Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
I've been noticing a growing trend as of late....
Enigma
Member UncommonPosts: 11,384
.....and that is MMO players are having less patience for the many ways developers handle their games and, in my opinion, this is a good thing as it may force developers to actually make sure their games are playable before releasing.
The reason why I bring this up is because of three MMOs that comes to mind:
- Star Wars Galaxies: New Game Enchancement. This has been debated FOREVER and I wont go into who was at fault or screwed up this more..LA or SOE. I could really care less at this point. I remembered when I was on staff here I did a review on the NGE (its still on the SWG section) and while I was playing it, I thought to myself: well, crap, this wont go too well with the players. I remember when SOE tried to keep it under wraps but Amazon dropped the ball by releasing the new NGE details too early. The Community Manager over at SWG kept on denying the truth that the Developers were messing around with a game that has been in productivity for two years now. Sadly, the Community Manager literally did not know and when she voiced her opinion against NGE, she was promptly fired. No matter how many commercials (you guys remember all those SWG NGE commercials?) they produced, the exodus of players from SWG was jaw dropping. Since I have been playing MMOs (since 1999), I had NEVER experience such a massive withdrawal of players from any MMO at one time ever. This was the first wave (and hint) that players weren't going to take it anymore.
- Vanguard Saga of Heroes: This game was the second AAA rated MMO that was affected by the players' mentality of we aren't going to take it anymore. Brad McQuaid took a good idea and completely crashed and burned it into the ground leaving only a few survivors. In his mind, he thought he could lead a company because he had a nice ranger in EQ and he was on the EQ development team. Well, common sense dictates that a game developer who helped with artistic rendering would not necessarily qualify them for running a multi million dollar software company. He had no business skills (or educational training) whatsoever. He was so convinced that people would play his game regardless because of the nifty features he was adding (seamless world, diplomacy side quests, etc) but what he failed to realize was that many players just will not play a buggy game anymore.
McQuaid was so convinced of it, that he screwed around with Microsoft and lost millions from that and during the last 2 months of development he hardly ever went to work. But when it was released, the players quickly realized how buggy the game was and in two months time the subscription numbers went from 250,000 to 20,000. They lost so many players that Sigil could no longer afford to maintain the servers and to pay their developer salaries. Later in the second month, Brad drove away on his motorcycle and hired a 3rd party person (who is paid to fire people...kinda like in Office Space) to fire his entire company save for four people. They brought them out in the parking lot, said you are fired and made them all go home. Sigil failed because they hyped a game and lied about results. They thought the player would be understanding and that Sigil will continue to get money from there player base so they could "fix" their game while we payed to beta test their game further. Their failure to comprehend basic principles of business cost them their company and they ceased to exist.
- Age of Conan: We all knew the hype. It was hyped for YEARS and 99% of us thought it was going to be our miracle MMO that we have been waiting for years. The screenshots were increadible, the combat combos were revolutionary and the fatalities were new. However, when we started to play it we realized the hard truth. It had a pretty game skin but the inside was just rot. They are plagued with bugs, GMs unsure about their own PvP ruleset, quesitonable moderators, etc. They boasted 750K subscribers in the first month alone declaring it from rooftop to rooftop and we saw it. The servers were packed and many more were coming in. However, it had a fatal flaw: it was release with way too many bugs, false promises, and missing features.
Funcom has had the mindset that Sigil did. We'll let the monies that come in from the release and the subsequent months to further pay for our developers to come out with better patches to stabilize this game. This is a fatal flaw because players are tired of paying for beta. They've just washed their hands and said no more. We'll see what happens to funcom in the future. They still have a chance to save themselves but they need to be honest with their playerbase if they hope to achieve this.
Players are tired now of half assed MMOs. It doesn't matter if the MMO is the most hyped MMO of the century, if it is release in a shitty state of affairs players just aren't going to stick around anymore. It isn't because players have lost patience in development of MMOs; it is because players have grown to dismiss the excuses that developers give them now.
Watch the interview with Jon and the Lead Developer of Funcom. Funcom was skirting those questions like Clinton during the Monica Lewinksy hearings.
Its in the hands of us now as the players to tell these companies that enough is enough. Develop it right the first time or don't do it at all. MMOs have been released with VERY LITTLE bugs in the past so it can be done. The question is whether or not these companies have the ethic morality of taking the time to do it right the first time versus having their frist few months of subscribers pay for their patches.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
Comments
A very nice and well written post that I have to agree with 110%.
