I have to be honest I stopped reading this article when a supposed "lack of accountability" in the MMO world for devs came up. Go talk to the guys that spent years working on Tabula Rasa or Auto Assault about that. Its called speaking with your dollars... ...Bottom line, don't like the way things go in a game, quit playing. Quit posting on their boards as well. Instead people play a game and continue to PAY for it and post on the respective boards until its absolutely absurd. Just quit playing. Its certainly your right to speak with your dollars. Make the companies accountable by not paying for what you view as their trash or lack of customer service. Ive done it over and over. Its not hard. Just quit playing.
"Voting with the wallet" is and always will be the least preferable alternative for a player. It's like the nuclear bomb of customer service: the only way I can save the thing I enjoy is to annihilate it. It implies writing off the significant amount of money (sometimes in the hundreds of dollars) a player has already put into the game, foregoing all future enjoyment of it or the investment required to enjoy it to that point. It only voices the displeasure by foregoing all constructive channels to voice the displeasure. Furthermore, it holds the developer accountable only by cutting off the things it needs to be accountable: funds and information.
Cancelling only makes sense if you like nothing in the game, because then there's no loss. But for people who like the game, they want to enjoy the things that drew them to purchase the game in the first place. How does cancelling help them get the things they want?
Because all that will happen is that they won't be able to enjoy the things they enjoy. In the worst case scenario, the game will close, and then nothing can be done to get the things the player enjoyed back. Cancelling is the last hope of a desperate playerbase to evoke some change. It is also, at that point, too late for a developer to become accountable.
The failures of Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault are not evidence that the developers are accountable. They never had the opportunity to be accountable, or show they were accountable. And now all the players: those who loved AA and TR as they were, those who liked them but wanted changes, and those (like me) who always wanted to try them, but never got a chance to; will now not be able to play.
That's why it is in both our interest and the developers' interest to demand greater accountability. Because when the /cancel button is the only way to hold devs accountable, and the only way a player can voice his displeasure, all we get are cancelled games and a lot of wasted money.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Mmoprg should be more directed towards a Social Democracy rather and a Capitalism Senate. There i said it. Too a degree you can find similar government structure in many mmorpgs. Take World of Warcraft of example. In it's truest form it is by all mean a form of Capitalism. I am not saying Capitalism is a bad thing by any means but, in a mmorpg reflecting this kind of government structure is bad for the gamer. Take Arena for example. When Wotlk newest seassion started off everyone was at a equal playing field. However as time wore on only the better and stronger class/spec and players that play well together progressed, while the rest bleed and clawed to get every bit of progression items they could get to say in competitive range. Now with the session seven just out now for a few weeks. Anyone that couldn't keep up or wanting to start off is at a mile of a disadvantage. The only means beyond Arena to progress with a alt starting off is Bg gear that is at least 2 session old. This is hardly a sturdy stepping stone for most players and one i find very difficult to overcome with my other 5 level 80s I have. The stronger more resillianced out players with stronger weapons i cannot even come close to touching. It will take at least 2 full session to catch up to these titans. The rich get richer and i get pwned.
Another aspect is the different tiers of raiding. At first is was enjoyable and i could pug and interactwith new players. In some cases it was wonderful. In a whole bunch of other ways it was a nightmare. For example, if grouped with some people that didn't want to finish the full raid that day or night, I was locked into of the instance for a week and any attempts of finding a group that choice was made for me. There is a few problems with this - Getting everyone to getter the next day to finishing the raid. - Some player would go ahead and finishes the raid without the group that was there. Just to name 2. The alternative to this is join a guild but, It still doesn't change the problem I would be faced with later as an officer. When my guild packed it in on a Uladar run one night. I encounter a few member trying to put together a pug and finish that Uladar run the guild was working on. Now right then and there i should of kicked them but, then i would be down hardcore members that are on all the time. My main problem is the lockouts. They give too much power to 1 player over another. My other problem not related above is how loot is handled in World of Warcraft givng the power of 1 player over many because, loot isn't assigned to the individual and rather the group. Players have too much power to be a responsible mature players. We all know that so, why does company implore this kind of standard in their games ? I highly doubt anything i have said here will be agreed with and I am o.k with that but, these are just my feeling concerning mmorpg and not just Wow. I have seen this in a few games. Truthful as a person that spends the most part of his free time gaming I'm getting turned off of Mmorpgs altogether because, what they are standing for. When i started playing mmorpgs way back when. I thought to myself "hey this is great, I can play a game and i can progress in it at the same time" Before that i was a Fps Rts gamer with a heavy console back round. This is not at all what I imagined when i started playing. I agree with Garrett Fuller. There needs to be revolution or F it what's the point anymore ? We should all just go back to what we where doing before we started playing mmorpgs. At least there I know what to expect from other players and I have to power to do something about it.
Social Democracy?? You do realize thats an even bigger farce than what we have now? You would be exchanging the Few Who Rule(those who own the banks/corps and thus the politicians) for The Party. Its simply a subset of the same Boss class. At least in WoW, everyone has a chance to do the best they are capable of. Its all a matter of how much time/talent/focus and imagination you are willing to invest.
Sure there are dues to pay. You can't expect to start out on the same level as people who have invested hundreds or thousands of hours over the last almost 5 years. But if you are willing to invest the time/talent and focus, you can get your own "piece of the action" if thats what you want. With Blizzards on going patches, content gets easier and thus more accessible to larger numbers of people as time goes on.
As for "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" thats been the perspective of those behind The Party since the concept began. What people forget is that The Party is made up of people, the same as anyone else. In fact, history demonstrates that those who make up The Party, tend to be much more sociopathic than one normally sees in the general population(power systems self select for such types).
One of the major reasons that WoW is so popular is that its open to such a wide range of people. It will run on *long* out dated hardware, and its easy to get in to and continue with. After all these years its fairly polished, and it has a LOT of content. Its all a matter of what a player is willing to invest in their play sessions.
If you look at Canadian politics it's pretty much what we go up here and it seems to work very well. Free heath care, programs that help people find jobs ect. All free of charge.
