Originally posted by Chach                                                                                                                                                                              ...if you are a big fan of SW, it will keep you entertained for a while.

Or, if you're a really big fan of SW, it will offend you.

Originally posted by Lizard_SF

Well, there's a couple of points here...

 

First, let's discuss this "grind" thing. Let's look at other games. Just about EVERY game is a "grind", often with no purpose. Baseball - you start each game with no points, you play until the timer runs out, then you start again. If you're in a league, you play a series of games until one team wins the "season", then you start out again.

Chess: You always begin with all of your army in one place and all of the other guys army in another place. And while you can level up your pawn if your good, you don't get to keep your new epic gear for the next game.

Monopoly: No matter how much money you make in one game, you lose it all at the start of the next.

Etc, etc, etc.

The "grind" is the fun. If the game is well designed, then the act of killing monsters, exploring zones, etc, is fun *in itself*, just like playing baseball is (if you like baseball) or chess, or whatever.The "grind" only becomes an issue when there's too little sense of reward or progress. So long as the treadmill keeps carrying me past new scenery, I don't care that it's a treadmill.

The "Why can't we start off in the middle?" thing is a question I've heard a lot. There's also a lot of answers:

a)I don't want to be figuring out which is the "hit monster" button when there's, well, a monster hitting me. "Welcome to CoolQuest! You're dead!" isn't a lot of fun.

b)If you start in the middle, the middle just becomes the new beginning. That is, while it may be incredibly awesome the very first time you log on and there's a big fight, by the time you've made your fifth character and you keep starting out in the same never-ending, eternally unwon and unwinnable battle, it's really no different from starting a placid field. Hell, many games DO do this: EQ2 begins you on an island with angry goblins just outside the walls. LOTRO puts you in a town under siege and lets the siege occur. Vanguard, for at least the cat-people starting area, dumped you in an extra-dimensional zone where you had to kill a bunch of things and complete some quests just to get to the main game world.

c)Fine, so your starting character has full glowing plate armor and a nine foot long rune-covered flaming blade of ice. Guess what? He'll still be throwing it away after his first fight for the TEN foot long rune-covered GREEN flaming blade of GOLDEN ice. Even COH/V, which lets you begin as kick-ass as you want to be in looks, has costume pieces which are even MORE kick-ass as rewards.

Time to develop content is far, far, greater than the time it takes to consume it. Expecting to do something once, and only once, in an MMORPG is ridiculous. (OK, there's procedural content, but that quickly becomes repetive and obvious. Ever play Elder Scrolls: Arena or Daggerfall? Thousands of towns, cities, and dungeons... all of which quickly look alike. EVE Online gets away with it because you expect space to be kind of same-y. Most MMORPGs can't, and I'd rather play a beautifully hand-crafted, tuned, and tweaked instance 10 times than 10 "different" dungeons assembled by algorithm.

Agreed. Very enjoyable post Lizard.

Originally posted by archer75

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

Originally posted by Nightbringe1

It's not about "tweens" necessarily. While they may indeed have shorter attention spans it's also about those of us in our 30's who are married, have kids and jobs. We don't have shorter attention spans, we just have less time to spend on frivolous stuff. We want to jump in, play, have fun and move on. As it stands you have to take the time you do have just to catch up to everyone else just so you can even play with them. That's not fun.

No, playing catch up would not be fun if that's all you did. That most certainly sounds like work.

My apologies for generalizing regarding the 'tween' comments. I was specifically pointing at korean type RMTs and games such as freerealms/dungeon runners etc that most certainly cater to a more disposable audience.

I too am in my 30's, have a wife, kids, mortgage, job etc. I too play WoW. I've been playing a little over a year, and am loving it. I have a handful of toons, and while I do revel in their accomplishments, none of them are past level 66. I'd have no problem with NEVER reaching the level cap or owning that uber piece of gear. That's not why I play.

It is too bad you can't have fun without the latest and greatest gear. Like you said before. It shouldn't feel like work.

Originally posted by Nightbringe1

You want games MMO's to appeal to people with an attention span of only 10 minutes? And you wonder why the quality of games has been steadily decreasing for the last 5 year?

This has also baffled me (and is where I have to disagree with the author of the article).

Why on Gods green Earth are companies drooling over the tween "gimme now!" audience? Yes, there's a lot of them, and yes, they play videogames, but there's so much common sense that flies in the face of attempting to gain that audience. The biggest of course being is that they'll drop your product as fast as they picked it up, which might translate to decent box sales, but very little in terms of residuals (which MMOs need to stay viable).

The only reason(s) I can think of FOR tween focussed development:

1) There's so many of them (which makes the pie huge, therefore gets an easy buy-in from investors)

and

2) They're stupid (I disagree with this, but from the crap I've seen MMO dev/publishers pull it appears they do think these people are not intelligent) and therefore will buy anything, and put aside critical consumer thinking. Also, we've established that they're stupid, the developers think they can cut corners in terms of product quality without offending anyone.

