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General: Community Spotlight Players vs. Devs
GFulls
Member Posts: 478
Laura Genender returns with another Community Spotlight. This one looks at the crossfire between Players vs. Devs.
MMO players are always complaining that devs aren't giving us what we want. "You're releasing too early!"; "You said the game would be out a month ago!"; "Too difficult!"; "Too easy!"; "It's overwhelming!"; "There isn't enough to do!"
Of course, the focus lately has been on the recently released Vanguard, though this has always been a debate for players and developers of MMORPGs. For players, the perfect video game would be one where we could invest as much time as we would like and keep current with content, yet still be competitive. It would have no subscription fee, the best graphics, frequent updates, free expansions, character customization, no lag, lots of space but it wouldn't feel empty (i.e. population would be spread out). You could progress via large-scale wars, raid content, group content, solo content, crafting, and all this with a perfectly crafted weather and season system, and NPC AI.
Read the entire article here.
Comments
Well it seems to me if you want a real hardcore product you have to bite the bullit and make it so. EQ was great then they nerfed it changed all the pvp servers changed all the race bias in leveling. So I moved on to DAOC both easy and hard I lasted 5 years with it but the easy got too easy as they tryed for more and more players. I search for the easy to get into hard to master mmorpgs out there most are trash popped out like eggs and last as long. I am playing EVE Online atm. but after couple years I end up looking for the next great one. After my experience with sonys changes without notice bad customer service from EQ it will not be vangaurd. I believe theres a ton of players that want it hard no matter how much they play. graphics? yes #2 on my importance after great game play. Easy? way down the line. come on "mmorpgs to be" challenge me like the oldies. I have even thought of going back to DAOC can you ever go back hehe?? well I have done it twice with that game.
Just my humble first reply and 2 cents worth
Hepcat
Sure I understand that many people are put off by hard games and can't hack it. But because of WOWs "Success", every game now tries to do the same and no improvements are being made at all. Which leaves old players, hardcore players in the dust being bored like mad.
I started with Ultima Online and the game was heavily flawed, but it was extremely challenging and I kept coming back
I played Asheron's Call until cheating became commonplace and they didn't bother to ban them
But now... every single game has lowered their difficulty to bring more people in their game. Which totally left out the hardcore group.
From a developper standpoint its a good move, hardcore players bring in less money. But hardcore players are the ones that started this whole thing and now we're being left with nothing.
Don't get me wrong I do still play and enjoy wow, but it is not the sort of game that stretches anyone the only feeling of acheivement in the game is the very first level 60 (70), there is no depth to the game (It seems the Blizzard name is enough to draw in people like moths to a flame).
I miss strangely enough the more difficult tradeskills from Daoc, also the guild/personal housing and meaningful PvP (all which are more RPG oriented). Wow has PvP but it is still little more than a poor FPS rip off, housing may appear at some point (roughly around the time Hero classes will appear is my guess), tradeskills are simplistic and still require instance / raids for mats or schematics.
At least (with the exception of some parts of TOA) Mythic did not invalidate the previous game content with an 'expansion' (With BC blizzard seem to be saying forget the original game and rush through it as fast as possible to get to our newest product (much like the Diablo 2 expension killed off Diablo 2)) Blizzard it seems don't understand how to design and launch a MMO expansion that is seamless to the original game and doesn't invalidate as much of the original game that BC does.
Any review that holds WoW up to be the example of all that is well and good in the world of MMORPGS is immediately starting out wrong in my opinion, just because it has numbers doesn't mean it is the most innovative, technically superior game, all it means is that they have a good marketing team and were profiting of the companies previous good reputation. After over 2 years playing the game Blizzard are not innovators in my opinion and they are poor at even looking at what else is being done out there and avoiding issues that other people have encountered (faction balance for one)
I'll stop ranting now, suffice it to say I am looking forward to several new games this year and will be trying AoC,CoS and WAR at the very least.