As for the "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" the only real answer you gave clearly directed toward that is. "Those people are crazy", i know. It's not the players fault for being that way. You give a player a way to hold something over someones head It's like giving a bully that hurts animals a stake to dangle of the head of a starving dog and you implore it. This is suppose to be fun ?
Mmoprg should be more directed towards a Social Democracy rather and a Capitalism Senate. There i said it. Too a degree you can find similar government structure in many mmorpgs. Take World of Warcraft of example. In it's truest form it is by all mean a form of Capitalism. I am not saying Capitalism is a bad thing by any means but, in a mmorpg reflecting this kind of government structure is bad for the gamer. Take Arena for example. When Wotlk newest seassion started off everyone was at a equal playing field. However as time wore on only the better and stronger class/spec and players that play well together progressed, while the rest bleed and clawed to get every bit of progression items they could get to say in competitive range. Now with the session seven just out now for a few weeks. Anyone that couldn't keep up or wanting to start off is at a mile of a disadvantage. The only means beyond Arena to progress with a alt starting off is Bg gear that is at least 2 session old. This is hardly a sturdy stepping stone for most players and one i find very difficult to overcome with my other 5 level 80s I have. The stronger more resillianced out players with stronger weapons i cannot even come close to touching. It will take at least 2 full session to catch up to these titans. The rich get richer and i get pwned.
Another aspect is the different tiers of raiding. At first is was enjoyable and i could pug and interactwith new players. In some cases it was wonderful. In a whole bunch of other ways it was a nightmare. For example, if grouped with some people that didn't want to finish the full raid that day or night, I was locked into of the instance for a week and any attempts of finding a group that choice was made for me. There is a few problems with this - Getting everyone to getter the next day to finishing the raid. - Some player would go ahead and finishes the raid without the group that was there. Just to name 2. The alternative to this is join a guild but, It still doesn't change the problem I would be faced with later as an officer. When my guild packed it in on a Uladar run one night. I encounter a few member trying to put together a pug and finish that Uladar run the guild was working on. Now right then and there i should of kicked them but, then i would be down hardcore members that are on all the time. My main problem is the lockouts. They give too much power to 1 player over another. My other problem not related above is how loot is handled in World of Warcraft givng the power of 1 player over many because, loot isn't assigned to the individual and rather the group. Players have too much power to be a responsible mature players. We all know that so, why does company implore this kind of standard in their games ? I highly doubt anything i have said here will be agreed with and I am o.k with that but, these are just my feeling concerning mmorpg and not just Wow. I have seen this in a few games. Truthful as a person that spends the most part of his free time gaming I'm getting turned off of Mmorpgs altogether because, what they are standing for. When i started playing mmorpgs way back when. I thought to myself "hey this is great, I can play a game and i can progress in it at the same time" Before that i was a Fps Rts gamer with a heavy console back round. This is not at all what I imagined when i started playing. I agree with Garrett Fuller. There needs to be revolution or F it what's the point anymore ? We should all just go back to what we where doing before we started playing mmorpgs. At least there I know what to expect from other players and I have to power to do something about it.
Social Democracy?? You do realize thats an even bigger farce than what we have now? You would be exchanging the Few Who Rule(those who own the banks/corps and thus the politicians) for The Party. Its simply a subset of the same Boss class. At least in WoW, everyone has a chance to do the best they are capable of. Its all a matter of how much time/talent/focus and imagination you are willing to invest.
Sure there are dues to pay. You can't expect to start out on the same level as people who have invested hundreds or thousands of hours over the last almost 5 years. But if you are willing to invest the time/talent and focus, you can get your own "piece of the action" if thats what you want. With Blizzards on going patches, content gets easier and thus more accessible to larger numbers of people as time goes on.
As for "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" thats been the perspective of those behind The Party since the concept began. What people forget is that The Party is made up of people, the same as anyone else. In fact, history demonstrates that those who make up The Party, tend to be much more sociopathic than one normally sees in the general population(power systems self select for such types).
One of the major reasons that WoW is so popular is that its open to such a wide range of people. It will run on *long* out dated hardware, and its easy to get in to and continue with. After all these years its fairly polished, and it has a LOT of content. Its all a matter of what a player is willing to invest in their play sessions.
If you look at Canadian politics it's pretty much what we go up here and it seems to work very well. Free heath care, programs that help people find jobs ect. All free of charge.
As for the "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" the only real answer you gave clearly directed toward that is. "Those people are crazy", i know. It's not the players fault for being that way. You give a player a way to hold something over someones head It's like giving a bully that hurts animals a stake to dangle of the head of a starving dog and you implore it. This is suppose to be fun ?
The Canadian system is ANYTHING but "free". Its ALL paid for from taxes, and is much less effective than a true free market system would be. One of the great failings of the American system is that so much of it is mired in government intervention. Its ANYTHING but a free market.
As for the other, you are describing systems that pander to gankers and griefers. Look at all too many of the Asian games as an example. Power corrupts and the more concentrated it is, the faster and more deeply it corrupts. Thats also why systems of power self select for sociopaths. After awhile people get tired of playing those types of games. I suspect thats why so many people in the west prefer PvE games.
Wow. You guys successfully turned an MMORPG discussion into a political debate. Bravo! I'll partake.
When you either want or don't want a law to pass, what do you do? Most people write their representative of congress or senate. Now, imagine yourself in the representative's shoes for a moment. Your office is FLOODED with letters regarding a new law that will be voted on in 3 months. About 99% of those letters say something along the lines of, "Please don't pass this law because it sucks," or "Please pass this law because I like it." And that's it. Not a lot to go on as to how it would really effect their lives. That last 1% actually has hard data in their letter, displaying how this law can positively and negatively impact the average citizen on a wide scale. Now you have some good data, and idea of how you're going to vote for the best possible outcome for those you represent. So now what do you do?
Nothing. You're swamped with other work to do, the law won't come up for 3 months, not to mention you DO have a personal life of your own to worry about. Astonishing!
