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Interesting thing happening on the official DDO forum
Crash86
Member Posts: 125
Went to check out the DDO boards a few minutes ago (cleaning out links and thought I'd pop over for old time's sake), and noticed something. Some of the posters I remember as the most fervant supporters of the game are now leaving. No biggie ... that happens. What I find interesting is the reaction by the rest of the fanboy faction. The other fanboy types who stood shoulder to shoulder alongside these people throughout the wave of Founders leaving and the nearly 11 hour downtime that was the first module release are turning on them for deciding that the game lacks whatever they're looking for.
The fanboys who aren't leaving just yet are starting to post things like:
- "With each passing day I find myself less and less interested in logging on because my "less than cookie cutter" group of friends find ourselves frustrated."
- "It will be interesting to see how many people are still playing DDO by the end of summer..."
- "I am getting more disillusioned with this game daily. It is becoming more of a power gamer’s paradise daily. If you don’t max out your scores, and have super gear (which is not hard to get) you will not be able to finish the game."
- "they are already leaning in the direction of requiring a "holy trinity" to complete a dungeon....but now it is going to be a cookie cutter holy trinity to top it off."
- "These devs think making the game harder means to remove shrines so that you either spend a fortune on wands or you just don't get to do VoN. I won't even bother with that pathetic excuse for content."
All of that is in just one thread.
Their game needs new blood to survive. The folks who have been around the block are starting to see it for what it is. Even the some of the ones who tried to deny it during the Headstart and first month are seeing it now. Before long, only the hardcore fanboys will be left, and there probably aren't enough of them to keep the lights on.
More's the pity. So much potential unrealized.
Comments
This is almost exactly like AC2's fate except that it is happening even faster. This game is awful,and people know it.
Lothlore
Lothlore, again, you just say the game is aweful, no arguments... Are you paid by a rival company or did you work for Turbine in the past and were sacked? Where does this blind hate come from?
You may be missing the point a bit, Gevrik. The folks who posted the above quotes aren't the vocal majority of trolls. The folks i quoted from were up to now pretty hardcore supporters of the game ... definitely in the fanboy camp until very recently (apparently).
Most of the time a fanboy sours on a game they've been an apologist for, they just fade away for whatever reason (no need to post any longer sine they're not playing, embarassment at having supported a turkey, what have you). These folks aren't fading away quietly ... they're expressing their displeasure.
It is what it is .. just an observation I found interesting. Make of it what you will.
No you are missing my point, the people on the forum are not the majority of the playerbase, maybe 10% of that, and of course they are the vocal _minority_, nobody posts about a game they are happily playing.
Forum playerbase != Game playerbase
It's maybe 10% - 20% of the total number of players, that was my point. If you can't see how many people are happily playing, you can of course only get your opinion from the forum, but that is not the majority of players represented there.
I wouldn't be posting here if I wasn't at work, I'd be playing.
My experience over the course of many MMO games is that the folks who take the time to post on a developer's forums fall into a few categories:
In other words, people who post on the boards have some feeling of vestment in the game. I never discredit them. If they spend the time to write up intelligent posts using decent grammar and punctuation (and/or make a good attempt at translating a language that's not native to them), they deserve to be heard.
"STFU N00b" posts, on the other hand, do not.
The posts I'm finding are from the more intelligent folks. The folks who worked hard on beta and posted about bugs that were never fixed, etc. More posts in the same thread as above:
Again, just noting what I'm seeing. Glass is half full or half empty, depending on your viewpoint. But please don't disparage the folks who care enough about a game to post on a forum.
Feel free to disparage the "STFU n00b" posters.
Let's take as an example the Euro servers last week, Wednesday when the server hamster died. 300 people looking at the technical forum (mind you that was with servers unavailable, so not all of those 300 are active posters). The game has sold like 30.000 copies in Europe, so the people who look at the forum are just 1% of those that have bought the game. See where I am coming from?
Usually there are much fewer people on the Euro DDO boards tho, so the percentage of forum users to playerbase might be even lower.
Point is, you can't judge a game by visiting the forum, that's the vocal minority there, most of the gamers don't care about forums, they want to play the game.
We agree that folks who post are the minority. I think my point is that they're an extremely important minority. They get listened to by the developers and CS people, and their opinions drive the game to a certain extent. When EQ was in a nosedive and SOE wanted to call in players for a weekend conference, they chose representatives from some of the larger guilds on the servers AND several of the regular posters to the official forums.
For example, there's also a thread on the DDO Development forum where Sporkfire is asking folks to post how long it takes them, on average, to find a group. Here's a great example of the minority determining what happens to the entire playerbase. The forum posters for that game are the ones who's opinions will be heard, and should anything change because of their posting than they will have driven a change to thier game.
