The games that hold subs the longest are the ones that encourage the creation of social groups. Be it group dungeons, raids, crafting, team PVP, guild progression, etc. if you give people the motivation to create social connections in game and pull it off people will pay for you game for as long as thier friends do.
I view most MMO's as a work in progress. That isn't to say that it should be riddled with bugs. But, content/expansions are always something I look forward to. If a game does this on a regular time table, I might stay subbed. The OP mentions Eve in the post with reference to real time skills. This certainly helps as well. I'm not as likely to unsub after so much time invested. But, I do also like the regular updates and content.
In the end, I suppose, if I'm having fun then I'll continue to sub.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.
The games that hold subs the longest are the ones that encourage the creation of social groups. Be it group dungeons, raids, crafting, team PVP, guild progression, etc. if you give people the motivation to create social connections in game and pull it off people will pay for you game for as long as thier friends do.
WOW will disagree.
It has the biggest sub base and holding at 10M more than anyone else. What it did in recent years? It introduces LFD/LFR to great success .. which are features that does NOT encourage creation of social groups. In fact, these features have the opposite effects.
Now if you are talking about small group co-op content .. and features to make it convenient .. then yes.
The games that hold subs the longest are the ones that encourage the creation of social groups. Be it group dungeons, raids, crafting, team PVP, guild progression, etc. if you give people the motivation to create social connections in game and pull it off people will pay for you game for as long as thier friends do.
WOW will disagree.
It has the biggest sub base and holding at 10M more than anyone else. What it did in recent years? It introduces LFD/LFR to great success .. which are features that does NOT encourage creation of social groups. In fact, these features have the opposite effects.
Now if you are talking about small group co-op content .. and features to make it convenient .. then yes.
Wait, so WoW will disagree because it had 10 million players...for years...before it introduced the features that you say are the reason why WoW isnt a social group game? wait...wut?
The LFG/LFR options were put in place for the part of the playerbase that were not in massive guilds or who did not have guildmates on. WoW was from a few months in, a group based game and within the first year became a raid based game...raids that only the best guilds were able to complete.
It may not be the "social group" like SWG...but it IS a social group based game...and before you say it was mostly solo friendly...so was SWG.
The games that hold subs the longest are the ones that encourage the creation of social groups. Be it group dungeons, raids, crafting, team PVP, guild progression, etc. if you give people the motivation to create social connections in game and pull it off people will pay for you game for as long as thier friends do.
WOW will disagree.
It has the biggest sub base and holding at 10M more than anyone else. What it did in recent years? It introduces LFD/LFR to great success .. which are features that does NOT encourage creation of social groups. In fact, these features have the opposite effects.
Now if you are talking about small group co-op content .. and features to make it convenient .. then yes.
I'm talking about anything that encourages you to build that friends list or join that guild helps keep subs longer. I'm taking a stab at this of course because I lack concrete numbers but I would say people who play MMO's solo on average have a much higher turn around time (game hopping) than people who build and participate in group activiites.
WoW obviously wants both audiences. They want the 2-6 month of subs a strickly solo player who plays it like a Single player game with people around (their is always the chance that person will meet up with a strong established social group and stick around longer) and they want the 7 year and counting subs from those people who have built multiple pages of friends list and would loose contact with most of them if they quit the game. The question from the OP was how does MMO's hold subs over the long term and I believe strongly that it's building social bonds in game. That doesn't have to be exclusivly raiding either that's just one of the easier ways to do it.
The games that hold subs the longest are the ones that encourage the creation of social groups. Be it group dungeons, raids, crafting, team PVP, guild progression, etc. if you give people the motivation to create social connections in game and pull it off people will pay for you game for as long as thier friends do.
While that might be a secondary effect that will keep people longer, if you don't have a good, fun, entertaining game in the first place, no matter how many social activities you put in, people are going to leave.
I'm not playing to connect with a character, I'm playing a game. I don't play Halo to feel a connection to Master Chief. If I want to roleplay, I'll sit down around a table with a bunch of friends and do so.
If you want zero RP I suggest you don't play mmoRPGs anymore.
A connection with your character is the very least of RP and pretty basic in an MMORPG.
Hmm .. most players don't RP in MMOs. People play it for the epeen, the power, the progression. I have yet to meet someone in-game who claim he feels like his toon. Usually someone pick a class because they like its cool abilities.
You have now. I picture myself as the character in the games I play.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
One part of the audience likes the kind of game that's been honed over the last few years but consumes the content very fast so they simply need new track to be laid faster at the end of the levelling line.
I think for the other part of the audience the game needs
Worldliness
becase a worldly game world has the most replayability.
