It is kind of a yes and no answer. I think it is good to listen to what they are saying, but make your own decisions. Players can bring to light issues that the developers did not see, and that is a good thing.
Should they obey the every whim of every random disgruntled player? Obviously not.
Unlike the plumber, we're talking about an entertainment product rather than a standardized system. Without understanding your audience, you're not going to be able to entertain them very well.
Also, unlike the plumber example, as gamers we invest large amounts of time into these games and often times players find bugs and problems that devs miss because of this. I don't know anyone who isn't a plumber that spends years of their life fixing sinks and toilets so the OP's example is absolutely awful.
Axehilt is correct in that they should listen but with a grain of salt.
i'd say yes in general, but don't listen to the loud mouthed forums QQers that are in all games. it would be hard to get a majority vote as a lot of players don't contribute to chat outside of the game. devs should make an educated guess based on constuctive ideas though so that's why i say yes in general.
also, most people don't really know what they want. i mean how are you suppose to please a player with mmorpg burnout? also a lot of people are too prideful to think they may be wrong, and it their way or the highway. you can't please everyone.
i look at the devs as employees. i pay them for a service and they need to deliver or i'll find a new employee. just my opnion though.
They're not our employees though.
They're a service provider, you're a subscriber. Simple as that. You don't get to tell them how to do the job or distribute funds or positions. You can't hire them, fire them adjust their company direction or impact the way they do business at all. You can either subscribe, or not subscribe. those are your two choices.
You may consider unsubscribing as "Firing them" but that's watering it down. Fact is they likely didn't notice you left anyhow.
Don't go around thinkin' that all the people behind the games you play should be answering to you or delivering to you, fact is they are delivering to a very broad spectrum of people in most cases. They don't need to do anything for you at all. You WANT them to deliver, but that doesn't always make it so. In which case you can unsubscribe, but don't go trying to make yourself sound more important or impactful of the situation than you really are. You're not their boss, just another customer.
Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried.
( a small game can be driven by an artistic vision - a large MMO has a large community of developers, designers, administrators and accountants and is more like a municipal government; it needs input from the community to keep the "bureaucracy" on track )
Listing to player input and allowing players to vote on what gets added/changed are two different things. I don't think the OP was suggesting that patch/update content be put up to a player vote of any kind.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Developers should listen to players BEFORE they design the game, not AFTER.
Afterward, they should just make the game better. Of course, easier said than done for the unskilled dev teams who replace the majority of the real geniuses after they leave the company.
What I'd like to see is the developers leaving behind a leader who has the original vision. I don't expect everyone to stick around after it is made, but I do expect the person left behind to share the mind of those developers.
Listing to player input and allowing players to vote on what gets added/changed are two different things. I don't think the OP was suggewsting that patch/update content be put up to a player vote of any kind.
The line between listening and tallying votes is thinner than it looks.
Yes they should listen to the players. However, too many people believe that listening means doing what they say. It is very possible, in many cases even expected and likely to listen but disagree.
I listen to almost everyone. I disagree with most people and rarely change my mind based on what they say but I always listen, devs should do the same.
Venge
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Originally posted by LoktofeitAt CCP's EVE Fanfest in 2007
Eh...CCP is a company that should rather be made an example of how NOT to do the job...
They went from: "We have a vision and talented team to make the vision true." to: "We still have somewhat the vision but we lack talented team to get us there so we do what players(forum posters and CSM) say."
CCP's strong asset was their vision. Since launch till Revelation expansion, CCP was rolling out core features rapidly and it was the time when they were strongest.
Trinity was the complement of EVE core features roll out and a moment when CCP lost control and development went down the sink.
I guess that was when CCP started to "listen to their players". The guidance once provided by their vision was gone, resulting in lackluster of abandoned features and low quality standards. CCP stopped to develop the game while pursuing the vision and started to "add" to the game instead. The game lost direction.
It was complete opposite of very consistent and coherent development of past years and with launch of Quantum Rise and Apocrypha, the fate of EVE was sealed...
Player feedback is good for some minor changes and improvements but should never ever be used for major game development direction and balance - something happening in EVE these days.
Also it seems that 99% of the "vocal" mmorpg community sits in pvp queues all day and never touches the rest of the game more than they have to. Everythings always about pvp, something that in themeparks is the most boring and pointless part of the game. Nothings ever at risk and you just do the same couple instances over and over again...