So if you're going to take the time to post somewhere while you're at work, post there! It could potentially do you some good if you intend to continue playing the game. Posting here won't help your game much, but the discussions here can be interesting.
well mate, the reason i dont give a lot of arguements about what I said are because those arguements already are in great supply and I feel no need to be redundant-oh,and i have never had an official capacity at turbine-have only played their games
As to who posts-who doesnt, I agree that the majority of players do not post anywhere-but it is just as correct to assume that they have quit as to assume they are playing. DDO- is just a bad game period. it has already fallen out of the top 20 or so in most game-sales charts, check it out.word is geting around. That is the effect of the non-posting game-playing public voting with their dollars and word-of-mouth from them.
Lothlore
Lothlore all I see here is "no solo play" and "it's just a bad game", you just did it again. "It's just a bad game. period." - very good argument... Also, if every mmorpg that is not in the top 20 is a bad game, then 99% of mmorpgs are, they are just not as popular as solo player games...
I don't disagree, but trust me when I tell you that building software in a vacuum is worse.
I'm a software developer myself (for a different industry), and if I don't get some type of feedback then I'll write software that may function smoothly but not suit my user's needs. There's no way I can possibly get feedback from every single one of my users. Not only is it impractical to ask, I wouldn't be able to get through their responses in a timely enough manner to make it a worthwhile endeavor. So instead you gather what you hope is a representative cross section of users and get responses from them.
In this case, that cross section will come from forum posters/readers.
SOE was forever putting polls out when folks logged in to play EQ. Folks in my guild ranged the gamut from "trying to respond as best they could" to "I just clicked on something to get past the screen".
Polls ... forum posts ... what have you. No matter the method, trying to reach all of your users in a given time period yields results that are unreliable at best. All you can do is the best you can with the data you have and move forward.
All of it is better than developing with blinders on, though.
Ah, ok i see,you want me to add to the list of problems with the game,ok..lack of content is a nice place to start..but,thats not really the problem you have with my post. its just you like/love the game and feel the ned to defend it all costs without realizing that when you defend it against flaws you are in fact hurting the game,because these problems are the very things that will cause people to leave.I maxed out my main and have had to play alts just for something to do-that got old ,and I un-subbed and I am not a power-gamer by any means
Lothlore
It seems in this day and age of mmo's, (lets push our half finished game on all the suckers of the world)
the smart buyers of these games read the forums well before they decide to buy the game. Im sorry but I wont buy a mmo without reading through all of the tech forums. The general forums I dont really base any decision from. The general forums are more for when the game gets boring or server downtime and its time for a change of scenery.
Dont matter how many "whiners" are posting in the tech forums, alot of them make valid points and or bug reports about the game mechanics. I have beta tested pretty much every MMO that came out after Earth and Beyond.Was it AC2 that was out before EnB or vise versa? which ever came first, was just so long ago hard to remember....Pretty much most MMOs have alot of mod posts in the tech forums. Now i look at what the devs post in those forums compared to what is actually being changed within the game through updates. Sure enough alot of those games, if you compare all the bugs to patch notes, only a small fraction get fixed. This is not for all MMOs but most of them. If it is that obvious just from the tech forums why bother wasting cash on a full priced game with a sub?
I will buy DDO when i see it in the EBGames bargin bin along with half the other mmo's i bought. For me it dont matter If i tested the game or not, I am hooked on mmos so when a crappy mmo reaches bargin bin status well the $5 is well worth the 30 days included when im on a mmo binge.
I will not buy DDO at the full price for a game that should have content nor would i pay $15 a month to repeat that content over and over. Woohoo they just added a module. guess what you will be repeating that over and over as well. This wouldnt be so bad if this game actually had 10 modules of content added when the game went live. Not so good when the content is done in 3-6 weeks. Dont get me wrong this is not entirely the developers fault, this rush rush happens from the suits over at publishing.... So what, they will add another module. they are too far behind in the content department to be able to catch up with their playerbase's needs of content. they would have to double the size if not tripple the content in one patch just to keep people playing without the rinse and repeat x 2000
Ya Ya I know, WOW didnt release their game with all the content promised (seems to be one of the fad excuses these days for fanboys).
I played Wow for a year. I hate it now but that game was so rich in content at release I didnt even care that they didnt have all the promised features in. there was enough gameplay to last me, well a year.
I wasnt even into dungeon raids. Mostly leveled up solo or with a few friends. The leveling part of my experience was an afterthought compared to all the pvp fun i had.
So in the end if you make a crappy game at least add some types of gameplay that should be optional. Umm
Solo/duo, Some form of Pvp or pvp servers, other means to level up other than repeating same quests over and over, and you know, some way of exploring the world when everything else just sucks. With this game the list can go on. Since i have written a book here, Im off to play my COV trial..yawn.