There will always be fanbois and haters for every game thaqt comes out because everyone has a different idea of what is fun. I don't think there should be any debate in regards to Vanguard when the devs have admitted they needed another 6 months but ran out of money. I think for any game, people read the developers "Vision" and fall in love with the concepts behind the game design. They invest a lot of time and hope into following it, and when it comes to release they will defend it rabidly in order to justify the time and emotion invested in following it.
When someone points out that it may be a very incomplete or has a negative comment, they take it as a personal attack on their invested time, and will try to discredit or disprove the comments to the point they appear to be on the payroll. Unfortunately, the fanbois who have invested their time believing and following a devs vision will buy the game no matter how incomplete it may be, and devs know that. This only fuels the trend of developers knowing they can release unfinished beta software to get more funding. It is fanbois who make this possible, and why we will continue to see this happen.
These sort of attacks back and fourth are what is on these forums everyday. It isn't always a bad thing. It is why people come here in parts, to become informed on a game and learn about the good and bad so they can decide for themselves. Objective opinions are worth a lot, but often hard to find with everyone trying to discredit everyone else to the point of personally attacking them.
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I do agree with the OP but 2 things.
1. Vanguard was released too early, but they had to for money reasons.
2. EQ and all the so called "hard games" arn't any harder than WOW : They just take longer to level, is this harder? No it just means it takes longer to level. WOW is more streamlined and faster and focuses on combat rathan than crafting.
Exactly what , in my oppinion MMO must be !
"Before this battle is over all the world will know that few...stood against many." - King Leonidas
Every gamer is different. It just so happens that the majority of gamers out there like what the guys at Blizzard are doing. That's why they have an 8 million user base world wide. You can't please everyone. If an MMO is being built on a business model it will have to sacrifice certain things to make more money. The gaming company that can get closest to building a game that gives the majority of mmo gamers out there what they want wins. The rest of the games would probably find themselves better off focusing on a certain niche of players. There needs to be a variety of games out there, as there are a variety of gamers.
Gaming companies like Blizzard have to listen to what the majority of their users want. I think one of the biggest mistakes a gaming company could make is listening to three of four whiners on the forum when the other 10,000 users are fine with the current system/design. Gaming companies should put out public polls on their websites and let paying subscribers vote on what they should be working on/doing. The gamers are the ones paying the bills and they are the ones that will leave your company bankrupt if you damage the game.
And on the other hand, although these MMOs are built to keep us playing them for a few months, none of them truly are built to keep us playing the same thing over and over again until we get grey in the hair and qualify for free bus passes. We move on. Certainly, there are some games that have met the level to be played endlessly for years, but that's for the same reason that people still drive sports cars that were made in the 50s and 60s. Yes, they arent as good as the cars of today's era, but they have their own quality and character.
People also arent clones. We have our own characteristics that make us unique. Therefore, not all of us enjoy the same things. Even on MMO enthusiasts, some of us like competitive PVP. Some of us like questing. Some of us like crafting. And yes, some of us even like roleplaying. So by that alone would mean there is never going to be any MMO that everybody will agree with. The point of MMOs like WoW and EQ2 and Vanguard isnt that they're horrible because they dont feature this or feature that. It's the fact that they're made for different demographics. I think WoW is a fantastic MMO. I know it's certainly not built for everybody. I personally dont like EQ2, but I can see why people play it. And good for them that they found something they can enjoy.
The point of this whole thing is, it isnt the Dev's fault that the game doesnt match OUR preferences. We dont go around telling Beethoven that he should've played his symphonies on a guitar with a heavy bass beat. Devs make the game with their ideas in mind. It's their project. They're spending the money on it. They came up with the idea. For those of us that are lucky to be playing the MMO we want to play, cheers. For the rest who find it not to their tastes, I'm sorry but it's time to move on to something you do like. And I understand, there arent always going to be a game for everybody. But once again, the market is still relatively new. If we, as the players and consumers, want to see OUR game released, screaming at the devs to change their concept to ours isnt the right choice and oftentimes wasted breath. Do get your voice out there, but put it in the right place. Let it be known what you are looking for. Let them know what you want. And in due time, they will hear your voice and think to themselves to make the MMO you want right from the start.
