Penny Arcade on DDO

Jeff44 · January 2008

Uhm...

Yeah.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/01/28

The link came from this article

Vincenz · January 2008

LOL! I actually thought it was pretty funny, although not accurate, but hey...that's kind of the Penny Arcade style.

p.s. As pointed out on the main forums, Kate Paiz is even cute as a cartoon

Sevenwind · January 2008

Yeah Tycho also made this post on the blog. Also from that article you posted.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2008/01/28

Totally don't agree with it, but that is his opinion.

Vincenz · January 2008

Oh, I think the guy's blog made him look like a complete idiot!!!

After describing how WoW continues to be the apex of MMOs and DDO can never compete, he describes his previous evening of gameplay...

"I spent almost two hours killing Yeti for their skins last night with Kiko. I needed ten skins, and apparently these were some kind of f'ing GM Yeti with no Goddamned skin on them. What is holding these Yeti together, I wonder? Their arctic resolve? Are they literally snow men? Oh, now here is a gourmet Yeti, one with a Roasted Quail, but no pelt."

Yep, that's the top of the mountain in gaming all right

elvenangel · January 2008

....I think its continously hilarious how everyone assumes games are trying to 'compete' only with wow....I don't think DDO ever intented to compete with WoW...to niche a market they were looking at. I'm waiting for when some one goes "Nintendo Wii tries compete with WoW ...fails!" i'll die laughing my arse off at that one.

Either way the toon is hilarious.

Unknown · January 2008

Originally posted by Vincenz

Oh, I think the guy's blog made him look like a complete idiot!!!
After describing how WoW continues to be the apex of MMOs and DDO can never compete, he describes his previous evening of gameplay...

"I spent almost two hours killing Yeti for their skins last night with Kiko. I needed ten skins, and apparently these were some kind of f'ing GM Yeti with no Goddamned skin on them. What is holding these Yeti together, I wonder? Their arctic resolve? Are they literally snow men? Oh, now here is a gourmet Yeti, one with a Roasted Quail, but no pelt."

Yep, that's the top of the mountain in gaming all right

Yeah that was a little strange to me, because I did almost the same thing in WoW and it was part of what made me say "F**k this s**t" and canceled.

It made me tilt my head like a dog hearing a strange noise.

baff · January 2008

Nobody makes games for a niche market. Least of all people franchising one of the largest game names in the industry.

They make games to sell to as wide an audience as possible. They do it for pay. Games that don't sell well are often described as being for a niche market.

Like it or not, (and only Blizzard likes it), all MMO's are in competiton with WoW. They might not want to be, but they don't have any choice.

Aethios · January 2008

Originally posted by baff
Nobody makes games for a niche market. Least of all people franchising one of the largest game names in the industry.
They make games to sell to as wide an audience as possible. They do it for pay. Games that don't sell well are often described as being for a niche market.
Like it or not, (and only Blizzard likes it), all MMO's are in competiton with WoW. They might not want to be, but they don't have any choice.

I have to agree, although it could be argued that WoW is not directly competing with other MMOs. Many (I would even venture to say most) of WoW's subscribers are people who did not subscribe to an MMO before. WoW created subscribers from non-MMO gamers, out of thin air. These other MMOs are not competing with WoW, because WoW made its own subscribers, rather than stealing them from other MMOs.

However, if ever there was an MMO that competes with WoW, I'd have to say it is DDO, since they are both trying to appeal to the same market. Anyone who argues otherwise clearly has no idea how this works. WoW (and all of its predecessors) are based on the D&D model of picking your class, leveling up by doing dungeons and quests, and getting uber loot along the way. Given, D&D was less about the loot and more about the quests, and had a lot more flexibility (at least in later editions) in class structure, but still. The two games are effectively the same, with slight differences in style.

Vincenz · January 2008

The two games are effectively the same, with slight differences in style.

I would have to disagree with that beyond theme/setting. That's about where the similarities end, IMO. The combat is totally different, the character customization is totally different, there's no robust PVP or PVP focus, there's no real grind (and what there is is totally optional), quests are totally different than WoW, everything is instanced (which I like), there's no real "travel", there's no paid expansions, I'm sure there's more...but as game to game comparisons go, DDO is about the least like WoW of any game I've played (again, except for theme or setting).

Gishgeron · January 2008

I really like this discussion!

I've thought about it on and off for awhile actually. Before subscription gaming, I wouldn't really say true competition existed. Quality was all that mattered, in the end 5 teams could release First Person Shooters and so long as they were all of great quality they would all sell about equally. The console market has always been that way....with the only competition being that which exists between consoles, and that which defines actual quality. It was more about standard setting. Those whom met the standard got just about as many sales as the next guy who did.

