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Interesting read that holds some truths and a catch 22. discussion: how right or wrong is the author. I miss how my old computer kept the house warmer in winter :( |
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He is wrong and right at the same time. Yes, constant "this sucks"-whining should be ignored. |
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I very much agree with the article. So many people around here attack today's MMOs for their faults, and while I certainly believe there is much room for improvement, the majority of complaints levelled against the current king are directed at the wrong things. When you're asking for challenge, are you really asking to die a lot, and repeat the content until you finally beat it, or are you asking for more strategy? In which case the game slows down. Or do you want more twitch - well that way the game speeds up? Still not what you want? You need a better vocabulary, because 'challenge' doesn't cut it when it comes to game design. People aren't properly articulating their arguments, giving a very personal opinion, and not seeing 'the big picture'. Most of the time, people are stubborn and unwilling to change their opinions. And there's a great deal of snobbery from hardcore gamers, if something is popular or successful, it's considered somehow 'dumbed down'. Yet if you actually look at what a 'dumb game', such as WoW or LOTRO provides, these have actually a hell of a lot more choices and options than less intuitive games. Sure, Everquest has a lot of content - far more than WoW - but for catering to gameplay styles and choices, WoW provides so much more. Detractors throw words around like depth, skill, immersion, challenge - without really understanding how these terms apply to gameplay. It's like people who say that a game that takes longer to reach the level cap is more difficult. It's bullshit - you're not asking to make things more difficult, you're asking to repeat more content to get the rewards. If you're just asking for MORE CONTENT, then fine, that's a valid argument. I could go on for pages and pages, but I'll leave this mini-rant as it is for now. Many people have predicted the imminent decline of WoW for almost 5 years. One day, they will be right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. |
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Originally posted by batolemaeus
...Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay fall but as dead, dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?...and the wind cried back. |
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What Recant said, including his signature. :D Edit: and I'll add in that smart developers (and most developers of actually released MMOGs are smart) look more at what (all) people do than at what (a few vocal) people say. ;-) --- |
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Brenelael
 Elite Member
Joined: 10/19/06
"If I'm not back in 5 minutes... Just wait longer." -Ace Ventura |
I also think that the author is both right and wrong for several reasons. While I do agree that developers should ignore complaints from individuals or small groups I think they should pay close attention to the overall feeling toward their game the community is relating. In other words pay attention to the height of the tide and not to the individual waves. Polls are a useful tool for doing this but only if they are posted in several different game related and subject related forums and averaged out. This means that if your making a Smurf MMORPG you would want the overall opinion from not only the MMO and general game related forums but also from the Smurf fan sites too (Sorry Smurfs was the only thing I could think of right now
I do however agree that developers should stay quiet about a project until they have something to show for their efforts. I like to hear about games in development as much as anyone else but a lot of the "Forum Wars" over games could be totally avoided if developers just keep quiet about what they are doing until they have a working game to show. This gets rid of all the speculating people do over what a game should and shouldn't have and keeps the discussion based only on the facts. Oh well just my 2 cents on the subject.
Bren while(horse==dead) |
Originally posted by BrenelaelActually, I miss games doing what EQ had for at least a while: polls on login. This means you get everybody's opinion (as long as they log in at least once per month or so), not only those who actually visit forums. Naturally, showing the results to the players is asking for trouble, as they'd misinterpret the numbers however they please and slam them in your face together with a "you fail" stamp whenever possible. Yes, we're a friendly bunch, aren't we? :p --- |
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The most valid point is the fact that people who use the forums are not the majority of the community. if all of WoW used the forums you couldn't keep a post on the fifth page if you wanted to. it even holds true for EvE online. I miss how my old computer kept the house warmer in winter :( |
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Brenelael
Elite Member
Joined: 10/19/06
"If I'm not back in 5 minutes... Just wait longer." -Ace Ventura |
Originally posted by DreamagramWell how you construct your polls is very important. The number one rule is simplicity is key to a good poll. You should give people a straight forward unbiased question with as few responses as possible. Yes or no polls are ideal and never give them an "other" response. Response posts to polls should be read but all a developer should carry away from the poll is the core data and any responses should be disregarded. Also you should put your poll in as many places as possible so you get the widest possible sample but make sure that the poll is exactly the same everywhere.
Now there are problems inherent in this type of polling. The most important issue is that it would be a "Volunteer" poll. Your sample will be slightly tainted by the fact that only people who choose to answer the poll will. Another factor is the fact that you'll have people voting in more than one place that you put the poll and this should be considered when tallying your results. Also you have the "Multiple Account" people that will login with several different user names so the can vote more than once.