Never listen to the players, create what you had origionally envisioned, stick to it.
A players wants are too subjective; developers need to sit back and look at the bigger picture, too many have gone down the nerf hammer route due to the vocal minority and completely broken their game.
When Darkfall launched it had a very hard grind and learning curve so majority of community whined alot and devs made the game more easy and for the first year they did a rather good job at that not dumbing down the game to much.
But the community(mainly caming from themeparks not many hardcore left) keep whining and whining, so game comes to point thats its already way to far dumb down and im affraid with DFO 2.0 its maybe even going to far with close to themepark. So listend to community is maybe not a good idea unless its all about money and not stick to your original vision you had in first place with the game and devs had a totally different dream about game before 2008 as many followers not knowing community would change so much in past 5 - 6 years or so.
Original visions are crap if they don't entertain their core audience. If DF mis-read their audience and made the game too hard core, it is a GOOD THING to reverse course.
It is only a bad idea FOR YOU. It is a perfectly GOOD IDEA for the game.
Also it seems that 99% of the "vocal" mmorpg community sits in pvp queues all day and never touches the rest of the game more than they have to. Everythings always about pvp, something that in themeparks is the most boring and pointless part of the game. Nothings ever at risk and you just do the same couple instances over and over again...
Never listen to the players, create what you had origionally envisioned, stick to it.
Nah .. if you stick to a "vision" that entertains no one .. well, the game will go down.
If players want to sit in a queue to run instance dungeons and PvP battlegrounds, give it to them. Sure, you will whine because that is not what YOU like, but there are many more who like that. Who can say they are wrong?
What is entertaining is a good ENTERTAINMENT product.
Eh...CCP is a company that should rather be made an example of how NOT to do the job...
They went from: "We have a vision and talented team to make the vision true."
to: "We still have somewhat the vision but we lack talented team to get us there so we do what players(forum posters and CSM) say."
CCP's strong asset was their vision. Since launch till Revelation expansion, CCP was rolling out core features rapidly and it was the time when they were strongest.
Trinity was the complement of EVE core features roll out and a moment when CCP lost control and development went down the sink.
I guess that was when CCP started to "listen to their players". The guidance once provided by their vision was gone, resulting in lackluster of abandoned features and low quality standards. CCP stopped to develop the game while pursuing the vision and started to "add" to the game instead. The game lost direction.
It was complete opposite of very consistent and coherent development of past years and with launch of Quantum Rise and Apocrypha, the fate of EVE was sealed...
Player feedback is good for some minor changes and improvements but should never ever be used for major game development direction and balance - something happening in EVE these days.
That seems a unique perspective and I'm not sure I buy it. Almost unanimously the issue the EVE players have had over the past few years is that CCP stopped listening to the players and only recently began to listen and thus are back on track. You're saying that's not the case?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This is a tough question that can go either way. I would say that it depends on what you are planning your game.
If you want something with big box sales and less "staying power" then it appears the answer to the question would be "yes, you do listen to players." Isn't that how most/all of the AAA games over the last several years have approached their projects? They saw how popular WoW was and hoped to recreate the fluke by appealing to the wider audience, casual gamers. After a few months players go back to what they are famililar with.
In a mystical land of fairies and unicorns where you don't have to worry about turning a profit, then I would say no. Create a game that you want to play yourself. Make it however you want regardless of what the players want the game to be. Mold your own creation not someone elses.
Personally, I would prefer the latter but I do realize the financial need to appeal to the masses. Again it all depends on how you want your project to play out. If I were in charge of an mmo project, I would plan to spread my resources out over several years and not spend so much on marketing and graphics.
A little survey in-game asking what players think about some event or some new feature is a good thing. Then Devs do what ever they think is correct with the survey results.
Listen to players on forums is a bad thing, we all know that forum only represent a little part of the game comunity and sometimes the worse one.
For me personally outside of bug reports and customer service I would say no. I just want developers to make a game the way they think the game should be made and players should accept that not all games are made for them personally. But I do hear this often when a game is launches "until the dev's start listening to us" etc etc... its like standing over a plumber and telling him unless he does such and such my way he'll not get paid, I'd rather let the professionals get on with the art of making games and I'll get on with the art of playing games that interest me and not playing games that don't interest me. But I'm not really going to demand a game be something it is not, I'll say my piece about why I don't like said game and then move on. So do others feel this way or should developers bend to our every whim?