However......

MMO's are not this entity. They require monthly subscriptions. That means they require a player to constantly be invested in them. Unlike a single player game....it simply is not good enough to be good. You cannot "share" sales with other games in this genre. Most players do not pay for multiple MMO's a month. Therefore, any sale SOE gets is not typically one that Blizzard gets as well. Sure, some will. But when doing your business plan, it is not wise to BANK on this. In the end, all MMO's are competing with each other for those subs. They know this.

To summarize, I think many of you are very wrong about this. They all compete with each other. WoW is indeed the apex of gaming, in so far as subs go. However, because of its success there is also going to be a stagnation of that "niche"...of that style. Once players tire of WoW, they will seek out things which embody the elements of that game which they found most enjoyable. The raiders will seek games with more massive group content. The PvP'ers will seek games with more PvP content. The casual will seek games with more casual content.

It also set a new bar, players who wanted things from WoW which it did not deliver. Things like character / class control. Crafting, economy....ect. What WoW has now done is generate the NEED for a niche. WoW is the first and last game to try and cater to everyone. Players understand now that in doing so, no one element can be perfected...and that is fine for what Blizzard is doing. There is only so much good adding devs can do, and in the end they have to spread their focus out way to far. Now players are seeking the niche games which focus only on the elements they want.

We need more niche games. Those niche games now must meet the standard of polish and quality service Blizzard set forth. You will see a very sharp change in this industry now. If not, you will see WoW dominate for many more years to come. A company cannot hope to contend with WoW, it can only hope to draw in players by focusing on a segmented need and making it the best ever.

Dr.Rock · January 2008

I have never understood why people constantly mistake popularity for quality. McDonalds sell a lot of burgers, possibly more burgers than anyone else, but I think it would be impossible to pretend they are the best burgers, or even a good burger.

I think with MMOs it is more a wish to conform to the norm, a sheep mentality if you like.

Reff42 · January 2008

Quality is of course subjective. For the purpose of this conversation, because prices are almost exactly the same across the board, we'll stick to fast food.

A person that has only tasted McD's burgers might think they're the greatest thing in the whole world, but not realize that they may like Wendy's better.

One must say that McD's and Wendy's are in competition, even though their burgers have very different tastes (which for the sake of argument we'll say neither of which is bad) because they are both making burgers.

In the same context, all MMOs are in competition, maybe not direct competition, as say jack in the box is working to improve their break while McD's is working to improve their meat.

However many people WoW brought to the table, everyone is now clamoring to get a piece of WoW's pie. Age of Conan hopes to take a piece by improving on maturity and style, WAR hopes to steal their PvPers.

In a lesser fashion, all games in general are competing, as gamers only have so much time, which is for the most part their accompishment. A player can eat Wendy's while drinking coke and playing WoW, and devote himself to all those things without them competing against one another.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

Unknown · January 2008

Originally posted by baff

Nobody makes games for a niche market. Least of all people franchising one of the largest game names in the industry.
They make games to sell to as wide an audience as possible. They do it for pay. Games that don't sell well are often described as being for a niche market.
Like it or not, (and only Blizzard likes it), all MMO's are in competiton with WoW. They might not want to be, but they don't have any choice.

Well I consider CoX a niche market. It has solid and abnormally consistent subs and makes decent money. I dunno if DDO falls into that or not, but some games don't. I would say vanguard does not.

Vincenz · January 2008

Originally posted by gestalt11

Originally posted by baff

Nobody makes games for a niche market. Least of all people franchising one of the largest game names in the industry.
They make games to sell to as wide an audience as possible. They do it for pay. Games that don't sell well are often described as being for a niche market.
Like it or not, (and only Blizzard likes it), all MMO's are in competiton with WoW. They might not want to be, but they don't have any choice.

Well I consider CoX a niche market. It has solid and abnormally consistent subs and makes decent money. I dunno if DDO falls into that or not, but some games don't. I would say vanguard does not.

I would actually call EVE the best "niche market" example. They're around 300k subs now, based on a ship only MMO that's about as "anti-WoW" as you get. DDO is certainly hitting a steady success, it's continued development is about all the proof I need to see of that. I think if DDO maintains 70-100k subs they'll succeed, and I think if they continue to increase to the 200-300k mark over the next year or so they'll prosper in a big way.

Dr.Rock · February 2008

Returning to the OT of this thread, when I first viewed the comic strip I gave it a lot more credit than it was due, thinking it was an ironic look at Turbine's consistent increase in content and trying to meet what the players asked for, which is normally met with a large amount of bellyaching. Although it was a bit off target, Monks works, Dragon Monks okay just about, but the gold made no sense as anyone who actually plays will know most players have more plat than they know what to do with. Having read the blog, it is quite clear it is just a puerile, 'WoW has more players than DDO!'