There really is no way to get a pure sample for statistical analysis unless you go out personally and ask every person on the planet your question but who has time for that so you make due the best way possible. Will your sample be a "pure" sample? Definitely not but you'll still get a good enough sample to base your data on if you follow a few simple guidelines and take into consideration that no matter how careful you are there will still be a margin of error. The goal is to make that margin as small as possible.
Bren while(horse==dead) |
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sample by subscribing accounts. it'll still be scewed but it's people who pay for each vote. I miss how my old computer kept the house warmer in winter :( |
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The author of The Escapist magazine is right. IF you want proof take a good look at World of Warcraft and being that the developers trying to please the small hardcore screaming crowd they turned the game upside down but of course sometimes the hardcore crowd is right about some things but more often they're not. What a good developer should do is to take a look at the whole game community not just listen to a small portion of it, follow your design docs and stick to what your game development plan (or what your team has planned out) but of course your gamer community is a good indicator of what you are doing right or what you are doing wrong (after all they're your customers), being a good developer means it's a balancing act of listening to your community (after shifting thru the crap and filtering out the good advice) and what you think is best fo the game. |
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The article, while being right in the general sense, is a tool slanted against a playstyle. So I would have to say she(? Dana?) is wrong. I agree that developers should never make snap decisions in the game based on forum drama, but it is wrong to blame a whole playstyle, the very thing that makes all these threads so silly sometimes, for all the problems in the game. The writer destroys their ideas, while solid in itself, by making the exact same mistakes most of the threads make that creates forum drama. Even Recant did it while trying to justify a viewpoint. Anyways, most solid MMO's aren't going to make snap decisions in design just because a few people in a forum complain about this and that. WoW, EQ series, LotRO, and the main ones have solid developers and staff that we can be pretty well trusted to try to do what's best for the game as a whole. "Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are." |
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Originally posted by paulscott hahaha, the author is only part right which makes him that 'hardcore player' he so describes... priceless.
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the question is should developers listen to the article, the author is clearly into gaming and so hardcore that he/she/it is reporting on the experiances. I miss how my old computer kept the house warmer in winter :( |
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Originally posted by devacore Note that the article refers to "hardcore community", not "hardcore players". Forum users is not the same as highly active (PvE or PvP) players. And the author apparently has experience from the other side of the fence (development), so maybe it's a matter of perspective. ;-) --- |
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Well my problem has been developers dont listen to us and make stupid mistakes that ruin the game. |
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Orca
 Novice Member
Joined: 11/21/03
Helbreath Veteran |
I like that Dana Mossey is the lead content manager on MMORPG.com and nothing have been mentioned here. Oh yeah, interesting read. Just sad that it's such a narrowed visioned view, with nothing objective to say. The "king", Blizzard, listens _ONLY_ to their community when making changes to the game. Like balancing, questing or new additions to the game mechanics. I can see the problem that MMO developers listens to the community, instead of making a real game. But it's not the hardcore communities fault, it's the developers. I remember DnL where the developers ignored every little post on their boards, yet the boards thrived... So when ever someone made a post that the dev's responded to, they had that "I'm gonna be in the credit"-feeling as described in this article. Problem was that, the game was still shit... So I don't get it why she came up with that statement about people should feel that they were "getting in the credits", when this obviously doesn't change the fact if the developers are retarded monkeys. Haven't read the other replies, as I just wanted to get this off my chest. Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community Correcting people since birth. |
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Originally posted by Dana Massey
This is what the article should have focused on instead of merely taking cheap shots at the hardcore Fanbase. The fact that a conclusion is usually just a restatement of the previous points and that here Dana chose to conclude with a very small jab at who really is responsible makes me think he is merely attempting to address a serious issue in a cowardly fashion as to not upset his many connections in the Industry. This is not a problem catalysed by the "Hardcore" but either by Designers or more likely Publishers and / or Marketing Strategists. As viral marketing is focused on the most hardcore in a community, maximizing the potential viral wave, quite possibly from this emerges the belief that making the same group happy will also maximize the potential player base. The failure of design should succeed and fail within the confides of the development and production groups, the responsibility should never be outsourced to the community and if this takes place was done so at the sole discretion of the Development or Production team. Game Companies are to blame for failures in deployment and judgement, not their communities. Extremely questionable article and one that many should take offence to as Dana makes his living off the community he is so quick to sell out in an attempt to take the heat off of "The Industry". - Burying Threads Since 1979 - |
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Beatnik59
 Advanced Member
Joined: 11/23/05
"Playing things I shouldn''t be playing since 1977." Now Playing: |
