SWG. I remember the row after NGE hit, and all the fanbois defending SOE for gutting and destroying the game. I'll never forget these players for providing cover for SOE.
Weird. I don't think I saw anyone defend the NGE. All I remember are the constant Han Solo quotes of, "Get out of here kid, this thing is gunna blow!"
Yeah, you are correct that many players bombed the forums with their disgust (me included) after the NGE announcement and change. The initial voices in support of NGE were mostly drowned out by the rest of us. But if you stayed with NGE for a month or more as I did to see if I could stomach it, the disgusted players were leaving, and their voices replaced with the rainbow and unicorns crowd. So I was unclear above with regard to time frame. I guess at that point the damage was done, so fanbois were irrelevent really.. though perhaps we could have gotten a reset ( lol, yeah right! )
Star Trek Online. The fanboism was so rampant for this game, and look at it. A hollow shell of the Star Trek IP. Oddly enough, it wasn't the Star Trek fans who were the fanbois. It was the Star Trek fans who were trying to wrestle it away from mmo fanbois and beta seeker toadies.
LOTRO. My guild and I were some of the most vocal critics of the direction LOTRO took before Alpha. The small size and lack of 'sandboxiness' seemed to do the IP a disservice. And while the game was somewhat successful, I still believe it would have been more successful had the Fanbois not won the day.
SWG. I remember the row after NGE hit, and all the fanbois defending SOE for gutting and destroying the game. I'll never forget these players for providing cover for SOE.
SWTOR: Fanbois wrecked efforts to implement after launch changes that needed to happen, and also gave undeserved praise for changes that should never have happened. See now how fanbois are praising this new Space xpac when it is in fact nearly as bad as the rail shooter as far as what the game needs.
I agree with Raph. To be honest, if I were developing a game, I'd hardly ever listen to anything fanbois say.
Oh and I forgot that right now, Fanbois are really in danger of wrecking Elder Scrolls Online. Yes-men and toadies are the bane of game development.
All very good examples. Developers should be taking notes here.
Those NGE supporting fanbois were the absolute worst. Still will occasionally see an NGE fanboi crawl out from under a rock and say the changes were a good thing.
The most documented case of fanbois run a muck is what happened in APB. Here is a link to a print article in the Guardian UK newspaper.
Example Quote laid off real time worlds employee:
One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.
At APB and company presentations, management went out and cherry-picked only positive comments from forums to share with the development team. At one such meeting, one team member actually stood up and expressed concerned about the dismissive attitude displayed toward APB's criticism, and received a "don't worry" response. There was a culture of emailing around only positive previews and reviews of the game. I got the feeling that many people were in a state of denial, though the fact that the denial got stronger as the criticism for APB got worse indicated that people were aware at some level that all was not well.
This is exactly what Ralph Koster was talking about in his interview.
Star Trek Online. The fanboism was so rampant for this game, and look at it. A hollow shell of the Star Trek IP. Oddly enough, it wasn't the Star Trek fans who were the fanbois. It was the Star Trek fans who were trying to wrestle it away from mmo fanbois and beta seeker toadies.
LOTRO. My guild and I were some of the most vocal critics of the direction LOTRO took before Alpha. The small size and lack of 'sandboxiness' seemed to do the IP a disservice. And while the game was somewhat successful, I still believe it would have been more successful had the Fanbois not won the day.
SWG. I remember the row after NGE hit, and all the fanbois defending SOE for gutting and destroying the game. I'll never forget these players for providing cover for SOE.
SWTOR: Fanbois wrecked efforts to implement after launch changes that needed to happen, and also gave undeserved praise for changes that should never have happened. See now how fanbois are praising this new Space xpac when it is in fact nearly as bad as the rail shooter as far as what the game needs.
I agree with Raph. To be honest, if I were developing a game, I'd hardly ever listen to anything fanbois say.
Oh and I forgot that right now, Fanbois are really in danger of wrecking Elder Scrolls Online. Yes-men and toadies are the bane of game development.
All very good examples. Developers should be taking notes here.
Those NGE supporting fanbois were the absolute worst. Still will occasionally see an NGE fanboi crawl out from under a rock and say the changes were a good thing.
The most documented case of fanbois run a muck is what happened in APB. Here is a link to a print article in the Guardian UK newspaper.
Example Quote laid off real time worlds employee:
One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.
At APB and company presentations, management went out and cherry-picked only positive comments from forums to share with the development team. At one such meeting, one team member actually stood up and expressed concerned about the dismissive attitude displayed toward APB's criticism, and received a "don't worry" response. There was a culture of emailing around only positive previews and reviews of the game. I got the feeling that many people were in a state of denial, though the fact that the denial got stronger as the criticism for APB got worse indicated that people were aware at some level that all was not well.
