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General: Top Developer Mistakes
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
Players and fans of MMORPGs come up with terrific and wide-ranging ideas for developers on what has worked and what hasn't in their minds. They offer devs thoughts on how they have strayed off the path. In The List this week, MMORPG.com Lead Writer Bill Murphy takes a look at some of the common mistakes that developers make and offers thoughts about how things could be improved. We definitely want your feedback as well so be sure to leave a comment or two after you're through reading.
I think we’re going to have some fun in the next two Lists. I’ve seen a lot of talk among us about how games don’t do this right, or don’t do this enough. I’ve seen a lot of chatter surrounding what players should or shouldn’t expect (heck, I’ve led some of those discussions). So in the spirit of growth for the MMORPG industry, let’s go over the top mistakes that both fields make when it comes to making and buying into a new release.
Read more of Bill Murphy's The List: Top Developer Mistakes.
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Comments
Trying to do too much that the games budget won't support.
Overhyping the game and it's features so that once the money dries up and they launch early and incomplete the backlash is incredibly severe.
I would like to see a studio integrate a heavily GM interaction based endgame to alliviate the content famine most games seem to launch with.
Seems to me that you could really engage players by having endgame instances and sieges where GMs play a role similar to the Left4dead AI director. (Ie. GM can trigger adds and wave composition based on how the players are performing.)
As cool as that would be, it wouldn't ever be a viable option.
Perhaps not as the be all end all of the endgame, but even a once or twice a month event would really break up the monotony of grinding the few things to do that just launched games tend to have.
One I'm noticing is encouraging in game discussion, or being too strict on the world chat. I have to say the worse thing other than trolls has to be a dead chat. I don't care how populated the server is if any conversation that is started in the public chat is met with "heroes for the community" it really shuts the chat down. In some games it's gotten to the point of mobbing, and bullying. Then they turn to the GMs which don't help by imposing loosely written rules on anyone who got mobbed on. These points are valid, but this one is one of the unspoken ones that is going to become more prevalent as games become more segregated.
Mhmmm
I am pretty amazed that you did not bring up the single most important aspect of any game development, but particulary for MMOs, and that is: To listen to your community/customers.
It is partly touched on for point 4 but having an official forum and actually listening to your community is not the same thing.
Again Im shocked it is not part of the list, it should be the number 1 prio. I work in SW development and know this is very, VERY important.
My gaming blog
Dont make promises you can not keep if your hype train advertises it you better have it in game at release. I am sick of companies advertising how their game will have X and it never makes it into the game.
yeah, you are completely right, it should definitelly be on the list
btw - you did noticed, that this is list of the mistakes, right?
I'm tired of MMOs with PvP focus where there are only 2 player-driven factions. I swear every time I see a 2-player faction PvP game I know that the population is going to decline dramatically six months after launch, because the losing side quits, and then the winning side gets bored and quits. Making a third faction NPC based does not solve the problem.
I know this isn't a problem with WoW, but I wouldn't consider WoW a PvP focused game.
I am going to guess that what you really mean is that the developers should do what the players tell them.
BIG MISTAKE.
The developers should listen, but in the end, its their game, their investment money and their programming skills. They should make the game that they want. They shouldn't release it until its ready and all of the features that they want in it are fully functional. The graphics should be good and ready to go as well.
If they spend their time putting in what the palyers want the game will never finish nor will anyone be happy. It will wind up as a hodgepodge mishmash of features that don't tie in together. There will be no theme (ie no "hook") and no one will play for long.
Players forget that all games are niche games. Some niches are bigger than others, but all game designers choose what to put in and what to leave thereby determining which niche of the market they want to appeal to.
Can't be everything to every player.
If by listen you mean pay attention to constructive feedback during testing phases PRIOR to release, then that's a different animal. Any developer worth his wieght enters into a testing phase open to all feedback. The trick is to figuring out which feedback improves the game and which doesn't.
Gaming since Avalon Hill was making board games.
Played SWG, EVE, Fallen Earth, LOTRO, Rift, Vanguard, WoW, SWTOR, TSW, Tera
Tried Aoc, Aion, EQII, RoM, Vindictus, Darkfail, DDO, GW, PotBS
Not having an official forum is not an issue, as long as devs listen to players. Arena Net never had an offical forum, but they read and post on fan forums.
Hype train -> Reality
I run a British Gaming Community (The British Guards) been together just over two years and played a ton of MMO's together.
When you log in to a "Massive Multiplay" Game as a community we don't expect to see group sizes being maxed at 5 with only 2 or 3 5 man missions at the end with very little content to play as a community. There has been a few last year. no games mentioned lol.
One of the biggest mistakes in my mind is Developers trying to listen to the community.
It just don't work just listening to kids crying on the forums, still take note of whats being said on the forums but the Developers should establish a few guilds/clans doing well in their game and take the time to have a meeting with the community on their Teamspeak / Vent. Quite a few communities like mine have many gamers that have played just about all of them for 10 years or more. I think yourl find the feedback honest and good for the development.
Player Struggle Content should be a priority. Having maxed out Toons that can only join a battle grounds / pvp Que system is never enough. Players have got to be working together in a Guild / Faction for a greater goal, or whats the point in calling it an MMO just because there are a few thousand players on one server don't make it an MMO or if they call it one is just cheating and benefiting from a Grey area in a sly way.
Anyways that's my 10 pence worth :-)
Jixxer - TBG Founder
One of the biggest mistakes I just can't stand, and I am sure this has been brought up already, is releasing games too early. Unfinished and extremely buggy, horribly performing games usually just kills the game eventually. Most of the games that have poor launches do not make it that long imo. There are always exceptions to the rule, but if a game company puts out an unfinished product, many people will be turned off by it, quit within the first month, and never come back. This leads to the company getting less money, which in turn effects the quality of an MMO in the long run. Sometimes the game's reputation never recovers, even though eventually it might be an ok game.
