved? Is there anything else where a 'time to fix' estimate is as loose and movable?
And why? Because it's complicated and you wouldn't understand. Because people have different pcs and its really, really hard to do this stuff, alright! Because the servers were oversubscribed by all those pesky customers wanting to play the game we sold them. Because it's working as intended even though we specifically said it wouldn't do this. And blah, blah, blah.
And the arrogance shown by some of the self-described game programmers and designers in this thread is staggering. You make a shitty product and then get all holier-than-thou when those who buy it get angry and want things sorted sharpish?
Apathy, laziness, incompetence and pure, honest-to-goodness greed is what sees so many barely tested, barely functional and blatantly incomplete games hit the market.
Don't confuse quality with functionality. At least have the decency to make the f**king thing work properly before you release it.
The ruptured capillaries in your nose belie the clarity of your wisdom.
Although we can't expect any MMO's (or any game for that matter) to be perfect, especially at release, I don't think its unreasonable for us to expect them to function as intended, even at release. These are often huge multi million dollar development projects and theyre all too often released broken, like seriously broken. Im not talking about the occasional glitch that couldnt be found or the small bugs the devs couldnt fix in time for release, im talking about catastrophic you know its there yet push the product to market anyway bugs. Servers constantly crashing disconnecting users, people getting stuck in scenery or floors for hours while they wait for a gm response. It doesnt happen to all games released, im not trying to bash all devs or producers, or whoever is responsible out there for the shoddy work of some, but it does happen and theres no excuse for it
. If I went to the store and bought a book that had 1/2 the pages missing I could return it, if I buy a MMO that has essential code missing what kind of headache would it take to get my subscription fees and purchase price reimbursed? Oh thats right, I entered a contract (E.U.L.A.) with the developer before I was able to play the game at all, maybe I can hire a lawyer to decipher that for me and figure out how to get my money back for the p.o.s. game I got suckered into buying.
Here's the problem, if im unhappy with a MMO I just cut my losses and move on, more or less because its all I can do. I've sunk thousands of dollars into MMO's I don't care to play just to try them out and realise they aren't what I was hoping for, or because I initially liked the game and played it only to find it later changed in ways that made the game unenjoyable. So now im an angry nerd and all I can do is gripe about it, so don't bother making excuses for these people who just cheated me out of my hard earned cash. Light a fire under this industrys collective arse & tell them its time to shape up and start releasing working, polished, products before someone figures out how to deciper that contract and the nerds of the world go class action lawsuit to get some of that "I just bought a broken game wtf" money back. The standard is just too low and its not improving fast enough in this area, releasing buggy broken MMO's is more and more becoming an accepted practice and the trend needs to move in the opposite direction. Please dont make excuses for this, we deserve a working product for our money regardless of what the issues may be in delivering that product.
#5 - I got a life too, and id rather not spend part of it waiting for a game that was sold to me broken to be fixed...
#4 - I agree game development is serious business, with serious money to be made, devs are paid well for their expertise (in most cases anyway) the final product should reflect those skills theyre paid for.
#3 - While the real world doesnt end with downtime, the World of Warcraft does, however I haven't found it common practice to prorate my subscription fees for the period of time when the service is unavailable. A little more customer service, and a bit less greed could go a long way here to improving the image of these dastardly devs some of the raging nerds of the world so like to gripe about. When the server's down for too long knock a dollar off everyones fees for the month the hype and goodwill a move like that would buy is well worth the investment in my opinion. Just do the right thing, don't make me call customer service and fight for hours to save that dollar because that ruins the whole notion.
#2 - You're right, I don't know how to fix it, and honestly I don't care, thats what we pay you for. Maybe though, if you shared some of the info about the specifics of the problem I as the player could generate some more meaningful input to help you as the dev come up with a great solution to said problem. See just because im not a programmer doesn't mean im an idiot, or somehow unreasonable and chances are I have a healthy interest in whatever problem my favorite game is having. So communicate with your community, thats what its there for, more polls, more dialogue, more brainstorming, the truly great games are the ones where the communitys wants are fulfilled.
#1 - I agree wholeheartedly theres way too much ignorance and discourtesy within most gaming communitys ive participated in. Say what you want to say but do it with some class, show me that your an intelligent person capable of expressing their ideas in a thoughtful and meaningful way and I will listen to what you have to say whether I agree with it or not. Talk to me like some angry child who's misplaced their ridalin and any valid points you may have will not reach my ears as ill skip your ALL CAPS WTF NUB POST to read the next one that appears to have been written by an intelligent person.
