Profile: Ghazni
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• • What MMORPG Gamers Really Want (very long)

  • Originally posted by Waterlily
    

    Originally posted by Ghazni
    
    

    8)                  Gameplay does not have to be difficult, but it must be challenging. There is a difference.

     

    Many gamers do not like dumbed down MMOs. None of your target audience does (I’ll explain why later).

     

     

     

     

    This is seriously wrong.

    WoW is huge, how you can make such a statement and actually believe it is just stupidity.

    You also write MANY, and then write NONE. What is it?

    How do you even know that  None of your target audience does? How many players did you actually ask this question to? I'm guessing........NONE.
    

    Your whole post is just drivel.

     

    Actually, what i wrote does make sense. I'd defend myself but spending that much time on your horrible response would be an insult to those who actually gave constructive feedback.

  • Posted: 6/27/08 8:26 PM
    General Discussion
• • What MMORPG Gamers Really Want (very long)

  • Lots of good responses (until the thread became a WoW-bashing contest, at least). I can't repond to every one of them, but I am surprised at how many people think I'm trying to remake EQ1. If the paper gave that impression, I guess I should go back and change a couple things, because I was as clear as I thought I could be in saying that developers should not replicate any game, specifically mentioning EQ1.

    EQ1 had a great many things that were wrong with it, many of which were described in this thread. I would be foolish to point towards that game as the goal for any developer. I certainly wouldn't play it, and described earlier in this thread that EQ1 didn't succeed on more than 1 or 2 of the 8 points I made in the paper. 

    What I wanted to point out are the things about EQ1 that were somewhat successful, because it doesn't appear that developers realize what held gamers so tightly to that game while it was still going strong. WoW did a stupendous job on seeing what was wrong with EQ1 and improving the deficiencies, but I have yet to see a game put forth a major effort to capitalize the few things that made the game appealing.

    Again, I hope no future game is comparable to EQ1 in general (there were far too many things wrong with it), but I do think there are one or two aspects of the game that I can point to and say "look at the effect of this strategy", without promoting a duplication of the game.

  • Posted: 6/27/08 8:19 PM
    General Discussion
• • What MMORPG Gamers Really Want (very long)

  • Originally posted by Piekokas
    

     

    I've read it, and i agree that we shouldn't play all games to have an opinion.

     

    But... You can't ever say that all MMOs don't have this or that, when you didn't play them all.

    Saying something like "No MMO have given AI to their creatures" is totally wrong.

    What you could say is something like this: "The majority of MMOs don't have any AI in their creatures"

     

     

    And another thing is that even if you played all those MMOs, you make this text speaking mostly about EQ and yet you call it "What MMORPG gamers really want".

    You can't put all gamers in 1 bag.

    Sure i understand your point, but the way your text turned out, you better call it "What EQ-like games can do to improve" or something similar.

     

     

    Btw... I hope you're not taking my posts in an harsh way, since it's not what i want it to sound like. :P

    I'm simply giving my opinion.

     

    Cheers. ;)

    
     

    I was referring to major MMOs in the write-up. I haven't played them all, but I believe I've played enough to hvae a general understanding of what has yet to be accomplished in the industry. What MMO are you referring to that has AI? Keep in mind my paper is aimed at MMOs that undergo a major release. Games not aimed at mass audiences aren't something I was necessarily including in the topic, and took it for granted that the individual reading the paper was interested in designing a very massive game with a large release audience expected.

    As for the title, I addressed that previously. I believe the paper speaks for a majority of the gamers out there right now who are looking for something not offered or on the horizon.

    Again, I hope the game I'm describing would be the furthest from resembling EQ1 than any game currently out. I don't believe my descriptions were biased towards making a game similar to EQ1. While I stated that EQ1 is the most similar in the hardcore gaming that it offers, I made it clear that the game I describe is an EXTREMELY far cry from Everquest.

  • Posted: 6/26/08 10:25 PM
    General Discussion
• • What MMORPG Gamers Really Want (very long)

  • Originally posted by Pappy13
    

    Originally posted by Ghazni

    For what it's worth, I'll give you my feedback, pointing out a few flaws in your logic.

    By “hardcore”, I don’t simply mean someone willing to play video games 8 hours/day. Instead, I’m referring to the gamer more willing to involve himself in the game and push himself to meet challenges that some other gamers would rather avoid. I’ll be honest…such a player does not make-up the largest MMO audience that there is (the casual gamer), but that audience is already claimed by Blizzard at the moment and is inferior to the hardcore gamer in a specific way that I’ll address shortly.

    What MMO Style Best Suits You?

