Forum threads always get derailed, but I don't think BDO is a good example of players having no power.
Daum has made many major changes based on what the majority wanted on the forums. They've even made polls and acted on them. That's far more than any other publisher/Dev has done in any MMO I've ever played.
People complain about those changes sometimes, but the majority wanted them.
Have you ever thought how little say the mmo players have on anything ?
**** We have no Rally point ****...............**** Each poster stands alone****
Lets say something bad is about to happen to a game. Developers announce an up coming change. This change is undesired by the larger population.
On the games forums the first player expresses his opinion. Then in every case that poster gets derailed by the next five posters for some odd reason. Now understand the larger population really doesn't like this change. That player seemingly stands alone ! A few hours later another poster expresses the same opinion, he to gets derailed by the next five posters.....This happens over and over until the change is made anyway, then the game looses its population because of it
ugh.
How do you know that "the larger population doesn't like this change"?
What your argument really comes down to is "I don't like the change, I'm an intelligent and reasonable person therefore the majority of intelligent reasonable people don't like the change and any player worth his/her salt would surely see things the way I do therefore when the change happens the majority isn't listened to, only a minority that is louder and that dilutes our message".
Maybe you are in the minority, maybe you only think that the majority of players see things the way you do? Maybe the majority of players don't agree with you or don't care.
You want to make a difference? Start your own video game company and make your own game and run it the way you want to.
Otherwise all I see is "the people who work their butts in an industry with very little job security and who are the butt off all criticism by those who 'know better', sometimes being harassed to the point of threats on their lives, must listen to the forum people because they know better".
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
Why players have no power: for every one who values what kind of game they spend time on, there are a hundred that don't give a crap. You are dispendable that's the bottom line.
sidenote: no one can say which side of the fence the majority of the silent population is on, seeing that they are you know silent about it. Metrics only tell what people do not what they enjoy though, so for me metrics are just as bad when it comes to making gamedesign decisions.
You have the power of the purse. Don't buy, subscribe, micro transact, or otherwise talk about a game. Enough people do this, and things will change or die. However, the true problem is that too many players thing they are smarter than they are. They believe that because they have a voice on the interwebs and people respond, that they have all the answers and think that they should have a priority voice.
Gamers have all the power, they are just too weak willed to use the power they have.
Which is why we have p2p games with cash shops, why devs push games into p2w territory and why "we have no power". Our weakness and tribal nature forces us to act against our own best interest.
Most of the time devs can not take our advice on how the game should be done because any advice that's detailed enough to be executed is usually also wrong and would be bad for the game.
This is very true. Devs should stick to the plan they already had. Don't change it because someone on a forum claims to speak for everyone.
Players have all the control, they are the customers.
What players don't have is direct input on the decisionmaking, and that is a good thing. They are not trained or knowledgeable in game design, they have no clue about the business side of things, they are always heavily biased (towards own preferences/taste) and they don't have the data needed to actually make the right decisions.
The reason the wrong choices are almost always made and games get ruined is not that the companies don't pay attention to the forums. It is that they pay attention to them more than they should.
If they really want to know what players want they should play the game themselves. By being a player and being a part of the actual player community they will get a much better understanding of what works and what is broken than reading the complaints of a few frustrated players who probably spend more time in the forum than in the game itself.
A couple proverbs come to mind:
#1. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" - The ones who complain the most usually get their way even if it isn't the opinion of the majority of the player community.
#2. "You can't please everyone" - Making everyone happy is impossible yet game makers try to do just that. By trying to make everyone happy they most often ruin the game in the process.
The only way to be successful is to know exactly what the majority of the players want and to be willing to lose some players who are opposed in favor of pleasing the majority. If the forum posters truly represented the majority there wouldn't be a problem. The reality is that they don't. The players who are in the game and actually playing it are the majority.
Rarely does a game developer play their own game anymore. By not playing the game they lose touch with the actual player community which leads to bad choices being made based on forum posts.
F2P reduces majority of players power of the wallet because so few actually pay. You're at the mercy of whatever marketing scheme to get whales to pay to subsidize the game.
SOE listened to the forum warriors about SWG, and that is how SWG got
destroyed. The people that really cared about the game were too busy
playing to it worry about what was going on on the forums. I wish the
devs would not listen to the forum whiners...
No, actually SOE listened to their bean-counters when they said. "Hey WoW is popular, we need to be like WoW!" even though the vast majority of the current SWG gamers screamed and begged for them not to. SOE poor management and ego killed SWG.
No, actually SOE listened to their bean-counters when they said. "Hey WoW is popular, we need to be like WoW!" even though the vast majority of the current SWG gamers screamed and begged for them not to. SOE poor management and ego killed SWG.
