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Hate: Why not add content instead of change ? ( poll )
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
I'll try and NOT add specific mmos to stop arguments that go off topic.
So why so much hate ?....I think I may have simply nailed it down.
Many mmos of the past have started out great and became classics. Many have died out completely. Why ? Change, adding Dungeon finders, easy mode, fast leveling F2P just to name a few but the list is long.
If developers just added instead of changing the entire format of something that worked, less players would be mad. Why not just add. Maybe changes could be done in different continents, starting areas and end games...Give players choices in the paths they could take.
Comments
Now I'll add my two cents
- Star Wars Galaxies could still be alive
- DAOC could still be alive
- World of Warcraft would be wayyyy more popular than it's already 9 million players.
You don't know that. You don't know whether they would've withered much faster. Why so many games change is because they adjust to demand. Market grows and evolves all the time and the developers try to respond to that.
To think that a game could flourish without ever changing is naive.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I prefer new content over changes. The problem is the most vocal crowd in any game screams for change over content. Go to the forums for just about any game. You will see one or two "This new content would be nice" threads versus hundreds of "It's not fair threads" mixed in with a few more "It's broken" threads.
So, the vast majority of your vocal users, which is probably a vast minority or your total users, are raging for change.
It wasn't change that killed those games, it was expansions. All those games had expansions. If the devs never added expansions, they'd all be thriving right now.
/equallyridiculous
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
If you go with the philosophy of giving players more choices then you'll have to make thousands of choices available because everyone feels different about hundreds of things.
I think devs just have to make a lot of choices, they can't please everyone. So they either make choices you like, or dislike. Unfortunately I don't like the trend. I agree, the whole fast leveling, easy mode, instant activity popup evolution is really wrong but what can we do.
You don't need the choices you ask for, you just need devs to give you a world that pleases youl :-)
I put just add and don't change (except bug fixing) but only as the easiest safe option.
I think the real problem is games listen to complaints about one aspect of a game without checking if the 10% of players who really hate that aspect of the game and constantly complain about it aren't outnumbered by 90% of players who really like it that way and so don't complain.
It's only after they change it that they find out.
I can't help but feel that all these complaints may be born out of an underlying thought that "all change is bad".
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
How about I give you one positive example of change, hmm?
Eve Online. The players would've broken the game a long time ago if the game hadn't renewed itself regularly. Not doubt it wouldn't be as succesful it is now without changing overtime.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Found your problem op. You actually think that the forums represent anywhere close to a large percent of the playerbase. While forums may influence developer directions, actual metrics show much more, and far more honest.
I did battle with ignorance today, and ignorance won.
To exercise power costs effort and demands courage. That is why so many fail to assert rights to which they are perfectly entitled - because a right is a kind of power but they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise it. The virtues which cloak these faults are called patience and forbearance.
I greatly wish I could remake FFXI and GW original... Those games had so much good content yet mechanical deficiencies greatly hindered their potential...
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, if they get angry, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.
Metrics should be used in all addition and/or change, as well as a/b & prototype testing (and not just on test servers for cryin' out loud). See what the players want by looking at their actions, not by listening to their words...sometimes they don't even know what they want.
Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes.
That way, if they get angry, they'll be a mile away... and barefoot.
First principle of Change Management:
People are inherently resistant to change.
It is human nature because no one likes to relearn everything.
If a butterfly learnt to speak, to live in human society, paid its bills, had a job, lived in a fancy house and married a human, is it human?
Now what if that same butterfly knew how to write code better than any human and had years of experience in the game industry, would that make it a game designer?
If u wouldn't let a construction worker design your house, then why let a programmer design your world?
I must be human then because that was the final straw with WoW for me.
Three times they expected me to relearn and respec 65 characters(not counting the time I was hacked). On top of it they destroyed the world that some of them were still just beginning to explore which I loved playing in, thus making all those quests incomplete and the quest logs bugged and the few remaining ones were so dumbed down that the only reason to even do them was for the easy rep. As if that wasn't enough they then changed the whole nature of their "new" achievement system by making it so once one character completed one there was no more point to play any of the other characters.
Oh and the new pet/mount system, umm after years and years of collecting them on all my characters, let's just say their limit fell wayyyyyy short of how many I had once they threw them all in one pot, making their new pet battle system unavailable to any of my characters unless I chose to either delete close to a 1000 of them, or spend the years trying to sell them for less than what most cost me to get them. It also destroyed one of the few ways(collecting and selling rare pets) a player could make a bit of gold without running dungeons or playing the ah all the time which certainly got boring for me. I think the only thing they added that actually was fun for me, for awhile anyway, was the new and improved Darkmoon Faire. Not even pandas could save what had become just another huge chore for me.
