Daily routine, mmorpg.com - interest gone?

Lonzo

Good day fellow gamers,

Ever since mmorpg.com opens to the gamers, I open up the page on a daily basis and drink my cup of coffee. But since a year or so, the majority we can read here is about crap games noone ever heard of. How about you guys bring more articles about the good games again? WoW, EQ2, EVE to name some. We have to face the reality that there will not be good AAA mmorpgs anytime soon, so why not go in depth to the existing games we all loved.

cheyane

The reality you face is not what others face. We are not spending our time wringing our hands over the doom and gloom of the genre but are busy playing. So the site caters to those games that people are shockingly actually playing and are popular. Not everything here needs to cater to the whiners and end of the genre proclaimers.

Volgore

I think the OP has a point indeed and i share his impression that features on the more established games became a bit rare recently. The veteran users and lurkers will also know that over the years people have always been sort of complaining that this site is a bit slow on the news in general.

Besides giveaways for relatively uninteresting games that keep sitting on thousands of keys left for days, the general rotation of stuff is often times a tad slow or unexciting over the course of several days. Of course you can't write about WoW or FF every day, but then we get the Xth article on Trove that gets 6 comments on it because of 1.2k users online less then 10 people care.

I would like to see a "top 5 why..." now and then again or these very rare "game XY revisited..." articles that also cause a lively discussion most of the time.

To the OP: We can still try to help the lack of articles on games that we find more interesting by sending in news when we find them. It works surprisingly well and makes SuzieFord a happy person.

BillMurphy

Volgore said:

I think the OP has a point indeed and i share his impression that features on the more established games became a bit rare recently. The veteran users and lurkers will also know that over the years people have always been sort of complaining that this site is a bit slow on the news in general.

I really don't think we are slow on news, even a little bit. We may miss some things, but by and large we print more news on this site than any of our competitors, and about all games (not just the best). Suzie is downright scary fast, and most sites use OUR feed to write their articles.

Now, what I will say is that it would be great if we could print endless articles about all games,  but the truth is we have a very small staff and a limited freelance budget, and I need to find the articles that will do the most hits. RE: Trove? The series we recently ran was exclusive to us, and backed by Trion's community team to drive traffic here. I'd have been an idiot to turn down the offer from their PR department.

Our weekly and biweekly game-specific columns (GW2, FFXIV, ESO, BDO, EVE, Camelot, Crowfall and so forth) are done specifically to cater to the fact that people actually tune into those stories.  Those columns get printed because a.) people read them and b.) upcoming or highly played games get the most clicks. Even WoW barely gets clicks here, but we run a semi-regular column on it as well.  I'd love to do a more regular EQ1/2 series, but short of getting someone to voluntarily write it (which I'd love), we don't have the time or money to waste on a series.

What I do miss is a regular column revisiting old games. It's something I liked having, and something I'll probably try to horn into our schedule again. Again I find it funny that the OP wants articles on WoW and EVE, which means he's not paying too close attention since we run a biweekly EVE column and frequent WoW articles (one as early as this Monday).

SBFord

@Volgore It does indeed! News tips are always welcome.

rubydragon5

I check this site for news and interesting forums posts more then once daily, usually the site has stuff posted pretty fast.

But I am sorta tired of the (not sure how to sugar coat this) lower end browser games and such and advertisements and the like being thrown at us.

That said I know the site is a business , so it does need advertisement income.

mgilbrtsn

A large segment of this community is always looking for the next best thing.  Thus, they crave news about these new games.  WoW is soooooo last year.

Pepeq

Probably because 99% of the traffic on this site is limited to the forums.  I'd be willing to wager if you removed the forum updates from the main page and only allow people to access said posts from the forum tab... or heaven forbid, actually clicking on an article first... there would be a significant drop in activity.

This is really like a reddit site with mass advertising... which is why the forums ARE the site.

Wizardry

Pepeq said:

Probably because 99% of the traffic on this site is limited to the forums.  I'd be willing to wager if you removed the forum updates from the main page and only allow people to access said posts from the forum tab... or heaven forbid, actually clicking on an article first... there would be a significant drop in activity.

This is really like a reddit site with mass advertising... which is why the forums ARE the site.

100% accurate as the forum is the ONLY reason this site remains active.

The content is way too focused on revenue  generating instead of PASSIONATE gaming news.

I have also said the users bring more interesting news because they are passionate about gaming and actually might enjoy what they preach,while this site simply couldn't care less about the articles only from a monetary standpoint.