You're disillusioned into thinking the developers have EVER listened to their playbase. They ALWAYS do what THEY, or their Publisher (ie: bean counter), wants. Only after do their plans & business model fail do they list "listening to the players" as their root failing point.
SOE killed SWG NOT because they LISTENED to the players. They killed SWG because they were listening to Lucas Arts, and how Lucas Arts wanted X, Y, and Z in SWG.
Mythic did NOT listen to the playerbase when they made TOA that ended up destroying the path DAOC was on (the right one). Mythic did NOT listen to the playerbase when they made the "New Frontiers", which was in horrible contrast to how amazing "Old Frontiers" had been. Now, Mythic has been destroyed by EA-Bioware, and we will NEVER see a sequel to one of the most beautiful MMOs of our time.
Do you think the developers of Hellgate: London were listening to their players when they made the game so horribly NOT like Diablo like they had said all along? No, the players constantly outlined very CLEAR CUT reasons why the game would fail after launch, and so HellGate: London DID fail HARD after launch, and then the developers blamed the playerbase for their guidance.
What about WoW's devs? I hate WoW with every fiber of my being for what it has brought our genre down to, but DID WoW's developers REALLY listen go their playerbase when making ALL those sweeping changes? From an outsider looking in it feels as if they didn't, but again I'm not one to judge as I've never played WoW past their pathetic 14day free-trial that only took me 3hrs to go from 1 to 20, and then I had to pay or leave. Guess you know how that went :P?
I could go on, and on, and on, and on. However, it's VERY clear that many of you have no clue as to what's been going on behind closed doors. I get constant complaints on a daily basis with friends of mine in the industry about how their producers "Want X, but also want to cut Y out that we spent MONTHS preparing for Q&A only to have Z put in it's place which is nothing but a WoW-clone mechanic that we all HATE". So please, enlighten me as to HOW exactly listening to your players is a bad thing as long as you keep your OWN goals set in stone.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity: Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
A little survey in-game asking what players think about some event or some new feature is a good thing. Then Devs do what ever they think is correct with the survey results.
Listen to players on forums is a bad thing, we all know that forum only represent a little part of the game comunity and sometimes the worse one.
Jabas hit the nail on the head. Everquest recently created an in-game "poll system" that would do just that. However, I don't feel they've been utilizing it to its full potential.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity: Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Originally posted by lizardbones I think companies should not listen to players as armchair designers. No way, no how.
I think companies should listen to their players when their players tell them about what they want, what they don't want, what works for them and what doesn't.
I don't think they should listen to many individuals. I think they should pay attention to the large groups of people who play their games.
Large group can be tricky listend to, if one starts a topic demanding that something must change like more easy gameplay or class should be more power or safer pvp whatever and many start follow his/her idea maybe his/her idea is bad one but becouse many just follow like blindsheep a bad idea can be implemented and ruined the game totally, this offend have happend in the past.
Listend to one or few indivituals is offcorse not a wise way of changing things ingame.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77 CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now)) MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB PSU:Corsair AX1200i OS:Windows 10 64bit
A little survey in-game asking what players think about some event or some new feature is a good thing. Then Devs do what ever they think is correct with the survey results.
Listen to players on forums is a bad thing, we all know that forum only represent a little part of the game comunity and sometimes the worse one.
Forums are only a part of the feedback. There's also an endless stream of data on what players are actually doing in game, as well as surveys and other methods of collecting data. While they shouldn't be the solitary source, they are a vital component of the whole collection of input. Their biggest downside, though, is the extreme signal to noise ratio, requiring far more filtering and monitoring than most other sources.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by LoktofeitYou're saying that's not the case?
How it could be?
Players whined for speed nerf, they got it. Players whined for projectiles buff, they got it. Players whined for faction ships buff, they got it. Players whined for 0.0 revamp, they got it. Players whined for 0.0 rewards buff, they got.
the list can go on and on...
The game is now literally broken because how CCP bends every time people start crying on forums. You would need to be blind or completely stupid to say that CCP isn't listening to players.
The new concurrent user peak record was achieved in early 2011. That is hardly a signal of being out of track. Then CCP screwed up with Incarna, not because of ignoring players though, but simply because of no quality standards, piss poor execution, failed communication and arrogance.