    PvP-oriented 10.7%

    PvE w/ casual gameplay. Most accomplishments can be done in a 1-2 hour session. Groups are very optional. Travel is safe. Death penalty is low. 14.3%

    PvE w/ challenging environments. Travel is dangerous and long. Harsher death penalties. Most accomplishments take awhile. Groups are highly encouraged. 50.0%

    Something in between. 14.3%

    None of the above. 10.7%

    Based on 28 votes.

                    Look at the results of your poll and then look at what you said above it.  You state right off the bat that hardcore players are not as large of a group as casual gamers.  Yet by your poll you see that hardcore players make up 50% of your poll.  When a poll does not match up with what you have already stated as fact, you must begin to wonder if your poll is any good.  How do you explain the fact that 50% of the votes indicated they wanted a hardcore game and yet even you don't believe that 50% of gamers want this?

     

                    One of the possibilities could be that your poll is flawed.  But how might it be flawed?  Well for one it was taken on this website.  It's quite possible that this website is not very representative of the overall population of game players.  It's quite possible that you targetted specific gameplayers with your poll by accident and you didn't even realize it.  Isn't it possible that the people who took your poll tend to be more of the hardcore player that's disappointed with the current games on the market?  Isn't it possible that those that are happy with the current games tended to ignore your poll?  I think that's a very real possibility.  I don't think your poll shows much at all.  In all honesty you really don't have any facts to back up your theory about how many hard core gamers there are that want the type of game you are suggesting.  I'm not saying your wrong, only that you don't have any empiricle evidence.

     

                    Now lets examine the points you made.

     

    1)                  Be honest when you market the game. Brutally honest.

     

    2)                  The game is Player vs Environment. Focus solely on that.

     

     

    3)                  MMO games rely on word-of-mouth/discussion-board advertising. In-game and out-of-game customer service must be pristine.

     

    4)                  Gathering 100 skeleton bones is not a quest. It’s sad.

     

    5)                  The world is a living thing, not a wax museum.

     

    6)             Never catch yourself thinking about how to improve on someone else’s concept  of anything.

     

    7)                  Give players freedom and options, and they will come back for more.

     

    8)                  Gameplay does not have to be difficult, but it must be challenging. There is a difference.

     

                    I think you have hit on some very good points, however I think most of the points are true regardless of the type of game being made and have very little to do with creating a hard core game.  Maybe only 1, 2 and 8 are really any more valid for more of a hard core game than a casual game.  All the rest apply equally as well to more of a casual game in my opinion.  So while they are good points, they don't really support the main idea of your opinion piece.

     

                    That's just my opinion.  I could be wrong.

    
     

    
     

    Good response.

    Like I pointed out to a previous poster, I agree with what you said about the poll. I felt that including it couldn't necessarily hurt my point and, while the polling audience was somewhat biased and based on an extremely small group, perhaps it could add a FRACTION to the thought of "hmm, maybe there is an audience out there" to the reader. I did the best I could with the resources I had, and just couldn't bring myself to leave it out. I'm relatively clear in stating all this in the paper, and didn't intend to make this poll to be anything it isn't.

    As far as facts to backup my view, I feel the best I could do in that realm was pointing to EQ1's subscription numbers. Not necessarily fact, but it's really the only quantifiable figure I could come up with. If you have any suggestions I'd be glad to hear them.

    Your last point makes sense, I suppose. Many of the features would indeed appeal to all players, but number 8 (the challenge aspect) is very important and was 2 pages long in my description of it. I feel that is vital to the game becoming appealing to players. Other things I named I do see as more following the lines of a hardcore player, such as better mob AI, more in-depth quests, player self-determination, which I feel have been things that hardcore players have been asking for more than casual players, but I may be wrong on that. I can see some appeal to both groups; however, I think it's the hardcore players who are willing to put forth a little more effort and time in accomplishing larger-scale and more complicated quests.

  • Posted: 6/26/08 9:45 PM
    General Discussion
• • What MMORPG Gamers Really Want (very long)

  • Originally posted by Neanderthal
    

    I didn't disagree with everthing you said but the raid-or-quit mentality from the devs was the reason I quit EQ.

    I didn't leave EQ because of hell levels, corpse runs, long down time, the idiotic inability of melees to bind themselves, death penalties, or the slow leveling.

    I quit because at the end the game I loved ceased to exist and the raiding game began.  And that's the only reason I quit.

    
     

    I never said that the end-game should be only raids. I hope there are other options and left it up to the developer to figure out the details specific to the type of game they want to create.

    However, as far as raids in general, I do feel that there needs to be an emphasis on them throughout the game for the same reason that there is an emphasis on groups, and that's to take advantage of the first letter in MMORPG.

  • Posted: 6/26/08 4:47 PM
    General Discussion