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We forget how much work goes into our favorite MMO games.
Isturi
Member Posts: 1,509
I think many players tend to forget how much work DEVS put into thier game of choice. Worst yet many players after a MMO comes out will start to bash any given MMO just because it did not meet their expectations for whatever reason.
With this being said I would like to give you a link to a wonderful article on making a MMO game and it takes the look at putting sound into the game. This article features "Michael Henry, audio manager at Cryptic, where he’s busy working on the upcoming Neverwinter," along with Stephen DiGregorio who has a nice quote. 'If a part of the narrative should be told through the drama of sound or music we will mix and match each accordingly.'
As a player myself I do forget just how much work goes into my game of choice so it is easy for me to want to get upset and start to say this games sucks because it did not meet up to my expectations.
I'm not sure if this thread will help anyone at all before they want to crittize a particular MMO. I do however hope that more players will at least give some thought into the back ground of making a MMO from the start.
Comments
Is more work always bring all fun?
And ungodly amount of work goes into Waterworld, does it make it a better movie?
I don't forget how much work goes into MMORPGs. I just don't use it as a determining factor when deciding whether I like a game. In the end it is what they produced and not how much work it took them to produce it that matters to me.
And really, it's not like devs aren't getting paid to produce the games. They make a decent living doing what they do and I think people should carry expectations about what they are capable of accomplishing. Sometimes they deliver and sometimes not so much. But certainly the amount of work they do on a game isn't what influences my opinion about the game.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
You can work hard all you want but if you don't work smart it's all for naught.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Developer: I've spent 5 years working 80 hour weeks on this game. I miss my wife and kids! But it's all worth it!! Now it's time to finally see the fruits of our labor!
Forum Troll: This game is garbage. I played 10 minutes and it's not even close to being as good as <old-school game x>. Don't bother!
Developer: ...
Quite frankly, I'm surprised the suicide rate isn't extremely high for people in this profession. (not to sound too morbid)
If you can't handle forum trolls, you don't go into the game industry.
But just because something is a lot of work doesn't mean that we can't criticize it. I could never be nearly as good of an NFL quarterback as JaMarcus Russell. Does that mean I'm not allowed to say that he's not as good as Aaron Rodgers?
Now, some things are over the top. Threatening physical harm to developers or threatening anything at all to their families have no legitimate place in the world. Even just accusing them of being lazy because they didn't implement something you wanted is unreasonable. But criticism in general is hardly off-limits.
I understand it requires hard work.. but...
isn't hardwork "more wasted" if you're going to make a game that no one actually likes? If they are going to excert so much effort, they might as well make something actually worth playing not just the generic mmorpg just to say they were able to create something
Well said. Ty I do realize that constructive criticize is a very good thing. And to tell you the honest truth I can give two shakes to the forum trolls. They are the least of my worries. Only reason I wrote this article is because of the hard work that does go into a MMO in this case the music. Some of the conductors for MMO gaming is on par with the likes of Danny Elfman and John Williams. All I ask if some of the players would just stop and honestly give a MMO a try and like someone mention not just 10 mins of beta or alpha game play and call the game crap because it did not meet their standards of instant gratification.
I know exactly how much work goes into MMOs. But that doesnt change the fact that something may be crap.
For example, a sculptor could take 100's of hours carving a piece of granite into a sculpture of a rat turd and do a piss poor job of it. He invested a lot of energy, put an insane amount of work into it, but that doesnt mean that by virtue of that it is suddenly worth something or not a crappily done sculpture of a rat turd.
I get what you're saying about managing expectations. Thats definitely a problem in the MMO playerbase.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The problem is that if players expect your game to be kind of all right, they won't try it in the first place. So companies have to inflate expectations to get people to try the game at all, even if they can't meet the inflated expectations.
I do belive SWTOR fits this example perfectly.
Since when do we forgive crappy products because hours upon hours of work was put into it? Next time feel free to buy a crappy car that breaks down all the time but don't get mad because a lot of hard work was put into making it.
While I understand your point I can't help but being a skeptic since its so rare developers ever apologize for putting out garbage. I mean, come on, we've all played mutiple games were you just have to ask yourself, how did this get released?? How do they think this is good?
This hardly applys to all, but with the significant amount of irritating cash shops and the continually churning out of MMOs by some companies I just can't give them the benefit of the doubt. Often it just feels like they are trying to make some easy money off all us idiots who give their games a shot (and maybe a chunk of our wallets). This seems especially true in the case of so many games starting p2p and going f2p in barely half a year since release. It really just seems like a big scam to get money from overhyped expectations and poor game design in more ways then one, after the subs die it just converts to f2p like no big deal, continually generating money from the enhanced populace who don't want to shell out initial cash for a game but will waste hundreds of hours in it and eventually buy cash shop.