Nobody has to ever agree with me,but you can be rest assured if i say i like or don't like a game,i mean it with passion,i take gaming to heart,i am a self taught game designer,i spent hours/days /years studying many game engines and programs,so yeah "I care" about gaming and what gets advertised,i do NOT like crap advertising.

Herein lies the big problem with this site,OTHER sites stick ads in the advert boxes,this site likes to FABRICATE FAKE articles designed around advertising.We do NOT want to see Ripper X advertising some game,we  ONLY want to see him review a game he is truly passionate about.No you do NOT have passion when you are adverting 2-3 games a week,you are simply jumping from one advert to another.

Amathe

I most enjoy first hand accounts by authors who have played the games they are writing about. 

BillMurphy

Pepeq said:

Probably because 99% of the traffic on this site is limited to the forums.  I'd be willing to wager if you removed the forum updates from the main page and only allow people to access said posts from the forum tab... or heaven forbid, actually clicking on an article first... there would be a significant drop in activity.

This is really like a reddit site with mass advertising... which is why the forums ARE the site.

False, actually. Forums, this month and most month, are just under 14% of our total traffic. Hundreds of thousands of Pageviews, surely. But the overall site, Game List, and articles still drive millions more hits a month. The forums and our community are essential to the site, but far more people visit and don't comment than visit and do comment. 

BillMurphy

mgilbrtsn said:

A large segment of this community is always looking for the next best thing.  Thus, they crave news about these new games.  WoW is soooooo last year.

This is games journalism (Polygon, IGN, etc.) and enthusiast press' (us) problem in general. Readers by and large DO want to know about what's next more than what's already out. MMOs and our site are lucky in that our games tend to last longer and have a longer lasting mindshare than traditional non-MMOs. This means we can write about games that are over a decade old and still serve our readers. Most sites aren't afforded that luxury. 

Nanfoodle

Im not sure what the OP is talking about. Relevant news always ends up being posted about the top MMOs. So much WoW news of late I am sick of reading it. Im not sure how your missing this?

EDIT: Recent news off the main page, I see posts on EVE and WoW =-)

nariusseldon

Lonzo said:

Good day fellow gamers,

Ever since mmorpg.com opens to the gamers, I open up the page on a daily basis and drink my cup of coffee. But since a year or so, the majority we can read here is about crap games noone ever heard of. How about you guys bring more articles about the good games again? WoW, EQ2, EVE to name some. We have to face the reality that there will not be good AAA mmorpgs anytime soon, so why not go in depth to the existing games we all loved.

Didn't mmorpg.com find another solution?

- expand coverage to non-mmorpgs.
- broaden the definition of mmos.

Theocritus

Yeah it does seem like this site focuses more on what is coming in two years than what is out right now....Maybe thats the fault of the gamers too.....Too many of these games are charging for early access or pay to play in betas.....ITs like every time we want suggestions on a game we get "oh just wait a couple of years until this comes out" or "oh buy this beta package this game is so awesome!"

Kyleran

So now you understand, the site focuses what will increase hit rates, which they have to.

I've read before they publish 2 EVE articles a week, yet I've never seen them, not sure where they even are 

I'm definitely part of the 14%, and almost never read the rest of the site.  There's so little about MMORPGs (which is all I care about) it isn't worth the bother to even check anymore.

Even forum posting is becoming less interesting as there are few games out there I am really following.

Lobotomist

Lonzo said:

Good day fellow gamers,

Ever since mmorpg.com opens to the gamers, I open up the page on a daily basis and drink my cup of coffee. But since a year or so, the majority we can read here is about crap games noone ever heard of. How about you guys bring more articles about the good games again? WoW, EQ2, EVE to name some. We have to face the reality that there will not be good AAA mmorpgs anytime soon, so why not go in depth to the existing games we all loved.

Nice that somebody finally writes about this.

You can see from my profile i have over 2000 posts. And this is after being banned several times and having my account wiped. And yet in last year or two i didnt make more than 50 posts.

I barely check the site anymore..there is no point... To see pointless fanboy discussion about 1 single MMO of any relevance (BDO) that will anyway be forgotten in month or two.

For me this site is dying as much as mmo genre is.


However. I must say that lately , if not MMO, I have seen this site having more recent and relevant news across all sites. For example they reported about Sword Coast Legends studio closure. And all other sites just linked what was written here.

Also they are almost only ones that reported on Kings and Heroes, a game that was big revelation for me.

