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A concerning Hartsman quote.
While reading the interview with Hartsman, one of his replies was very unsettleing for me.
HARTSMAN: Everyone wants the same thing, which is great: A great game that's
accessible, fair, and enjoyable to the largest number of people
possible. Truly.
This statement right here has me very worried. Were these some of the changes that were alluded to buy Hartsman from XLGames themselves? Will the "accessible, fair, and enjoyable to the largest number of people" version of AA be a shell of its Korean counterpart?
I think we were left with many more questions then ones that were answered by Hartsman. The bottom line is after reading that Q&A, I'm more worried then ever about the fate of the NA version of AA.
Comments
You missed a word in your rant. EVE-Online is a fair game for example yet it isn't a kind game (even with the accessibility upgrades given to it for the low end players).
Im sorry you were trying to make sense? Lets not single out words so its suits you. Lets work on the full statement and go from there shall we.
Accessible= Not bogged down by overly complicated controls or excessive micro management.
Fair= a balanced play-field
Enjoyable to the largest player-base possible= Successful.
What is wrong with any of this?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Indeed and you single out the word accessible and use it to turn the sentence into something it is not (which as mentioned previously is a generic CEO statement devoid of any real meaning) because lets face it if you scratch out the word accessible you will look like a fool grasping at straws (nothing new there my overly athletic friend).
That is complete opinion.
Some people like micro management and some people like complicated controls.
Take for example classic Resident Evil compared to current Resident Evil as it is the best example of this and has overall been a failure because it lacked what made it survival horror vs. action spam fest.
Try perception.
Whats not overly bogged down and complicated to one is insipidly easy to another
A Balanced playing field? Seriously have you ever known there to be a playing field that all players considered fair? Balance is once again a matter of perception, and the majority of players that lose will believe (and claim, holler, and Yell) that it was because the playing field was not balanced properly no matter how many years a cmpan puts in to trying to make it so.
Lastly the more you try and please the masses, the more watered down a game becomes to the point it really doesn't appeal that much to anyone.
Two of my favorite game series are X and ARMA both of which have complicated control schemes and excessive micro management. Your point is?
Mine was, that's a big part of what has kept those games in the place they are, niche...
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
My point was that he has no idea what the "majority" of players like these days and I used Resident Evil as an example as it has been a failure in comparison to past titles and has suffered major backlash.
Niche is indeed the point here and hopefully it will find a niche if its lucky, which obviously it will not with the statement he made. He only seems to care about what the numbers %'s and $$$ says. Thought that was the whole point of the thread.
I didnt single out any one word. I quoted a full statement made my Hartsman himself. If you bring nothing to this conversation but snide remarks, then dont even bother responding to anything in this thread.
[mod edit]
Be that as it may but how may of these "generic CEO responses" have lead to generic MMOs with generic game play? By the statement made by Hartsman, it would seem like AA is being steered in the direction that most other MMOs have gone in the past. Time will tell.
A great game - a game that sells well to the audience it targets.
Accessible - People can get into the game with a minimum of fuss and faffing about with things that don't matter to them.
Fair - The game won't be arbitrary in it's distribution of wealth, progression, etc. In addition, the developer will take steps to make sure players don't exploit game mechanics to make things easier than they were intended by the developer.
Enjoyable to the largest number of people possible - given the game's setting and content, make everything work as well as it possibly can, so that as many people as possible enjoy the game.
Dur. Who in the world wants a cr@ppy game that's hard to install or get into, where the game arbitrarily kills you or where the progression isn't based on anything the player does and where few if anyone actually enjoys the game, even if they enjoy the idea of the game?
This is one of those statements that's just there to sound good, but doesn't really add any new information. The only disturbing part about it is how bland it is, and how much new information it doesn't contain about whatever Trion is doing.
**
Someone else already did a definition run down thing. :-(
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
You know damn well what type of game is made when following this formula.
Haven't you heard? If a game is popular and easy to learn, it's not worthy. It needs to be overly and unnecessarily tedious, and so difficult that only a small amount of players actually play it.
It's the gaming version of a hipster bar.
Nah...I just like micromanagement and complexity in games because overly simplistic games get boring after a while. Keep burning down that strawman though.
Im left wondering why the OP wants to buy Hartsman from XLGames........
A creative person is motivated by the desire to achieve, not the desire to beat others.
Hartsman in that statement referred to the "game". Perhaps he ment it as payment model but it doesn't read that way. When he said "game" instead of "payment model" it changed the way one would perceive his answer. Even withing the context of the question.
If he is indeed just speaking on payment model then my bad. If however his comment was broader in scoop and referred the "game" as a whole then thats something different all together.
This remains to be seen.
And i hope that what he meant and wasn't generalizing the entire game its self.
In Korea they already tried to make it enjoyable for largest number of people and it failed miserably, since probably that wasn't what people wanted, they wanted ArcheAge what it was. All the changes to make it more theme parkish and appealing to everyone did not work. So what if Hartsman knows anything about Korean release he would do everything completely opposite or even better publish an older version of the game and stop fingering the game completely.
Sadly reading all those comments from the AMA shows he might have some outdated data of how the game is doing at Korea atm. ("We have a lot of faith that XL is on the right track with what they're doing with the game. ")
ArcheAge, Black Desert and Bless videos InporylemQQ Youtube
What was the question? It sounds like an answer to a business model type question, but I can only guess, since you only stated the answer and not the question.
Edit: I should have read through to the end, I see someone already answered this.
so say we all
Does it matter anymore? It's not like AA is coming out in the west anytime soon. We have heard absolutely nothing from it since the summer, when they claimed it's launching this year.
I'm predicting end of 2014, if we're lucky.
That's admittedly sad, but even end of 2014, if they manage to incorporate all the changes made by XL Games, would still be before most of the upcoming sandbox games, except for The Repopulation perhaps.
World of Darkness isn't coming out in 2014 at 100%.
Pathfinder Online will only begin a very limited Early Enrollment.
Black Desert won't release in the West until 2015.
The only one would be Star Citizen, but it's going to be a very different kind of game anyway.
Executive Editor (Games) http://www.wccftech.com
Hmm well for many players including myself what you predict could be horrible...
Accessible = So streamline and easy to play that the game requires not thinking , no strategy, no coordination, no challenge beyond logging in and spamming 1-2-3 every few seconds while following glowing arrows.
Fair = a balanced play-field designed to the lowest common denominator with such lack of options, customization, choices that no one can make a mistake or lose including the ADHD kid that can only play for 13.5 minutes while watching TV, texting with friends and only using is left hand.
Enjoyable to the largest player-base possible = certainly works for monetary success but the product you produce is about as good as the Pink Slime filled "Hamburgers" at McDonalds.
We don't know what direction Trion will take but if they follow the lead of the last 5 years of mainstream MMOs that have been crapped out by major developers than it could even be worse than I can imagine