" In the end, which side is trying to get the other to pay them cash money?"
When I start asking game developers for cash, they can start dictating terms to me. Otherwise, I get to be as vocal as I want and vote with my wallet. It's kind of the nature of the free market.
You guys have points, even tiny one. Bottom line, gamers if unsatisfied leave the game and developers keep it up if you wanted your game being up in decade.
For gamers, complain is not necessary but suggestion is needed but if the developers is ignoring it, why stick around?
Developers, you need to reach the expectation of the gamers if not exceed. After all, gamers is the one who play the game not the developers. Also, gamers is the one who fill your pocket/wallet or tummy.
If the game meet the expectation of the gamers, they keep everybody on their toes.
TK, did you even read Holice's post? Yes you have a test team, but he wasn't talking about internal testing now was he? "Or, if you need more players to better test systems, open the beta up to more, or extend it."
He's quite right.
Also I too am a game developer, and it pisses me off to no end that people will buy a game (even if I hand a hand in it's creation) that isn't complete. I want my work to shine, but more often than not, the publisher has my superiors hanging by their purse strings, which means we have to often rush and cut corners on a whim. This obviously causes bad project planning, rushed knee-jerk decision making, and more OT. I personally don't like OT.
Perhaps if people would refuse to buy unfinished products, I would be able to do my job to the best of my ability, and have a healthier work/life balance. Quite frankly, I can't see why a game artist such as yourself would take issue with customers wanting what you deliver to be top notch.
Thank you.
I was not saying that nerd-raging or forum spamming for the devs to die is right or useful. I was simply saying it is unacceptable for us to "accept" mediocracy. If you walk through an mmo and find a guy pathing into a wall, thats fine, its a bug that went missed, no big deal really. But when you have the game crashing every 15mins, that is a problem that should have been fixed. When you read the beta boards and find an issue that has been asked to be fixed for 5 months, and goes to launch with it still a problem, thats pitiful.
Don't give me the excuse about its hard work and crap, if its too hard for you to handle get out of the business. Sure mistakes happen, problems arise, but you should never expect that as a default, in any business or item. And I know that the bottom line comes down to the company forcing devs to release a game before it truly is ready, but unfortunately, unlike with buying many other items, you can not always sample it before you buy it. A car you can test drive, an item at a restaurant you can sample, even a plane before you buy it, you can have an inspector look it over for you to ensure it is free of catastrophic failures(and yes I do know about buying planes.)
But once again, as stated before, there are too many gamers so needy for a fix, that they go ahead and buy games even when they arent ready and the companies know this, and exploit it.
Comments
Developers have sold themselves as a commodity while still wanting to call themselves artists. These days indy devs (honest ones) are highly valued in the gaming community because they have almost no budget, manage to produce a generally enjoyable and nearly problem free game and are quite dedicated when it comes to support and fixes.
Large developers suffer from chasing the dollar because all of the power and decision making is in the hands of whomever they contracted themselves to. Then when their product invariably flops, they are the ones with egg on their face and dealing with the angry customers and generally they don't care about the customers anyway because the design team splits up and heads off to other projects.
It used to be that designers really wanted to create the ultimate game, to pursue the kind of game they were passionate about. What happened to that? Especially with the internet age, instead of declaring their independence from the soul sucking conglomerates they are happy just collecting a paycheck.
Sure there are stupid people out there that feel entitled to everything (that's today's society as a whole) but generally, if a game is good and the service is quality, people don't complain except regarding portions of the game that they are passionate about (it just shows how much they enjoy the product).
I look at Cornered Rat Software (with their dozen employees) that has managed to survive despite being royally screwed by publishers because of their top notch community interaction. I look at Star Wraith games and it consists of 1 guy and he makes a point of answering people directly as much as possible and his games are pretty much flawless in operation. I look at Infinity Universe and how they grew from 1 guy to 8 people and are using community created content to build their mmo which they hope to offer free to play. So many others as well.
I see 1 person doing greater quality programming and better customer service than the whole of EA from a desktop in his home office, then I see some self-important prick from a major company getting paid whether he accomplishes anything or not and he is the one complaining that customers expect to much.