To me, that market is actually fools gold, as tweens can see when they're getting ripped off, and don't have the patience to wait around for the developer to get it right.

Originally posted by archer75

 repetitive and grindy. As has been said, the rewards for time played is stuff. You do the same thing over and over again for stuff. 

Each encounter should be fun. Fun enough to run repeatedly. You shouldn't have to force yourself to do something over and over again to get gear just to have access to other things you have to run over and over again.

Gear should be an after thought. The encounter itself should be the main reward.

THIS!!!

The perfect MMO in my mind is about player intereaction.

One of the funnest times I had in an MMO was when I rolled a toon in SWG named "random homeless guy" and panhandled outside of the Mos Eisley Spaceport. Had a great time. Didn't do any quests, fire any weapons etc. But man, did that toon attract human intereaction (both positive and negative). That was a fun experience.

Problem is, developers can't package that kind of playstyle. It's not tangeable, whereas Epic Armor is.

Absolutely agree about 'rinse repeat', or as others call it... grinding. Number 1 killer of fun in MMO's these days (IMO).

Also:

"There has also been too much reliance placed on advancement as a reward in and of itself."

I COMPLETELY WHOLE HEARTEDLY AGREE! 100%

Although, I'm betting we'd be the minority.
 

Originally posted by Legato89

Originally posted by Bob_Blawblaw

Ask Kanye West why Lando's not in SWG.

 

Because SW:ToR is the best Star Wars MMO of all time!?

Close, but nope...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIUzLpO1kxI

Ask Kanye West why Lando's not in SWG.

Originally posted by Aisin

The bigger chunk of the SWG community are a bunch of players who only care about what shiney reward they get dropped in their inventory and finding the quickest and less involved method to get it.  And .. they aren't the least bit scared to demand your rare rewards be made available to them.

 

Since SOE is only interested in the quickest and least involved method to get those shiney rewards to the players, I they might have a match made in heaven (karmicly speaking).

5 fresh Scrolls (North American) right here!

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/resurrect-a-friend-target.html?key=1113466145882675986700444

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/resurrect-a-friend-target.html?key=6164432745619496038365016

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/resurrect-a-friend-target.html?key=0997516749667612721643870

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/resurrect-a-friend-target.html?key=3924642880189574235635149

https://www.worldofwarcraft.com/account/resurrect-a-friend-target.html?key=3677751099964371428719566

Welcome back!

I find it so ironic when I read the O-forums from time to time, that whenever someone calls for changes in the game, other posters cannibalistically devour the OP and tell him/her to deal with it or leave. Then they bitch that there's nobody playing.

Could there be a connection? Hmmm.

Originally posted by Suvroc

Originally posted by Daffid011

Vanguard wasn't the only game that soe had to give a press release that they were hands off on development.  The day pirates of the burning sea announced it was partnering with soe, they had to put up a giant FAQ and seperate discussion forum in an attempt to calm down player fears that soe was going to have anything to do with the games development. 

The same thing happened when gods and heroes partnered with soe. 

 

Every time soe partners with someone, both companies have to immediately go into damage control, which speaks volumes about the reputation soe has. 

 

 

 

I remember it was also a part of the Vanguard FAQ's. I wish I took a screenshot of it at the time because I thought it was funny as hell that it needed to be addressed in this way.

Which is why I ultimately find it astounding that there are no Classic Servers. Yes, it's true, there is a cost involved in the technical aspects of running an MMO. And it's true that they might not get that money back in subscription revenue from the Classic Servers (although it's doubtful they would not be profitable). But it blows my mind that they can't see that implementing a Classic Server would actually pay back ten fold in other games in the future. They think they've only alienated 200k people via the NGE, but the number is probably pretty staggering when you think about how many people those 200k  have told about SOE's evils. I alone have probably steered over 15 people (in person) away from SOE products.

An apology, and a Classic Server would make me rethink my stance.

Originally posted by Euphoryk

I wish they would consider this seriously, it could make a monumental difference in reviving the game.

Not sure it would revive the game to anywhere near pre-NGE levels, but the server(s) would be full, that's a given.

What it certainly would do though, is go a long way towards helping SOE gawd awful reputation.

Originally posted by JYCowboy

Great post Bob_Blawblaw. 

I agree except you need to consider the wieght of a given IP in the mix when suits decide to make an MMO on a franchise.  In a big way, that property hinders the conception of the MMO and expectation of returns reguardless of what "crap in box" is delivered.  I think we are starting to get over "WOW envy" now but its still used to sell a concept to board members.  There are just no management of expectations in this arena.  To use your example: Star Trek is a big IP; MMO's can make a lot of money.  Combine the concept and you make an easy sell to Paramount.  Now what is going to make this MMO a break out hit to the MMO player as defined on what was pitched to Paramount?  Do you focus on the Trekker/Trekkie?  No, you focus on the MMO gamer demographics and loose the chance to make a unique Star Trek MMO experiance.

I have said this before: "If your not Star Trek, then why would you play a Star Trek MMO?"