Why is a game developer any different? Just because they don't immediately respond to you or immediately make the changes you and thousands of others are crying for doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't listening. They've got WORK to do, LIVES to live, and when they have the capability to work on your specific issue (which, as I mentioned in my previous post, takes a significant amount of time) they WILL.
I'm not saying there aren't problems. The community managers and developers can be more transparent as to what they're doing to fix issues, and possibly even how long it will take to fix issues. But because they don't suddenly drop everything they're doing to talk to everyone doesn't mean they aren't listening and fixing. Have a little faith.
"Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life." Simone Weil
Wow. You guys successfully turned an MMORPG discussion into a political debate. Bravo! I'll partake. When you either want or don't want a law to pass, what do you do? Most people write their representative of congress or senate. Now, imagine yourself in the representative's shoes for a moment. Your office is FLOODED with letters regarding a new law that will be voted on in 3 months. About 99% of those letters say something along the lines of, "Please don't pass this law because it sucks," or "Please pass this law because I like it." And that's it. Not a lot to go on as to how it would really effect their lives. That last 1% actually has hard data in their letter, displaying how this law can positively and negatively impact the average citizen on a wide scale. Now you have some good data, and idea of how you're going to vote for the best possible outcome for those you represent. So now what do you do? Nothing. You're swamped with other work to do, the law won't come up for 3 months, not to mention you DO have a personal life of your own to worry about. Astonishing! Why is a game developer any different? Just because they don't immediately respond to you or immediately make the changes you and thousands of others are crying for doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't listening. They've got WORK to do, LIVES to live, and when they have the capability to work on your specific issue (which, as I mentioned in my previous post, takes a significant amount of time) they WILL. I'm not saying there aren't problems. The community managers and developers can be more transparent as to what they're doing to fix issues, and possibly even how long it will take to fix issues. But because they don't suddenly drop everything they're doing to talk to everyone doesn't mean they aren't listening and fixing. Have a little faith.
Well, unlike developers, politicians spend most of their time working on funding for their next "election". If you've ever had experience with them, you know what I mean. Its one fund raiser after another. Not to mention the various lobbyists who are such Good Citizens that they send you large "contributions", and are so helpful in crafting pieces of legislation. You don't actually believe that most politicians bother to read most of those massive bills do you? They "vote" the way their party leader tells them. Developers on the other hand(the live team) are actually involved in the day to day operations of their game. Good ones are keeping track of feed back from the CM's and from the members of their team. Unlike politics(whose impact can take years and years to show up) game changes tend to be watched more closely. Look at the uproar over SWG's NGE for example.
That has cost SOE *dearly* over the years. Its one of the most glaring examples of quickly outraging a huge part of ones player base in modern memory. It was even worse than Turbines closing down Asherons Call 2 just two months or so after releasing their new expansion for it. Politicians have it easier. Remember them passing the Bail Out for Bankers just before the last "election"? Even with 70% to 80%(or more in some districts) opposed to it? Yet most of them *still* got re "elected". Any game company that pulled stunts like that would be long since out of business.
Wow. You guys successfully turned an MMORPG discussion into a political debate. Bravo! I'll partake. When you either want or don't want a law to pass, what do you do? Most people write their representative of congress or senate. Now, imagine yourself in the representative's shoes for a moment. Your office is FLOODED with letters regarding a new law that will be voted on in 3 months. About 99% of those letters say something along the lines of, "Please don't pass this law because it sucks," or "Please pass this law because I like it." And that's it. Not a lot to go on as to how it would really effect their lives. That last 1% actually has hard data in their letter, displaying how this law can positively and negatively impact the average citizen on a wide scale. Now you have some good data, and idea of how you're going to vote for the best possible outcome for those you represent. So now what do you do? Nothing. You're swamped with other work to do, the law won't come up for 3 months, not to mention you DO have a personal life of your own to worry about. Astonishing! Why is a game developer any different? Just because they don't immediately respond to you or immediately make the changes you and thousands of others are crying for doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't listening. They've got WORK to do, LIVES to live, and when they have the capability to work on your specific issue (which, as I mentioned in my previous post, takes a significant amount of time) they WILL. I'm not saying there aren't problems. The community managers and developers can be more transparent as to what they're doing to fix issues, and possibly even how long it will take to fix issues. But because they don't suddenly drop everything they're doing to talk to everyone doesn't mean they aren't listening and fixing. Have a little faith.
Let me start by saying, your post was wonderful to read. It's sound and logical. However we are talking about mmorgs here not the person calling the shots. I guess it was sort of my fault from relating government to a mmorpg but, that's how i view it. I am sorry i shared my opinion regarding that outlook.
Secondly i do not condone ganking or griefing. Those actions are responsibly on the heads of those players. The game does not invite this kind of attitude.
I am talking about useless rule in the structures and foundation in mmorgs. World of Warcraft is a good example to this and one most mmorpers can relate too. The game clearly invites juvenile actions from the player. Giving means and tools such as lockouts to be exploitable and wrecking havoc on other players. There are other forms like this in World of Warcraft but, I'll just keep it simple and stick with just the one for now.
Now don't get me wrong. Lockout server a good purpose. It slows down progression. It reduces exploits tactics used by RMT (real money traders aka gold farmers) and it give the development team more time designing new raiding content. Which we all can agree is a good thing.
However sometime the bad far way outs the good and the end goal has be lost in simple rules that have been put in place for protection. Personally I am one of those people that play many classes in Wow. I don't have just one character I stick to all the time. I am always looking to better gear out each of them given the time between upgrade development cycles but, fail every time to do so because of many factors. One being lockouts. The other are simply BoP items. I have 3 very good weapons on my Paladin that i can give to my Death Knight and Hunter. The Black Ice and Armageddon but, since they are BoP and not BoA (bind on account). Those items go to waste in my Paladin's bank.
Pretty much the point i am getting at is mmorpg for the most part are road blocking the player. Forcing them down 1 kind of play style and using gear. The very fundamental building blocks a mmorpg stands for.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't want easy content but, i don't want impossible options either.
