General Discussion

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Originally posted by Paldarion

AC2 was a fun game out of the box.  Almost immediately, Turbies started waving the dreaded "tweaking" bat and nerfed their player base into non-existance.  From this exerpt of Q&A, I can easily tell that they STILL don't get it!

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I agree this interveiw shows no responsibilty for the lack of success of A2. It leaves me very little in the way of a positive expectation for D&D or middle earth.

These game companies just don't get it. They don't understand the potential of the mmog industry or how to reach that potential. They still work on the model that people WILL play their game not realising that there is to much compitetion and available information for them to practice unprofessionalbusiness ethics/relations. These companies are creating reputations and for most of them those reputations aren't good.

As a long time fan and player of AC1 i found that AC2 lacked a tremendous amount of things that made AC1 so fun and interesting.  It used some of the AC1 lore and some creature names and designs but overall it just didn't feel like AC at all.  It tried to ride the wave of pvp centric games and didn't make a very good hybrid imo.

All the AC1 players got a beta invite and most tried it out and what seemed at the time and still now that most of them didn't like it at all.  If they wanted to make a PvP game then they should have thought up a new design completely and did it right. But they should just leave AC as what made it so great in the first place, a very unique adventure rpg.

I don't know if there is ever going to be an AC3 in the works considering their new games.  I'm sure DDO will have tons of resources  to be used for it and its development.  But if they do decide to work on AC3, then they should keep in mind what makes AC1 so great and keep to that as well as consider what makes those Gen 1 games so great.  Then just simply update and make the code more efficient with built in code to help resist against macros and cheat programs.  But the main thing they should concentrate on is the game's content and gameplay instead of features. 

Think of past major franchise games and why they are so popular, i.e. Civilization, Total War, Unreal Tournament, D&D, NWN, Elder Scrolls Series... Once you find that right setup of features to make the game addicting don't change that formulae just update content and overall gameplay and you will stay golden for a long while :)

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Originally posted by Ashenkhar

C) They won't release the server for other people to host their own games. Why NOT? They have proven again that they could care less about their fans. Who is it going to hurt? It's not going to compete with legitimate servers, because they are turning those off. They just figure since they couldn't do it, they don't want anyone else to either.

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It could hurt Turbine as a company if they were to release the server code. There's going to be a lot of proprietary information about building an MMO that's going to be contained in that source. Future competitors would be able to skip part of the learning curve when they attempt to build their own game. Turbine likely spent millions of dollars learning to solve certain problems. Why give someone the solution for free?

Not saying that it's a good thing (or even true in all cases), but it's the mindset that most companies have about their products.

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Originally posted by EduardoASG

MMORPG.com: What was the logic of releasing a new expansion pack, then promptly ending the game? Are you worried about a backlash from those who spent money on an upgrade that will soon be of no value? Jonathan Hanna: The expansion pack was meant as an attempt to bring more people in the game by getting AC2 back on store shelves. We advertised the game on the web and in magazines too. Unfortunately the expansion pack didn’t really grow the game.
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This is as lamme as a company can go. They sold the expansion already knowing they would be closing the game soon.. just to get some last few coins before closing it. Thats Turbines style...

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The game has to have been bleeding money for a while now, they really had to look at closing it.

Not giving something back to the people who bought an expansion for a doomed game is a mistake, though.

The following is my personal opinion only.

One of the key lessons that we learned is the customer perception of sequels in the MMO space. They end up splitting your community more so than growing it. So they are counterproductive, unlike sequels in other game genres where they can be really successful.

That AC2 was a sequel had little - if anything - to do with its inability to attract players. There are a host of reasons it did not succeed, many of which have be touched on in this thread

The game was kicked out the door too soon, it was being continually rebalanced underneath the players, the combat design was uninspired, it was too easy to reach the "end" of the game, the critical early period of community development was destroyed by the inability to get the chat servers working, the console game style segregation of high level and low level players to specific continents further sabotaged community building, it took too long to get fresh content into the game, and the world felt "soulless."

I don't deny the AC1 players who expected "AC1+" negatively affected perception. It should have been possible to move beyond that and gain a fresh audience. AC1 was a hardcore Explorer game. AC2 was a lightweight Achiever game. The initial attempts to sell AC2 to the AC1 playerbase were doomed to fail.

Nevertheless, all of these design and operations issues I listed above would all remain true even if AC2 had been a fresh IP. No; AC2 failed not because AC1 fans rejected it, but because it couldn't create AC2 fans.

If this "sequels are counterproductive" is truly the best lesson Turbine has extracted from AC2, then it saddens me to say AC2 was ultimately an entirely fruitless endeavor. Not only did few enjoy the game, Turbine learned nothing from its failure.

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Originally posted by stormwaltz
The following is my personal opinion only.

One of the key lessons that we learned is the customer perception of sequels in the MMO space. They end up splitting your community more so than growing it. So they are counterproductive, unlike sequels in other game genres where they can be really successful.
That AC2 was a sequel had little - if anything - to do with its inability to attract players. There are a host of reasons it did not succeed, many of which have be touched on in this thread
The game was kicked out the door too soon, it was being continually rebalanced underneath the players, the combat design was uninspired, it was too easy to reach the "end" of the game, the critical early period of community development was destroyed by the inability to get the chat servers working, the console game style segregation of high level and low level players to specific continents further sabotaged community building, it took too long to get fresh content into the game, and the world felt "soulless."
I don't deny the AC1 players who expected "AC1+" negatively affected perception. It should have been possible to move beyond that and gain a fresh audience. AC1 was a hardcore Explorer game. AC2 was a lightweight Achiever game. The initial attempts to sell AC2 to the AC1 playerbase were doomed to fail.
Nevertheless, all of these design and operations issues I listed above would all remain true even if AC2 had been a fresh IP. No; AC2 failed not because AC1 fans rejected it, but because it couldn't create AC2 fans.
If this "sequels are counterproductive" is truly the best lesson Turbine has extracted from AC2, then it saddens me to say AC2 was ultimately an entirely fruitless endeavor. Not only did few enjoy the game, Turbine learned nothing from its failure.

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A agree. If that was really their "take home lesson" from it all, I don't have very high hopes for the products Turbine is currently developing. Time will tell.