So maybe all is not lost

thundercles

Kyleran said:

I've read before they publish 2 EVE articles a week, yet I've never seen them, not sure where they even are

Not  mention there's a giant battle going on in eve right now but there's nothing about it on this website.

Deathenger

BillMurphy said:

Volgore said:

I think the OP has a point indeed and i share his impression that features on the more established games became a bit rare recently. The veteran users and lurkers will also know that over the years people have always been sort of complaining that this site is a bit slow on the news in general.

I really don't think we are slow on news, even a little bit. We may miss some things, but by and large we print more news on this site than any of our competitors, and about all games (not just the best). Suzie is downright scary fast, and most sites use OUR feed to write their articles.

Now, what I will say is that it would be great if we could print endless articles about all games,  but the truth is we have a very small staff and a limited freelance budget, and I need to find the articles that will do the most hits. RE: Trove? The series we recently ran was exclusive to us, and backed by Trion's community team to drive traffic here. I'd have been an idiot to turn down the offer from their PR department.

Our weekly and biweekly game-specific columns (GW2, FFXIV, ESO, BDO, EVE, Camelot, Crowfall and so forth) are done specifically to cater to the fact that people actually tune into those stories.  Those columns get printed because a.) people read them and b.) upcoming or highly played games get the most clicks. Even WoW barely gets clicks here, but we run a semi-regular column on it as well.  I'd love to do a more regular EQ1/2 series, but short of getting someone to voluntarily write it (which I'd love), we don't have the time or money to waste on a series.

What I do miss is a regular column revisiting old games. It's something I liked having, and something I'll probably try to horn into our schedule again. Again I find it funny that the OP wants articles on WoW and EVE, which means he's not paying too close attention since we run a biweekly EVE column and frequent WoW articles (one as early as this Monday).

Bill if you want a story that will flood you with traffic then why not do a proper article about Star Citizen that recaps all the insider info and other leaking info that continues to come out as we speak?

For example this thread had over 10,000 views in less than two days before all the intentional derailing took place to get the thread locked.
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/448002/remind-me-4-weeks-insider-info-how-deep-does-the-rabbit-hole-go#latest

Thats way more views and comments than threads that have been up since 2014 in there. People want to hear, and speak about all the drama going on with that game!

Deathenger

thundercles said:

Kyleran said:

I've read before they publish 2 EVE articles a week, yet I've never seen them, not sure where they even are

Not  mention there's a giant battle going on in eve right now but there's nothing about it on this website.

The Stories are usually under that "latest mmorpg.com stories" right under the feed showing latest forum comments

SBFord

thundercles said:

Kyleran said:

I've read before they publish 2 EVE articles a week, yet I've never seen them, not sure where they even are

Not  mention there's a giant battle going on in eve right now but there's nothing about it on this website.

http://mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/14/view/news/read/39006/EVE-Online-The-Imperium-Under-Siege.html

Since about 7:00 am this morning.

*sniffles* No one reads the news feed

http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm

@thundercles

Nanfoodle

Think some people need to start looking at the news feed on the main page and not just the forum posts. You are telling off the mmorpg.com staff for not doing what they already are doing. (((shakes head)))

observer

I admit that i've been coming to this website less than usual, but not because of the site.  It's mostly due to boredom of the genre.

sunandshadow

I'd like more threads about _designing_ mmos, myself.  That's what I originally joined this site to talk about, but it seems like a pathetically small percentage of the posters here are interested in making MMOs.

Kyleran

Nanfoodle said:

Think some people need to start looking at the news feed on the main page and not just the forum posts. You are telling off the mmorpg.com staff for not doing what they already are doing. (((shakes head)))

This site has a main page? 

Sulaa

Lonzo said:

 WoW, EQ2, EVE to name some. We have to face the reality that there will not be good AAA mmorpgs anytime soon, so why not go in depth to the existing games we all loved.

Meh. 

Most people are not interested in talks about 10+ year old MMORPGs.  

New(up to ~2-3 years old) succesful title, just released title or upcoming title - that is what is interesting (provided that it is either AAA title or very succesful indie.)

That is why you have talk about business models, mmorpgs dying, why there is no AAA mmorpg coming, general MMORPG ideas and techs, etc   rather than talk in-depth about old MMORPGs.


Lack of AAA MMORPGs will be a problem for MMORPG 'press' industry.   Some well known MMORPG websites already closed or gone through restructurisation.   Huge amount of MMORPG blogs died down or changed into more general blogs, etc