Head Joint SoundCloud Page
https://soundcloud.com/headjointambient1
I have to agree with skitzdout. Many people, myself included, will read through the official forums before purchasing a game. And if the majority of players on there have multiple legitimate complaints about the playability and long-term standing of the game, it's a big problem. When even the players who were forum "fanboys" start to have serious doubts, it's definately a bad sign. When the game first launched, there were many adamant defenders of the game as MANY people chimed in their reasons for quitting and the problems they had with the game. The forums were FLOODED with complaints. After the first month passes, the forums became much more silent as those who quit lost access. Now a new wave of people are posting their legitimate complaints and expressing their need to cancel their accounts. But the interesting this is that fewer people are defending the game.
The forums are the vocal minority, post for and against the game, but they are usually indicative of the overall state of the game. Many players do log on the forums just to discuss the game when they are not online. People who are at work or school and want to pop in and share their ideas with their fellow gamers. I think many people underestimate the important of forum posts in many ways. There are a lot of players who post there and at least read there. And when the opinion is resoundingly negative, it's definately going to affect the game.
I do not agree with any of your points. From past experience when games are getting a bad review/complaints/whines from a majority, or large part, of the posters, its usually valid.
Then someone has to try and run this excuse on the readers. That the posters are just a vocal minority. Sure, tell that to all these companies that have lost hundreds of thousands of subscribers, because they didn't listen to their customers complaints. I for one listen. I'm tired of being out 50 bucks, because I thought they might be wrong.
Believe what you want, dude. Let other people make up your mind for you, sounds familiar, let me ask, are you from the US of A? *puts on flame proof vest*
So I could go ahead create a hundred forum accounts and flame every game on the game list to bits here on mmorpg, and you won't play them all, and everybody else who reads my posts? Wow that would be easy way to ruin this industry... See where I am coming from?
Of course there are more people complaining on a forum, the people who like the game are actually playing, like I have been for the last 6 hours... If you have something that is being used by a couple of 10.000 players, you will have a 1.000 or 2.000 people who will go and complain, still doesn't make them the majority of players, the majority is PLAYING...
Good thing to know you are so grown up you resort to insulting generalization against entire countries. You may have had a few valid points above, but so did the OP. But, in light of your attitude against anyone else who disagrees with you, doesn't matter how valid your points may seem, you are obviously not good enough at seperating personal hate or envy from your opinions. Since your grammar is as bad or worse than mine I can safely assume you are not a journalist and can feel just a little better about the workings of the world.
The ironic thing is you understand that forum posters are the minority of players, but you don't seem to understand even if all the posters loved that game it would be the minority and is not an accurate sampling. But that would erode your argument...so meh.
If the former DDO backing posters are starting to leave you you will read about it on the boards. If the non vocal majority are either staying or going you won't know either waym ever.
But hey, lighten up a bit, everyone knows that each country makes up stupid jokes about other countries, like all french people f*ck all day and start throwing stones at each other if they don't like something, all German people are Nazis and insane scientists, and so on...
I hate and envy noone... actually, I'd say I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not. I excel at not giving
a shit. Experience has taught me that interest begets expectation, and
expectation beget disappointment, so the key to avoiding disappointment
is to avoid interest. A equals B equals C Equals A, or whatever. I also
don't have a lot of interest in being a good person or a bad person.
From what I can tell, either way, you're screwed. Bad people are
punished by society's laws, and good people are punished by Murphy's
Law. So you see my dilemma.
Enough philosophy, let's continue...We lead our lives, and when they end, sometimes we leave a little of
ourselves behind. Sometimes we leave money, a painting, sometimes we
leave a kind word. And sometimes, we leave an empty space.
My grammar might not be the best, but I'm not a native speaker, I'm one of those evil nazi scientists I spoke of earlier, and I also speak a little of the sex monsters and vandal language...
So meh...
The Brave Do Not Fear The Grave
Seems to me the game is still going strong, all the boxes are deliverable within 24 hours from Amazon, can't be that bad...
But I understand that you are feeling better, when you think that the game is about to die, because you don't like it anymore, makes it so much easier to let go.
I too read the forums of a game before I purchase. I take the info as a whole, but I beleive what gamers write and say more so than the box the game comes in! Truth in Advertising! lol yeah right. But I guess Im in the minority - but wait...Im still playing a game right now...Im in the majority. Im so confused. I wanna be in the majority.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
You've made some good observations. And yes, the game did have a feeling of a "Monty Haul" compaign from the start albeit it is begining to feel like it's taking shape.
I play for about 2-3 hours every other day or so and feel like the community I'm involved with is getting stronger and more adept to the morphing game mechanics. One understanding players tend to lack is what's required to produce something that's "fun" while adhering to a very specific set of rules. DDO is _not_ "Dungeon & Dragons PnP Online", it's "Dungeon & Dragons Online".
I enjoy it although expressing my concern regarding the lack of content I fail to see healthy longevity in the game.
In a nutshell, Turbine took _WAY_ too many shortcuts in development.