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Originally posted by deviliscious

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Originally posted by Miner-2049er

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Originally posted by popinjay
" The first 60 minutes in a new mmo - how important are they?"
VERY!

That's how long it takes me on average to design my toons once I boot the game up!

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That's about right for me too. Except it takes me 1 hour to design the toon then 2 hours to find a name that someone hasn't already taken.
I actually cannot think of a single MMO I've played for less than a couple of days. The first hour is important but I'd always give a game more time unless it was completely unplayable. Probably my favourite game ever is FFXI and as a newbie it was really not that great at all until someone took me to the Dunes at level 11. I'd been playing about a week by then.

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 You guys seriously spend that much time dressing your toon? HAHAHAHA! I don't even want to know how long it takes you to groom yourself in the morning... GEEZE!.
I fly through the customizing screens like lightning and couldn;t imagine having to spend more than 5 min tops customizing a character.. I mean I just want to see how the game plays, not dress up like princess barbie. It is hard enough having to do all that stuff for real, Hair, nails, makeup, shaving your entire body, blow drying long hair already takes WAYY too long as it is.  I couldn;t imagine spending that much time getting a toon ready. That is INSANE!

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It is a great deal easier to make my avatar (never toon) look nice than it is to get myself that way. I might not spend an hour customising my character, but I spent a good twenty minutes if not more. I want her to look right, if I am going to end up playing the game, and I do not really want to have to replay the beginning of the game (unless it was just awesome) in order to have a character about whose appearance I can feel pretty good.

Also, I just wanted to say that the Morning Joe signature is maybe the best thing I have seen yet this year.

First Hour is like a CV as an employer which CV would you even read, the one that has a one paragraph overviw of the whole CV or the 5 page CV without one?

As an example of a good intro i like the Age of cohan one. Of course after the introduction bit was completed my opinion soon changed highlighting the need not to show everything straight away.

A good MMO needs goals and not just the grindy ones. you also need a good story.

Which is part of why i love EvE.

Originally posted by Dubhlaith

 

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Originally posted by deviliscious

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Also, I just wanted to say that the Morning Joe signature is maybe the best thing I have seen yet this year.

Have to say your sig is a good one too as its SO true.

Its hit or miss for me I think.  It took me several weeks to really warm up to DAOC,  mostly to find a class that I really enjoyed.

With EQ1 I logged off after less than 30 minutes never to go back, but that was due to graphic lag issues caused  an underperforming video card which I didn't realize at the time.

Since then, I agree most games deserve a couple of days if not weeks to really get the feel for.

That said, I've dumped some games within less than an hour (i.e. Perfect World) due to either clunky login/interface mechanics and some others have only lasted a few hours.

So I'd say the first hour is pretty important.  Player should not experience a lot of difficulty creating their characters or logging into the game, and the starter area better be pretty easy to understand or I can see why some might log off never to return.

Aye, the first hour is important - however I do not know whether I like a game after the first hour, but I know whether I dislike it after such a short time.

In this first hour it's just the basics that matter:

- Is movement and camera control okay or akward, do I get rubberbanding or not?

- Can I configure my movement keys, switch off the music, customize my chat settings accordingly or am I stuck with the settings chosen by the developers? Can I configure these settings without logging out or (even worse) needing to restart the client?

- Can I choose whether to walk or to run? Is there an autowalk feature?

- Is the game visually pleasing? I'm no graphics junkie, artstyle is more important for me than the number of polygons on my screen.

That's about what I check in the first 60 minutes. If I'm content I continue, if I'm not content I'll probably uninstall. And that would be the message to indie developers: make sure you've got at least the basics right - I can tolerate a lot of missing polish, I can tolerate missing content, I can tolerate some low-polygon graphics - but I cannot tolerate a game that doesn't even get the basics right.

While the first hour is important I've already been to the website, went over every feature, read five or six reviews and watched every gameplay video I could find. So the first hour is played with the mindset that it doesn't matter in the grand scope of the game. Unless the game is so bad that I don't get past the first hour but I've already researched any MMORPG for more than an hour before trying or buying.

sorry for my bad english in advance ,

for me the first hour realy important , but if the game look ok and that decent , i will give the game a couple day before judge the game .

im usualy playing until the grind start , then im judging the game , what  im fealing about the world and quest , community and if that worth it to go more far  , 

succesful game for me need , big and good looking map , where you can zoom in and out , and good quest where you need to think or solve puzzle , also quest you need to group for them .

and what im thinking mmorpg are missing curently , give reward for group ( more exp , better loot ) in most game curently you actualy win less for party , so many people play alone and that just not how mmorpg should be played i think .

also im thinking , add a system where you can add 5 or 10 friend ( online or not ) in some kind of system and when you group with them you get more bonus , that would be realy fun too .

about guild : we need the fealing that everyone work for something , give guild level and advantage , special item that members can get when the guild reach one level , or item or bonus guild members get when they contribute to the guild .

like one system , if you help one guild members for one quest , you get some special point ( or anything else )  , if you help alot you get some kind of advantage or title .

im thinking about alot more , but will stop here :) thx for have read .

Originally posted by Larsa

Aye, the first hour is important - however I do not know whether I like a game after the first hour, but I know whether I dislike it after such a short time.

 

 This.  It takes longer for the hooks to sink in, but that first hour tells you if you *could* like it.  Call it a first date.....