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Interesting read...
Posted this over on the pub but figured worth lining here since although it strictly speaking doesnt mention AoC, it is the game director talking about MMOs on his blog...long, but worth a read!
Comments
Yeah I read this Sunday, they have it up here as a news item today on mmorpg.com.
I like the questions brought up, for example
"Who do you think will be more vocal in a negative manner about your game - the person who you told upfront 'this isn't the game for you' or the person who you lead to believe would find what they wanted in the game only to later discover it wasn't really a focus and the implementation of the feature makes that obvious?
There sometimes seems to be though a genuine fear amongst developers, in particular when speaking publicly, of saying something, anything, that might turn someone off their game before it has even been launched. Personally, I think getting over that fear might just help us improve the genre and explore it's potential. Shouldn't we be asking ourselves 'why does Feature X have to be here?', 'Does Feature X actually improve my game?', 'Could I spend the resources needed for Feature X improving my core gameplay?'
Is it ok to not be all things to all players?
Yes, of course you want to maximise your appeal and attract as wide a demographic as possible, but doing it potentially at the expense of your overall quality level just because you are afraid some people might not like it, might be being too focused on the theoretical customer satisfaction for our own good."
I find the points following this pretty interesting.