Sadly, appreciation can only go so far.
People forget games are art. There is no good or bad art. There's just opinions. Find any game that is " total garbage " and it will have a loyal following of fans playing it.
It's when people start throwing their opinions around like facts is when it's obvious the poster has lost touch with reality when it comes to games.
It would be nice to live in a world where one could succeed through hard work alone.
I respect work done by devs.
Only my points are:
1. not all hard work can bring success.
2. if I don't like game and tell it, why I'm called troll?
3. do we really need to call anything "candy" only because of hard work applied part?
and my last point: let's just look who really does all hard work (I think lately it's poor guys from 3rd countries, w/o any name, prove please if I'm wrong) and who take fruits of their hard labor (big dev companies in NA and EU), may be we can see some exceptions but they already called "exceptions".
You can make very complicate movie we all will find mean less or boring, but we gonna like other movie, may be made with less efforts and costs, but with genius, and such movie will give us a great fun!
To be honest, I think the 1st MMO were done with lot of creativity, originality and soul, so we all loved them (I mean good games, as bad just born dead).
Now I see many MMO w/o any individuality, any ideas, any soul inside, made just to make more money out of same or similar subject, so I don't see why we can love this product, and asking me why they keep spend such amount of efforts for nothing much but next industrial fast-food, supposing to attract more idiots?
try before buy, even if it's a game to avoid bad surprises.
Worst surprises for me: Aion, GW2
I think there is some sort of disconnect between creation and actually playing the thing. Too many games are coming out that seem to be made as though there is a contest going to see who can make the most stripped down piece of shit. It's a shame that so much work has to go downrange, the thing gets its own inertia, and then defenders pop up to keep that momentum going.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
swtor took a lot of work. a lot of work is not always a good thing.
a lot of work goes into making a car, even say a 1976 Jaguar. Good luck finding a satisfied customer of a 70s Jaguar as they are in the shop more often than Joan Crawford.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I love your point bout the movie. Today a lot of comic book hero movies are made and it seems they are way over budget and hardly worth the price of the ticket for the show. Then you get a brilliant fun lower budget movie like Kick Ass that totaly rocks. Knowing full well that movie payed off big because of the hard work that went into it. So just like a MMO game it dont matter if it is a big production MMO and it winds up being rubish or a smaller title that cost less to make but it is a blast to play because the DEVS did work hard on their game and it shows.
It is also about putting the work in the right places. Some devs seem to loose their ways, spending too much on looks and too little on gameplay. Hasn't it been proven since the dawn of gaming that gameplay is 90% of the success, and that is especially true with mmorpgs - Or said in another way, no amount of boobies, video sequences or slick animations and so on, can save a flawed gameplay. Every big selling game to date has succeeded because of its gameplay, poor graphics or great graphics (for its time) hasn't played a huge role. Many games has started out looking crappy and gradually upgraded on looks, all because their gameplay and ideas worked.
Maybe we forget how insanely many hours it takes to produce a mmorpg, but for a good handful of years devs seem to have been loosing sight of what matters.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
But what is "a lot" of work? I can put 40 hours a week into something and my friend can put 80 hours doing the same thing. Did both of us work a lot or just my friend because he worked 40 hours more than I did? I do not think that people (not everyone of course) forget how much work is put into making an MMO; people are more frustrated by how this work is distributed. Someone mentioned that some companies will superficially inflate the expectations in order to increase their sales. There is some work put into doing this, but should we, as players, accept it?
I like the movie comparison, but I don’t think it is very accurate. While it is possible to make movies with much smaller budget than some big movies, is it actually possible to make a MMO following this example? I'm not sure, but I suppose (please correct me if I’m wrong) that less people can influence your making a movie that your making of a MMO. One more thing I can think of right now is the longevity of a movie in comparison to an online game...is it the same?
There are plenty of ways to work very hard at unproductive things. That shouldn't be encouraged.
Suddenly mmorpg becomes a ghost town ...
There are plenty of things in life we should not do, yet we still do them. Posting here is but one of the many pointless activities I fill my life with, playing games is another.
Since gaming began players have not realised the effort it takes to make a game. This is a real problem in the MMO genre. In solo games, if a title is delayed players complain but they will still buy in when the game comes out. In a MMO if a content update is delayed they leave.