This is exactly what Ralph Koster was talking about in his interview.
Well, I think managing your team with a balance of praise and criticism is easier that creating a game community that doesn't have any extreme fanboys. Those types of people will just happen. Having your community managers not crush any slight amount of negativity where it actually is constructive may reduce the fanboy defense force to some degree. Hard to to say.
Originally posted by Scalpless If your game's crafting is widely regarded as awesome and people praise it everywhere, listening to the few guys who say it sucks (and they'll exist no matter what) is far from smart.
I did say at the top that the two things you most want to hear are what you did right and what you did wrong.
People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is. Especially watch out for the ones who tell you that nobody understands your genius.
Honestly, this is going to sound horrible, but self-doubt is one of your most powerful tools for craftsmanship. None of the designers you admire feel self-confident about their work in that way. None of them think that they are awesome. They all suffer from impostor complexes the size of the Titanic.
I am not saying that you need to lack confidence in yourself. (Heck, you’ll never put anything out if that’s the case! You need to have the arrogance to assume anyone will care in the first place). I am saying that nobody is ever done learning, and people who tell you you have arrived will give you a sense of complacency. You should never be complacent about your art.
Obviously you are unable to distinguish between HATE and CRITICISM. Especially when we are talking about MMO, haters (not critical minds) are prevalent.
What he was getting at is that you learn nothing from those who think your game is great and plenty from those who do not think it is that good.
So for a dev the naysayers are more useful. But a game gaming company does not just have devs in it, I am sure marketing is very happy with the fanbois.
It's a bit silly even from a developer perspective. You also want to know what you did right. When the vast majority praises a feature, it's not "fanboism", it's that the feature is simply good. The few grumpy sad people who think otherwise won't change that fact.
It's a weird perspective to have. If your game's crafting is widely regarded as awesome and people praise it everywhere, listening to the few guys who say it sucks (and they'll exist no matter what) is far from smart.
This is the flaw in the argument as you say. But likewise I am sure we have all seen changes in MMOs based on the popular opinions of the players, which can be totally wrong. If naysayers are giving constructive criticism, suggesting solutions and not just "I don't like this" that what the devs should be looking out for.
This is the flaw in the argument as you say. But likewise I am sure we have all seen changes in MMOs based on the popular opinions of the players, which can be totally wrong. If naysayers are giving constructive criticism, suggesting solutions and not just "I don't like this" that what the devs should be looking out for.
It is very hard to distinguish between critics who know what they're talking about and those who do not. Luckily sometimes you can do something. For example, should you listen to all the players regarding PvP balance or just the top players? Or should you listen to the veteran players regarding the new player experience rather than the new players themselves?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
This is the flaw in the argument as you say. But likewise I am sure we have all seen changes in MMOs based on the popular opinions of the players, which can be totally wrong. If naysayers are giving constructive criticism, suggesting solutions and not just "I don't like this" that what the devs should be looking out for.
It is very hard to distinguish between critics who know what they're talking about and those who do not. Luckily sometimes you can do something. For example, should you listen to all the players regarding PvP balance or just the top players? Or should you listen to the veteran players regarding the new player experience rather than the new players themselves?
Good point. Most players only "complain" or "critic" with personal interest in mind, aka getting themself more powerful, and don't give a shit about balance, true for PvE/raiding but even more when we are talking about PvP.
At the end, developers have statistics and data they should use, instead of listening to the most vocal whiners or praisers.
And since he is correct, I'll point out that he destroyed Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy by betraying his own principles. How Raph still has a voice in the industry is a mystery.
It is very hard to distinguish between critics who know what they're talking about and those who do not.
I would argue that it doesn't matter if someone knows what they are talking about, what matters is whether or not they are enjoying their experience. This isn't so much "listen to your players' suggestions" as "listen to their pain".
If one subset of your players is unhappy and another subset is saying "we don't care if you are upset about it, we like it", there is a danger that your community is going to start bleeding alienated players. There is a problem that needs to be solved. But as the community divides into adversarial camps, the suggestions/demands coming out of players are going to be more and more skewed in favour of one camp or the other.
What about it is causing the pain? Are players reacting to the mechanic the way you expected and intended? Is it really worth losing players over it? That sort of objective analysis is really hard to do when you have defenders circling the wagons to protect you and your vision from the whiners, shouting down complaints even to the point of helping push unhappy players right out of the game.
This is the flaw in the argument as you say. But likewise I am sure we have all seen changes in MMOs based on the popular opinions of the players, which can be totally wrong. If naysayers are giving constructive criticism, suggesting solutions and not just "I don't like this" that what the devs should be looking out for.