I'll leave off on this point for now and wait for micro payments debate to kick in and come back have give my opinions on that subject.
This is a great article and the author is perfectly right on everything. Many companies should read and this article.The ones I have in mind right now are Acclaim Inc and NCSoft.
In any case,developers dont listen to the community and community managers are only trying to protect the devs from the community
Customers = 95 % of the times are crybabys begging for things to get easier, that's not the right way.
CUSTOMERS equal $ MONEY $ If the majority of ones CUSTOMERS want it "easier" then there is money to be made. Set up a different server or some such for the "hard core" or for the ones who want it "easier". Calling ones CUSTOMERS "crybabies" is MOST unwise. For all of its faults(which are legion...) Blizzard makes more money than some nation state governments because of its approach.
Customers = 95 % of the times are crybabys begging for things to get easier, that's not the right way.
Neither is being a gaming company having the philosophy of 1 character at a time to be on cutting edge progression. While you have broken spec/classes in your game that can't partake in the content in your game. Then admitting years later that there was a problem when your gamers addressed it back in the first beta. All you get out of it is "We're sorry.". How about you unsoulbound some items jerks so, my other classes that work in the overall progression can be on the same level because, of the time I put in with 1 broken class/spec and couldn't do really anything with him. Just an idea. That way later on when you break another spec or class i am playing. I can switch to another play style that works without feeling ripped off on progression.
Customers = 95 % of the times are crybabys begging for things to get easier, that's not the right way.
Neither is being a gaming company having the philosophy of 1 character at a time to be on cutting edge progression. While you have broken spec/classes in your game that can't partake in the content in your game. Then admitting years later that there was a problem when your gamers addressed it back in the first beta. All you get out of it is "We're sorry.". How about you unsoulbound some items jerks so, my other classes that work in the overall progression can be on the same level because, of the time I put in with 1 broken class/spec and couldn't do really anything with him. Just an idea. That way later on when you break another spec or class i am playing. I can switch to another play style that works without feeling ripped off on progression.
If they did that, they would lose the time sink aspect which is one of the elements involved in keeping people playing. Blizzard has been breaking classes for years and years. Hell, they did the exact same thing back in the days of Diablo and Diablo 2. They simply can't seem to keep their hands off of their classes. If they separated PvP and PvE skills, that would allow them to "balance" PvP, with out the changes messing up PvE. But changing BoP gear to BoA would have a huge impact on the time sink and economy, so I doubt its going to happen any time soon.
First of all, the customer is NOT always right. Worse, the customer claims he knows what he wants, but often lacks the overview to understand the consequences of what he is asking for and therefore does not even know what he/she wants.
For a game to be fun, one needs to meet a really broad range of standards, and then still, it will not be fun for all. In some ways the customer seems to know what he wants, in others he has no clue other than that the game should be fun. Define fun.... And there you have the foundation of this problem: it is completely subjective. It can't be more difficult than that.
Sure, betas give a hinch on what to expect, both product and service wise, but of course a company has to roll out their product on a given date. They have budgets to work with and deadlines as a result. At some point the money has to start rolling in, otherwise there will not be an MMO and all employees of the company might end up without a job. So often compromises are made that might not please everyone. But this is today's reality of businesses, so also for the MMO industry.
Often companies do not have the time/money to spend on setting up al kinds of programmes to give players the idea that they can actively contribute to the end result of the product they are using. Btw, SOE must be the utmost worst example to take, since they have about the worst reputation in this field, even today. If there is any MMO developer in the world that consistantly does NOT listen to its customers, it's SOE.
I think in the end it all comes down to proper planning, proper common sense, proper research, proper design, and proper development, proper QA and proper community management. As far as I know, so far, not one MMO developer managed to achieve all of those. Unfortunately that often leads to significant problems somewhere in the process of developing a MMO.
Lets be honest though, today's users want it all and they want it now. It has to have depth but it also has to be easy to use and learn. Both contradict one another by definition. And that is just one of many examples one could give. This is where comon sense comes in: trying to balance what the player wants and what the developer can reasonably accomplish. That in itself is increadibly challenging. For that matter I think that how things are portrayed in this article are way too simplistic and ignore lots of complicated processes that a developer has to deal with. Granted, often developers listen too little, but more often than not do players request the death blow of their game (literally) without realising it. Then when it happens they complain.
Take SOE for example with SWG: first they ignore the users and make a huge mess up, then they listen to them and make it even worse. This was the MMO that was supposed to be the most succesful of all MMOs mind you.
In the end I think that a developer has to understand a lot of what is "fun" for players, and how to manage their sentiments and wishes. If they do that well, they can be successful, I'm convinced of that.
Customers = 95 % of the times are crybabys begging for things to get easier, that's not the right way.
Neither is being a gaming company having the philosophy of 1 character at a time to be on cutting edge progression. While you have broken spec/classes in your game that can't partake in the content in your game. Then admitting years later that there was a problem when your gamers addressed it back in the first beta. All you get out of it is "We're sorry.". How about you unsoulbound some items jerks so, my other classes that work in the overall progression can be on the same level because, of the time I put in with 1 broken class/spec and couldn't do really anything with him. Just an idea. That way later on when you break another spec or class i am playing. I can switch to another play style that works without feeling ripped off on progression.
If they did that, they would lose the time sink aspect which is one of the elements involved in keeping people playing. Blizzard has been breaking classes for years and years. Hell, they did the exact same thing back in the days of Diablo and Diablo 2. They simply can't seem to keep their hands off of their classes. If they separated PvP and PvE skills, that would allow them to "balance" PvP, with out the changes messing up PvE. But changing BoP gear to BoA would have a huge impact on the time sink and economy, so I doubt its going to happen any time soon.
"Time Sink" is some philosophy some douchebag made up. I played W3, Cs and many other game at the time of those titles released. Yesterday I played 5 hours non stop of Day of Defeat. Why ? Not because, I running after a carrot on a stick to keep me craving crumbs off the table and having starving obsession of wanting the whole chicken leg. I play those game because for the simple fact that they are great games with hardly any broken features attached to them. Can't games just be good anymore to keep a player playing them ? Personally i think that's all that is really needed.
