The Forced Grouping advocates are already rallying hard behind this game, as are those lobbying for Full-World PvP. "Encouraged" Grouping, PvP focus, and high system requirements are a proven path to low player retention in the Western market. If this well-worn path is the course Bluehole has charted, TERA will wind just another pretty game that encouraged people to play World of Warcraft. I sense another Aion with wings of wax in this one.
While I agree high system specs definintely reduce the player base, perhaps if developers throw these other two components at the west long enough we'll finally learn to acquire a taste for it. (sort of like learning to enjoy coffee or beer)
Just because Asian players seem to enjoy something, doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing. From where I'm sitting, forced grouping and a rabid PvP mentality do much to drive paying subscribers away. Personally, I've never developed an appreciation of having something forced on my "for my own good". Seems to me there's a word for that, and it's not a very nice one. What interests me is that all these developers are scrabbling to get a piece of the WoW pie, but they fail greatly in appreciating many of WoW's core elements and improving on them, hence, people try what they've created, find it lacking, and troop back to the familiarity of Azeroth. Don't you think there's a lesson here?
It seems to me that your biggest complaint is that its not enough like WoW. We already have so many solo focused mmorpgs around and more are under development. Do we really need another one? I think the reason so many mmorpgs are not doing as well as they could is because they are trying to target the exact same audience WoW does.
Nonsense! I'd like nothing better than to see Blizzard get cut down a few notches, but the simple fact is that most MMORPGs fail is because they push out a half-baked product and somehow to expect people to flock to it. What you seem to be advocating is more niche games, which is a losing proposition any way you look at it since MMOs require massive numbers of subscribers to sustain development.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could point me to any of these "so many solo focused mmorpgs" you speak of. I've played about all of them and all of them incorporate questlines that require you to find a group to get any kind of decent reward. WoW even goes so far as to require you to find a group to complete class-specific quests that only benefit you. The difference with WoW is that there are so many other things to do, a player can skip these quests and move on, not feeling like they missed out on anything.
Forcing players to do anything they don't want to is a real good way to encourage them to spend their money and time elsewhere.
well as far as your hope for blizzard being cut down a notch its not gonna happen here hehe seeing that according to massively enmasse is a collaberation of blizzard and ncsoft
Actually no. Reading the press release shows that the personnel in question are no longer employed by Blizzard, NCsoft, Microsoft, ArenaNet, or EA. The new publisher is entirely owned by Blue Hole.
Comments
While I agree high system specs definintely reduce the player base, perhaps if developers throw these other two components at the west long enough we'll finally learn to acquire a taste for it. (sort of like learning to enjoy coffee or beer)
Just because Asian players seem to enjoy something, doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing. From where I'm sitting, forced grouping and a rabid PvP mentality do much to drive paying subscribers away. Personally, I've never developed an appreciation of having something forced on my "for my own good". Seems to me there's a word for that, and it's not a very nice one. What interests me is that all these developers are scrabbling to get a piece of the WoW pie, but they fail greatly in appreciating many of WoW's core elements and improving on them, hence, people try what they've created, find it lacking, and troop back to the familiarity of Azeroth. Don't you think there's a lesson here?
It seems to me that your biggest complaint is that its not enough like WoW. We already have so many solo focused mmorpgs around and more are under development. Do we really need another one? I think the reason so many mmorpgs are not doing as well as they could is because they are trying to target the exact same audience WoW does.
Nonsense! I'd like nothing better than to see Blizzard get cut down a few notches, but the simple fact is that most MMORPGs fail is because they push out a half-baked product and somehow to expect people to flock to it. What you seem to be advocating is more niche games, which is a losing proposition any way you look at it since MMOs require massive numbers of subscribers to sustain development.
I would greatly appreciate it if you could point me to any of these "so many solo focused mmorpgs" you speak of. I've played about all of them and all of them incorporate questlines that require you to find a group to get any kind of decent reward. WoW even goes so far as to require you to find a group to complete class-specific quests that only benefit you. The difference with WoW is that there are so many other things to do, a player can skip these quests and move on, not feeling like they missed out on anything.
Forcing players to do anything they don't want to is a real good way to encourage them to spend their money and time elsewhere.
well as far as your hope for blizzard being cut down a notch its not gonna happen here hehe seeing that according to massively enmasse is a collaberation of blizzard and ncsoft
http://www.massively.com/2010/02/24/blizzard-ncsoft-talent-form-developer-en-masse-entertainment/
Actually no. Reading the press release shows that the personnel in question are no longer employed by Blizzard, NCsoft, Microsoft, ArenaNet, or EA. The new publisher is entirely owned by Blue Hole.