My biggest gripe with new games hitting the markets (particularly MMOs) is that the developers just don't seem to care. The asshats in charge are only interested in two things. Their view and their pockets. They expect the players to blindly walk into the MMO market and buy up whatever they put out there. Yet what they fail to realize is that every MMO is like a sequel to the one who came before it. We as the gamers have seen nearly every system before, we've seen the cool, the bad, the ugly, and even the occasional amazing. We don't take shit and when the developer gives it to us we ensure they suffer. Gamers are cruel and heartless, and it just seems as though a lot of lead developers and project owners don't get this.
We as the gamer understand that it's expensive to make an MMO, It costs millions! We don't deny this... but you must also realize that your success depends solely on US. You can't release a half finished game or a game with only half the promises and expect the gamer community to be compassionate.. We're paying upwards of 70.00 USD a box now, and to top that off a 14.99/mo. subscription fee. That's a LOT of money. Especially for students in High School, College, and so forth. We don't have tons of cash to throw about.. so when we buy a game.. we expect it to blow our socks off.. and rightfully so, it should.
Developers need to slow down, slap the financial company and tell them to calm down so they can take their time.
The good thing about gamers is they can wait. We may complain and scream about how it's taking so long.. and some may dwindle and loose hope over time (like with Darkfall) but so long as you don't take 8 years to release the game.. we'll come back, and if the game is perfect.. we'll ensure your pockets are full of green cash.
I like to think of gamers like the gods of the ancient worlds and the developers the people of Rome and Greece. We watch the developers from afar as the gamers. We excitably wait on their new innovations and inventions. The developers want recognition and praise from their gamers, but no god will be benevolent enough to bless a citizen with wealth, prosperity, and happiness if they don't deserve it. Gamers are the same. If the developer half-asses what they do and gives it to us.. We're not going to praise them and pat them on the head. We're going to leave them. You didn't offer dirt and cow pies to the gods in Rome. Don't offer the same to us. You give us your best creation. Something that you worked on with all your heart and soul... only then will be bless the developers with heaps of money and happiness.
(apologize for any typos. Still getting used to typing via laptop keyboard. Ugh! So flat! and my finger keeps tapping the fskin touch pad! ARGH!)
Everquest - 2000 - '02
Anarchy Online - '01-'02
Earth and Beyond - '02-'04
Star Wars Galaxies - '03-'06('07)
World of Warcraft - '04-'07
Age of Conan - '08 - shelved.
-Waiting on-
Star Trek Online
SW: The Old Republic
This is very hard. Players, which are usually very young, get extremely emotional about any new game and its company. They create a hard fanatic nucleus that is very difficult to penetrate by people that are not reading every day the news about that game. This creates a situation where the hype grows and grows. Add to that, very inteligent people from that company that post in forums to increase the expectation and to demolish opposiong opinions. And satellite websites which are happy to have more visits in their forums. Hype is served.
Gone is the notion that the MMORPG is still in it's infancy and we should overlook flaws.
The MMORPG has come to age in our eyes and it's time the people who make them understand what that means.
"The liberties and resulting economic prosperity that YOU take for granted were granted by those "dead guys"
WWIIONLINE is the exception, when it came out in 2001 it was buggy as hell and looked like crap.
It took about 2 years till 2003 to improve for a small development team. It actually has some good graphics updates, and game mechanics IMPROVEMENTS, not CHANGES but IMPROVEMENTS. It's the only game I played for more then 2 months.
Keep in mind too the Rats suspended charges for WW2OL for 6 months after its horrific release. That helped keep it going without the firestorm that has accompanied other games; you weren't paying to beta test.
You can call it greed if you want, but the reality is that these MMOs cost a fortune to make. Every publisher has to balance developement costs with the risk of releasing too early. The MMO community having less patience with these games only insures that less will be made and only by the most well funded developers. Intolerance will slit your own throat when it comes to MMOs. It's just not worth it for companies to sink the huge amounts of money into these things that take an insane amount of man-hours to create and maintain, only to have the fickle and intolerant community take a collective crap on your efforts.
MMOs Played: EQ 1&2, DAoC, SWG, Planetside, WoW, GW, CoX, DDO, EVE, Vanguard, TR
Playing: WAR
Awaiting 40k Online and wishing for Battletech Online
Some of you might remember Warcraft's problems at release, but most people don't, because it was a bit different. The game's playerbase exploded to an amount that Blizzard was ill-prepared for, and it took them a little while to get things under control. The important thing though is that the game was finished before then (save a few instances like Dire Maul and Maraudon.)
This is what most people don't realize. Take Age of Conan for instance, yeah so Funcom didn't deliver exaclty what they promised, but who was paying for it? Not them I can guarrentee it.
People don't realize that the companies that create games want them to be the best they can be, it's unfortunate that the public needs to bash on the developers when it was in fact the publishers/investors that have money tied up in the game that are responsible for unfinished games.
So you can say, "The devs had plenty of time!" .. whatever, make the game yourself then, we'll see how well that works out.
YES it's a problem, but unfortunately we are bashing the wrong people.
I say PROPS to funcom, Age of Conan is an excellent game, just too bad your investors didn't give you the time needed to complete it.
The primary "trend" I have noticed post - WoW is MMO's have become over simplified (on top of what you have pointed out)
I don't know when these guys will get the hint but I know one thing:
A decent, open ended MMO has not released in years.
You left out a bunch of games that released in the past year or 2 that illustrate your point.
IMHO, these companies ARE paying the price. Sigil went out of business for example, although SWG was lossing subs anyway the NGE pretty much sealed its fate and damaged SOE's rep pretty badly, Funcom...sorry anyone who thought they would pull off a decent game was dellusional. Track record = Anarchy Online...what else needed to be said? The community burned themselves on that one.
Other crashed titles from the last 2 years...
I would approach any new MMO with a very healthy dose of "wait and see how it goes".
As part of my post above, Blizzard has plenty of money, they don't need investors to back them and push them into early release.
Like i said, blame investors, not developers.
As part of my post above, Blizzard has plenty of money, they don't need investors to back them and push them into early release.
Like i said, blame investors, not developers.
The customers don't care who's fault it is exactly. If I buy a new car I expect ALL the parts to work as intended, not just a few here and there. AoC is crap in my opinion btw.
As part of my post above, Blizzard has plenty of money, they don't need investors to back them and push them into early release.
Like i said, blame investors, not developers.
The customers don't care who's fault it is exactly. If I buy a new car I expect ALL the parts to work as intended, not just a few here and there. AoC is crap in my opinion btw.
The car analagy (flame me if thats spelled wrong) just doesn't work. No one is making the car makers release the car at a certain time.
Your opinion of AoC is just that, your opinion.
As part of my post above, Blizzard has plenty of money, they don't need investors to back them and push them into early release.
Like i said, blame investors, not developers.
That's not completely true. Blizzard's got Vivendi, and Vivendi DID push them to release before they were ready. Maraudon and Dire Maul weren't the only things missing that they'd have liked to have in there, and even Burning Crusade was released before Black Temple was finished.
Now that I think on it, Blizzard wasn't done with EITHER of them ... why did they get away with it?
The sad thing about this post is, companies arent learning, Warhammer is walking down this same route, and people cant seem to see it.
Ive adopted a strict wait 45 days after launch before buying policy that i plan to follow for here on out for all pay to play games.
And as for the guy refuting the car analogy, you clearly are missing the point, it doesnt matter if they rushed the launch or they were kicked in the back, a shitty game is a shitty game, how it got that way makes no nevermind to the customer. Placing blame is just making excuses for releasing an unfinished product and trying to make players understand why they should continue to fork over money while they fix their grand, expensive beta test.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson
It matters because some people actually care about being correct.
MMOs Played: EQ 1&2, DAoC, SWG, Planetside, WoW, GW, CoX, DDO, EVE, Vanguard, TR
Playing: WAR
Awaiting 40k Online and wishing for Battletech Online
Sounds like you're bored with the genre and expect them to reinvent the wheel with every new game. The best you will ever see when this much money is on the line is "a few things different".
MMOs Played: EQ 1&2, DAoC, SWG, Planetside, WoW, GW, CoX, DDO, EVE, Vanguard, TR
Playing: WAR
Awaiting 40k Online and wishing for Battletech Online
Sounds like you're bored with the genre and expect them to reinvent the wheel with every new game. The best you will ever see when this much money is on the line is "a few things different".
Not reinvent the wheel, but add exciting new features; or at the very least play and feel different then the games already out.
Obviously if you look at a particular genre, there are a lot of "clone" games that play like some of the more popular games. Only the games that stand out (in a good way!) are going to be good and get sells. Developers of MMOs know this and try to achieve it using things like "next-gen" graphics, or "Huge PVP player battles". I guess you can think of Grand Theft Auto 4 compared to Driv3r. Sure Grand Theft Auto 4 was pushed forward in development by higher ups, but its only itself, not a clone of a big budget or high popularity game already on the market. (Just like I'm sure Guild Wars 2 will be good [especially for current guild wars players] because it will only improve from the current guild wars instead of trying to copy a game like WoW)
As I said; I think developers need to stop trying to be successful (though worrying about putting food on the table at this day and age is a consideration!) and try to make their true vision.
Sounds like you're bored with the genre and expect them to reinvent the wheel with every new game. The best you will ever see when this much money is on the line is "a few things different".
Not reinvent the wheel, but add exciting new features; or at the very least play and feel different then the games already out.
Obviously if you look at a particular genre, there are a lot of "clone" games that play like some of the more popular games. Only the games that stand out (in a good way!) are going to be good and get sells. Developers of MMOs know this and try to achieve it using things like "next-gen" graphics, or "Huge PVP player battles". I guess you can think of Grand Theft Auto 4 compared to Driv3r. Sure Grand Theft Auto 4 was pushed forward in development by higher ups, but its only itself, not a clone of a big budget or high popularity game already on the market. (Just like I'm sure Guild Wars 2 will be good [especially for current guild wars players] because it will only improve from the current guild wars instead of trying to copy a game like WoW)
As I said; I think developers need to stop trying to be successful (though worrying about putting food on the table at this day and age is a consideration!) and try to make their true vision.
Developers primary concern at this level will always be to produce a successful marketable game. I understand what you're saying, but like so many others on these forums, you're asking for something that's unrealistic in today's business model. These games can bankrupt a company. Minor innovation is the best you'll get.
MMOs Played: EQ 1&2, DAoC, SWG, Planetside, WoW, GW, CoX, DDO, EVE, Vanguard, TR
Playing: WAR
Awaiting 40k Online and wishing for Battletech Online
As bad as a game like AoC is with all of the bugs and bad GMs, the company isn't going to go out of business or have any financial problems. While a large amount of people have stopped playing the game they still have sold 1,250,000 copies and have had at least 400,000 people pay the monthly fee since it has been released. At $40 per copy sold between them and their publishers thats $50,000,000. If anything, I'd consider that a financial success.
Now if they have any credibility in the future when it comes to MMOs is another story. Then again the vast majority of people don't pay attention to the company the makes the game. They just see a title and think it would look like fun to play.
People think a game needs to have WoW numbers to turn a profit, but at 100,000 subscribers they're still bringing in over a million a month. I have to say that isn't all too bad.
HAHA I really wonder who made up this thing about a car. It is STUPID yes it is , sorry but when I buy a game or MMORPG I pay between 10/60 Euro, when we talk about buying a car my insurance alone is far more then what a game will ever cost me let alone buying the car which cost me between 30/50k. Maybe some of you are able to buy a car as cheap a MMORPG + sub fee cost to make such a ridiculous analogy
So why do people speak about things as if they buy a car with no wheels or steering wheel, it does not make any form of sense.
To the OP sorry man but this whole inpatient behavior people show is NOT helping this genre but only is dumping down this genre cause it is very obvious that many people simply have no clue what it takes to create a MMORPG so they bash due to them having no clue what so ever.
There are tons of games I dislike, but you won't see me bashing those games as I myself understand that not every game is meant for me, shame that many people assume that every game made must be awesome for them and if it it isn't we see these new people into these games to following the trend of the inpatient gamer in hopes this genre continues to be dumped down. Cause that's all what will happen due to the inpatient nature of the new gen. player. And I for one am not happy with that trend and never thought you Enigma would take sides on the inpatient type of people who try to play games.
I am not saying I am okay with recent development, but all I can say is that the inpatient com. is getting what they ask for, problem is that most will NOT understand that they are the cause of the dumping down of this genre.
HAHA I really wonder who made up this thing about a car. It is STUPID yes it is , sorry but when I buy a game or MMORPG I pay between 10/60 Euro, when we talk about buying a car my insurance alone is far more then what a game will ever cost me let alone buying the car which cost me between 30/50k. Maybe some of you are able to buy a car as cheap a MMORPG + sub fee cost to make such a ridiculous analogy
So why do people speak about things as if they buy a car with no wheels or steering wheel, it does not make any form of sense.
To the OP sorry man but this whole inpatient behavior people show is NOT helping this genre but only is dumping down this genre cause it is very obvious that many people simply have no clue what it takes to create a MMORPG so they bash due to them having no clue what so ever.
There are tons of games I dislike, but you won't see me bashing those games as I myself understand that not every game is meant for me, shame that many people assume that every game made must be awesome for them and if it it isn't we see these new people into these games to following the trend of the inpatient gamer in hopes this genre continues to be dumped down. Cause that's all what will happen due to the inpatient nature of the new gen. player. And I for one am not happy with that trend and never thought you Enigma would take sides on the inpatient type of people who try to play games.
I am not saying I am okay with recent development, but all I can say is that the inpatient com. is getting what they ask for, problem is that most will NOT understand that they are the cause of the dumping down of this genre.
The car analogy is about the finished product not the price. So basically you are saying you don't care if you wasted $50 on an unfinished buggy piece of crap. Well then you are part of the problem as to why these games get released.
I agree 100 percent and this is well written and I believe I speak for many when I say this gives us hope.
HAHA I really wonder who made up this thing about a car. It is STUPID yes it is , sorry but when I buy a game or MMORPG I pay between 10/60 Euro, when we talk about buying a car my insurance alone is far more then what a game will ever cost me let alone buying the car which cost me between 30/50k. Maybe some of you are able to buy a car as cheap a MMORPG + sub fee cost to make such a ridiculous analogy
So why do people speak about things as if they buy a car with no wheels or steering wheel, it does not make any form of sense.
To the OP sorry man but this whole inpatient behavior people show is NOT helping this genre but only is dumping down this genre cause it is very obvious that many people simply have no clue what it takes to create a MMORPG so they bash due to them having no clue what so ever.
There are tons of games I dislike, but you won't see me bashing those games as I myself understand that not every game is meant for me, shame that many people assume that every game made must be awesome for them and if it it isn't we see these new people into these games to following the trend of the inpatient gamer in hopes this genre continues to be dumped down. Cause that's all what will happen due to the inpatient nature of the new gen. player. And I for one am not happy with that trend and never thought you Enigma would take sides on the inpatient type of people who try to play games.
I am not saying I am okay with recent development, but all I can say is that the inpatient com. is getting what they ask for, problem is that most will NOT understand that they are the cause of the dumping down of this genre.
The car analogy is about the finished product not the price. So basically you are saying you don't care if you wasted $50 on an unfinished buggy piece of crap. Well then you are part of the problem as to why these games get released.
No I was not saying that.
You dont seem to get it, it just isnt sinking in for you is it?
NO, we dont want the wheel reinvented(though the time for it to be reinvented is coming up very soon) we just expect a game to play the way it was fucking advertised to play, its not rocket science, if you tell me 24 classes, give me 24 classes, if you say you are going to be DX10 capable, then you better make sure your engine is capable of doing it. If you say your product is going to be a game then make sure the damn thing is at least playable, dont make me pay 80 bucks for something that feels like an alpha client.
And yeah things get cut, not everything can make it at launch, thats why devolopers dont open their mouth unless they know a certain feature will certainly find its way into the game. Making promises you cant keep is bad form, and that is something they shouldve learned way back in business school.
Again you missed the point, alright people care about being correct, hypothetically, we established it is the publishers fualt the game is bug ridden trash... does that make it any better?
Seems you just quoted me to add+1 to your post count, i explained my position and your coment didnt change the fact that there was more then enough logic to crush your statement.
Quotations Those Who make peaceful resolutions impossible, make violent resolutions inevitable. John F. Kennedy
Life... is the shit that happens while you wait for moments that never come - Lester Freeman
Lie to no one. If there 's somebody close to you, you'll ruin it with a lie. If they're a stranger, who the fuck are they you gotta lie to them? - Willy Nelson