There is that too. SOE was one the worst offenders for not seeing or caring about what the majority of the players wanted. That was their ultimate downfall. I didn't play SWG but I do know of SOE's terrible game management from when I played another game they ruined in a similar way: The Matrix Online. They failed to listen to their players in any way. They even ignored their own devs and GMs. Just like with SWG, game breaking changes were made and the developers were very limited in what they could do by both permission and budget. One of the original developers (who we as players considered part of our ingame community and loved the game as much as we did) even quit and retired from game development because of the way SOE handled the game.
It felt like SOE was doing whatever someone in a corporate office who had never played a game in their life wanted despite being advised otherwise by players and developers alike.That led to their eventual end as a company but not before a few games that had a lot of potential to be really great died first
Lets say something bad is about to happen to a game. Developers announce an up coming change. This change is undesired by the larger population.
On the games forums the first player expresses his opinion. Then in every case that poster gets derailed by the next five posters for some odd reason. Now understand the larger population really doesn't like this change. That player seemingly stands alone ! A few hours later another poster expresses the same opinion, he to gets derailed by the next five posters.....This happens over and over until the change is made anyway, then the game looses its population because of it.........I'm sure everyone of us had seen this.
You just described a situation where 10 posters are pro change and 2 are against.
How can you be so sure the majority of the player base's alignment? Pro tip: people that bang their drums loudly around the internet are not always the majority either.
Plus they don't have access to all the information.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
You post stops just short of saying, "Because I feel strongly about X, there must be a lot of players out there who agree with me."
Part of the problem is that different players have different opinions and say different things. You can't please everyone, as different players want different and mutually exclusive things.
But in a free market, a developer who figures out what a considerable swath of players wants but isn't getting and gives it to them can make a ton of money.
You know when they say "true" before it that is exactly what they mean. hahaha
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Players might not have a voice but they have money too spend. If players aren't spending money the game eventually dies. So voice your opinions with your wallet not your forums posts.
Players have always had a say, its ludicrous to suggest they don't. Its called voting with your wallet, it doesn't matter whether a game is F2P, B2P or P2P, they all rely on the player at some point paying money and generating revenue for the game, even B2P games rely on continued revenue generation, its a fallacy to suggest they don't and F2P games are exactly the same, without the player paying anything there is no revenue, if a F2P game doesn't generate revenue, then it dies, pure and simple. So if you don't like a game, don't pay, simple as that, if enough people think the same way then the game will soon be in a position where it can't afford to keep running, but even before reaching that point there would have been a clear indication of the way the tide was going, giving the company the chance to either evolve the game or to prepare to wind it down. Its just market forces at work, good games do well, bad games don't. Market forces frankly work as intended, no need to change them.
I've encountered something similar playing Armored Warfare. While chatting in-game I'll hear from people regarding a topic and it seems these people are in the majority. I then go to the forums and voice my opinion for what the majority were saying/wanting and suddenly I'm getting 60-75% negativity against it.
I don't really get it either. Maybe people are afraid of change. Maybe they're hard-asses that just always have to have their way and fully believe their way isn't just the right way, it's the only way. Or maybe, just maybe, all the years spent on forums has caused them to have a negative attitude and they think it's fun to make up arguments against people that speak up and share their opinions. Seems pretty troll-ish to me.
Nothing I say seems to change any minds so all I can do is voice my support for others that I think have good ideas and try to spread a little positivity.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
Players might not have a voice but they have money too spend. If players aren't spending money the game eventually dies. So voice your opinions with your wallet not your forums posts.
Depends. If you're playing a F2P game many times you're not expected to pay any money.
It takes luck for people with the $ to one day create a product that I would enjoy enough to spend my $ on. In meantime I have to settle with what's available or find other hobbies, which what I've been doing.
For me it's been almost 5½ years since I've spent $ on a new game, so as I have evolved as a gamer, games have not evolved to keep my interest. The type of games that interest me come once every 5-10 years (if lucky) now and I have to accept that reality.
Players have the ultimate power: they can vote with their wallets.
That's only power if we agree - which we rarely do.
Its the one power that cannot be avoided, whether people agree or not is really not relevant, the only thing that matters is whether people pay, or not, if they pay, then all is well, if the revenue generation turns negative, then there is a problem. What people say is pretty much irrelevant, what they do however, particularly when it comes to their spending habits, is very relevant and those are the things that will ultimately affect a games future.
Disappointment after disappointment, yet the next game WILL be packed solid.
Three weeks later EVERYONE is complaining, yet you still have five people sticking up for the game no matter what. One month later the cash shops ups the scale to play-to-win.......Every time !
I would like to say people don't learn from mistakes, but this isn't true. Were junkies looking for an mmo fix ! People say mmos are more built for casuals....No....Casuals don't like three weeks worth of content either. Maybe four weeks for them.