While I sympathize with programmers that have to deal with a lot of unreasonable demands, I don't sympathize with them for having to face the wrath of disgruntled customers after having sold them an incomplete or non-functional product. There is no excuse for a job half done. Given the cookie-cutter nature of most recent games, there is even less wiggle room.
oops
Yeah i get your point, and i suppose directing it at QA would be wrong, but what was meant was the people who make those decisions regarding testing & bug fixes, etc. Understandably it is a bit different with your example of GTA vs an MMO, where as you mentioned GTA didnt have patches. However MMOs go through alpha & beta tests, and major bugs still exist at launch that were reported by numerous people in both stages of testing. Of cours ei realize that not everything can be fixed by launch, or some problems might not come up until after launch due to last minute changes, however MMOs do have patching and updates. My main concern is that those things that make it through at launch tend to not get fixed in a timely manner, if ever, by many companies. They simply let the bugs or broken features exist, and spend their resources on adding things like new content, rather than making sure their existing content even works properly. It just seems like in the majority of cases, whoever is making the calls as to what bugs / issues are a priority goes about it completely ass backwards, and often have an attitude of "This is what I want in the game, and thats all that matters" instead of listening to the people that are actually playing their game.
I work in a seperate IT field, but things should really work the same way. In my company, if things are broken and our employees cannot use certain features or do things they were told they should be able to, the shit really hits the fan and weve got directors, VPs, managers, and sales people all jumping down our throats to get it fixed, and guess what, it gets fixed ASAP. We are also constantly changing within the company to suit the needs and desires of the employees we support as far as adding new features to our sites/applications, making things more efficient, and many other things based on feedback from them. We dont view feedback as a bad thing, regardless of the attitude (how much a of a douchebag theyre being) the person giving the feedback has. We take the feedback as something that should be looked into, because if it really is a problem, fixing it will make things better for everyone, including ourselves, and will only increase our profitability. Ive been with my company about 3 years, and compare dto my first year here things have vastly improved and we have very few technical issuesthat come up and our efficiency has easily tripled in that time due to smooth operating from the IT side and little to no downtime for most of our systems (compared to many of our core systems being down at least once a week). This is the type of service my team and i provide, and i generally expect to be greeted with the same effort & willingness to accept feedback from others
God damn I can't agree more with number two... I've been in countless debates with someone about how something, say, widespread and complete character/racial customization (so you could play as anything and customize anything to your hearts content) just isn't possible... or rather reasonable, or at the very least very labor intensive even if you somehow do get it down to a science. It's not like you can just magically take a pen tablet and pump out a model within seconds, then instantly drag and drop that model in 'ye 'ole rigger and magically have it appear in game with attributes you'll guess on your first try, second if it incorporates an entirely new game mechanic.
-_-
People that put themselves above others put me in a bad mood.
http://www.surrealtwilight.com/index.php
^Has nothing to do with that retarded Vampire Novel Series, I swear!^
I do agree with this article a lot, however I think you could write a book trying to explain this and many of the most out of their mind players will still never get it. They will expect it all, it all right now, it to work everytime on the first try, and it to be cheap, have directx 11 and the best art ever in history at the same time.
Some people just can't grasp this kind of thought process.
On the AC forums I occasionally see someone suggest an idea and follow it up with "It seems to me this would be quick and easy to implement and wouldn't take much developer time". How can someone say that without seeing the code/dev environment? It's irritating to see. Luckily there are more people who are smart enough to make a suggestion and also make points to their own idea on why it might be challenging to implement.
I get tired of reading the people who say "I pay my sub fee so X". X is often why the devs should change the game they want, let them break the rules because they pay a sub, etc etc etc. Nice to see an article try to get through to those people for once.
Smart stuff made me reaslise some stuff myself too
The gods part was the most true thing i've read in this post IMO so
My computer has mastered the fine art of lagging
I wasn't aware that consumers were obligated to listen and look out for the devs or whoever is in charge of developing + marketing games?
Sure, we all have some decency and righteousness to give people space for their opinions and time for their solutions. Except, we as consumers, pay for what we were told to receive. If we don't receive what we were expecting, it means our money is going to waste. WHO THE HELL LIKES THEIR MONEY GOING DOWN THE DRAIN? NO ONE!
Tidalkraken, your first reply in regards to Holice's opinion, is a disgrace amongst the world of devs. Consumers are your first priority, not your own self opinions and benefits. We work our ass off to obtain the money needed for a game we want to be entertained by, that means you're meant to work your ass off to provide us with the game we want. You weren't hired to argue with consumers, you'd be fired immediately if your employer knew about this.