It is very hard to distinguish between critics who know what they're talking about and those who do not. Luckily sometimes you can do something. For example, should you listen to all the players regarding PvP balance or just the top players? Or should you listen to the veteran players regarding the new player experience rather than the new players themselves?
Actualy I think it's valuable to listen to anyone who takes the time to put forward thoughtfull and detailed feedback about an application. It doesn't really matter whether the user is technicaly correct about how the application actualy works, because the users perception of how an application works is equaly if not more important then how the application works and that perception came from somewhere. It can just point to a different type of issue....one related to information rather then function. Again....big difference between....understanding what a user has to say and letting them take the drivers seat of what you are trying to do.
It's also important to understand that sometimes users can be perfectly correct in the points they are making but it doesn't really matter because they aren't really the target audience that the application was designed for.
And since he is correct, I'll point out that he destroyed Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy by betraying his own principles. How Raph still has a voice in the industry is a mystery.
I never went by Lord Dupre...?
In any case, at a guess you are referring to
1) Trammel
2) The NGE, maybe the CU.
Those are usually what people mean when they say stuff like that. Only thing is, I didn't do either one of those, they were after my time on each project.
Even if I had, though, I must point out that they wouldn't have existed in the first place without me; that might help explain why I still have a voice.
That said, I of course have made mistakes. I try to be upfront about them. Just, those two mistakes don't happen to be mine.
It is very hard to distinguish between critics who know what they're talking about and those who do not.
I would argue that it doesn't matter if someone knows what they are talking about, what matters is whether or not they are enjoying their experience. This isn't so much "listen to your players' suggestions" as "listen to their pain".
If one subset of your players is unhappy and another subset is saying "we don't care if you are upset about it, we like it", there is a danger that your community is going to start bleeding alienated players. There is a problem that needs to be solved. But as the community divides into adversarial camps, the suggestions/demands coming out of players are going to be more and more skewed in favour of one camp or the other.
What about it is causing the pain? Are players reacting to the mechanic the way you expected and intended? Is it really worth losing players over it? That sort of objective analysis is really hard to do when you have defenders circling the wagons to protect you and your vision from the whiners, shouting down complaints even to the point of helping push unhappy players right out of the game.
Speaking genericaly about applications not just games or MMO's, this can also be the symptom of a problem created by marketing, PR, sales or even management not the designers or developers. Not every product is designed for every user or type of audience. Sometimes the real reason people are complaining is because they were sold something entirely different from the product you were supposed to and did produce.
This is an incredibly difficult lesson for executives, marketers and sales staff to learn. Thier natural inclination is to try to sell a product to as many people as they possibly can. That can lead to a quick, large influx of cash....but it also usualy leads to a short lived company. Long lived companies generaly try to sell products to as many people as the product will serve well.... and try to avoid selling a product to anyone it's not suited for. You may lose a sale by doing that....but the other way around you lose a customer and the potential of any future sales. It takes alot of discipline from management and sales and marketing to do that.....and alot of them fail at it.
As a designer/developer, it's also important to recognize when you've inhereted that type of situation....and what, if anything, you can do about it.....sometimes there just isn't anything.
Originally posted by Raph Originally posted by xaraphLord Dupre is correct.And since he is correct, I'll point out that he destroyed Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy by betraying his own principles. How Raph still has a voice in the industry is a mystery.
I never went by Lord Dupre...?
In any case, at a guess you are referring to
1) Trammel
2) The NGE, maybe the CU.
Those are usually what people mean when they say stuff like that. Only thing is, I didn't do either one of those, they were after my time on each project.
Even if I had, though, I must point out that they wouldn't have existed in the first place without me; that might help explain why I still have a voice.
That said, I of course have made mistakes. I try to be upfront about them. Just, those two mistakes don't happen to be mine.
heh, he's gone.
Only thing I blame you for is showing me what an mmo could be. Now I have to deal with everyone else catching up. Its happening though. Slowly but surely.
Heh it's not just gaming. Go run a marathon; it's truly pathetic when +50 geriatrics finish in the top 1% among a field of predominately -25 yr olds
We +50 geriatrics grew up chasing bulls to pin the tail on, and if we wanted a lucky rabbit's foot we had to chase it down ourselves. So it's not really fair.
It is very hard to distinguish between critics who know what they're talking about and those who do not.
I would argue that it doesn't matter if someone knows what they are talking about, what matters is whether or not they are enjoying their experience. This isn't so much "listen to your players' suggestions" as "listen to their pain".