Blizzard fails at realizing what they have and do stupid shit to mess it up. In some cases they do not do enough smart stuff to keep the overall game good and this is what pisses me off.
Now don't get me wrong. In the case of World of Warcraft and Blizzard. I am not asking for them to break their philosophy. I am only asking for them to bend it slightly. Effects of 1s progression would remain the same but, instead of character confined. I am requesting that those limitations and boundaries be moved to the limit of account wide.
The reason being is that I as a play, would still be able to pick up where I left off. Leveling to max level would stay the same. Even though they have made it so much easier to do. I still strongly believe a player need to put in time to get a good handle of the rails. What you do in solo pve teachers you later in group pve and is the very foundation and building boxes of all mmorpg. However redoing content with different classes doesn't educated a player with a different class all that much. There are slight differences but, not many that would increase someone's education when it came to a boss fight you have already completed.
In the case of World of Warcraft there is no unique path a class travels down. It's all the same deal. The only problem I see is more players playing the "op" class sooner then later with good gear.
Lets be honest though, today's users want it all and they want it now. It has to have depth but it also has to be easy to use and learn. Both contradict one another by definition. And that is just one of many examples one could give. This is where comon sense comes in: trying to balance what the player wants and what the developer can reasonably accomplish. That in itself is increadibly challenging. For that matter I think that how things are portrayed in this article are way too simplistic and ignore lots of complicated processes that a developer has to deal with.
I would like to lightly touch on this for a second. Depth could be best be described as more player interactions with iconic figures like the Lich King. It also could be quest related to the class you are playing attached with lore and multiple choices made in those interactions with those Iconic figures. Simple could be best describe in a mmo with the ease of interacting with the UI and simpler description on stats.
Most Mmorpg game company do not take the time to make the most simple of tasks enjoyable enough. Most are still struggling with getting the player from the quest hub to the location of those quests. Some have a easier time dealing with this then other companies. However when you place questionable boundaries in your game and have players question them. It's a problem in development.
To all you people that say the customer isn't right. I say your totally out of touch with reality.
Yep i understand a certain percentage of players are vegetables but if this is what devs think of there Customers, then i'm not surprised at all why these games take so many nosedives. And rightly so, why should i pay for a game that's not fun (in my opinion) not anyone else. I'm paying my money to some company and all they produce is work or a broken game (in my opinion) not anyone elses again.
I'll attempt at support, if i get no where i walk and a massive percentage of Customers are like me. also i'll tell as many as i can how bad the game/developer is and never play it. You get enough people to walk and goodbye game.
Developers are making a product for us to play if they cant understand this then maybe they are in the wrong job.
To this day i still wont touch a Codemasters game for what they did to RF Online or CCR for that matter. No matter how good their newer games are people do not forget.
On the other end I'll buy Guildwars 2 even if it turns out to be bad, there game and service was top notch and treat people as real people unlike many others.
Crown the Wise, Harness the Talented, and Cherish the Lucky...... The Dragon Lofwyr.
The key in communication here is that players need to communicate what is broken, preferably in a way that makes it «actionable». There are otherwise just too many things on the list and too many channels of information that you just won't have time to investigate why someone complains.
It's definitely a two-way street. Developers have the upper hand here in that they can establish more efficient media for communication. Browsing over the various forums is largely a waste of time because there's little give and take in the communication: so many thoughts and concepts that players have can easily be misinterpreted and vocal minorities can easily dominate discussions. Others can step into the conversation at any time and completely derail it by trolling or tossing out illogical or confusing rhetoric. The idea of an invitation-only conference seems like one great step forward. A more advanced reporting UI that automates all those BS questions that players don't want to answer would be incredible. Incentives or rewards for valuable contributions would go a long way as well. Maybe even a few more types of dev chat would help out (town-hall style, invitation only, specific-class (or issue) invitation only, veteran users, new players, etc...). I really believe that if the communication can be improved things will get much better. Right now it's hit or miss finding that diamond in the rough contributor when reading various forum posts so I think the devs and CMs miss out on a lot.
As stated above 'communication' is a two way street, and a lot more complicated than most people realize. Everyone has an opinion, and sometimes bad ones are the ones that get vocalized the most.
A developer has to be smart enough to listen to their players, but also to make judgement calls about what works best for the game as a whole (keeping in mind that the ultimate goal of the game, is to be fun to it's players). One thing that's really important in the creative industry, is being able to do what's best for your product without making the customer feel ignored or abandoned. Not many developers still do this in the MMO genre these days.
Comments
"Voting with the wallet" is and always will be the least preferable alternative for a player. It's like the nuclear bomb of customer service: the only way I can save the thing I enjoy is to annihilate it. It implies writing off the significant amount of money (sometimes in the hundreds of dollars) a player has already put into the game, foregoing all future enjoyment of it or the investment required to enjoy it to that point. It only voices the displeasure by foregoing all constructive channels to voice the displeasure. Furthermore, it holds the developer accountable only by cutting off the things it needs to be accountable: funds and information.
Cancelling only makes sense if you like nothing in the game, because then there's no loss. But for people who like the game, they want to enjoy the things that drew them to purchase the game in the first place. How does cancelling help them get the things they want?
Because all that will happen is that they won't be able to enjoy the things they enjoy. In the worst case scenario, the game will close, and then nothing can be done to get the things the player enjoyed back. Cancelling is the last hope of a desperate playerbase to evoke some change. It is also, at that point, too late for a developer to become accountable.
The failures of Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault are not evidence that the developers are accountable. They never had the opportunity to be accountable, or show they were accountable. And now all the players: those who loved AA and TR as they were, those who liked them but wanted changes, and those (like me) who always wanted to try them, but never got a chance to; will now not be able to play.