Ergo, I cut my losses and my subs.
Adding creates changes. Sometimes subtle or minor ones, sometimes overt or major ones; but it's impossible to 'add' without introducing some element of 'change' as well.
Things change, even if you change nothing.
And sometimes they do things not because it's what they want, but because it's what they feel they must do.
Metrics are only useful if analyzed correctly in full view of context. Otherwise they're no better than a marginally informed guess.
I see you went a whole 2.5 minutes without talking about sepcific MMO's, despite the claim in your first post...
You make me like charity
The answer is fairly simple.
There is only so much content you can realistically add to a game, and gamers just aren't paying enough to keep that amount of content going. Furthermore, there is only so much content you can add to a game, before features start to feel recycled.
That's why there's such an interest in both user-generated content, and dynamic / replayable content. The games that last the longest are ones that have at least one of those, if not both.
This is true, and what's more it gives the lie to the myth that "Sandoxes are easy to develop because you don't need content". The dev resources saved in not adding yet another quest or level boss are spent in improving and adding new game mechanics.
With reference to the OP, it's not always as simple as "as well as is better than instead of".
First, dev resources are finite; time spent implementing YOUR preferred change is time that can't be spent implementing MY preferred change. Thus I am against YOUR change.
Second, new features or mechanics can undermine old ones. To use a classic example, if some players are making an ingame profession of transporting other players to areas they want to go to, then their game experience will be destroyed if instant teleportation becomes trivially available.
Give me liberty or give me lasers
What I'm saying is :
- Add new starting areas
- Add new continents
- Add new classes
- Add to end game
I already know what your about to say, many developers already do this, BUT leave existing how it is. Concentrate all efforts on adding and ADDING LOTS. Make it unbelievable is size could be the focus. Don't like the same old starting zones, well start in new zones seven or eight. Tired of the same levels 20-30 level area, take your character to one of the other new areas because you have so many choices. Nothing wrong with fixing bugs, better coding and repairing the ridicules bad content.
Marketing is more than just putting a product out and letting people know........It's often about tricking the public. I'm sure everyone could agree on that, even if you don't agree on this topic.
- 9 Million could be 2 million. How are developers doing their math ?
- Easy mode to satisfy younger could really be " get to expansions faster ".
- Are players REALLY welcoming changes or are developers just telling you stuff ?
I believe in focusing on more, Wayyyy more.
I'm with this. I don't see why an mmo has to release only one version. Oh, wait, I remember. Humans are GREEDY and can only do things when money is involved. Because profit, not creativity, is their god. Back to putting gasoline in my non-solar powered car and living in my wood and brick above earth dwelling.
I voted for "additions, not changes."
I play game because I enjoy it. The mechanics, the choices, how it all fits together. Sure, there are some things I may not like, but if that list (the dislike list) becomes longer than the "like list" I quit playing. Change the mechanics and I think hard about sticking around, depending on the change.
Someone else already said that humans don't like re-learning things over and over. Game mechanics changes do exactly this. A lot of times in the name of "balancing." I am human (I think) and admit I don't like changes, especially massive ones.
I would rather a developer would add to their game instead of changing it. Add items (weapons, armor, food, races, classes). Add lands and settlements, ie: places to explore. Add races and classes for variety, though this can be tricky without making mechanical changes to the game. Add new spells. Add new monsters and factions/guilds to join and help out or declare against. Add new character and monster levels. Add dungeons and other similar places.
Don't mess with how combat works. Don't mess with already established classes or races and how they operate. Don't mess with skills or abilities.
I used to watch the TV show, "Chuck." It was a good, funny show about a geek who becomes an uncoordinated spy with a cute "handler" who covered his ass as a spy. About the third season, he got his cute spy to be his girlfriend and became a coordinated spy. 2 Factors that caused great turmoil were now gone. The show changed on its most basic level. Just like a game that takes away quests to gain certain abilities and now makes them automatic and free when a player reaches the appropriate level or changes player classes to be more/less effective at what they do.
tl/dr:
Rarely do game changing "additions" help. It may bring in more players who are looking for that new kind of gameplay, but it also loses loyal fans who enjoyed the gameplay as it was. It is a tough decision for developers and I wish that they would cater to their fans already playing more than to the fans "they don't have."
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR