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The Taboo That Shouldn't Be
Credinus
Member Posts: 32
Before you read, I want you to take a moment to sit back and think back on your fondest memories of your favorite MMORPG.
If you're a veteran MMO'er, chances are your best memories come from events that happened many years ago. In any case, now that you've got your fondest memories on your mind, read on.
My criticism target in this thread is something that has become some sort of mysterious taboo in the MMO development industry. So what is that taboo? Regression. How many times have you heard "this game was amazing before this change or that expansion" in just about any game you have played? Now obviously, this statement is inevitably going to be made by at least one player after pretty much every patch, but there are those certain moments, those specific changes, which cause laments that echo throughout every forum and every fansite. The two biggest that come to mind are SWG pre-CU and UO pre-AoS. I doubt you'll be able to go more than a few pages in the forums of either of those two games without finding a mention of those "glory days."
In extreme cases such as the two above, and there are certainly more for various games, developers/publishers/someone responsible is outwardly refusing to consider the option of making classic ruleset servers available to players. As a result, many of them see -large- portions of their playerbases flee in frustration, most likely to one of many private servers that individuals reverse engineer to capture those golden ages.
Before I continue, I should clear something up... I personally have never played SWG and I haven't played UO pre-AoS, so it would be moot to try to call me a fanboy or anything of the sort. I may not have played them, but I recognize that there is a significant demand for them. Moving on...
Private servers, as most of us know, become very popular in games after they've been out for a while. The popularity of those servers skyrocket when a change is made that a significant number of players disagree with. If you look at all of the major private servers of UO, for instance, you'll find that almost all of them classic rulesets. Why are they so popular? Because it's what players want, and they can't get that from the official servers. On just about every MMO I've played that has been out for more than a few years, I've seen multiple comments in the forums or various fansites where former players state that they are wholly willing to fork over their subscription money again if the developers would release official classic ruleset servers.
Now, in some cases, there may be budget constraints conflicting with the possibility of opening such servers. But I am inclined to believe that that isn't really what's stopping them, especially when some of the more extreme cases offer the possibility of increasing their subscription bases by more than 50% simply by opening one of those servers. On top of that, they don't really need to worry about developing content for those servers... They are pretty much exactly how the players that want to play on them want them to be, so aside from maintenance and disciplinary actions, there doesn't need to be much staff time spent on them. And all the players that don't want to play those classic rulesets can continue playing the constantly-updated regular rulesets.
So... Why is the practice of opening classic ruleset servers so taboo?
Obviously, we can't speak for the developers themselves, but to the rest of you... How many of you would like to see classic ruleset servers added to your favorite/once-favorite games?
Comments
To me it is insane for the player base to split up. Having been in MMO’s with declining player bases (who has not?) I see no sense in classic or private servers.
As you state no rules change will be to everyone’s taste, for me that should tell us to keep our chin up and not feel we are being picked on. Instead players feel they are being personally attacked, which is quite silly.
I would not mind seeing a ‘before and after’ test sever though, hopefully this would help allay some of the fears that the latest path had ‘destroyed’ the game.
I see nothing tabboo about classic rules servers, if the game has a growing population then why not? But bear in mind that you may end up having to merge as the server populations decline at a later date.
I largely agree with Scot. It often doesn't make sense to have classic servers in any game without a very strong playerbase.
Honestly, thinking back through the games I've played I don't think I'd want to revert anything. It's not like I've never experienced a buggy patch, or one which hurt balance more than it helped...it's just that eventually that stuff got sorted out and gameplay was better in the end.
My memory is far from perfect though, so perhaps someone'll mention something I've forgotten about.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There is no going back. You can never again have your "first ever" MMO experience. I started EQ just a couple of months before 'Kunark' was released, and it was fun way back then, but the mists of time and rose-tinted spectacles always make things look better "in the good old days".
I think if a game were to host a classic server, it would also require a subscription discount. The players are paying for the new content, so to voluntarily let go of access to that content seems silly, especially when most updates are positive ones. When you requested that i remember my fondest mmo experiences, i thought of FFXI. That game consistently updated content which was overwhelmingly positive and made the game more playable (for example when they came out with windowed mode.) Games like WoW are constantly being adjusted so if an update hurts, odds are it'll be rebalanced later. In fact, I can't think of an instance within an mmo where the game was "ruined" due to an update. TF2 had glory days and lots of people complain about the new weapons, but the servers are player run so they can make their own servers and disable the weapons if they want.
Sorry OP... I understand what you're saying, but I don't think it's really an issue. Perhaps tell us of your personal experience with this. The two examples you cited didn't affect you. What has affected you?
Your logic is flawed. When players who would continue subscribing if classic servers were implemented quit due to the new, undesired changes, the player base still ends up being "insanely" split. The only difference is that the split portion of the player base isn't giving the company any money at all, having instead moved on to a different game or an unofficial private server.
Basically, your position is that we should force people who hate dramatic new changes to eat a **** sandwich they don't want, in order to prevent the player base from being split up — which it will be anyway, since the disenfranchised players are just going to leave in exasperation.
There is a huge difference between simple rule changes and ginormous overhauls that dramatically change how a game is played. Star Wars Galaxies was literally raped, shot, gutted, turned inside-out, and then stuffed to make a WoW-alike money machine for SoE.
Grinning and bearing nerfs, tweaks and minor rule changes is one thing. Putting up with dramatic changes in the way a game is played is not.
Also, turning Jedi into a class any 12-year-old retard can begin the game with is a personal attack on players who spent countless hours arduously earning the position. "Yeah, you know that thing you worked so hard for? We're giving it away for free now." If that's not a personal attack, I don't what else is.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
I agree with the OP. I don't understand why putting up a classic server in games should be an issue. Allow people to transfer to the classic server.
When a major expansion or change comes to a game...that changes the face of the game, people should be able to get onto the game they enjoyed. When SWG made it's major changes, and began bleeding subs like crazy, it would have been smarter for them to open a few classic servers, rather than loose thousands of players.
Sure you may split the playerbase up, but wouldn't it be better to split the players, rather than loose them completely?
I think we really have 2 different situations only 1 of which this could apply to.
Pre-CU SWG vs NGE. For all practical purposes you ended up with an entirely new game. To keep a 'classic' server in this case would have to cost the same or even more as you'd end up looking at running 2 seperate Design / Dev teams. NGE was very much a case of a change with no going back (not that they couldn't have, just that they weren't going to).
The other situation would be where a patch just modified the game with rules that split the community. DAoC would be a good example from what I've read. One of the expansions changed the ruleset. Players didn't like it and the company actually put in classic servers with the pre-expansion ruleset in place. On the basic level, a discount would make sense if the classic server wasnt' ever going to move forward. In this case the company figured out how to keep releasing expansions to ALL their servers be it pre-, post-, etc......
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Your logic is flawed, because you assume 100% of the players who don't like the latest expansion also quit playing the game.
A given MMORPG's playerbase might be something like this:
So 20% of the player base in this example would play on Classic servers but only half of them are returning players.
But arguing about fragmenting the playerbase isn't even all that important. Cost is what prevents it from happening.
Spending significant manhours on something which might appeal to some players will lose you some of your happy customers. Because instead of spending your manhours keeping those happy customers happy with new content/features, you took a gamble on unhappy customers to try to get them back.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The other aspect of this is that in general programmers don't like working on legacy code and hate supporting multiple codesets for the same product. It gets messy, confusing and bugs crop in. So the programmers will oppose this on principle unless word comes from on high that this how things should be done.
Reiterating, I am talking about changes that alter the game entirely, not just minor changes. In the biggest cases of these, they had a game that was working as it was and as such didn't require attention beyond maintenance and disciplinary actions for the most part. I'm also willing to bet that they have backed up copies of the client and server code for those pre-change states, as well. If not, then I agree, it wouldn't be in their best interest to go back and manually work the code back into that state. Otherwise, just playerwipe and open it up. Charge the full subscription fee, but have it include access to both the classic and the current servers obviously.
In response to the post about the changes not affecting me, I agree on the part of SWG. I've never played the game in either of its two major iterations, so I can't speak for that one specifically. I can say, however, that in all my research when I was interested in trying SWG that I ran into an overwhelming amount of veterans pining for the good ol' pre-CU days so I know that there's definitely a demand for it. UO, however, did in fact affect me and I know basically everything its pre-AoS days entailed from years of research while playing the post-AoS game. If they had a classic shard option on that game, I would most definitely jump on it in addition to my characters on current shards. In case you're not sure what the change encompassed, AoS completely redesigned how UO handled items. There were various other major changes along with this, especially with skills, but the item change with the most significant. Pre-AoS, items actually had only a minor impact on a character's effectiveness, which created all sorts of trickle-down effects such as no serious item attachment to get frustrated over when you lose the item, balancing PvP/PvE, etc. The changes to the way the game handled items made the game what it hadn't been before: a loot grinder. I like the way it is now, but being a fan of the Siege Perilous shard (the open PvP/looting one), I'd love to play on a classic shard as well.
Anyway, yeah, I think it'd be great to see. I wasn't aware that DAoC had already done something like this, and I applaud them for that.
I'm not just assuming, I know for a fact, because I've seen it happen. SWG is just the most prominent and extreme example, but there are others, like UO to a somewhat lesser extent. Also, I'm not assuming 100%, more like 70-80% if you also factor in increased attrition.
When developers implement drastic, sweeping changes that are widely unpopular, huge chunks of the player base are going to leave, not just 10% or 20%. When developers see a huge uproar about proposed changes, it's much wiser to keep a classic server or three up and running, even if said servers get infrequent updates.
Actually, if developers see huge protests, they should re-think the changes entirely, but corporate bean counters with zero foresight and understanding of player bases often get in the way of this.
Even if the number of players who depart isn't huge, the company's reputation might take a fatal blow if they alienate large portions of the player base, i.e. SOE, the most villified name on this whole forum other than EA. If DAoC can have classic servers, anyone can.
And finally, if two Polish dudes can run a couple of private servers in their spare time (and there are reportedly some private servers for certain games that are more stable, friendly, populated and enjoyable than the real thing [and also free of goldsellers and botters], not that I'd know from firsthand experience), then a large company can spare the expense as well. But DAoC already proved that.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
Well if we're only talking about Extremely Bad Decisions (like SWG CU) then it's stupid to even have this discussion. Because the solution isn't Classic Servers. The solution is not making the Extremely Bad Decision in the first place.
Why talk about addressing the result of a terrible decision, when the Ounce of Prevention is what is actually needed?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well, maybe. If gaming companies would be equally strong in both the creative, finance and public relations department, we wouldnt have much to talk about anyway.
What i see happening in my company (which has nothing to do with games, so bear with me) is that bad decisions will not easily be recognized. I am talking about the human factor here, that has a tendancy to ignore logic and common sense when losing face is what is at stake. It usually takes a few people to be fired or "promoted" and some "reorganising of the department" to rectify said mistake and do what logic would have prescribed a long time ago. In the meantime, the companies product suffers and customers pay the bill.
In MMO land, the usual customer has less and less patience to deal with incompetence, bad decision making resulting in a flawed game. Personally i wouldnt fork out a monthly fee if i am forced to go play on a classic rule set server that most likely will see no or less updates, events and GM attention than the "main" product. In my opinion a huge part of the success of private servers is that they are free to play on.
The big question is, why gaming companies wont learn from their fellow collegues mistakes and avoid things like mentioned in other posts. If your game has a pre-sale of 100k+ copies, up to 500k in some of the recent cases, you have to be utterly incompetent to lose that amount of customers in a period of less than 6 months.
Currently playing browser games. Waiting for Albion Online, Citadel of Sorcery and Camelot Unchained.
Played: almost all MMO pre 2007
This is a pointless discussion (because it won't change anything), although this is MMORPG.com, where that's pretty much the norm. Nothing discussed here will change a whit in the actual industry; it's just a place to come jaw with other players, though useful information is sometimes exchanged.
The real stupidity lies in the Extremely Bad Decisions™ you refer to. They're what's stupid, and that's the cause of these pointless discussions: people who are frustrated and upset about the decline of sandbox MMORPGs, the butchering of their previous favorite game, etc.
They want answers that no one has, so they start threads on MMORPG.com to lament days gone by, to discuss the possiblity of future sandbox games, and to (as we're doing here) daydream and argue back and forth about classic servers.
Pointless, stupid threads like these are a coping mechanism for some people, a way to mourn a lost pleasurable activity that's been taken away by a bunch of businesspeople who use trendy corporate buzzwords, drink lattes and Dasani, and have a whole culture of bullshitting and saving face which barely recognizes "reality on the ground." (I'm sort of referring to what Manarix is talking about here.)
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
If you play a game and like certain characteristics of a game, and then they CHANGE those characteristics, the party responsible has CHANGED what you LIKED. In SP games, we simply re-install, skip that patch and play the game how we like it. However, in MMOs we're stuck with the changes handed down.
I don't see this changing. Based on past experiences, devs NEVER admit they made mistakes. They would rather see their game run into the ground than do so.
So be it. If you (the devs) don't sell me what I want, I'll go somewhere else and buy what I do want. I vote with this "$".
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
Ah, but that's where you're sorely mistaken.
The people who start private servers do so for a reason, and it's almost never to provide a free service. Would you go through all the trouble of setting up an illegal server with pirated software, just for charity's sake?
Private servers invariably have "donation items," and most people who play seriously on these servers do donate money to get the items and keep the server running (but mostly for the items).
Yet why would someone use a private server, if they have to donate real money to play competitively anyway? Because the private servers offer something the official ones do not, and in many, many cases (UO, for example), it's classic gameplay.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
Well my opinion is that developers have a serious fear of seeing to have made a mistake as highllighted in the SWG debacle I was a part of...
...any none biased assessement would have told them after a coupel of days they had a made a huge mistake but in the dev teams case..it was an approach that..YOU WILL LIKE IT..and thats that...people in general in life find it hard to admit mistakes espcially your boss..
I was a huge fan of SWG pre NGE ...and that was a serious slap in the face taking a unique system and game and trying to turn it into a cheap idiot version of WoW like every other title was nothing short of this industries biggest failure and SOE should be ashamed.
Although some who are playing on "classic" styled servers are doing so because they are free, most play because it offers a flavor of the game that they enjoyed thats not available anymore.
Titles should grandfather their game at certain points (make it clear bugs are bugs and there will be no patches) as they offer new content.
ps. to those that say certain free shards are illegal and pirated.....do some research.
I take your word for it, as i am by no means an active player on any of these private servers anymore.
Currently playing browser games. Waiting for Albion Online, Citadel of Sorcery and Camelot Unchained.
Played: almost all MMO pre 2007
Private servers are run by scumbags and used by inadequate cheapskates. True story.
Although I strongly suspect your opinion is entirely ignorant — comparable to middle-class yuppies in modern society who look down their noses at drug addicts, street gangs, and other criminal elements with fear and no understanding of why they are the way they are — you're not entirely wrong. But a stopped clock is right twice a day.
A lot of them are sort of like that, yes. Then again, many commercial MMOs are run by money-grubbing cretins with no regard for the player base, and the players themselves are mainly lol-ing, leet-speaking retards who use unemployment benefits to pay for their sub.
Currently Playing: EVE Online
Retired From: UO, FFXI, AO, SWG, Ryzom, GW, WoW, WAR
Well if you are only talking about huge changes which have the player base in an uproar as Axehilt said that’s a result of poor decision making not a patch impact issue.
If we are dealing with normal patches what if some members of your guild want to go to a classic while some want to stay? It is fraught with problems. I think private servers do a better job in this regard, where a true niche for a certain subset of rules has been identified.
I think there is probably pride on the side of the game developers too. They probably think all this new content they came up with MUST be played. How dare you not want to play my creation! I spent all this time on it!
Frankly, I would jump on a classic EQ server faster that you could double click on a microtransaction icon. And I would stay for a long time too...providing the population remained respectable, which I imagine it would. I would even pay the 29.99 I originally paid to start EQ on top of the monthly fee just for the rights to play it.
Playing EVE online currently. Started MMO's with EQ Velious, played EQ2, DAoC, CoH, AO, SWG (pre NGE), Planetside, DCUO. Played briefly cause I didn't like: WAR, WoW, VG, etc. etc.
With out a doubt this is very true. To use a different example take Pirates of the Burning Seas. The Dev's designed & built a game THEY wanted to play. And because they were independent with no outside over watch that's what they did.
Taking the shear number of suggestions (and I'm just talking about the really good one's that would have benifited the game for all, not any of the wack job one's) the game they put out wasn't really what the general player base was looking for.
And because of the quoted item and the simple fact of human nature in not wanting to admit a mistake, those same problems are still present and the populations of the remaining servers keeps going down (and/or concentrating towards one so those left have someone to play with).
With that kind of mind-set, classic servers are generally doomed.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
Also, turning Jedi into a class any 12-year-old retard can begin the game with is a personal attack on players who spent countless hours arduously earning the position. "Yeah, you know that thing you worked so hard for? We're giving it away for free now." If that's not a personal attack, I don't what else is.
Ah, another butthurt alpha class fan who 'earned' his Jedi and 'worked hard' grinding those 30 professions or village quests.
Give me a break. You didn't work any harder than creature handlers, pikemen, or pistoleers, you just willingly chose to spend your time on an imbecilic grind instead of availing yourself of everything else the game had to offer. In fact, you didn't work at all. Setting up macros to afk your way through entertainer, musician, and dancer, and grinding away on the same mobs for the combat professions wasn't work. You were still playing a game, albeit with blinders on to everything around you because you were so single-minded in your desire for an alpha class.
Making Jedi a starter profession wasn't a personal attack at all, it was a business decision. To be honest, Jedi should never have been in the game, and the only good thing about the NGE was that it pissed off all the '12-year-old retard' elder Jedi and gave the rest of us a good laugh at their expense.
To the OP's point, classic servers just aren't financially feasible or they would be done, period. These companies want money above all else, and if there was money to be made via classic rulesets, you would have them. The fact that you don't have them means that there is not as much demand for them as all the people making up statistics in this thread and others would have you believe.
I'd like a classic SWG server as much as the next vet. But I don't kid myself that I'm anything other than a very small minority. Yes, developer and producer ego plays some role in the lack of classic servers, but John Smedley and his ilk would sell their own children to make a buck, so you'd better believe if there was money to be made in classic rulesets, he'd be implementing them.