If one subset of your players is unhappy and another subset is saying "we don't care if you are upset about it, we like it", there is a danger that your community is going to start bleeding alienated players. There is a problem that needs to be solved. But as the community divides into adversarial camps, the suggestions/demands coming out of players are going to be more and more skewed in favour of one camp or the other.
What about it is causing the pain? Are players reacting to the mechanic the way you expected and intended? Is it really worth losing players over it? That sort of objective analysis is really hard to do when you have defenders circling the wagons to protect you and your vision from the whiners, shouting down complaints even to the point of helping push unhappy players right out of the game.
Speaking genericaly about applications not just games or MMO's, this can also be the symptom of a problem created by marketing, PR, sales or even management not the designers or developers. Not every product is designed for every user or type of audience. Sometimes the real reason people are complaining is because they were sold something entirely different from the product you were supposed to and did produce.
This is an incredibly difficult lesson for executives, marketers and sales staff to learn. Thier natural inclination is to try to sell a product to as many people as they possibly can. That can lead to a quick, large influx of cash....but it also usualy leads to a short lived company. Long lived companies generaly try to sell products to as many people as the product will serve well.... and try to avoid selling a product to anyone it's not suited for. You may lose a sale by doing that....but the other way around you lose a customer and the potential of any future sales. It takes alot of discipline from management and sales and marketing to do that.....and alot of them fail at it.
As a designer/developer, it's also important to recognize when you've inhereted that type of situation....and what, if anything, you can do about it.....sometimes there just isn't anything.
I'm going to hijack what GM2 says here about audience to make my own point, seeing as the ama is kicking off late:
Good work may not have an audience.
This is a sad truth. There is no correlation between quality and popularity. You may make something that is sophisticated, subtle, expressive, brilliant, and lose out to what is shallow and facile and brash. Oh well. And that really is the right attitude to have about it, too: oh well. Getting bitter about it is pointless.
That said, don’t underestimate the skill required in being simple, polished, and accessible. Dense and rich is easy. Simple is hard.You denigrate “pop” at your peril.
I've probably been harping on in these forums to only make this one single point: The audience is the "work". If there's no audience or too small an audience for "good work" in the video-game industry then you're using the wrong approach (making games) or targeting the wrong audience for your work ("video-games players who may simply be consumers").
I'ts especially pertinent because the dilemma of mmorpgs is to get the highest sub numbers possible/biggest marketshare instead of what would make a better mmorpg - making a mmorpg for a specific audience or a well organized community of players for the long-term. That contract between developer and player being more mutually in agreement and honest.
The opposite and prevalent with mmorpgs because they're such demanding endeavours (which involves the marketing talking heads pitching their sales slippery) if you're making a sort of high risk to bring to market entertainment product that involves large teams of experts to bring about such then the tendency to produce it for any random punter that's a very different proposition, more purely commercial exercise that can be measured by how much money it makes/how popular it becomes for it's definition of success: You're pressing some buttons right if you're achieving those goals to be sure. But you could ask yourself am I providing better means for players to be able to time-waste (people are not very good at being bored!) or have I been side-tracked away from making better means for players to use their creativity, in an attempt to make the product launching successfully?
Thanks for writing the blog the "rules of mmos" especially is a favorite - the François de La Rochefoucauld aphorisms of mmorpgs appropriately so.
Hmm, a dramatic flourish is called for /deletes account.
=
>"That said, don’t underestimate the skill required in being simple, polished, and accessible." ~ Check out Steph Thirion's wip "Faraway"
And since he is correct, I'll point out that he destroyed Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy by betraying his own principles. How Raph still has a voice in the industry is a mystery.
At some point you just need to let it go and stop throwing things back in the face of anyone in the way. It was a long time ago in an mmo and internet ecosystem that is now far far away.
How does he still have a voice in the industry? Because he's still alive, still has good ideas, and has the potential to create great games. It's the same thing with any long term veteran developer/designer - Richard Garriott, Marc Jacobs, Scott Hartsman, Matt Miller, Jeff Strain, just to toss around a few big names, but there are tons of other less publicized people that could go on that list - Every one has made some bad design decisions at one point or another. Why are they still relevant? Because they still have good ideas and a lot of experience and most importantly a desire to try new things based on their experiences in the past.
Sometimes things don't work right. Sometimes they do. One doesn't stop doing just because it all went wrong one time. That also doesn't make what they have to offer irrelevant. Ask yourself this: Who are you to dismiss the entirety of what another person has to offer?
"has the potential to create great games" - i don't play potential, I play games. Raph has not produced anything successful for a long long time. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Just go on any gaming site and you will see.