Ah, Dana Massey! You know, my first post on MMORPG.com was in response to one of Mr. Massey's articles, called "Changing the game whether you like it or not." It was about SWG and the NGE, and whether it was a good choice or not. I remember my response to him, and I pointed out something that was, in my opinion, the root cause of a lot of the problems in this industry. Namely, developers never settle on a stable design and stick with it. Rather, MMORPG live teams pride themselves on the fact that they have the power to change the game into whatever they want at any time, and therefore, do not feel obligated to settle on any design plan. Live teams possess broad authority to change the game mechanics, and are unafraid to use it to radically alter the original design in contrast to the developers. Thus, players and factions within the playerbase tend to make their case, because they know that the live team can be coerced into changing the game mechanics. My problem then and now isn't that live teams change the game based on player angst. It's actually far more fundamental than that. My problem is that live teams should have never be given such broad discression to change the game in the first place. That used to be a job for the original developers alone, with the live team acting more as custodians of the original design, rather than as developers in their own right. The problem is that this genre has embraced an agile management style that leads to reactionary development, as opposed to stable development. Live teams like to change the game, because they believe (I think wrongly) that a game that doesn't change is dead. They see settled design plans as too limiting to their creative license, and consequently, set nothing in stone. Of course, the disadvantages of that agile style are legion, not least of which is that the customer never knows what game they'll end up with on a given day. Since MMOs refuse to ever actually leave production, the players never know if the enjoyable things they do will suddenly disappear because some live team member decides on a whim, "wouldn't this be neat to try?" Hence, you have bickering, and a lot of it, because the game is always a constant work in progress, never truly acknowleging what it is, and what it isn't. __________________________ "...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." "It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." |
Originally posted by paulscottOf course not. Why would you put great stock in the views of a minority whose habits clearly do not reflect the majority. The only reason Developers do this is because many of them are hardcore themselves and developr an echo chamber.
That doesn't mean they should completely ignore but they are clearly a minority and clearly have an agenda. And should be treated as such.
Finally the real nail in the coffin is the following. Hardcore type people tend mistake matters of preference or opinion as matters of fact. They are the sort of star trek type nerd that will argue with a writer or cast member about how two episodes are inconsistent as if anyone cared. Case in point is death penalties many hardcore types believe this these objectively given "meaning" because they find meaning in such things. The fact is they are wrong, many people find a death penalty simply annoying or even depressing. They believe that their point of logic that the loss implies meaning is superior when actual facts of people's reactions say something else. They are simply not reliable because they are wrapped up in their own world. They are in fact usually the worst people to listen to because they have the least understaind of other people's perspectives. Further their perspective is a distinct minority.
You could actually find someone who belonged to some minority, like say RPers, and get far better feedback. One would assume a decent RPers is at least capable of seeing things from other points of view even if they believe in the primacy of RP and also have an agenda.
Hardcores are willfully blind. Often frighteningly so. I have rarely seen the kind of willful blindness like exists in the raiding cults. |
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This article is just a voice for casual clearly the guy is not a fan of hardcore and want to shut us up becouse his narrowminded view tell us hardcore are 14year old screaming bastards who shout nonsens. And he dont want that becouse then he and his fellow casuals/carebears have a hardtime playing, but i dont understand his concerns almost all games today are easy casual and carebear. played:ac,ac2,L2,eq2 and wow. Hardcore pvp/pve/rpg. |
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Originally posted by forest-nl
...Aye! A roar he cried frae the bottom of his heart that I would nay fall but as dead, dead as 'a can be by his feet; de ya ken?...and the wind cried back. |
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Orca
Novice Member
Joined: 11/21/03
Helbreath Veteran |
Please stop generalizing... You sound like an idiot when doing so. Futilez - Mature MMORPG Community Correcting people since birth. |
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I agree with the author. |
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Originally posted by Orca And how do you propose that he avoid generalization of one degree or another? Is he supposed to talk to every single player that defines themselves as "hardcore" and then place percentage qualifiers next to all of his statements? Maybe list the names of every "hardcore" player that feels this specific way? It's all fine and good to tell people not to generalize, but the alternatives are too time consuming and downright unrealistic for casual conversation. You would sound less like an idiot by understanding that the stated generalization is based upon the experiences of the person making it. The fact that many other people have made the same generalization based upon their experience lends some credibility to the statement. What are the odds of even twenty some odd people having roughly the same opinion of "hardcore" players based on their experience in the same place at the same time? Seriously, grow up. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2if5GYXOGyo |
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). This makes sure that no one community has to much pull on a subject and gets you the widest sample possible to base your decisions on. One person or a small group of people with loud voices can and will lead developers to make bad development decisions but if you can get a sample from the broader community on a given subject it should be closely scrutinized.