Not harder than WOW? When we say harder we don't mean the levelling curve, we mean the learning curve.
Ultima Online took me 8 months to master
Asheron's Call took me 4 months to master
World of Warcraft took me 2 weeks to master
By mastering I don't mean reaching the highest level, I mean reaching a point where there is nothing new to try or learn.
It's truely amazing how WoW changed the MMO landscape. It made the MMO social. That and that reason alone is why the "problem" outlined in this artical exsists. It's not that the recent MMO's fail to provide, the just simply fail to provide as widely as WoW did. As many problems as people love to gripe about WoW, it definately did what it does well. It is also an extremely well polished game. Vanguard, for all it's over hype, is a great game. It's also a very hard game in comparison to WoW, if even that comparison should be made, which I lean toward the "it shouldn't be made" thought.
What Vanguard is not, is it is not nearly as extremely well polished as WoW is. The graphics have been of high debate, and should remain to be. While Vanguard uses a much more robust graphics engine, it suffers from both over use and under use in that engine. Sigil has tried too hard to make it look good without doing the work needed to make it look good. What? you ask. Simple, the graphics engine requires too much horsepower to run. It bogs down on even the highest graphics hardware. And what do the players get from this? A sophmoric attempt at creating a believable world. Really, my biggest complaint about Vanguard is it's graphics. Not that I have much to complain about in Vanguard, I do enjoy playing it. But, the world just seems "thrown together" or artifically generated rather than hand crafted and well porportioned. Sigil gleemed in a comment during beta that one developer had just finished a "hand generated map" for use in the games mini-map. Unfortunately it looks like it to. It's very poor and under the quality we have seen in other MMOs. If the game is attempting to show a world where it's inhabitants have lived for generations, it looks more like those inhabitants have littlerally "just set up camp" overnight rather than built cities with great engineering and effort.
Vanguard was definately over-hyped. Just because it was in development for so long doesn't mean that it was actually being developed heavily during that entire time. It shows in that the graphics engine is barely usable with jumps and glitches on even a $600 video card. And that the graphics doesn't even support full screen anti-aliasing! What were they thinking? I'm sure we all dream of full immersion in a world with jaggies. Riiiiiight. I know I just love watching a stair case crackle and pop as I run up to it from a distance. NOT.
Vanguard deserves a lot. It deserves a lot of praise for it's attempt and size and complexity. It deserves at lot of flack for it's misses in playability and graphics. It also deserves a lot more time in development, as it seems to have missed what it needed there.
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Warhammer Online will take care everything... just wait.
There is nothing wrong with having different kinds of games for different tastes in gaming.
But there is everything wrong when, after making a game targeted to a particular taste, you market the game as being fun for lots of different playstyles just to sell more boxes, when you know that isn't true.
Vanguard is a classic example of that type of misleading marketing.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
Personally i hate dungeon crawls, i'm tired of fantasy games like wow, eq2, eq, DAOC, IOK and LOK. Fantasy has been done to death already. Ok lets look at a SCIFI type game like RFO. So in RFO a Korean MMO (if you didnt know korean MMO's = grind fest 5x EQ or EQ2.) Because its just like Nancy Mcintyer (sp, Rep from LA who said) we want more kill mob x get treasure and repeat. killing 20 million mobs to gain 1 level in 1 month, this is what i call not fun.
MMO's need to be fun, but it has to be something different than kill mob x 200 times. or click this box 1000 times to gain skill X. Come on the only skill i can is carpel tunnel with all the freaking mouse clicks. I understand its a input device conundrum that one day me change to something else.
Interesting how the OPs players vs. developer perspective quickly morphed into a noob/easy game vs. vet/challenging game perspective, you seem to have gotten a little side-tracked from the original intended debate.