I also dislike how companies like EA and SOE treat MMO's. They sure know how to kill games. Both of these companies are extremely inpatient and tend to overreact, leading to unsupported games that cling to life support for long periods of time.
Obviously the devs should not do whatever the player tell them but they do need to listen to them. It is they who will decide to buy or not to buy your product and if you dont listen to them then not only setting yourself up for a failure you are also showing yourself as arrogant to your potential customers which again is not a good thing.
The trick is to understand what exactly the customer, as a whole, wants.
Also I dont know why you highlight PRIOR. SW Galaxy NGE debacle is an excellent example of devs doing a major ninja change to an existing game and ignoring their community while doing it.
My gaming blog
Listening to your community gets you World of Warcraft. They need to stick to what people signed up for in the first place not change it after everyone already spent time, and money making their characters. Nothing is worse than logging in, and finding out that because of the changes the game maker has made your character is completely changed, made usless, or even worse kills the server's player base.
Mhmmm
How about this for a bad idea, make the game makers actually sit down and play their own game all the way to end game before releasing it. Of course they would have to have their employers involved in it, so they would have the sole purpose of pvp'ing the boss every chance they got. Hopefully at the end of it, the game would have some added features that removed some of the boredom...
One that needs to be added to this list:
1) Stop thinking that making MMO in the "just a game" format is the only way to make MMOs.
Go back to the original philosophy of making deep worlds where the object was to get the kind of player who wants to live in that world and not the player that wants to go in, play the content, "win" and then move on to the next MMO.
Disposable MMOs are causing a continuously rising sentiment of apathy about this genre. There is a reason that all of the first generation MMOs are still alive and kicking: Those designers created worlds to live in, not games to be completed in a few months. Emphasis was to keep players "for the duration".
Flaws and all, those first generation games possessed a scope (that extended beyond combat, combat, loot, combat) that vested players. Capture that, with a new coat of paint, and this genre will continue to grow and offer variety. Stay the current course that caters to the short attention spanned and quality and interest will continue to spiral.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
That is a great thread and i hope devs read it before making a game.
I would like to add to this list one thing that i cant stand in a game: that is when a studio do nothing to protect the game from hackers, gold farmers and low life players who use illegal progs.For me this is the worst thing in a p2p game....
Awesome Comment there above by Khalathwyr
1. Hype: As said before, too many MMOs hype their game too much. Promises broken are not easily forgotten. Having a balanced approach let your customers know what to expect and when.
2. Game mechanics: Too many games have game mechanics which makes little sense to the players. Is this sword better than that sword? Why? Also, there is a reason why chess is still a hugely popular game: It is easy to learn, but hard to master. Too many games are made complicated to understand, but still fights are too easy to breeze through. What players remember and return for is challenges. Close fights where you sit on the edge of your seat wondering if you are going to pull it off is fun. Yawning your way through a raid while spamming 1-2-3-1 is not.
3. Hook: Too many games don't think outside the box, and when they do, it is the wrong box. Players will embrace new concepts, but they have to be properly implemented. A new idea is not good just because it is new. These days too many games looks like cookie-cutter copies of each other. What does the game do to differentiate itself from its competitors? Too many games seems to be generic worlds where the focus is upon hardcore PvP. Most MMOers are looking for a world where they can immerse themselves and have fun.
4. Forgetting your audience: MMORPGers used to be patient people. In DAoC it took me a year to reach level 50 with my first characters. At one point I was so poor that my hunter had to sell his arrows to reclaim Con-points lost due to deaths. Sucked at the moment, but looking back a great feeling. Feeding players with too much loot and easy xp takes away the sense of accomplishment, and people leave in search of a new challenge. Console gamers are used to breezing through game and moving on to the next title. Nothing wrong with that, but it makes for poor MMO players.
5. Failure to learn from other games: There are tons of games out there, and just about everyone has contributed something to "the pool of knowledge". If a game has done something right, the prudent thing would be to examine what made it right, then brainstorm improvements, but unless a light bulb pops up, try to incorporate a variation of the original hat fits into your game design.
“If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse”
- Henry Ford
How about charging different prices for subscriptions - for access to the same servers? (DCUO anyone?)
** Reality.sys corrupted - Unable to start Universe **
I wish. Problem is, this costs more money than a theme park MMO to make, it requires a more talented development crew, takes more time, and there is smaller Return on Investment. I agree you get a better a game, but good games (even great games that win awards) are not necessarily profitable games. MMOs are a business, and like every business they are driven by ROI.
What would it take for MMO companies to make deep worlds?
It would take players not demanding the flashy DX10 enabled graphics of a next-gen FPS and also demanding the 100s of hours of content of a single player RPG, and also demanding the community tools of a social networking site... all rolled up into a single game. Once players start demanding features added to the top of the list, it's inevitable that features fall off the bottom. The truth is that "deep worlds" have fallen off the list, because players don't care about them enough in the sense of putting money where the mouth is.
Over hyping I think is the biggest problem on release. I think one of the prime examples in the past years is Age of Conan. The hype was enormous, then on release people found a buggy and unfinished game. The reality is that if you are going to release, make sure your game is worthy of the hype. Some games which released with less hype include Guildwars, which started small then suddenly exploded after release becasue it was so much better than everyone expected. Other games have been similar, gamers suddenly finding it is so awesome that it is worth more than they thought.
I think people should start realising that a moderate amount of hype is enough to get the game noticed, and then if you carry through you should boom. Game I am currently wary of (for example) is GW2, people are expecting the world from them... which means they gotta try harder to succeed or they will dissapoint many people.