That's why it is in both our interest and the developers' interest to demand greater accountability. Because when the /cancel button is the only way to hold devs accountable, and the only way a player can voice his displeasure, all we get are cancelled games and a lot of wasted money.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Social Democracy?? You do realize thats an even bigger farce than what we have now? You would be exchanging the Few Who Rule(those who own the banks/corps and thus the politicians) for The Party. Its simply a subset of the same Boss class. At least in WoW, everyone has a chance to do the best they are capable of. Its all a matter of how much time/talent/focus and imagination you are willing to invest.
Sure there are dues to pay. You can't expect to start out on the same level as people who have invested hundreds or thousands of hours over the last almost 5 years. But if you are willing to invest the time/talent and focus, you can get your own "piece of the action" if thats what you want. With Blizzards on going patches, content gets easier and thus more accessible to larger numbers of people as time goes on.
As for "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" thats been the perspective of those behind The Party since the concept began. What people forget is that The Party is made up of people, the same as anyone else. In fact, history demonstrates that those who make up The Party, tend to be much more sociopathic than one normally sees in the general population(power systems self select for such types).
One of the major reasons that WoW is so popular is that its open to such a wide range of people. It will run on *long* out dated hardware, and its easy to get in to and continue with. After all these years its fairly polished, and it has a LOT of content. Its all a matter of what a player is willing to invest in their play sessions.
If you look at Canadian politics it's pretty much what we go up here and it seems to work very well. Free heath care, programs that help people find jobs ect. All free of charge.
As for the "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" the only real answer you gave clearly directed toward that is. "Those people are crazy", i know. It's not the players fault for being that way. You give a player a way to hold something over someones head It's like giving a bully that hurts animals a stake to dangle of the head of a starving dog and you implore it. This is suppose to be fun ?
Social Democracy?? You do realize thats an even bigger farce than what we have now? You would be exchanging the Few Who Rule(those who own the banks/corps and thus the politicians) for The Party. Its simply a subset of the same Boss class. At least in WoW, everyone has a chance to do the best they are capable of. Its all a matter of how much time/talent/focus and imagination you are willing to invest.
Sure there are dues to pay. You can't expect to start out on the same level as people who have invested hundreds or thousands of hours over the last almost 5 years. But if you are willing to invest the time/talent and focus, you can get your own "piece of the action" if thats what you want. With Blizzards on going patches, content gets easier and thus more accessible to larger numbers of people as time goes on.
As for "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" thats been the perspective of those behind The Party since the concept began. What people forget is that The Party is made up of people, the same as anyone else. In fact, history demonstrates that those who make up The Party, tend to be much more sociopathic than one normally sees in the general population(power systems self select for such types).
One of the major reasons that WoW is so popular is that its open to such a wide range of people. It will run on *long* out dated hardware, and its easy to get in to and continue with. After all these years its fairly polished, and it has a LOT of content. Its all a matter of what a player is willing to invest in their play sessions.
If you look at Canadian politics it's pretty much what we go up here and it seems to work very well. Free heath care, programs that help people find jobs ect. All free of charge.
As for the "players have too much power to be responsible mature players" the only real answer you gave clearly directed toward that is. "Those people are crazy", i know. It's not the players fault for being that way. You give a player a way to hold something over someones head It's like giving a bully that hurts animals a stake to dangle of the head of a starving dog and you implore it. This is suppose to be fun ?
The Canadian system is ANYTHING but "free". Its ALL paid for from taxes, and is much less effective than a true free market system would be. One of the great failings of the American system is that so much of it is mired in government intervention. Its ANYTHING but a free market.
As for the other, you are describing systems that pander to gankers and griefers. Look at all too many of the Asian games as an example. Power corrupts and the more concentrated it is, the faster and more deeply it corrupts. Thats also why systems of power self select for sociopaths. After awhile people get tired of playing those types of games. I suspect thats why so many people in the west prefer PvE games.
Wow. You guys successfully turned an MMORPG discussion into a political debate. Bravo! I'll partake.
When you either want or don't want a law to pass, what do you do? Most people write their representative of congress or senate. Now, imagine yourself in the representative's shoes for a moment. Your office is FLOODED with letters regarding a new law that will be voted on in 3 months. About 99% of those letters say something along the lines of, "Please don't pass this law because it sucks," or "Please pass this law because I like it." And that's it. Not a lot to go on as to how it would really effect their lives. That last 1% actually has hard data in their letter, displaying how this law can positively and negatively impact the average citizen on a wide scale. Now you have some good data, and idea of how you're going to vote for the best possible outcome for those you represent. So now what do you do?
Nothing. You're swamped with other work to do, the law won't come up for 3 months, not to mention you DO have a personal life of your own to worry about. Astonishing!
Why is a game developer any different? Just because they don't immediately respond to you or immediately make the changes you and thousands of others are crying for doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't listening. They've got WORK to do, LIVES to live, and when they have the capability to work on your specific issue (which, as I mentioned in my previous post, takes a significant amount of time) they WILL.
I'm not saying there aren't problems. The community managers and developers can be more transparent as to what they're doing to fix issues, and possibly even how long it will take to fix issues. But because they don't suddenly drop everything they're doing to talk to everyone doesn't mean they aren't listening and fixing. Have a little faith.
"Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life."
Simone Weil
Well, unlike developers, politicians spend most of their time working on funding for their next "election". If you've ever had experience with them, you know what I mean. Its one fund raiser after another. Not to mention the various lobbyists who are such Good Citizens that they send you large "contributions", and are so helpful in crafting pieces of legislation. You don't actually believe that most politicians bother to read most of those massive bills do you? They "vote" the way their party leader tells them. Developers on the other hand(the live team) are actually involved in the day to day operations of their game. Good ones are keeping track of feed back from the CM's and from the members of their team. Unlike politics(whose impact can take years and years to show up) game changes tend to be watched more closely. Look at the uproar over SWG's NGE for example.
That has cost SOE *dearly* over the years. Its one of the most glaring examples of quickly outraging a huge part of ones player base in modern memory. It was even worse than Turbines closing down Asherons Call 2 just two months or so after releasing their new expansion for it. Politicians have it easier. Remember them passing the Bail Out for Bankers just before the last "election"? Even with 70% to 80%(or more in some districts) opposed to it? Yet most of them *still* got re "elected". Any game company that pulled stunts like that would be long since out of business.
