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IN THE SPOTLIGHT: The first 60 minutes in a new mmo - how important are they?

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  • VikingGamerVikingGamer Member UncommonPosts: 1,350

    If you don't take into account the time it takes to create a character, I would say that it is actually more like the first 20 minutes that are the most important. That is about the maximum amount of time I will put up with trying to figure out a difficult user interface. I tried FFXI and just could not use the interface. Interesting looking game, looked like a promising backstory and it came highly recommended by a friend, so I didn't even bother to look to see if it had a trial or anything. I simply bought the box at gamestop based on all that and the figureing that even if I didn't sub beyond the first month it wouldn't be much of a loss.

    Unfortunately I never even made it out of the city or completed any quests. I simply couldn't move my character without becoming motion sick and cussing. I am sure if I had been a long time fan of FF I would be familiar and comfortable with the interface but that wasn't the case for me. It just didn't work for me and I was gone after those 20 minutes.

    Now if I can get past that point I will end up playing the game for at least a couple of days. Bare minimum I will play it for several hours that first evening or weekend day, go to bed and just not be interested enough to start it back up the next day but that would be incredibly rare. I will almost always play  a new game for 2-3 days at least.

    All die, so die well.

  • Miner-2049erMiner-2049er Member Posts: 435

    Originally posted by deviliscious

    Originally posted by Miner-2049er


    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!

    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.

     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! image

    Well, of course these days there is usually an option to redesign later, but previously in MMOs there was no chance. I really don't think it's the least bit stupid to spend time getting a character right. I mean you only have to do it once. It's pretty daft if you get to level 15 and that silly beard, or whatever, is really starting to bug you.

    In Aion my most recent MMO I probably spent about 3 hours getting the look right. But considering I've had 1000s of hours playing the game it's pretty insignificant.

    I can also spend hours thinking of a name too, but at least now I usually have alist of about 10 names ready to go, and I'll pick the first one.

  • vinwieselvinwiesel Member Posts: 114

    The first hour pretty well determines whatever impression you're going to have of the game.  You get the graphics, sound, combat, user interface, character movements, etc.  None of this is going to change too drastically from what you first see. After that first hour, you get to sample the grouping, crafting, guilds and all other aspects, but if you don't like the fundamentals, none of that really matters.

  • MadimorgaMadimorga Member UncommonPosts: 1,920

    I don't need an hour to decide whether I'm giving a game a chance or not.  In fact, I don't even need to have the game downloaded. 

     

    The most important time for me is about 60 seconds into checking over the game's website.  Is there a free trial advertised prominently on the main page?  No?  Blast and damn!  Okay, I'll spend a few more seconds looking over the site, just in case I missed it.  Still no free trial?  Oh well, guess I'm never going to find out if your game has anything to offer, then.

     

    Yeah, I'm cheap.  But it's been a long time since I bought a game and ended up throwing the box across the room in disgust twenty minutes after logging in.

     

    image

    I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

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  • PlutonicwoesPlutonicwoes Member UncommonPosts: 343

    I've been playing MMO's long enough now that after reading about a game then downloading it, I can usually tell within the first 10 minutes if I will play it or not.

    Generally speaking though: I think that first hour or so is crucial. 

  • eisenryueisenryu Member Posts: 157

    It's important for me to get past the 1st hour of an MMO. I usually make my decisions after about 5 minutes so If the game keeps me on for an hour Id probably be back for more. Unless its one of them asian grinders that promise no grinding. Then I play till the grinding commences.

    World of Warcraft is the original creation of God. Real Life is in fact a WoW clone.

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  • knyghttearerknyghttearer Member Posts: 124

    i believe the magic number is 10.. level 10 is when most games progress u from the early stages where u r learning the story/ the pace of the game, to actually going into the "world" and begining the journey to level cap. i think level 10 is the best benchmark to decide if the game is worth continuing..  i know if the game is getting on my nerves now.. i will be even more annoyed when i hit the upper levels that will no longer be rewarding me regularly with new abilities, and frequent level ups... free trials are great ways to weed out a game becuase of this..   i dont believe a certain amount of time spent playing a game is as much a factor as  realizing what about the game is for u or going to make u pull ur hair out later

  • KryptyKrypty Member UncommonPosts: 454

    Most important part of ANYTHING is the first impression. If you first impression sucks, you will go into the rest of the game with a negative attitude. But if you love the first impression, you will start seeing everything with rose-colored glasses.

  • DubhlaithDubhlaith Member Posts: 1,012


    Originally posted by deviliscious

    Originally posted by Miner-2049er

    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!
    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.


     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!


    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.

    "Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true — you know it, and they know it." —Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007

    WTF? No subscription fee?

  • HYPERI0NHYPERI0N Member Posts: 3,515

    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.

    Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981

  • HYPERI0NHYPERI0N Member Posts: 3,515

    Originally posted by Dubhlaith

     




    Originally posted by deviliscious







     



    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.

    Another great example of Moore's Law. Give people access to that much space (developers and users alike) and they'll find uses for it that you can never imagine. "640K ought to be enough for anybody" - Bill Gates 1981

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435

    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.

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  • LarsaLarsa Member Posts: 990

    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.

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  • NildenNilden Member EpicPosts: 3,916

    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.

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  • jackoshadowsjackoshadows Member Posts: 17

    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.....

     

    And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
    Friedrich Nietzsche

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