I must remind to people that if the user thinks the program sucks or such, it is the designers fault. It is a cruel world for the designer but simply it's their fault (assuming the user is one of the target group). Also if the game devs do want to improve the game, the player feedback is invaluable for the designers.
But because MMO games have such a large target group to handle, and most of the feedback doesn't even say what's wrong, it usually seems that they don't even listen to the players. That is of course a stupid mistake from the devs to have their user base to think they aren't important.
So if the user thinks there is a problem it's a design flaw, but do try to remember that designers have like 8 balls in the air as they are trying to please the users, the devs and marketing.
To sum up, never shut up about the flaws of the program, but also try to actually say what's wrong and if possible add some ideas how to make it better. And for the devs or to be devs, hire people to the player - game interface to listen what they have to say and never let the players feel that they aren't heard or important (and that includes those f:ing automated bots). That way players are happy and they keep playing, which should make you happy.
There is only one thing every MMO gamer should remember.
If the game sucks,take your money and leave.
Who gives a shit if some poor dev is out of a job?
The hamburger flipper at McDonald's makes sucky burgers, he gets fired.
No difference.
Make a good product, and you devs get to live a decent life.
Make a shitty product, and enjoy eating ramen while your wife leaves you for the neighbor.
Developer deserve no more sympathy than any other product and/or service provider.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Players are generally like babies in that if they cry incessantly it's probably important, but don't trust them to know what's wrong.
Nice list! That should be shown on the loading screen of every mmo lol
I guess iagree with all of those. I don't honestly think i have ever complained rigourously to the dev team early in a games development, and find it pretty funny when people want a perfect game from as early as closed beta.
nicely wrote, 5 brilliant points we gamers need to keep in our heads
Seems to me the majority of MMOs makers want to have their sales revenue and a free army of beta testers but, when it all falls over, the last thing they want to be is accountable to their customer base.
This isn't about polish or features or anything as trivial; this is about games that should just bloody work. They install, they connect to their servers, they don't lock-up, they don't need a half gb patch 2 days after release, they don't have issues from launch still outstanding a month, 6 months or a year later and they have devs that talk, openly and honestly, about what's going on.
If the game's rubbish, fine. I can accept that. I've bought shite games before, as well as movies and music. I feel no resentment about this. But if I buy a dvd and it doesn't play, I don't give a toss how bad the film on it is, I expect something to be done. Fix it, replace it or give me my money back. Is there anything else where you're almost expected to wait weeks and months for your problem to be addressed, let alone resolved? Is there anything else where a 'time to fix' estimate is as loose and movable?
And why? Because it's complicated and you wouldn't understand. Because people have different pcs and its really, really hard to do this stuff, alright! Because the servers were oversubscribed by all those pesky customers wanting to play the game we sold them. Because it's working as intended even though we specifically said it wouldn't do this. And blah, blah, blah.
And the arrogance shown by some of the self-described game programmers and designers in this thread is staggering. You make a shitty product and then get all holier-than-thou when those who buy it get angry and want things sorted sharpish?
Apathy, laziness, incompetence and pure, honest-to-goodness greed is what sees so many barely tested, barely functional and blatantly incomplete games hit the market.
Don't confuse quality with functionality. At least have the decency to make the f**king thing work properly before you release it.
The ruptured capillaries in your nose belie the clarity of your wisdom.
Although we can't expect any MMO's (or any game for that matter) to be perfect, especially at release, I don't think its unreasonable for us to expect them to function as intended, even at release. These are often huge multi million dollar development projects and theyre all too often released broken, like seriously broken. Im not talking about the occasional glitch that couldnt be found or the small bugs the devs couldnt fix in time for release, im talking about catastrophic you know its there yet push the product to market anyway bugs. Servers constantly crashing disconnecting users, people getting stuck in scenery or floors for hours while they wait for a gm response. It doesnt happen to all games released, im not trying to bash all devs or producers, or whoever is responsible out there for the shoddy work of some, but it does happen and theres no excuse for it
. If I went to the store and bought a book that had 1/2 the pages missing I could return it, if I buy a MMO that has essential code missing what kind of headache would it take to get my subscription fees and purchase price reimbursed? Oh thats right, I entered a contract (E.U.L.A.) with the developer before I was able to play the game at all, maybe I can hire a lawyer to decipher that for me and figure out how to get my money back for the p.o.s. game I got suckered into buying.