Developers are making games as fast money grabs, hit and run. The sad part is it's working !
Developers are not making mmos for what people want, there making mmos knowing people will play ANYTHING.
People here often use " data shows that players like x ".
No " data shows people will play anything ".
Vote with your WALLET DOESN'T WORK !........Where I don't agree with everyone is people think it does work
You forget that it is actually not the players who own the game. The game creators can do what they like with their game, take it in any direction they desire, for any reason. Is it smart to ignore a "loud group" of players ? That is a double edged sword I think. I would argue that sometimes players do not know what they want, and they do not have the knowledge to decide what is "best". Sometimes internal interests or business decisions causes unwanted changes that the developers can not or dare not go against. Sometimes bad decisions can not be rolled back because they have cost too much, and some executives chair is hot. Should developers listen? Yes certainly very carefully, but should players design the game ? No that would be a disaster. A good developer should have players in their organisation who are in touch with how other players play their game, and their knowledge should be valued very high - And on top of that as all game developers know, never be afraid to throw away an idea that did not work.
1) EVERYONE who posts on forums will always be the vocal minority since 75% of players of any mmo dont post. 2) QQ'ing while giving devs money wont change anything (self-explainatory). 3) Too many posters love to make seperate threads on the SAME issue because they've probably played wow at some point in their life and felt they were special because Thrall said so.
How does this get fixed?!?! How will devs ever take the mmo player base seriously and respond to change?!?! STOP GIVING THEM MONEY!!!!!!! That's the only thing 90% of devs respond to, is figures. OP mentioned WoW. WoD is a so-so example but I'll use it. Before WoD launched, devs were 'stern' on their stance of no flight in WoD and future patches. Constant threads pro/against flight. 6 months into WoD (probably a little more) what happens???? Oh yeah flight....and Legion is confirmed to get flight. Now I wont say that flight was given because of complaining, but they did lose a HUGE amount of retention (mainly because WoD had no content imo) so they were trying anything they could to slow it down. Honestly didn't help that Heavensward dropped in June introducing flight, so honestly I know FFXIV got a least a small chunk of that lost player base for a month or 2.
Point is, devs dont care till you make them care and the only way you can make devs care is by not supporting them till they care about you.
Comments
Daum has made many major changes based on what the majority wanted on the forums. They've even made polls and acted on them. That's far more than any other publisher/Dev has done in any MMO I've ever played.
People complain about those changes sometimes, but the majority wanted them.
How do you know that "the larger population doesn't like this change"?
What your argument really comes down to is "I don't like the change, I'm an intelligent and reasonable person therefore the majority of intelligent reasonable people don't like the change and any player worth his/her salt would surely see things the way I do therefore when the change happens the majority isn't listened to, only a minority that is louder and that dilutes our message".
Maybe you are in the minority, maybe you only think that the majority of players see things the way you do? Maybe the majority of players don't agree with you or don't care.
You want to make a difference? Start your own video game company and make your own game and run it the way you want to.
Otherwise all I see is "the people who work their butts in an industry with very little job security and who are the butt off all criticism by those who 'know better', sometimes being harassed to the point of threats on their lives, must listen to the forum people because they know better".
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
sidenote: no one can say which side of the fence the majority of the silent population is on, seeing that they are you know silent about it. Metrics only tell what people do not what they enjoy though, so for me metrics are just as bad when it comes to making gamedesign decisions.
I self identify as a monkey.
Which is why we have p2p games with cash shops, why devs push games into p2w territory and why "we have no power". Our weakness and tribal nature forces us to act against our own best interest.
What players don't have is direct input on the decisionmaking, and that is a good thing.
They are not trained or knowledgeable in game design, they have no clue about the business side of things, they are always heavily biased (towards own preferences/taste) and they don't have the data needed to actually make the right decisions.
If they really want to know what players want they should play the game themselves. By being a player and being a part of the actual player community they will get a much better understanding of what works and what is broken than reading the complaints of a few frustrated players who probably spend more time in the forum than in the game itself.
A couple proverbs come to mind:
#1. "The squeaky wheel gets the grease" - The ones who complain the most usually get their way even if it isn't the opinion of the majority of the player community.
#2. "You can't please everyone" - Making everyone happy is impossible yet game makers try to do just that. By trying to make everyone happy they most often ruin the game in the process.
The only way to be successful is to know exactly what the majority of the players want and to be willing to lose some players who are opposed in favor of pleasing the majority. If the forum posters truly represented the majority there wouldn't be a problem. The reality is that they don't. The players who are in the game and actually playing it are the majority.