"Who are you to dismiss the entirety of what another person has to offer?" .... i am a consumer. I can dismiss anyone for any reason. I have no obligation to take him, or anyone else seriously. Not only he has no games to offer me, even if he does, i can just decide not to give his stuff a chance just because i have so many other entertainment option.
I might be alone among the sea of savages here when I throw this out, but you should look up 'groupthink'. It's a more generalized concept of the same issue. Amusing enough, most of the discussion taking place in this thread is a rehash of the talks I've seen three to four decades ago (without the narrow focus on video games, of course).
"has the potential to create great games" - i don't play potential, I play games. Raph has not produced anything successful for a long long time.
Actually, the last several games I did out of my studio (Island Life, My Vineyard) got over a million players. They just weren't MMOs. I realize that means you likely don't care about them, but they made a lot of folks happy... I still get fan mail about them too. Not all games are for this audience.
"has the potential to create great games" - i don't play potential, I play games. Raph has not produced anything successful for a long long time.
Actually, the last several games I did out of my studio (Island Life, My Vineyard) got over a million players. They just weren't MMOs. I realize that means you likely don't care about them, but they made a lot of folks happy... I still get fan mail about them too. Not all games are for this audience.
Those don't count!
I kid! I kid!
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
Fanbois might not be "good for the industry" in terms of developer feedback, but they are absolutely necessary on this kind of website as the visitors here are looking for news and opinions (good and bad) about current and upcoming MMOs
Jeez Narius, that is rather rude and unkind. I wasn't asking you to play a potential, but everything starts as potential. Where is it written that one must produces hit after hit in order to have a relevant opinion? If that was a requirement here to voice our perspective this forum would be desolate and I doubt either of us would make that list. Good ideas are not a dime a dozen. Poorly thought thought out ideas are a dime a dozen. We have no further to look than this site. Most of the ideas here aren't good and aren't well conceived. Good execution of ideas is even rarer in my opinion. Even so what does that have to do with anything? Good ideas are the seed from which everything else springs. You can't go anywhere without them.
You can dismiss them personally, but maybe you misunderstood the inference in that none of us are in a position to dismiss a person for the broader populace. You don't have an obligation to take him seriously, but you also are in no position to remove that option for me or anyone else here. That was my point about the summary dismissal.
Maybe this escaped you, but this is not a discussion about deliverables. It is a philosophical discussion about practical approaches to application design as it pertains to the gaming industry. It's also very relevant for those of us who are developers, analysts, and programmers in other fields.
Your point is - "I don't have to listen" stated in a most obnoxious and rude manner. To which I say, well then don't listen that's your right, but the discussion here is precisely relevant to what I do for a living so please don't tell me we shouldn't be discussing this or that he shouldn't have voiced his opinion.
And i state only my personal attitude and said absolutely nothing about what you should or should not do.
Again, i answer the question "Who are you to dismiss the entirety of what another person has to offer?". And the answer is the same. On a personal level, i *am* dismissing his ideas because i think he is a has-been and has not produced anything good for a long time. But again, my reasons are irrelevant. I can dismiss, on a personal level, anyone for any reason.
If you misconstrue that i am giving you advice, that is your problem of comprehension. Of course it is your prerogative to listen to, or not listen to, anyone on the internet.
This is a great read. And I remember in the early days of MMOs, the discussions were a lot more nuanced in betaforums, releaseforums and on topic pages. One reason might have been it was such a new medium, this crazy MMO concept, that people were not stuck in their history, picking things from earlier games they liked, but had to think for themselves about what type of game they wanted to play, and try to solve problems with an empty frame of reference. ideas came from different angles, never before seen, and it was hard to be completly adamant and unable to shift your opinion because you were diving in unknown waters. We could theorize freely because everything was just that, theories. To this day, betaforums of SWG was the most fun I have ever had in any MMO development phase. The ideas, the pros and cons moving back and forth about an extremly complex system, and wishes, hopes and dreams came from within your own imagination, not just "You got to do this the same as game X, otherwise you will fail"
Now it has been years since I have even bothered to reply in a Beta forum, because of this war between "It is flawless!" and "It sucks because it's not like..." Both sides need to cool down yes. But the uncritical, unthinking and unhelping fanboism is the side that do the most damage. As said, it is the side that tell developers to stop improving.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force"
Originally posted by nariusseldon Originally posted by Torvaldr
Jeez Narius, that is rather rude and unkind. I wasn't asking you to play a potential, but everything starts as potential. Where is it written that one must produces hit after hit in order to have a relevant opinion? If that was a requirement here to voice our perspective this forum would be desolate and I doubt either of us would make that list. Good ideas are not a dime a dozen. Poorly thought thought out ideas are a dime a dozen. We have no further to look than this site. Most of the ideas here aren't good and aren't well conceived. Good execution of ideas is even rarer in my opinion. Even so what does that have to do with anything? Good ideas are the seed from which everything else springs. You can't go anywhere without them.You can dismiss them personally, but maybe you misunderstood the inference in that none of us are in a position to dismiss a person for the broader populace. You don't have an obligation to take him seriously, but you also are in no position to remove that option for me or anyone else here. That was my point about the summary dismissal.Maybe this escaped you, but this is not a discussion about deliverables. It is a philosophical discussion about practical approaches to application design as it pertains to the gaming industry. It's also very relevant for those of us who are developers, analysts, and programmers in other fields.Your point is - "I don't have to listen" stated in a most obnoxious and rude manner. To which I say, well then don't listen that's your right, but the discussion here is precisely relevant to what I do for a living so please don't tell me we shouldn't be discussing this or that he shouldn't have voiced his opinion.And i state only my personal attitude and said absolutely nothing about what you should or should not do.