My heart went out to the woman in the recent clip for Dungeons and Dragons: Stormreach. At one point, a green face is shown. Maybe it was a jade face. Anyway, it looked like it was entrance to a dungeon that I had no interest in raiding for ancient wealth. Your dungeon entrance says something about you as a subterranean civilization, and this one said that I could avoid it altogether, and not miss much.

I am not sure that makes any sense, unless he is saying he doesn't want anything too challenging and suffers from claustrophobia, in which case Yeti skin hunting would probably be about the right level.

The reality is that it wouldn't matter if the game were completely incredible. The game could be as good as World of Warcraft, and even this would be insufficient. It would have to be better than WoW to succeed, now. I'm exceedingly curious about both Warhammer and Age of Conan, and both have chosen on multiple occasions to apply another coat of paint. With a head start, years of steady improvements, premium upgrades, world-class art and design, and hundreds of millions of dollars, Blizzard is an entrenched foe. They have a "next generation MMO" in the pipeline, but my guess would be that it's a graphical update to the existing world. There's ten million people playing it. You don't make a sequel to that game. You exult in it. WoW is still - as we suggested more than three years ago, rescinded, and then ultimately reasserted - the apex of the genre. It does this by leveraging the Diablo template, making a game that is essentially a mechanism to obscure the loot table. It is the most humane game of its type, which is to say that it can still be ridiculously cruel.

Ah the comfort zone, I have what I want, I am not willing to try anything else, I am happy to stay ignorant and can back this up with the security of being one of many. If he explained why he liked WoW other than because of how many players it had, I think claims of apex and such could maybe make some sense. It is not uncommon for people to be afraid of uncertainity and to purely choose something based on other peoples choices. It can actually cause quite a nice snowball effect when it reaches a critical mass, as seen in WoW subscriptions.

I spent almost two hours killing Yeti for their skins last night with Kiko. I needed ten skins, and apparently these were some kind of fucking GM Yeti with no Goddamned skin on them. What is holding these Yeti together, I wonder? Their arctic resolve? Are they literally snow men? Oh, now here is a gourmet Yeti, one with a Roasted Quail, but no pelt. On and on, we slew ice devils. As a miner, I collected copper, and then tin, and then iron, and now I understand they're picking eternium in Outland. Eternium? What's next: Awesomite? You need to leave yourselves room to grow, guys.

Okay an old cliche used for a little humour and a clear indication that this apex, is possible just the lowest common denominator, and is not an apex at all, but just the level people tend to end up at when they don't really want to be challenged, but still need an artifical achievement hit. The same reason people will watch a soap opera and turnover when something deeper comes on.

I knew it before, and then in some moment of weakness I let my cohort twist me into this thing. I don't know how much game is here. What I do know is that they have set up a system that allows me to rent my friends on a monthly basis.

Finally a redeeming statement, he can see his self delusion, lets hope he can now rip those blinkers off and actually try other things before forming an opinion. "I am not a number, I am a free man!"

Dr.Rock · February 2008

Originally posted by Reff42

Quality is of course subjective. For the purpose of this conversation, because prices are almost exactly the same across the board, we'll stick to fast food.
A person that has only tasted McD's burgers might think they're the greatest thing in the whole world, but not realize that they may like Wendy's better.
One must say that McD's and Wendy's are in competition, even though their burgers have very different tastes (which for the sake of argument we'll say neither of which is bad) because they are both making burgers.
In the same context, all MMOs are in competition, maybe not direct competition, as say jack in the box is working to improve their break while McD's is working to improve their meat.
However many people WoW brought to the table, everyone is now clamoring to get a piece of WoW's pie. Age of Conan hopes to take a piece by improving on maturity and style, WAR hopes to steal their PvPers.
In a lesser fashion, all games in general are competing, as gamers only have so much time, which is for the most part their accompishment. A player can eat Wendy's while drinking coke and playing WoW, and devote himself to all those things without them competing against one another.
Anyway, just some thoughts.

It would be hard to argue that MMOs in general are not in competition, as they are in broad terms catering to the same market. As for wanting a piece of the WoW pie, I am not so certain that isn't an artefact of the players imagination, business tends to be a bit more practical.

To go back to the burger companies, there is a small burger outlet near me that does in my opinion a great burger, as far as I know it is a small chain of maybe 3 outlets. Based on the popularity of his burgers the guy that owns it does extremely well on the profits. Does he care that he has doesn't rival McDonalds or any big chain, not in the slightest. At the end of the day if a business is making a profit that is the bottom line.