In a perfect (and therefore unattainable) world, developers would listen to the players and understand what it is they're really griping about/criticising oh behalf of, consider the full implications and practicality of the their actions within the system and the community, and then make the best overall decision. Some will like it, some won't. Those who don't always have the right to vote with their feet and the "Cancel Subscription" button (I wish $OE had the cajones to let us know exactly how the SWG:NGE vote actually turned out). Alot of player gripes are stupid and, after due consideration, deserve to be ignored - only after an explanation about why that path won't be taken. Alot of player criticisms are very valid, however, and efforts should be taken to incorporate what is feasible and reasonable. If the devs stick to the original intended vision of the game, they'll do alright. If it's a challenging game, they'll have a steady niche market that ranks among the top 5 in the States and Europe. If it's an easy game with other strong points, hell they just might get 8 million subs. Players shouldn't be in the "vs. Devs" position and similarly devs shouldn't be in the "vs. Players" position - in the end, they're a team. If the devs do their jobs, the playerbase will remain steady or grow. If the players, well, live up to their responsibilities and don't make excessive foolish requests/demands, then the devs won't be tempted to do stupid things.
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What I find interesting is the Player Versus Dev's in WoW mirror's almost EXACTLY what EQ1 had in the early days. I think a lot of this has to do with them being the "top dog" and the arrogance that comes with that.
There are some big issues that the devs completely ignore in WoW even after player pleading and giving multitude of suggestions for fixes. Like the LFG system travesty, it took them 2 years to even give that to us and it's a huge mess without even the most core features people need.
I rather like how the EQ2 devs are more open to the player suggestions. I also think that comes from them being "hungry" for more customers.
I don't expect devs to listen to every customer but there are sometimes when they could learn from their player base.
http://www.greycouncil.org/
"But for developers, an MMO with everything we want just isn’t feasible yet – and just isn’t needed."
If a developer feels giving players what they want isn't needed, they should find another line of work. Giving the players everything they want (within the logic of the game's setting and mechanics) should be what every developer strives for. Unfortunatly, most developers are more worried about what people who don't play their game, and probably never will, want instead of making their current customers happy. That is why you see patches that piss of the vast majority of the players going live that nobody asked for. The developers then turn around and complain that the players are too mean to them and that is why they don't like to communicate with their players.
If you're not emotionally mature enough to handle dealing with your customers, again, find another line of work (that goes triply for the folks who's job it is to deal with the community, ie "Community Team" personel). Too often, after the players get upset over a change to the game, the devlopment team goes into a 'no communication' mode, which does nothing but make the players feel that their concerns aren't being addressed, which makes them more hostile.
"While more and more companies are getting into the MMO industry due to World of Warcraft’s success, its competition that drives quality up, and competition is fairly recent."
Sadly, the competition isn't driving quality up, it is giving us poor quality WoW knockoffs. Developers seem to have it in their head that if copy WoW, their game will magically attract WoW's players. Until they step back and realise that the people who want to play a WoW like game are going to play WoW, not a poorly implemented knock off, the quality of MMOs is going to continue to decline.
Tolerant or gullible? I am no sheep. But EQ Sheep (a guild of Luclin) are sweet players, yet I am not a sheep and never will be. I am a Care Bear, and if you recall well, Care Bear goes out, and storm the world with love attacks/concepts and spread the happiness, they where not waiting, nor passive!
If devs say their main focus is grouping and the core players, I will harass them if needed to remember them that it is the main focus they always advertise and pinpoint where they fail.
For example, if Vanguard would have said from the start that you don't have choice, but you must master everything (which is the case), I would have discard it with no second though. But no, Vanguard was talking about CHOICE, freedom and the focus been on grouping, lie, lie and more lies. I never harass Vanguard about instancing, about soloing, about death penalties...since even if I have distincts opinions, they are working with what they advertise...but raiding-enforcement....no way!
Devs can do what they want, as long as they don't lie, they don't scam, they don't trash, they don't trap, they don't subvert or do any other ill-thinked design. If they say they target the CORE players and the game focus is about GROUPING; you can be sure I won't give them an easy ride if they walk off...if they are dimwits and walk away by enforcing anything that is a non-sense, I will underline it.
Will I pay for trash? Nope. They can go bankrupt or be successful, I don't care anymore than I would for Gear of War, Warcraft or whatever else that I don't want to play. Not my problem.