Skyrim and especially Morrowind are good examples of a worldly world where you have unique races/cultures/classes and you don't need to invent quests, events and conflicts because they are natural extensions of the race's lore and playing a different race - if say Morrowind and Skyrim (minus the main quest) were the equivalent of a MMORPG race's section of the game world - or a different class was like playing a completely different game - same game, same engine same basic mechanics but flavor so different it feels like a different game.
I think this is particularly so for re-subs i.e. all the people who play six months and then take a break but keep coming back - like i keep going back to Morrowind. I think there's probably at least twice as many total WoW subscribers than the official number it's just they're not all subbed at once.
Also it seems to me the most cost-benefit is in creating the worldly content. If you have a level 1-50 game and make two very distinctive level 1-20 experiences then the fast levellers will go through one of them then the level 21-50 content then want more. The other type of player are liable to try both level 1-20 experiences. If you have a dozen like that (pencilled in not neccessarily all live from the beginning) then the first kind of player will consume one while the second are liable to go through all twelve. Even more so if the racial/cultural classes have unique gameplay too - e.g. one race's summoner class learns one main generic spell and then has to fight mobs to learn how to conjure them and uses captured souls to fuel their spells while another mage class gains their spells by tracking down and doing jobs for tutors and powers their spells by grinding parts of magical creatures into dust which acts like ammo - anything that makes the levelling experience *feel* different. Or a race/culture has a speciifc unique activity like WoW's archaeology being only a Dwarf thing and Elves having something different.
TL;DR
Either
- add extra high level content very fast (or make endgame PvP mass popular so players make their own content)
or
- worldiness, (because successful wordiness stops a lot of players ever getting to max level)
People usually unsubscriibe when they are playing and get to a point when they cant progress, either by lack of quests or lack of any good gear available, alot of games have these pitfalls that put off alot of players.
Sub class,not a cheap thrown together one either,a well thought out one like FFFXI.
Questing with a better emaning than linear game play,example NO xp or minimal loot rewards.I like to see a whoel new system designed around it ,similar again to FFXI.
definitive Class and Race stats/options ect ect,a lot can be done here.
Pets/breeding combo pets/mounts ect ect.again tons can be done here.Fighting pets/mounts,pets that are simple mobile carrying units ect ect.
Housing..similar to EQ2 but without ANY cash shop and expanded.This area alone could net any developer millions of gamers,i am 100% positive of it.Developers just need to quit looking for cheaper alternatives in game play.Housing would be a gold mine if done really good.
In depth combat system,i also prefer REALISM in not only combat ,but the entire game.This means fighting as a group 1-2 creatures,not 6-24 very unrealistic.I like tons of depth here involving everything from accuracy,to speed,piercing,blunt,slashing,ranged,melee,elemental properties,terrain properties,day/night properties ect ect,tons can be done here.I also want to see grouping design,example 1-2-3 players forming combo attacks ect ect.This was a game breaker for me in SWTOR they put VERY little effort into their combat design.
I would love to see any game utilize an ECO system,i know it is very hard to pull off and very resource intensive,but would add a ton of realism and just bring a game world to life.
I love seeing creatures attack the cities,it is realistic or even outposts,again so much can be done here.
In depth crafting with lots of secrets to discover.
To be honest man,FFXI covered most of what i just laid out for great gaming,it is really sad to see so many games lately cut tons of corners for content.Even the content games are putting out is only done half ass,we need some REAL developers willing to put their heart into the game.The problem right now is develoeprs are more worried about profit than quality.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
- once fast levellers have hit max with one character let them start new characters at 10 below max or something. if they're pvpers wanting to try a FOTM class or raiders who need to level a specific class for their guild they're not levelling for fun. it's just a chore hence why they complain about it
- alternate ways of creating replayability
1) difficulty modes e.g. a hardcore mode
2) alternate meta progression i.e. any class can select a path for a new character from a list of options like hunter, explorer, loremaster, hero which have a set of unique quests/achievements and resulting benefits that run alongside regular levelling so not only might levelling a Nord fighter feel very different from a Dark Elf fighter (at least for the first half of the levelling experience) and a a dark elf fighter feel different from a dark elf mage but also a dark elf fighter with the hero path would feel at leats a bit different from a dark elf fighter with the explorer path
- then you can add in some unique quests/achievements/experiences for different crafts etc
- conflicts between various factions where you can only pick one side with quests/achievements/rewards unique to each faction like the dwarves/giants in EQ's Velious
- moral paths i.e. each player has a morality between 1 (evil) through 3 (neutral) to 5 (goodie) and quests have a similar number and you're only eligible for quests within 1 point of your setting
so a Nord fighter goodie / explorer / leatherworker allied to the ent faction levelling from 1-24 might involve 50% different quests / activities from a Nord fighter neutral / hunter / fletcher allied to the rogue faction or a Nord fighter evil / loremaster / weaponsmith allied to the frost giant faction.