CCP is doing many things wrong but one can hardly complain about player wishes being ignored.
Players can raise valid arguements and have great ideas. I mean think about it, you have a playerbase of say 100,000 people. Thats 100,000 people that could potentially come up with ideas and share them freely with developers in an attempt to make the game they love playing better. It really is an amazing thing that people just take for granted today.
And No, they shouldnt listen to every player. Or implement every idea the community has. Thatd be crazy, and you end up alienating the silent majority who would rather play the game than join the forum/irc community to express their like/dislikes.
I think most developers already know this, and use their judgement when the community is telling them how to develop their game.
Developers should listen to the playerbase as the playerbase is the main purpose of the game.
But do they listen? That would've been a better question.
You only have to look at Minecraft to see how a game's developer listens to their playerbase concerning mods and changes and openly implements those changes into the game.
Too many developers are influenced by the board of directors or some bureaucratic board who is lending the money.
Look at games like Skyrim; the devs said in the 'making of' video they really listened to the playerbase and in my opinion they made a great game, considering the tech available at present (Xbox360 tech). But some people still hate the game.
I do sometimes wonder if a game should be made on two levels:
1) To keep those who know what they want happy
2) To keep those who don't know what they want happy.
Also saying that devs shouldn't listen to the playerbase as the playerbase has silly ideas is a bit stupid as then you are stating that the devs cannot tell the difference between a good idea or a bad idea. Also not all of the playerbase is stupid or has stupid ideas. Remember a dev can be part of the playerbase so restricting who should be listened to is silly to say the least.
Look at indie games; these are made by players who are sick of the crap the industry is vomiting onto our shelves.
"Pin your ears back devs", I say, and stop listening to the "bureaucratic monkey board" who don't know how to make games.
Comments
It is kind of a yes and no answer. I think it is good to listen to what they are saying, but make your own decisions. Players can bring to light issues that the developers did not see, and that is a good thing.
Also, unlike the plumber example, as gamers we invest large amounts of time into these games and often times players find bugs and problems that devs miss because of this. I don't know anyone who isn't a plumber that spends years of their life fixing sinks and toilets so the OP's example is absolutely awful.
Axehilt is correct in that they should listen but with a grain of salt.
They're not our employees though.
They're a service provider, you're a subscriber. Simple as that. You don't get to tell them how to do the job or distribute funds or positions. You can't hire them, fire them adjust their company direction or impact the way they do business at all. You can either subscribe, or not subscribe. those are your two choices.
You may consider unsubscribing as "Firing them" but that's watering it down. Fact is they likely didn't notice you left anyhow.
Don't go around thinkin' that all the people behind the games you play should be answering to you or delivering to you, fact is they are delivering to a very broad spectrum of people in most cases. They don't need to do anything for you at all. You WANT them to deliver, but that doesn't always make it so. In which case you can unsubscribe, but don't go trying to make yourself sound more important or impactful of the situation than you really are. You're not their boss, just another customer.
Listing to player input and allowing players to vote on what gets added/changed are two different things. I don't think the OP was suggesting that patch/update content be put up to a player vote of any kind.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Developers should listen to players BEFORE they design the game, not AFTER.
Afterward, they should just make the game better. Of course, easier said than done for the unskilled dev teams who replace the majority of the real geniuses after they leave the company.
What I'd like to see is the developers leaving behind a leader who has the original vision. I don't expect everyone to stick around after it is made, but I do expect the person left behind to share the mind of those developers.
The line between listening and tallying votes is thinner than it looks.
Yes they should listen to the players. However, too many people believe that listening means doing what they say. It is very possible, in many cases even expected and likely to listen but disagree.
I listen to almost everyone. I disagree with most people and rarely change my mind based on what they say but I always listen, devs should do the same.
Venge
Eh...CCP is a company that should rather be made an example of how NOT to do the job...
They went from: "We have a vision and talented team to make the vision true."
to: "We still have somewhat the vision but we lack talented team to get us there so we do what players(forum posters and CSM) say."
CCP's strong asset was their vision. Since launch till Revelation expansion, CCP was rolling out core features rapidly and it was the time when they were strongest.
Trinity was the complement of EVE core features roll out and a moment when CCP lost control and development went down the sink.
I guess that was when CCP started to "listen to their players". The guidance once provided by their vision was gone, resulting in lackluster of abandoned features and low quality standards. CCP stopped to develop the game while pursuing the vision and started to "add" to the game instead. The game lost direction.
It was complete opposite of very consistent and coherent development of past years and with launch of Quantum Rise and Apocrypha, the fate of EVE was sealed...
Player feedback is good for some minor changes and improvements but should never ever be used for major game development direction and balance - something happening in EVE these days.
Players only want self serving benefits.
Also it seems that 99% of the "vocal" mmorpg community sits in pvp queues all day and never touches the rest of the game more than they have to. Everythings always about pvp, something that in themeparks is the most boring and pointless part of the game. Nothings ever at risk and you just do the same couple instances over and over again...
Never listen to the players, create what you had origionally envisioned, stick to it.
After the game is initially developed YEAH, for sure they should!
but not before
A players wants are too subjective; developers need to sit back and look at the bigger picture, too many have gone down the nerf hammer route due to the vocal minority and completely broken their game.
Original visions are crap if they don't entertain their core audience. If DF mis-read their audience and made the game too hard core, it is a GOOD THING to reverse course.
It is only a bad idea FOR YOU. It is a perfectly GOOD IDEA for the game.
Nah .. if you stick to a "vision" that entertains no one .. well, the game will go down.
If players want to sit in a queue to run instance dungeons and PvP battlegrounds, give it to them. Sure, you will whine because that is not what YOU like, but there are many more who like that. Who can say they are wrong?
What is entertaining is a good ENTERTAINMENT product.
That seems a unique perspective and I'm not sure I buy it. Almost unanimously the issue the EVE players have had over the past few years is that CCP stopped listening to the players and only recently began to listen and thus are back on track. You're saying that's not the case?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This is a tough question that can go either way. I would say that it depends on what you are planning your game.
If you want something with big box sales and less "staying power" then it appears the answer to the question would be "yes, you do listen to players." Isn't that how most/all of the AAA games over the last several years have approached their projects? They saw how popular WoW was and hoped to recreate the fluke by appealing to the wider audience, casual gamers. After a few months players go back to what they are famililar with.
In a mystical land of fairies and unicorns where you don't have to worry about turning a profit, then I would say no. Create a game that you want to play yourself. Make it however you want regardless of what the players want the game to be. Mold your own creation not someone elses.
Personally, I would prefer the latter but I do realize the financial need to appeal to the masses. Again it all depends on how you want your project to play out. If I were in charge of an mmo project, I would plan to spread my resources out over several years and not spend so much on marketing and graphics.
A little survey in-game asking what players think about some event or some new feature is a good thing. Then Devs do what ever they think is correct with the survey results.
Listen to players on forums is a bad thing, we all know that forum only represent a little part of the game comunity and sometimes the worse one.
You're disillusioned into thinking the developers have EVER listened to their playbase. They ALWAYS do what THEY, or their Publisher (ie: bean counter), wants. Only after do their plans & business model fail do they list "listening to the players" as their root failing point.
SOE killed SWG NOT because they LISTENED to the players. They killed SWG because they were listening to Lucas Arts, and how Lucas Arts wanted X, Y, and Z in SWG.
Mythic did NOT listen to the playerbase when they made TOA that ended up destroying the path DAOC was on (the right one). Mythic did NOT listen to the playerbase when they made the "New Frontiers", which was in horrible contrast to how amazing "Old Frontiers" had been. Now, Mythic has been destroyed by EA-Bioware, and we will NEVER see a sequel to one of the most beautiful MMOs of our time.
Do you think the developers of Hellgate: London were listening to their players when they made the game so horribly NOT like Diablo like they had said all along? No, the players constantly outlined very CLEAR CUT reasons why the game would fail after launch, and so HellGate: London DID fail HARD after launch, and then the developers blamed the playerbase for their guidance.
What about WoW's devs? I hate WoW with every fiber of my being for what it has brought our genre down to, but DID WoW's developers REALLY listen go their playerbase when making ALL those sweeping changes? From an outsider looking in it feels as if they didn't, but again I'm not one to judge as I've never played WoW past their pathetic 14day free-trial that only took me 3hrs to go from 1 to 20, and then I had to pay or leave. Guess you know how that went :P?