Let me start by saying, your post was wonderful to read. It's sound and logical. However we are talking about mmorgs here not the person calling the shots. I guess it was sort of my fault from relating government to a mmorpg but, that's how i view it. I am sorry i shared my opinion regarding that outlook.
Secondly i do not condone ganking or griefing. Those actions are responsibly on the heads of those players. The game does not invite this kind of attitude.
I am talking about useless rule in the structures and foundation in mmorgs. World of Warcraft is a good example to this and one most mmorpers can relate too. The game clearly invites juvenile actions from the player. Giving means and tools such as lockouts to be exploitable and wrecking havoc on other players. There are other forms like this in World of Warcraft but, I'll just keep it simple and stick with just the one for now.
Now don't get me wrong. Lockout server a good purpose. It slows down progression. It reduces exploits tactics used by RMT (real money traders aka gold farmers) and it give the development team more time designing new raiding content. Which we all can agree is a good thing.
However sometime the bad far way outs the good and the end goal has be lost in simple rules that have been put in place for protection. Personally I am one of those people that play many classes in Wow. I don't have just one character I stick to all the time. I am always looking to better gear out each of them given the time between upgrade development cycles but, fail every time to do so because of many factors. One being lockouts. The other are simply BoP items. I have 3 very good weapons on my Paladin that i can give to my Death Knight and Hunter. The Black Ice and Armageddon but, since they are BoP and not BoA (bind on account). Those items go to waste in my Paladin's bank.
Pretty much the point i am getting at is mmorpg for the most part are road blocking the player. Forcing them down 1 kind of play style and using gear. The very fundamental building blocks a mmorpg stands for.
Now don't get me wrong. I don't want easy content but, i don't want impossible options either.
I'll leave off on this point for now and wait for micro payments debate to kick in and come back have give my opinions on that subject.
Customers = 95 % of the times are crybabys begging for things to get easier, that's not the right way.
This is a great article and the author is perfectly right on everything.
Many companies should read and this article.The ones I have in mind right now are Acclaim Inc and NCSoft.
In any case,developers dont listen to the community and community managers are only trying to protect the devs from the community
CUSTOMERS equal $ MONEY $ If the majority of ones CUSTOMERS want it "easier" then there is money to be made. Set up a different server or some such for the "hard core" or for the ones who want it "easier". Calling ones CUSTOMERS "crybabies" is MOST unwise. For all of its faults(which are legion...) Blizzard makes more money than some nation state governments because of its approach.
Neither is being a gaming company having the philosophy of 1 character at a time to be on cutting edge progression. While you have broken spec/classes in your game that can't partake in the content in your game. Then admitting years later that there was a problem when your gamers addressed it back in the first beta. All you get out of it is "We're sorry.". How about you unsoulbound some items jerks so, my other classes that work in the overall progression can be on the same level because, of the time I put in with 1 broken class/spec and couldn't do really anything with him. Just an idea. That way later on when you break another spec or class i am playing. I can switch to another play style that works without feeling ripped off on progression.
Neither is being a gaming company having the philosophy of 1 character at a time to be on cutting edge progression. While you have broken spec/classes in your game that can't partake in the content in your game. Then admitting years later that there was a problem when your gamers addressed it back in the first beta. All you get out of it is "We're sorry.". How about you unsoulbound some items jerks so, my other classes that work in the overall progression can be on the same level because, of the time I put in with 1 broken class/spec and couldn't do really anything with him. Just an idea. That way later on when you break another spec or class i am playing. I can switch to another play style that works without feeling ripped off on progression.
If they did that, they would lose the time sink aspect which is one of the elements involved in keeping people playing. Blizzard has been breaking classes for years and years. Hell, they did the exact same thing back in the days of Diablo and Diablo 2. They simply can't seem to keep their hands off of their classes. If they separated PvP and PvE skills, that would allow them to "balance" PvP, with out the changes messing up PvE. But changing BoP gear to BoA would have a huge impact on the time sink and economy, so I doubt its going to happen any time soon.
First of all, the customer is NOT always right. Worse, the customer claims he knows what he wants, but often lacks the overview to understand the consequences of what he is asking for and therefore does not even know what he/she wants.
For a game to be fun, one needs to meet a really broad range of standards, and then still, it will not be fun for all. In some ways the customer seems to know what he wants, in others he has no clue other than that the game should be fun. Define fun.... And there you have the foundation of this problem: it is completely subjective. It can't be more difficult than that.
Sure, betas give a hinch on what to expect, both product and service wise, but of course a company has to roll out their product on a given date. They have budgets to work with and deadlines as a result. At some point the money has to start rolling in, otherwise there will not be an MMO and all employees of the company might end up without a job. So often compromises are made that might not please everyone. But this is today's reality of businesses, so also for the MMO industry.
Often companies do not have the time/money to spend on setting up al kinds of programmes to give players the idea that they can actively contribute to the end result of the product they are using. Btw, SOE must be the utmost worst example to take, since they have about the worst reputation in this field, even today. If there is any MMO developer in the world that consistantly does NOT listen to its customers, it's SOE.
I think in the end it all comes down to proper planning, proper common sense, proper research, proper design, and proper development, proper QA and proper community management. As far as I know, so far, not one MMO developer managed to achieve all of those. Unfortunately that often leads to significant problems somewhere in the process of developing a MMO.
Lets be honest though, today's users want it all and they want it now. It has to have depth but it also has to be easy to use and learn. Both contradict one another by definition. And that is just one of many examples one could give. This is where comon sense comes in: trying to balance what the player wants and what the developer can reasonably accomplish. That in itself is increadibly challenging. For that matter I think that how things are portrayed in this article are way too simplistic and ignore lots of complicated processes that a developer has to deal with. Granted, often developers listen too little, but more often than not do players request the death blow of their game (literally) without realising it. Then when it happens they complain.
Take SOE for example with SWG: first they ignore the users and make a huge mess up, then they listen to them and make it even worse. This was the MMO that was supposed to be the most succesful of all MMOs mind you.