I can't disagree with that at all JY.  Which brings it back to marketing, as they're the ones who generally do the pitching, and use WoWs fantastic financials to entice stakeholders into investing (or licensing etc), while they themselves can't seem to actually comprehend what actually makes a game have longevity, which is I think, the clincher.

Marketing people can sell boxes.  I have no doubt that ST:O will be a short term hit out of the gate. The IP itself is strong enough to accomplish that on it's own. But after the initial sell, then who do you focus on? Like you said, Trekkers? Or MMO players? Either way, it's gonna be a battle. Trekkers will see through anything that messes with their IP, and leave if it's not Star Trek enough, and MMO vets have seen all the standard MMO features every which way you can look at it and are tired of the standard cloned 'Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer, loot etc' (which ST:O appears to have albiet in a modified guise).

What I'm saying again is, blame the blundering idiots pitching these turds at investors using incomplete data, and data they don't understand. 

Originally posted by GentleNova

Originally posted by eduty

Deliver on all your advertised features on day 1.

Hehe, this is pretty much it in a nutshell. Be as clear and concise about what you are offering and follow through in delivering what you're communicating. The closer the two match, the happier people will be because they are expecting what you are communicating (marketing).

 

Agreed. To ad to that, I put the blame for most MMO failures squarely on the marketing departments shoulders. When a game fails in this market, it's due to many factors, generally stemming from marketing, going all the way back to the games concepting stage.

I'm using Star Trek Online as my current example (and I do believe it will fail due to this) since it has such a clear and defined demographic. Marketing people don't seem to understand who the games are for. They'll pick a demographic like Trekkers soley based on the fact that there's so damn many of them (thereby thinking it'll be a gold mine), then completely ignore that demographics key requirements, instead, selling them a version of something else out there that has already achieved a quantifiable measure of success. Usually something a shareholder (not a member of the target market) can wrap their heads around (in this case, starship combat pew-pew, which is much easier to sell on a spreadsheet, than diplomacy, exploration etc that for probably most Trekkers, is at the heart of the IP).

Of course, this is what I feel is the biggest issue with certain MMO's lack of success today. There is of course, a multitude of other problems (such as the aforemention revamps by SOE etc) that drive customers away.

I want to mention that the measure of success has certainly changed since WoW as well. And what was considered hugely successful pre-WoW, is now considered a complete flop by the big-publishing houses now. This needs to change.  There's so much pressure to make a game that achieves this insane level of success that the publishers aren't allowing their designers to take creative risks anymore. They put all their marbles in the baskets of the beancounters and the marketing departments, who can only predict success based on past data. I recall a dev from WoW stating they purposefully IGNORED the marketing people on various occasions. That gamble has paid off. WoW was in the right place, at the right time, developed by the right people, who had their eyes on the right prize, which was to make a GOOD GAME. It may not be for everyone, but it's a damn solid game.

In a nutshell. MMO's will never achieve "WoW-like success" again ,until some crazy rich bastard who doesn't at all mind losing $70(ish) million dollars decides he (or she) wants to fund something special, and not just commercially successful, despite what the data says all the kids are doing these days.

Originally posted by Suvroc

Just a small point but something that really irritates me is far to many prequel items and references.

I agree Suvroc, but I think it's actually (gulp) one of the smarter decisions they've made re:SWG. They scared off us old hats a long time ago. They now are stuck with the NGE audience which mostly grew up on he prequel stuff. As inferior as most of us older folks tend to believe it to be, that's the NGE target markets version of SW. It only makes sense.

Sux though.

All of the above...

What REALLY keeps me away from SWG is not actually the NGE itself (shocking I know!).

SOE has stated time and again that what they learned about making the NGE mistake was how they went about it. This is true. But what's worse, is they KEEP DOING IT.

They don't give a rats ass about SWG or their players and all of the above issues are symptoms of that greater issue.

Hell, most of those problems, I could actually learn to live with if I ever got the sense that the makers were at all actually passionate about making a good product that entertains and retains their customers, as opposed to making something as cheaply as possible and ripping off what they perceive as 'cool with with the kids these days'  (ie: thinking 'features, shinies , and trinkets' are what draws people to WoW, and not quality).

What keeps me away from SWG (which is quite incredible considering what a SW whore I am IRL) is SOE.

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but they won't learn from anyone's video unless it's aired during the Superbowl. Our opinions mean nothing to SOE. SWG haters and fanbois alike. They just don't care. They consider themselves somehow above their customers.

/peace

The MMO previews I've been reading lately, I can only assume are helpful... for the publishers to get at players wallets.

As posts have stated above this one, very few previews actually criticize the product these days. With the huge budget MMOs on the brink of launching, payola seems to be having it's day in the sun.

Previews are nothing but commercials.

Originally posted by Varny

 It's just too dated now

I will give it this much. SWG has always been nice to look at. IMO it still fairs ok in the graphics department.

Originally posted by Halpot

There is a free trial, so I recommend clicking on the link and giving it a go. 

Seconded! Try the free trial first!