Again, i answer the question "Who are you to dismiss the entirety of what another person has to offer?". And the answer is the same. On a personal level, i *am* dismissing his ideas because i think he is a has-been and has not produced anything good for a long time. But again, my reasons are irrelevant. I can dismiss, on a personal level, anyone for any reason.
If you misconstrue that i am giving you advice, that is your problem of comprehension. Of course it is your prerogative to listen to, or not listen to, anyone on the internet.
I think you come into threads, pick and choose a few lines to start a fight over, while ignoring the topic. If you are challenged, you feign "its just my opinion".
The problem is that you do this in almost every thread you enter. Its not polite to join a discussion only to say basically, "I don't care about this topic." Which you do so constantly.
I would like to hear what you think about some of this stuff other than, "Who cares, doesn't affect me so its irrelevant."
I dunno, maybe it goes against your whole anti social philosophy. But nearly 15000 posts here would indicate that in fact you are desperate for human contact. So be constructive and I would be happy to engage you in a healthy debate
Comments
Yeah, you are correct that many players bombed the forums with their disgust (me included) after the NGE announcement and change. The initial voices in support of NGE were mostly drowned out by the rest of us. But if you stayed with NGE for a month or more as I did to see if I could stomach it, the disgusted players were leaving, and their voices replaced with the rainbow and unicorns crowd. So I was unclear above with regard to time frame. I guess at that point the damage was done, so fanbois were irrelevent really.. though perhaps we could have gotten a reset ( lol, yeah right! )
All very good examples. Developers should be taking notes here.
Those NGE supporting fanbois were the absolute worst. Still will occasionally see an NGE fanboi crawl out from under a rock and say the changes were a good thing.
The most documented case of fanbois run a muck is what happened in APB. Here is a link to a print article in the Guardian UK newspaper.
Example Quote laid off real time worlds employee:
One problem leading up to launch was that most people on the team weren't willing to express any negative feelings about the game. In my opinion, there was a great deal of "team spirit", too much perhaps. You see, on the beta forums, there were many players that were very vocal on explaining why the game wasn't fun. Some were extremely constructive. For the most part, these individuals were brutally torn up by the APB fan base and forum moderators. Many threads were closed, and people with negative comments about the game were branded "trolls". Not many brave souls on the team were willing to stand up and agree with these trolls.
At APB and company presentations, management went out and cherry-picked only positive comments from forums to share with the development team. At one such meeting, one team member actually stood up and expressed concerned about the dismissive attitude displayed toward APB's criticism, and received a "don't worry" response. There was a culture of emailing around only positive previews and reviews of the game. I got the feeling that many people were in a state of denial, though the fact that the denial got stronger as the criticism for APB got worse indicated that people were aware at some level that all was not well.
This is exactly what Ralph Koster was talking about in his interview.
Well, I think managing your team with a balance of praise and criticism is easier that creating a game community that doesn't have any extreme fanboys. Those types of people will just happen. Having your community managers not crush any slight amount of negativity where it actually is constructive may reduce the fanboy defense force to some degree. Hard to to say.
I did say at the top that the two things you most want to hear are what you did right and what you did wrong.
Obviously you are unable to distinguish between HATE and CRITICISM. Especially when we are talking about MMO, haters (not critical minds) are prevalent.
This is the flaw in the argument as you say. But likewise I am sure we have all seen changes in MMOs based on the popular opinions of the players, which can be totally wrong. If naysayers are giving constructive criticism, suggesting solutions and not just "I don't like this" that what the devs should be looking out for.