I remember asking a similar question of one of the NCSoft guys about Cryptic and how they had started developing City of Heroes and what market share they had expected compared to WoW. His response was they didn't, when they started WoW didn't exist as a live entity, they could see a niche and a potential profit. His view was WoW was an abberation, one possibly of luck more than design, and short sighted to try and base too much on it., especially as very little in WoW is in fact original. Something that is commonly forgotten when people speak as if WoW is some panacea that has always existed.

Reff42 · February 2008

Originally posted by Dr.Rock

It would be hard to argue that MMOs in general are not in competition, as they are in broad terms catering to the same market. As for wanting a piece of the WoW pie, I am not so certain that isn't an artefact of the players imagination, business tends to be a bit more practical.

To go back to the burger companies, there is a small burger outlet near me that does in my opinion a great burger, as far as I know it is a small chain of maybe 3 outlets. Based on the popularity of his burgers the guy that owns it does extremely well on the profits. Does he care that he has doesn't rival McDonalds or any big chain, not in the slightest. At the end of the day if a business is making a profit that is the bottom line.
I remember asking a similar question of one of the NCSoft guys about Cryptic and how they had started developing City of Heroes and what market share they had expected compared to WoW. His response was they didn't, when they started WoW didn't exist as a live entity, they could see a niche and a potential profit. His view was WoW was an abberation, one possibly of luck more than design, and short sighted to try and base too much on it., especially as very little in WoW is in fact original. Something that is commonly forgotten when people speak as if WoW is some panacea that has always existed.

I perfectly agree, though on a buisness level, there is a difference between competiting with and an attempt to dethrone. Cryptic knew that CoV wasn't going to dethrone WoW (CoH was out first) but with WoW bringing mainstream attention to the MMO market, companies of course want to bleed off some of the new market into their own games. Many people who play WoW very casually have little to no awareness of other MMOs.

Everyone has different tastes, or else there would only be 1 burger. Your burger outlet may be closer to what you want, but if you never heard of it, you wouldn't think to go there. Thats what I mean with the theft of WoW's new customer base. Many of the older, more hardcore MMOers know about upcomming games and are in anticipation of them, but the more casual gamer needs things like commericals and just plain better marketing stratagies to get their attention.

Dr.Rock · February 2008

I perfectly agree, though on a buisness level, there is a difference between competiting with and an attempt to dethrone. Cryptic knew that CoV wasn't going to dethrone WoW (CoH was out first) but with WoW bringing mainstream attention to the MMO market, companies of course want to bleed off some of the new market into their own games. Many people who play WoW very casually have little to no awareness of other MMOs.
Everyone has different tastes, or else there would only be 1 burger. Your burger outlet may be closer to what you want, but if you never heard of it, you wouldn't think to go there. Thats what I mean with the theft of WoW's new customer base. Many of the older, more hardcore MMOers know about upcomming games and are in anticipation of them, but the more casual gamer needs things like commericals and just plain better marketing stratagies to get their attention.

DDO definately needs more advertising!

It also probably isn't that niche either, at it has the potential to appeal to a lot of players, that seem unwilling to give it a try. Same could be said for most niche MMOs, it is possible just a sad reflection on the broad mindedness of the average player. The blog post for the cartoon being a classic example.

ToKu · February 2008

The problem is DDO wouldnt do well with the crowds WoW brings in. It needs to advertise truthfully for it to be worth doing, bringing in subscribers who have no patience for this game only brings bad word of mouth to ppl who may actually enjoy the game.

Obviosly you cannot ignore the behemoth that is WoW, but games like DDO, Eve Online probably do not hold meetings to discuss how to become the next WoW. Niche in my opinion is where you find yourself comfortably sitting, making a profit doing what you want to do.

DAoC was a niche game, now Mythic has dreams of being WoW, so now they are making a WoW clone.

todeswulf · February 2008

The problem with DDO is the setting sucks ass..it really, really does. One city that isn't quite fantasy and isn't quite science fiction. who in the hell was stupid enough to buy that pitch? Or Hand it to Ken I can't find my ass with a road map Troop to build?

So big city of many doors the rest of the world (Which could be interesting if they would just fucking show it to us ) of Ebberon is excluded. and they wondered why people laugh at it?

Honestly I feel more like I'm playing what DDO should have been when I play LOTRO...Bree could just as easily be Greyhawk or Ravens Bluff for that matter. People complain about competing with WoW...you want to compete with WoW? Then give us Greyhawk, Or The Realms..hell give us Ravneloft if you want to be different, let us explore a vast D&D world, let us have armor that isn't multiple shades of brown ( I swear if one company would create armor sets that didn't make you look like an ass job waiting for a place too happen WoW would be dead) or makes you look like a banana.

