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Its not all the game developers fault look at todays gamer
primedgamer
Member Posts: 7
You read these forums and hear the developers don't know what they are doing, the develpers are idiots, they don't know how to make a video game and yet those who say this don't really understand the real issue with MMO's today. Game developers have the same challenges as other real life companies. The challenges of higher cost to run a business include taxes, higher health care cost, higher price for equipment, competition and the number one issue with MMO's is the customer.
Today's MMO gamers are turning more and more into today society, lazy and have this sense of entitlement, they want everything for free. Because of this the game companies need to adjust 6 out of 7 gamer today want f2p. Well it should take a rocket scientist to understand 6 out of every 7 gamers are lazy and have this sense of entitlement, and if a game is f2p it really handcuffs the developer to create a great game. They feel they are entitled to play a video game for free. How can we expect these companies to put out an amazing game that will take you months of acutally playing time to experience all the game has to offer when 6 out of 7 gamers want to be max level in 2 days while playing for free and then they will complain that the game stucks because they have put the company in this postion.
You hear a lot of arguements that game company X and game company Y are laying off worker so therefore the game is failing and going to close. Well this again goes back to cutting cost to stay competive and trying to adapt to todays ever growing lazy gamer. We will never get the next great MMO because of this lazieness and sense of entitlement that is overtaking a once proud community. $15/month to play a game as much as you want is nothing compared to other sources of entertainment we spend our money on. If you want to be lazy and level in 2 days, if you continue to have this sad sense of entitlement that you should get everything for free we will never see another great MMO . With today's technology this is a shame and the ones to blame are the gamers.
Comments
I agree with you 100%. I was a Evercracker from 1999-2004. I've never experienced in a MMO since what I experienced in EQ. I made so many friends in that game (many I still am r/l friends with presently) and dearly miss 10 hour corpse runs until 7 am having to be at work at 8. When I look back, hell, I would have paid 59.99 a month for those memories.
Actually, Everquest wasn't trying to beat your around the post. It was trying to bring the table-top RPG experience to the computer. Which meant, among other things, a long term commitment to your character, and the understanding that growth is a slow process.
Not many gamers today have every played a table-top RPG and have no clue about the pacing. The few that have played one, probably played D&D 4E, which is basically an attempt at bringing MMO design to table-top games (hasn't worked out too well).
The OP is right. Gamers (and people in general) are very lazy and impatient these days. When was the last time you stood in line for something, and didn't see almost everyone staring at their smart phone? Hell, when was the last time you sat down and ate dinner without having people check their phones?
You make me like charity
You jerkoff how dare you question what I wrote?
j/k
Time sinks were added to keep you from reaching your personal goals too soon with the express aim to keep you subscribing longer. It wasn't added so the developers had ample time to come up with more raid stuff and expansions even though it has its advantages with that as well. I wish I could find an age old interview with Brad where he stated as much but it's long gone by now. Best I can do is a wiki link to time sinks.
That's why you were experiencing xp loss, corpse recovery, long travel times, hell levels.. I can go on. Did those things have positive effects too. Sure they did. Some of which will never be duplicated in todays market but it is what it is. EQ punished you every way imaginable and you just took it up the bum and called it a fun ride. What else were you going to do? Go play Anarchy Online? Asherons Call? decent games but no EQ that's for sure
That's why EQ was an elitist's wet dream. You bled for it
That's social networking and development for you. We can be mad at how easy or how hard our game is but the choice was made by someone else. Game developers don't need to take the players word for granted without the data to back it up. As far as laziness is concerned, laziness is everywhere, even on the workforce. Looking for laziness in a game is a sure way to find it even if it may not be a clear picture of the person you are interacting with. This is where the geekdom comes to congregate and do their gaming. They all have their preference of which mask to wear. How they choose to game is the gamers choice.
Developers are free to gather data in other manners since there's plenty of mmo features to learn from. Most of the so called free games are not free anyways. Some developers have chosen to go free to play with item mall because they can make more money off gamers. The fact that some developers choose to go off their player base input is a business choice they are making, not the gamers.
If developers want to be more proactive in their research and business strategies they could build from plenty of sample data already in existence. So, why then would it be the players fault when there's so much data which is not being considered? Player input can be productive and invigorating to a game. Look at some asian mmo's which have events to let players choose how a piece of armor or an npc looks or how a quest goes. Player input need not and should not be game breaking. It is the developers responsibility to protect their product from this dangers so that they retain their player base. Changes can coexist without unbalancing a gaming environment and providing to the different type of players if properly implemented. Maybe there's just too many developers out there and some games are bound to fail for cutting and pasting existing models without renovating choices and control over their product.
Gathering data and making choices should never be oversimplified without due process. A good product is one that has been well thought out, not rushed to make a few bucks. If the game is good, gamers will come. We can try to blame the gamer or the developer, but positive productivity is a proactive process which requires a positive force behind it. That's the difference between the games that will survive and those that won't.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/I realize your post was just a F2P complaint and not really about any actual problem in the industry, but I wanted to toss this out there anyway:
The problem is partially the gamers but it has nothing at all to do with F2P or any of the bizarre lazy/entitlement stuff you rambled on about. If it did, these F2P titles wouldn't be doing well overseas and they definitely wouldn't be doing well here.
To start, the NA audience is driven by hope and ignorant of history. Add to that the fact that there are millions in the whole NA/EU audience that will fall all over themselves to "preorder" an MMO the minute it's announced that it comes with a few days headstart and an in-game hat and pet. I mean, that's pretty damn short-sighted if you think about it. If a person genuinely feels that starting two days before another person makes that much of a difference in a persistent state world that is expected to last for years and years, shouldn't that be a big red flag to them that the game is pretty damn broken?
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 game has to goto f2p it wasn't good enough to start with. These companies try to rush out the games and copy other games with slight twist. I find it sad when the old school games offered more then some of the newer games. I think the game companies are more lazy then the gamers.
I find lot of your points flawed. I rather not go into detail about why since I am lazy. lol
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People should take a hint already btw: if 6 out of 7 players don't like paying subs but won't mind paying for a skin, a xp boost, such and such from time to time then that 1 gamer out of 7 cannot complain because he/she will never support the game with his demographic alone, what that 14% of players should do is try and enlighten the rest, or support F2P devs who are innovating.
OP is right, however it has nothing to do w/ the business model. The business model is more of a bi-product of a growing distrust between consumers and the products they buy. It's a trend that was inevitable, and exists across all markets.
The problem with games (or more specifically, with MMOs), however, is that gamers try and treat them like any other product. They are so used to the 'me me me, all the time' mentallity of consumerism, that they never stop to realize that when you have a game that has to be shared by 100s of thousands, or millions of players, it's literally impossible for it to cater to everyone's tastes.
This is why the best MMOs tend to be the ones where the developers largely ignored the players, and focused on making their MMO the best version of itself they could. They all have problems, but you can't solve all of them, as a lot of the problems with MMOs fall under the banner of 'personal taste'.
With a growing transparency between designers and gamers, and an influx of user-generated content starting to come around the corner, maybe more gamers will be able to see things from a more design-oriented mentallity. One in which they aren't focused solely on 'what i want', and can actually take a step back & evaluate whether or not what they want actually benefits the game they're playing.
Came in expecting generalized entitlement insults, was not disappointed.
You guys spend an inordinate amount of time shaking your canes at the world.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.