In the end I think that a developer has to understand a lot of what is "fun" for players, and how to manage their sentiments and wishes. If they do that well, they can be successful, I'm convinced of that.
Neither is being a gaming company having the philosophy of 1 character at a time to be on cutting edge progression. While you have broken spec/classes in your game that can't partake in the content in your game. Then admitting years later that there was a problem when your gamers addressed it back in the first beta. All you get out of it is "We're sorry.". How about you unsoulbound some items jerks so, my other classes that work in the overall progression can be on the same level because, of the time I put in with 1 broken class/spec and couldn't do really anything with him. Just an idea. That way later on when you break another spec or class i am playing. I can switch to another play style that works without feeling ripped off on progression.
If they did that, they would lose the time sink aspect which is one of the elements involved in keeping people playing. Blizzard has been breaking classes for years and years. Hell, they did the exact same thing back in the days of Diablo and Diablo 2. They simply can't seem to keep their hands off of their classes. If they separated PvP and PvE skills, that would allow them to "balance" PvP, with out the changes messing up PvE. But changing BoP gear to BoA would have a huge impact on the time sink and economy, so I doubt its going to happen any time soon.
"Time Sink" is some philosophy some douchebag made up. I played W3, Cs and many other game at the time of those titles released. Yesterday I played 5 hours non stop of Day of Defeat. Why ? Not because, I running after a carrot on a stick to keep me craving crumbs off the table and having starving obsession of wanting the whole chicken leg. I play those game because for the simple fact that they are great games with hardly any broken features attached to them. Can't games just be good anymore to keep a player playing them ? Personally i think that's all that is really needed.
Blizzard fails at realizing what they have and do stupid shit to mess it up. In some cases they do not do enough smart stuff to keep the overall game good and this is what pisses me off.
Now don't get me wrong. In the case of World of Warcraft and Blizzard. I am not asking for them to break their philosophy. I am only asking for them to bend it slightly. Effects of 1s progression would remain the same but, instead of character confined. I am requesting that those limitations and boundaries be moved to the limit of account wide.
The reason being is that I as a play, would still be able to pick up where I left off. Leveling to max level would stay the same. Even though they have made it so much easier to do. I still strongly believe a player need to put in time to get a good handle of the rails. What you do in solo pve teachers you later in group pve and is the very foundation and building boxes of all mmorpg. However redoing content with different classes doesn't educated a player with a different class all that much. There are slight differences but, not many that would increase someone's education when it came to a boss fight you have already completed.
In the case of World of Warcraft there is no unique path a class travels down. It's all the same deal. The only problem I see is more players playing the "op" class sooner then later with good gear.
Lets be honest though, today's users want it all and they want it now. It has to have depth but it also has to be easy to use and learn. Both contradict one another by definition. And that is just one of many examples one could give. This is where comon sense comes in: trying to balance what the player wants and what the developer can reasonably accomplish. That in itself is increadibly challenging. For that matter I think that how things are portrayed in this article are way too simplistic and ignore lots of complicated processes that a developer has to deal with.
I would like to lightly touch on this for a second. Depth could be best be described as more player interactions with iconic figures like the Lich King. It also could be quest related to the class you are playing attached with lore and multiple choices made in those interactions with those Iconic figures. Simple could be best describe in a mmo with the ease of interacting with the UI and simpler description on stats.
Most Mmorpg game company do not take the time to make the most simple of tasks enjoyable enough. Most are still struggling with getting the player from the quest hub to the location of those quests. Some have a easier time dealing with this then other companies. However when you place questionable boundaries in your game and have players question them. It's a problem in development.
I totally agree 90% of Fullers thoughts..but
To all you people that say the customer isn't right. I say your totally out of touch with reality.
Yep i understand a certain percentage of players are vegetables but if this is what devs think of there Customers, then i'm not surprised at all why these games take so many nosedives. And rightly so, why should i pay for a game that's not fun (in my opinion) not anyone else. I'm paying my money to some company and all they produce is work or a broken game (in my opinion) not anyone elses again.
I'll attempt at support, if i get no where i walk and a massive percentage of Customers are like me. also i'll tell as many as i can how bad the game/developer is and never play it. You get enough people to walk and goodbye game.
Developers are making a product for us to play if they cant understand this then maybe they are in the wrong job.
To this day i still wont touch a Codemasters game for what they did to RF Online or CCR for that matter. No matter how good their newer games are people do not forget.
On the other end I'll buy Guildwars 2 even if it turns out to be bad, there game and service was top notch and treat people as real people unlike many others.
Crown the Wise, Harness the Talented, and Cherish the Lucky......
The Dragon Lofwyr.
It's definitely a two-way street. Developers have the upper hand here in that they can establish more efficient media for communication. Browsing over the various forums is largely a waste of time because there's little give and take in the communication: so many thoughts and concepts that players have can easily be misinterpreted and vocal minorities can easily dominate discussions. Others can step into the conversation at any time and completely derail it by trolling or tossing out illogical or confusing rhetoric. The idea of an invitation-only conference seems like one great step forward. A more advanced reporting UI that automates all those BS questions that players don't want to answer would be incredible. Incentives or rewards for valuable contributions would go a long way as well. Maybe even a few more types of dev chat would help out (town-hall style, invitation only, specific-class (or issue) invitation only, veteran users, new players, etc...). I really believe that if the communication can be improved things will get much better. Right now it's hit or miss finding that diamond in the rough contributor when reading various forum posts so I think the devs and CMs miss out on a lot.
As stated above 'communication' is a two way street, and a lot more complicated than most people realize. Everyone has an opinion, and sometimes bad ones are the ones that get vocalized the most.
A developer has to be smart enough to listen to their players, but also to make judgement calls about what works best for the game as a whole (keeping in mind that the ultimate goal of the game, is to be fun to it's players). One thing that's really important in the creative industry, is being able to do what's best for your product without making the customer feel ignored or abandoned. Not many developers still do this in the MMO genre these days.