3) Make crafting for crafters; don't make a compromise between people who like crafting and people who don't. The people who don't like crafting won't stay subbed for longer just because of the crafting. People who do like crafting will.
Q: What features/functionalities encourage players to sub longer?
A: The feeling that the game in question is home.
As you said, making the world feel like home can be important, but others stay subbed because they are attached to their characters, their guildmates, their houses, their pets or any of a number of things.
But those are just the things that make people feel like a place is home.
Comments
The games that hold subs the longest are the ones that encourage the creation of social groups. Be it group dungeons, raids, crafting, team PVP, guild progression, etc. if you give people the motivation to create social connections in game and pull it off people will pay for you game for as long as thier friends do.
I view most MMO's as a work in progress. That isn't to say that it should be riddled with bugs. But, content/expansions are always something I look forward to. If a game does this on a regular time table, I might stay subbed. The OP mentions Eve in the post with reference to real time skills. This certainly helps as well. I'm not as likely to unsub after so much time invested. But, I do also like the regular updates and content.
In the end, I suppose, if I'm having fun then I'll continue to sub.
It's not about fighting, it's about balance. It's not about enlightenment, it's about balance. It's not about balance.
WOW will disagree.
It has the biggest sub base and holding at 10M more than anyone else. What it did in recent years? It introduces LFD/LFR to great success .. which are features that does NOT encourage creation of social groups. In fact, these features have the opposite effects.
Now if you are talking about small group co-op content .. and features to make it convenient .. then yes.
Wait, so WoW will disagree because it had 10 million players...for years...before it introduced the features that you say are the reason why WoW isnt a social group game? wait...wut?
The LFG/LFR options were put in place for the part of the playerbase that were not in massive guilds or who did not have guildmates on. WoW was from a few months in, a group based game and within the first year became a raid based game...raids that only the best guilds were able to complete.
It may not be the "social group" like SWG...but it IS a social group based game...and before you say it was mostly solo friendly...so was SWG.
I'm talking about anything that encourages you to build that friends list or join that guild helps keep subs longer. I'm taking a stab at this of course because I lack concrete numbers but I would say people who play MMO's solo on average have a much higher turn around time (game hopping) than people who build and participate in group activiites.
WoW obviously wants both audiences. They want the 2-6 month of subs a strickly solo player who plays it like a Single player game with people around (their is always the chance that person will meet up with a strong established social group and stick around longer) and they want the 7 year and counting subs from those people who have built multiple pages of friends list and would loose contact with most of them if they quit the game. The question from the OP was how does MMO's hold subs over the long term and I believe strongly that it's building social bonds in game. That doesn't have to be exclusivly raiding either that's just one of the easier ways to do it.
While that might be a secondary effect that will keep people longer, if you don't have a good, fun, entertaining game in the first place, no matter how many social activities you put in, people are going to leave.
Most games suck.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
You have now. I picture myself as the character in the games I play.
My blog is a continuing story of what MMO's should be like.
I wouldn't cancel my subscription if it would just have decent, Non B-movies on the streaming app...
Oh wait, this isn't the Netflix subscription forum!
Taru-Gallante-Blood elf-Elysean-Kelari-Crime Fighting-Imperial Agent
Longer time to level or can not max out everything (EVE).
Features that encourage players to socialize and group up.
Many different classes or skill sets to level that bring unique gameplay (SWG doctor or Diplomacy in Vanguard).
Many distractions from leveling that you can do for fun or profit.
A game world with a continuing story. A story that is affected by the players via live events, dynamic events, or PvP player events.
Excellent integration of World PvP instead of Warzones.
One part of the audience likes the kind of game that's been honed over the last few years but consumes the content very fast so they simply need new track to be laid faster at the end of the levelling line.
I think for the other part of the audience the game needs
Worldliness
becase a worldly game world has the most replayability.
Skyrim and especially Morrowind are good examples of a worldly world where you have unique races/cultures/classes and you don't need to invent quests, events and conflicts because they are natural extensions of the race's lore and playing a different race - if say Morrowind and Skyrim (minus the main quest) were the equivalent of a MMORPG race's section of the game world - or a different class was like playing a completely different game - same game, same engine same basic mechanics but flavor so different it feels like a different game.
I think this is particularly so for re-subs i.e. all the people who play six months and then take a break but keep coming back - like i keep going back to Morrowind. I think there's probably at least twice as many total WoW subscribers than the official number it's just they're not all subbed at once.