Here's the problem, if im unhappy with a MMO I just cut my losses and move on, more or less because its all I can do. I've sunk thousands of dollars into MMO's I don't care to play just to try them out and realise they aren't what I was hoping for, or because I initially liked the game and played it only to find it later changed in ways that made the game unenjoyable. So now im an angry nerd and all I can do is gripe about it, so don't bother making excuses for these people who just cheated me out of my hard earned cash. Light a fire under this industrys collective arse & tell them its time to shape up and start releasing working, polished, products before someone figures out how to deciper that contract and the nerds of the world go class action lawsuit to get some of that "I just bought a broken game wtf" money back. The standard is just too low and its not improving fast enough in this area, releasing buggy broken MMO's is more and more becoming an accepted practice and the trend needs to move in the opposite direction. Please dont make excuses for this, we deserve a working product for our money regardless of what the issues may be in delivering that product.
#5 - I got a life too, and id rather not spend part of it waiting for a game that was sold to me broken to be fixed...
#4 - I agree game development is serious business, with serious money to be made, devs are paid well for their expertise (in most cases anyway) the final product should reflect those skills theyre paid for.
#3 - While the real world doesnt end with downtime, the World of Warcraft does, however I haven't found it common practice to prorate my subscription fees for the period of time when the service is unavailable. A little more customer service, and a bit less greed could go a long way here to improving the image of these dastardly devs some of the raging nerds of the world so like to gripe about. When the server's down for too long knock a dollar off everyones fees for the month the hype and goodwill a move like that would buy is well worth the investment in my opinion. Just do the right thing, don't make me call customer service and fight for hours to save that dollar because that ruins the whole notion.
#2 - You're right, I don't know how to fix it, and honestly I don't care, thats what we pay you for. Maybe though, if you shared some of the info about the specifics of the problem I as the player could generate some more meaningful input to help you as the dev come up with a great solution to said problem. See just because im not a programmer doesn't mean im an idiot, or somehow unreasonable and chances are I have a healthy interest in whatever problem my favorite game is having. So communicate with your community, thats what its there for, more polls, more dialogue, more brainstorming, the truly great games are the ones where the communitys wants are fulfilled.
#1 - I agree wholeheartedly theres way too much ignorance and discourtesy within most gaming communitys ive participated in. Say what you want to say but do it with some class, show me that your an intelligent person capable of expressing their ideas in a thoughtful and meaningful way and I will listen to what you have to say whether I agree with it or not. Talk to me like some angry child who's misplaced their ridalin and any valid points you may have will not reach my ears as ill skip your ALL CAPS WTF NUB POST to read the next one that appears to have been written by an intelligent person.
I think it boils down to this notable quote:
" In the end, which side is trying to get the other to pay them cash money?"
When I start asking game developers for cash, they can start dictating terms to me. Otherwise, I get to be as vocal as I want and vote with my wallet. It's kind of the nature of the free market.
You guys have points, even tiny one. Bottom line, gamers if unsatisfied leave the game and developers keep it up if you wanted your game being up in decade.
For gamers, complain is not necessary but suggestion is needed but if the developers is ignoring it, why stick around?
Developers, you need to reach the expectation of the gamers if not exceed. After all, gamers is the one who play the game not the developers. Also, gamers is the one who fill your pocket/wallet or tummy.
If the game meet the expectation of the gamers, they keep everybody on their toes.
Thank you.
I was not saying that nerd-raging or forum spamming for the devs to die is right or useful. I was simply saying it is unacceptable for us to "accept" mediocracy. If you walk through an mmo and find a guy pathing into a wall, thats fine, its a bug that went missed, no big deal really. But when you have the game crashing every 15mins, that is a problem that should have been fixed. When you read the beta boards and find an issue that has been asked to be fixed for 5 months, and goes to launch with it still a problem, thats pitiful.
Don't give me the excuse about its hard work and crap, if its too hard for you to handle get out of the business. Sure mistakes happen, problems arise, but you should never expect that as a default, in any business or item. And I know that the bottom line comes down to the company forcing devs to release a game before it truly is ready, but unfortunately, unlike with buying many other items, you can not always sample it before you buy it. A car you can test drive, an item at a restaurant you can sample, even a plane before you buy it, you can have an inspector look it over for you to ensure it is free of catastrophic failures(and yes I do know about buying planes.)
But once again, as stated before, there are too many gamers so needy for a fix, that they go ahead and buy games even when they arent ready and the companies know this, and exploit it.