I could go on, and on, and on, and on. However, it's VERY clear that many of you have no clue as to what's been going on behind closed doors. I get constant complaints on a daily basis with friends of mine in the industry about how their producers "Want X, but also want to cut Y out that we spent MONTHS preparing for Q&A only to have Z put in it's place which is nothing but a WoW-clone mechanic that we all HATE". So please, enlighten me as to HOW exactly listening to your players is a bad thing as long as you keep your OWN goals set in stone.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Jabas hit the nail on the head. Everquest recently created an in-game "poll system" that would do just that. However, I don't feel they've been utilizing it to its full potential.
The Theory of Conservative Conservation of Ignorant Stupidity:
Having a different opinion must mean you're a troll.
Large group can be tricky listend to, if one starts a topic demanding that something must change like more easy gameplay or class should be more power or safer pvp whatever and many start follow his/her idea maybe his/her idea is bad one but becouse many just follow like blindsheep a bad idea can be implemented and ruined the game totally, this offend have happend in the past.
Listend to one or few indivituals is offcorse not a wise way of changing things ingame.
Hope to build full AMD system RYZEN/VEGA/AM4!!!
MB:Asus V De Luxe z77
CPU:Intell Icore7 3770k
GPU: AMD Fury X(waiting for BIG VEGA 10 or 11 HBM2?(bit unclear now))
MEMORY:Corsair PLAT.DDR3 1866MHZ 16GB
PSU:Corsair AX1200i
OS:Windows 10 64bit
Do you think WOW would've been WOW if Blizzard hadn't listened to what people liked/disliked about EQ1?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Forums are only a part of the feedback. There's also an endless stream of data on what players are actually doing in game, as well as surveys and other methods of collecting data. While they shouldn't be the solitary source, they are a vital component of the whole collection of input. Their biggest downside, though, is the extreme signal to noise ratio, requiring far more filtering and monitoring than most other sources.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Should devs listen to players? It's not a simple yes or no question. The answer depends on the individual issue.
Error: 37. Signature not found. Please connect to my server for signature access.
How it could be?
Players whined for speed nerf, they got it.
Players whined for projectiles buff, they got it.
Players whined for faction ships buff, they got it.
Players whined for 0.0 revamp, they got it.
Players whined for 0.0 rewards buff, they got.
the list can go on and on...
The game is now literally broken because how CCP bends every time people start crying on forums. You would need to be blind or completely stupid to say that CCP isn't listening to players.
The new concurrent user peak record was achieved in early 2011. That is hardly a signal of being out of track. Then CCP screwed up with Incarna, not because of ignoring players though, but simply because of no quality standards, piss poor execution, failed communication and arrogance.
CCP is doing many things wrong but one can hardly complain about player wishes being ignored.
Being loud does not mean being right.
Should developers listen to us? Yes and No.
Players can raise valid arguements and have great ideas. I mean think about it, you have a playerbase of say 100,000 people. Thats 100,000 people that could potentially come up with ideas and share them freely with developers in an attempt to make the game they love playing better. It really is an amazing thing that people just take for granted today.
And No, they shouldnt listen to every player. Or implement every idea the community has. Thatd be crazy, and you end up alienating the silent majority who would rather play the game than join the forum/irc community to express their like/dislikes.
I think most developers already know this, and use their judgement when the community is telling them how to develop their game.
Developers should listen to the playerbase as the playerbase is the main purpose of the game.
But do they listen? That would've been a better question.
You only have to look at Minecraft to see how a game's developer listens to their playerbase concerning mods and changes and openly implements those changes into the game.
Too many developers are influenced by the board of directors or some bureaucratic board who is lending the money.
Look at games like Skyrim; the devs said in the 'making of' video they really listened to the playerbase and in my opinion they made a great game, considering the tech available at present (Xbox360 tech). But some people still hate the game.
I do sometimes wonder if a game should be made on two levels:
1) To keep those who know what they want happy
2) To keep those who don't know what they want happy.
Also saying that devs shouldn't listen to the playerbase as the playerbase has silly ideas is a bit stupid as then you are stating that the devs cannot tell the difference between a good idea or a bad idea. Also not all of the playerbase is stupid or has stupid ideas. Remember a dev can be part of the playerbase so restricting who should be listened to is silly to say the least.
Look at indie games; these are made by players who are sick of the crap the industry is vomiting onto our shelves.
"Pin your ears back devs", I say, and stop listening to the "bureaucratic monkey board" who don't know how to make games.