I honestly believe that developers purposely look for teh most clueless individuals and hire them to make our MMO's Go out find some D&D players and have them make your MMO, then you won't have Gabe and Tycho making fun of you.

Hvymetal · February 2008

Originally posted by todeswulf

The problem with DDO is the setting sucks ass..it really, really does. One city that isn't quite fantasy and isn't quite science fiction. who in the hell was stupid enough to buy that pitch? Or Hand it to Ken I can't find my ass with a road map Troop to build?
So big city of many doors the rest of the world (Which could be interesting if they would just fucking show it to us ) of Ebberon is excluded. and they wondered why people laugh at it?
Honestly I feel more like I'm playing what DDO should have been when I play LOTRO...Bree could just as easily be Greyhawk or Ravens Bluff for that matter. People complain about competing with WoW...you want to compete with WoW? Then give us Greyhawk, Or The Realms..hell give us Ravneloft if you want to be different, let us explore a vast D&D world, let us have armor that isn't multiple shades of brown ( I swear if one company would create armor sets that didn't make you look like an ass job waiting for a place too happen WoW would be dead) or makes you look like a banana.
I honestly believe that developers purposely look for teh most clueless individuals and hire them to make our MMO's Go out find some D&D players and have them make your MMO, then you won't have Gabe and Tycho making fun of you.

So I am really trying to figure out the sci-fi parts of the city, now yes there are more things that use magic in Eberron compared to your cookie-cutter fantasy realm, it is based on a high magic campagn setting.

I personally don't need a wide open world that I can spend 30 minutes passing by multiple people camping out rats, or boars or what have you with basically little to no interaction going on. If I wanted that I would be playing EQ, WoW, LoTR or any of the other multitudes of games that are basically so similar that they are carbon copies of each other. I don't know how your DM ran campaigns, but I for one am glad the few I had didn't make us detail each day of travel from here to there and actually started when we ran into an encounter or got to where we would be doing the adventure. If we had to spend all that time detailing just the travel, instead of you know the actual adventure I would have been bored to tears.

The armor, yea the design on some of it needs some work. However the armor in most games is also equally retarded in different ways so not a game-breaker for me.

Personally the blog showed exactly how much the authors opinion really mattered

Dr.Rock · February 2008

Originally posted by todeswulf

The problem with DDO is the setting sucks ass..it really, really does. One city that isn't quite fantasy and isn't quite science fiction. who in the hell was stupid enough to buy that pitch? Or Hand it to Ken I can't find my ass with a road map Troop to build?
So big city of many doors the rest of the world (Which could be interesting if they would just fucking show it to us ) of Ebberon is excluded. and they wondered why people laugh at it?
Honestly I feel more like I'm playing what DDO should have been when I play LOTRO...Bree could just as easily be Greyhawk or Ravens Bluff for that matter. People complain about competing with WoW...you want to compete with WoW? Then give us Greyhawk, Or The Realms..hell give us Ravneloft if you want to be different, let us explore a vast D&D world, let us have armor that isn't multiple shades of brown ( I swear if one company would create armor sets that didn't make you look like an ass job waiting for a place too happen WoW would be dead) or makes you look like a banana.
I honestly believe that developers purposely look for teh most clueless individuals and hire them to make our MMO's Go out find some D&D players and have them make your MMO, then you won't have Gabe and Tycho making fun of you.

I think the setting just comes down to personal tastes. I thought Greyhawk and Forgotten Realms were a tadge simplistic, if you look at Eberron it is actually well thought out with lots of low level magic and restrictions on high level magic, along with a much more balanced view on the use of alignments. Having said that a Planescape setting would have worked as well and maybe been easier to accept.

As for the designers and developers, I think their only mistake was listening to what players were asking for:

More active combat,
No long pointless trecks
No pointless farming or camping
No quests of the level of kill x, now kill y, go deliver this, rinse and repeat
Lots of character variety

Of course players generally being arses, when faced with what they ask for they just can't handle it and rush back to the safety of what they know. That isn't to say DDO doesn't have big problems, but it would be better to concentrate on its problems, rather than the players.

That is the main problem with WoWs success, it slows progress, because people honestly start to believe there is a right and wrong way to do things. It is the soap opera of the MMO world, comfortable, unchallenging, effortless and ultimately worthless as a means of evolution.

Howdy, Stranger!

Penny Arcade on DDO

Comments

Howdy, Stranger!

Quick Links

Penny Arcade on DDO

Comments