It is very hard to distinguish between critics who know what they're talking about and those who do not. Luckily sometimes you can do something. For example, should you listen to all the players regarding PvP balance or just the top players? Or should you listen to the veteran players regarding the new player experience rather than the new players themselves?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Good point. Most players only "complain" or "critic" with personal interest in mind, aka getting themself more powerful, and don't give a shit about balance, true for PvE/raiding but even more when we are talking about PvP.
At the end, developers have statistics and data they should use, instead of listening to the most vocal whiners or praisers.
My computer is better than yours.
Lord Dupre is correct.
And since he is correct, I'll point out that he destroyed Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxy by betraying his own principles. How Raph still has a voice in the industry is a mystery.
I would argue that it doesn't matter if someone knows what they are talking about, what matters is whether or not they are enjoying their experience. This isn't so much "listen to your players' suggestions" as "listen to their pain".
If one subset of your players is unhappy and another subset is saying "we don't care if you are upset about it, we like it", there is a danger that your community is going to start bleeding alienated players. There is a problem that needs to be solved. But as the community divides into adversarial camps, the suggestions/demands coming out of players are going to be more and more skewed in favour of one camp or the other.
What about it is causing the pain? Are players reacting to the mechanic the way you expected and intended? Is it really worth losing players over it? That sort of objective analysis is really hard to do when you have defenders circling the wagons to protect you and your vision from the whiners, shouting down complaints even to the point of helping push unhappy players right out of the game.
Actualy I think it's valuable to listen to anyone who takes the time to put forward thoughtfull and detailed feedback about an application. It doesn't really matter whether the user is technicaly correct about how the application actualy works, because the users perception of how an application works is equaly if not more important then how the application works and that perception came from somewhere. It can just point to a different type of issue....one related to information rather then function. Again....big difference between....understanding what a user has to say and letting them take the drivers seat of what you are trying to do.
It's also important to understand that sometimes users can be perfectly correct in the points they are making but it doesn't really matter because they aren't really the target audience that the application was designed for.
I never went by Lord Dupre...?
In any case, at a guess you are referring to
1) Trammel
2) The NGE, maybe the CU.
Those are usually what people mean when they say stuff like that. Only thing is, I didn't do either one of those, they were after my time on each project.
Even if I had, though, I must point out that they wouldn't have existed in the first place without me; that might help explain why I still have a voice.
That said, I of course have made mistakes. I try to be upfront about them. Just, those two mistakes don't happen to be mine.
Speaking genericaly about applications not just games or MMO's, this can also be the symptom of a problem created by marketing, PR, sales or even management not the designers or developers. Not every product is designed for every user or type of audience. Sometimes the real reason people are complaining is because they were sold something entirely different from the product you were supposed to and did produce.
This is an incredibly difficult lesson for executives, marketers and sales staff to learn. Thier natural inclination is to try to sell a product to as many people as they possibly can. That can lead to a quick, large influx of cash....but it also usualy leads to a short lived company. Long lived companies generaly try to sell products to as many people as the product will serve well.... and try to avoid selling a product to anyone it's not suited for. You may lose a sale by doing that....but the other way around you lose a customer and the potential of any future sales. It takes alot of discipline from management and sales and marketing to do that.....and alot of them fail at it.
As a designer/developer, it's also important to recognize when you've inhereted that type of situation....and what, if anything, you can do about it.....sometimes there just isn't anything.
In any case, at a guess you are referring to
1) Trammel
2) The NGE, maybe the CU.
Those are usually what people mean when they say stuff like that. Only thing is, I didn't do either one of those, they were after my time on each project.
Even if I had, though, I must point out that they wouldn't have existed in the first place without me; that might help explain why I still have a voice.
That said, I of course have made mistakes. I try to be upfront about them. Just, those two mistakes don't happen to be mine.
heh, he's gone.
Only thing I blame you for is showing me what an mmo could be. Now I have to deal with everyone else catching up. Its happening though. Slowly but surely.
We +50 geriatrics grew up chasing bulls to pin the tail on, and if we wanted a lucky rabbit's foot we had to chase it down ourselves. So it's not really fair.
Once upon a time....
I'm going to hijack what GM2 says here about audience to make my own point, seeing as the ama is kicking off late:
I've probably been harping on in these forums to only make this one single point: The audience is the "work". If there's no audience or too small an audience for "good work" in the video-game industry then you're using the wrong approach (making games) or targeting the wrong audience for your work ("video-games players who may simply be consumers").
I'ts especially pertinent because the dilemma of mmorpgs is to get the highest sub numbers possible/biggest marketshare instead of what would make a better mmorpg - making a mmorpg for a specific audience or a well organized community of players for the long-term. That contract between developer and player being more mutually in agreement and honest.