Also it seems to me the most cost-benefit is in creating the worldly content. If you have a level 1-50 game and make two very distinctive level 1-20 experiences then the fast levellers will go through one of them then the level 21-50 content then want more. The other type of player are liable to try both level 1-20 experiences. If you have a dozen like that (pencilled in not neccessarily all live from the beginning) then the first kind of player will consume one while the second are liable to go through all twelve. Even more so if the racial/cultural classes have unique gameplay too - e.g. one race's summoner class learns one main generic spell and then has to fight mobs to learn how to conjure them and uses captured souls to fuel their spells while another mage class gains their spells by tracking down and doing jobs for tutors and powers their spells by grinding parts of magical creatures into dust which acts like ammo - anything that makes the levelling experience *feel* different. Or a race/culture has a speciifc unique activity like WoW's archaeology being only a Dwarf thing and Elves having something different.
TL;DR
Either
- add extra high level content very fast (or make endgame PvP mass popular so players make their own content)
or
- worldiness, (because successful wordiness stops a lot of players ever getting to max level)
or both
People usually unsubscriibe when they are playing and get to a point when they cant progress, either by lack of quests or lack of any good gear available, alot of games have these pitfalls that put off alot of players.
Sub class,not a cheap thrown together one either,a well thought out one like FFFXI.
Questing with a better emaning than linear game play,example NO xp or minimal loot rewards.I like to see a whoel new system designed around it ,similar again to FFXI.
definitive Class and Race stats/options ect ect,a lot can be done here.
Pets/breeding combo pets/mounts ect ect.again tons can be done here.Fighting pets/mounts,pets that are simple mobile carrying units ect ect.
Housing..similar to EQ2 but without ANY cash shop and expanded.This area alone could net any developer millions of gamers,i am 100% positive of it.Developers just need to quit looking for cheaper alternatives in game play.Housing would be a gold mine if done really good.
In depth combat system,i also prefer REALISM in not only combat ,but the entire game.This means fighting as a group 1-2 creatures,not 6-24 very unrealistic.I like tons of depth here involving everything from accuracy,to speed,piercing,blunt,slashing,ranged,melee,elemental properties,terrain properties,day/night properties ect ect,tons can be done here.I also want to see grouping design,example 1-2-3 players forming combo attacks ect ect.This was a game breaker for me in SWTOR they put VERY little effort into their combat design.
I would love to see any game utilize an ECO system,i know it is very hard to pull off and very resource intensive,but would add a ton of realism and just bring a game world to life.
I love seeing creatures attack the cities,it is realistic or even outposts,again so much can be done here.
In depth crafting with lots of secrets to discover.
To be honest man,FFXI covered most of what i just laid out for great gaming,it is really sad to see so many games lately cut tons of corners for content.Even the content games are putting out is only done half ass,we need some REAL developers willing to put their heart into the game.The problem right now is develoeprs are more worried about profit than quality.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
some other things i forgot
- once fast levellers have hit max with one character let them start new characters at 10 below max or something. if they're pvpers wanting to try a FOTM class or raiders who need to level a specific class for their guild they're not levelling for fun. it's just a chore hence why they complain about it
- alternate ways of creating replayability
1) difficulty modes e.g. a hardcore mode
2) alternate meta progression i.e. any class can select a path for a new character from a list of options like hunter, explorer, loremaster, hero which have a set of unique quests/achievements and resulting benefits that run alongside regular levelling so not only might levelling a Nord fighter feel very different from a Dark Elf fighter (at least for the first half of the levelling experience) and a a dark elf fighter feel different from a dark elf mage but also a dark elf fighter with the hero path would feel at leats a bit different from a dark elf fighter with the explorer path
- then you can add in some unique quests/achievements/experiences for different crafts etc
- conflicts between various factions where you can only pick one side with quests/achievements/rewards unique to each faction like the dwarves/giants in EQ's Velious
- moral paths i.e. each player has a morality between 1 (evil) through 3 (neutral) to 5 (goodie) and quests have a similar number and you're only eligible for quests within 1 point of your setting
so a Nord fighter goodie / explorer / leatherworker allied to the ent faction levelling from 1-24 might involve 50% different quests / activities from a Nord fighter neutral / hunter / fletcher allied to the rogue faction or a Nord fighter evil / loremaster / weaponsmith allied to the frost giant faction.
3) Make crafting for crafters; don't make a compromise between people who like crafting and people who don't. The people who don't like crafting won't stay subbed for longer just because of the crafting. People who do like crafting will.
But those are just the things that make people feel like a place is home.