See, Vanguard problem is exactly the problem of many persons, they try to get you interested, then they try to change you non-stop. Eh, if you don't want to make a game about grouping, don't waste my time and just walk away; do whatever you want, but don't say it is about choice, freedom or grouping when it is none of these. I want to GROUP; enforcing anything else is a mistake, yet if I can cope with it, I will, my evil side is that way...but if I can't cope with it, such as raiding, I won't and then I will trash you, rightfully might I add.
It is not my fault, nor my problem, if these devs try to reach more players but then they shaft everyone equally. This is called bad design, and it will always have sour results.
- "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
Well, I have a game that is pretty much a perfect MMORPG except that its 1 player:
OBLIVION!
You can do whatever you want, and there is a ton of content.
This whole article made several good points. Everyone wants something different, and when they get it, they lose appreciation for it. We need to be more patient and appreciative. Our games will come, as long as there's money in it.
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Read the entire article here.
While I agree with some of Laura Genender 's article some of it is false. If it were all true what would her resoning for the downfall of Star Wars: Galaxies be?
For example, lets use PVP to demonstrate my point. Lets say a group of people who want hardcore PVP have a MMO made for them that has hardcore PVP. Then it breaks down to how hardcore the PVP is. Free for all? Faction-based? Penalties? The problem is, no matter how exact they get, there will always be at least two sides to the issue. And the more they narrow it down, the smaller the playerbase that will accept the changes.
And on another front, I hear a lot about how the devs have to make the game for the players. Yes, it's true that a good MMO is enjoyed by it's players. But it's utterly wrong for us to sit there and demand that the game be tailored to our own personal preferences. Whenever an author releases a book, people dont start banging their doors down because this character died and this one lived. They dont start petitions because said book is a fantasy setting instead of a sci-fi. Yet when a MMO gets popular, all of a sudden people start coming out of the woodwork complaining that the game should be this way or that way. That's not right.
I actually believe this stems from the fact that, due to the low number of popular MMOs out there (by popular, I mean with a significant percentage of the MMO gamer playerbase), it's really hard to find a particular MMO of a type a lot of players fancy. Not everybody is into Fantasy genres. So I wonder if this behavior stems to the fact that people just pick what's already out there and seek to change the game to fit their needs.
The idea of an MMO is, pick one you LIKE, not one you will live with. It's good to provide feedback to adjust the direction of the game in a sense, but the idea is to keep the overall feel. And the other goal is to appeal to the broadest group of players.
There is another option though. The problem is, it takes more resources than a typical development team. Lets use WoW for example:
WoW already has several server archetypes. PVP, Non-PVP, and roleplaying versions of the previous aforementioned. It could be possible to develop more open PVP content (world capturable towns for example) on PVP servers, while not implementing such changes on non-PVP servers. I sense a few people on non-PVP servers would object, but honestly, if a player chooses non-PVP, then they really dont have a right to complain about having PVP content on a non-PVP server as it was their choice to be non-PVP in the first place (of course, if this were something that were to be actually happening, Blizzard would probably do their usual server transfers). Anyways, this would allow people to take to their fancy without causing a huge player/dev rift. It would be quite an undertaking though, so for now, just use it as an example.
I strayed a bit from my point, but the whole idea is, players should keep in mind not what would be good for just themselves, but what would be best for all the players in the game. Something the devs really do have their eye on.
Seems like the article doesn't do the title justice.
That being said, when I think of players vs. devs, Star Wars Galaxies immediately pops to mind as a perfect example. From the grave injustice done to that game, it feels like there must be a lot of hate and animosity from the devs toward their players in implementing game systems so contrary to how the game originally played as to alienate its subscibers.
Now the game appears to be dead, and just for spite SOE will not give the license to someone who will give the game and it's players the love it so desperately needs.
It if it was up to me, I would say add a precu server and let the subscription numbers decide which version of the game gets the most development resources. Let that version of the game the fans and subscribers love decide which version of the game remains if it is too costly to maintain both. Or sell the license to another publisher under the stipulation that the game must remain true to the precu ideals.
I would love to return to that game someday if the game is returned to it's former, original self.