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Smedley's Interview Ripped a New One
Calmar
Member Posts: 62
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Calmar
Member Posts: 62
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There is no best MMORPG, only favorites.
yup... i laughed... then i cried, because its true... i want pirates in SWG!
I wonder if Smedley was around when this guy spoke lol. I would have loved to see his expression...
Jeff Hickman
My rant is about how, as game developers, the fact that we often make changes to core pieces of our games after we launch. It's a critical error. Weve made changes to our games that were core changes and, while I cant say they were detrimental to our game, they probably didnt achieve the goals we wanted them to achieve.
As we make these games, we attract a certain type of player. They come to our game because of the things we put in there. The core functionality, the systems, the gameplay we put in, and then for whatever reason, because we see another game that looks really cool, thats maybe doing better than us, or we want to change our billing structure to make more money, or whatever the reason happens to be, we come out and make a systems change to our game, and what does it do? It alienates our current players. The people who are playing our game right now.
We go out and say, 'you know what, we want more of those players, we want that 3.5 million from that game over there.' So instead of sticking to the thing that our players really love, we
- Jeff Hickman
start changing it. And now were alienating the players playing our game, losing our subscribers. The 3.5 million who are over there playing that game, theyre happy. Theyre playing that game already. Were not attracting them or, its very difficult to attract them. So the chance that youre taking as a developer making those changes is so huge. And you see it happen all the time. If you look at the games out there, theres not many big games or small games that have not made that error. So, thats my rant.
Sound familiar cough cough SOE. Sounds like this guy knows his stuff. He flatly states that its a mistake to try and CHANGE the core game to better appeal to other players. As he said, they're happy over on that game and arent likely to leave. And in the end, you lose your own veteran players who grow unhappy with the game.
Hickman article good read; i think that is the bottom line, they were not happy with the piece of pie they had and as a result we shall soon see in the next 6 months what happens to that pie....
My favorite quotes and I think one's that need to be taken seriously are:
'Youve got three pages of design document and two years of code? Now you know why youre paying me ten-thousand dollars a month.' - Jessica Mulligan (She is so my hero)
'Youre all a bunch of nerds and we just want your money and thanks.' - Jessica Mulligan
"So instead of sticking to the thing that our players really love, we start changing it. And now were alienating the players playing our game, losing our subscribers" - Jeff Hickman
Important Information regarding Posting and You
here ya go:
Next time, read a little deeper
Awesome find.
Good article.
People need to read it.
Agree. I was looking forward to reading about someone ripping his idiot post to shreads point by point. Instead, I got to read 4 pages of more Devs listening to themselves talk .... Yippee.
I'd rather go read the 30 pages of 'Bye Tiggs' posts. At least they had some meaning.
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"Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." -- Batman
I think the "we act like a herd and aren't creative" thing is speaking directly about Schmedley.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
"Ignoring the Community is another rant. After Brians brilliant rant here, I am almost ashamed to say this, but you know you cant ignore your community. The one you see on the forums are obviously the very vocal minority. And they can screw you up if you listen to them too carefully. But they are an indicator of a significant fraction of your customer base and where theyre going." - Jessica Mulligan
To bad this was not the case of AC2. Didn't even take her own advice now did she.