The opposite and prevalent with mmorpgs because they're such demanding endeavours (which involves the marketing talking heads pitching their sales slippery) if you're making a sort of high risk to bring to market entertainment product that involves large teams of experts to bring about such then the tendency to produce it for any random punter that's a very different proposition, more purely commercial exercise that can be measured by how much money it makes/how popular it becomes for it's definition of success: You're pressing some buttons right if you're achieving those goals to be sure. But you could ask yourself am I providing better means for players to be able to time-waste (people are not very good at being bored!) or have I been side-tracked away from making better means for players to use their creativity, in an attempt to make the product launching successfully?
Thanks for writing the blog the "rules of mmos" especially is a favorite - the François de La Rochefoucauld aphorisms of mmorpgs appropriately so.
Hmm, a dramatic flourish is called for /deletes account.
=
>"That said, don’t underestimate the skill required in being simple, polished, and accessible." ~ Check out Steph Thirion's wip "Faraway"
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
"has the potential to create great games" - i don't play potential, I play games. Raph has not produced anything successful for a long long time. Good ideas are a dime a dozen. Just go on any gaming site and you will see.
"Who are you to dismiss the entirety of what another person has to offer?" .... i am a consumer. I can dismiss anyone for any reason. I have no obligation to take him, or anyone else seriously. Not only he has no games to offer me, even if he does, i can just decide not to give his stuff a chance just because i have so many other entertainment option.
I might be alone among the sea of savages here when I throw this out, but you should look up 'groupthink'. It's a more generalized concept of the same issue. Amusing enough, most of the discussion taking place in this thread is a rehash of the talks I've seen three to four decades ago (without the narrow focus on video games, of course).
Actually, the last several games I did out of my studio (Island Life, My Vineyard) got over a million players. They just weren't MMOs.
I realize that means you likely don't care about them, but they made a lot of folks happy... I still get fan mail about them too. Not all games are for this audience.
Those don't count!
I kid! I kid!
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
And i state only my personal attitude and said absolutely nothing about what you should or should not do.
Again, i answer the question "Who are you to dismiss the entirety of what another person has to offer?". And the answer is the same. On a personal level, i *am* dismissing his ideas because i think he is a has-been and has not produced anything good for a long time. But again, my reasons are irrelevant. I can dismiss, on a personal level, anyone for any reason.
If you misconstrue that i am giving you advice, that is your problem of comprehension. Of course it is your prerogative to listen to, or not listen to, anyone on the internet.
This is a great read. And I remember in the early days of MMOs, the discussions were a lot more nuanced in betaforums, releaseforums and on topic pages. One reason might have been it was such a new medium, this crazy MMO concept, that people were not stuck in their history, picking things from earlier games they liked, but had to think for themselves about what type of game they wanted to play, and try to solve problems with an empty frame of reference. ideas came from different angles, never before seen, and it was hard to be completly adamant and unable to shift your opinion because you were diving in unknown waters. We could theorize freely because everything was just that, theories. To this day, betaforums of SWG was the most fun I have ever had in any MMO development phase. The ideas, the pros and cons moving back and forth about an extremly complex system, and wishes, hopes and dreams came from within your own imagination, not just "You got to do this the same as game X, otherwise you will fail"
Now it has been years since I have even bothered to reply in a Beta forum, because of this war between "It is flawless!" and "It sucks because it's not like..." Both sides need to cool down yes. But the uncritical, unthinking and unhelping fanboism is the side that do the most damage. As said, it is the side that tell developers to stop improving.
"This is not a game to be tossed aside lightly.
It should be thrown with great force"
And i state only my personal attitude and said absolutely nothing about what you should or should not do.
Again, i answer the question "Who are you to dismiss the entirety of what another person has to offer?". And the answer is the same. On a personal level, i *am* dismissing his ideas because i think he is a has-been and has not produced anything good for a long time. But again, my reasons are irrelevant. I can dismiss, on a personal level, anyone for any reason.
If you misconstrue that i am giving you advice, that is your problem of comprehension. Of course it is your prerogative to listen to, or not listen to, anyone on the internet.
I think you come into threads, pick and choose a few lines to start a fight over, while ignoring the topic. If you are challenged, you feign "its just my opinion".
The problem is that you do this in almost every thread you enter. Its not polite to join a discussion only to say basically, "I don't care about this topic." Which you do so constantly.
I would like to hear what you think about some of this stuff other than, "Who cares, doesn't affect me so its irrelevant."
I dunno, maybe it goes against your whole anti social philosophy. But nearly 15000 posts here would indicate that in fact you are desperate for human contact. So be constructive and I would be happy to engage you in a healthy debate
We've all come to an agreement on what MMOs truly are? I must have missed the memo.