Rarely does a game developer play their own game anymore. By not playing the game they lose touch with the actual player community which leads to bad choices being made based on forum posts.
for more about his story:
https://www.engadget.com/2011/05/17/the-game-archaeologist-jacks-into-the-matrix-online-jamming-wit/
^ actually a good read that shows that the devs hands were tied by SOE and even they couldn't help us. I can imagine there are similar stories with SWG developers as well.
It felt like SOE was doing whatever someone in a corporate office who had never played a game in their life wanted despite being advised otherwise by players and developers alike.That led to their eventual end as a company but not before a few games that had a lot of potential to be really great died first
I can never forgive them.
sorry for the rant.
Plus they don't have access to all the information.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
You know when they say "true" before it that is exactly what they mean. hahaha
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Its called voting with your wallet, it doesn't matter whether a game is F2P, B2P or P2P, they all rely on the player at some point paying money and generating revenue for the game, even B2P games rely on continued revenue generation, its a fallacy to suggest they don't and F2P games are exactly the same, without the player paying anything there is no revenue, if a F2P game doesn't generate revenue, then it dies, pure and simple.
So if you don't like a game, don't pay, simple as that, if enough people think the same way then the game will soon be in a position where it can't afford to keep running, but even before reaching that point there would have been a clear indication of the way the tide was going, giving the company the chance to either evolve the game or to prepare to wind it down.
Its just market forces at work, good games do well, bad games don't. Market forces frankly work as intended, no need to change them.
I've encountered something similar playing Armored Warfare. While chatting in-game I'll hear from people regarding a topic and it seems these people are in the majority. I then go to the forums and voice my opinion for what the majority were saying/wanting and suddenly I'm getting 60-75% negativity against it.
I don't really get it either. Maybe people are afraid of change. Maybe they're hard-asses that just always have to have their way and fully believe their way isn't just the right way, it's the only way. Or maybe, just maybe, all the years spent on forums has caused them to have a negative attitude and they think it's fun to make up arguments against people that speak up and share their opinions. Seems pretty troll-ish to me.
Nothing I say seems to change any minds so all I can do is voice my support for others that I think have good ideas and try to spread a little positivity.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
For me it's been almost 5½ years since I've spent $ on a new game, so as I have evolved as a gamer, games have not evolved to keep my interest. The type of games that interest me come once every 5-10 years (if lucky) now and I have to accept that reality.
What people say is pretty much irrelevant, what they do however, particularly when it comes to their spending habits, is very relevant and those are the things that will ultimately affect a games future.
Vote with your WALLET DOESN'T WORK !
Everyone will play anything.
If an mmo is marketed well, people play it.
Disappointment after disappointment, yet the next game WILL be packed solid.
Three weeks later EVERYONE is complaining, yet you still have five people sticking up for the game no matter what. One month later the cash shops ups the scale to play-to-win.......Every time !
I would like to say people don't learn from mistakes, but this isn't true. Were junkies looking for an mmo fix ! People say mmos are more built for casuals....No....Casuals don't like three weeks worth of content either. Maybe four weeks for them.
Developers are making games as fast money grabs, hit and run. The sad part is it's working !
Developers are not making mmos for what people want, there making mmos knowing people will play ANYTHING.
People here often use " data shows that players like x ".
No " data shows people will play anything ".
Vote with your WALLET DOESN'T WORK !........Where I don't agree with everyone is people think it does work
Is it smart to ignore a "loud group" of players ? That is a double edged sword I think. I would argue that sometimes players do not know what they want, and they do not have the knowledge to decide what is "best". Sometimes internal interests or business decisions causes unwanted changes that the developers can not or dare not go against.
Sometimes bad decisions can not be rolled back because they have cost too much, and some executives chair is hot.
Should developers listen? Yes certainly very carefully, but should players design the game ? No that would be a disaster. A good developer should have players in their organisation who are in touch with how other players play their game, and their knowledge should be valued very high - And on top of that as all game developers know, never be afraid to throw away an idea that did not work.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0
How does this get fixed?!?! How will devs ever take the mmo player base seriously and respond to change?!?! STOP GIVING THEM MONEY!!!!!!! That's the only thing 90% of devs respond to, is figures. OP mentioned WoW. WoD is a so-so example but I'll use it. Before WoD launched, devs were 'stern' on their stance of no flight in WoD and future patches. Constant threads pro/against flight. 6 months into WoD (probably a little more) what happens???? Oh yeah flight....and Legion is confirmed to get flight. Now I wont say that flight was given because of complaining, but they did lose a HUGE amount of retention (mainly because WoD had no content imo) so they were trying anything they could to slow it down. Honestly didn't help that Heavensward dropped in June introducing flight, so honestly I know FFXIV got a least a small chunk of that lost player base for a month or 2.
Point is, devs dont care till you make them care and the only way you can make devs care is by not supporting them till they care about you.