What games do Devs play? Not MMORPGs it seems

Kyleran

Found this over on the Pantheon subreddit, during an AMA the question came up on what games their team is playing, surprisingly few MMORPGs it seems.

I guess as @Iselin mentioned in another thread who works all day on something, then goes home at night and plays their own or other same types of games.

But it might partially explain how dev teams seem out of touch sometime and make design mistakes the actual player base seem quite obvious or avoidable.

They also appear by and large to be "hoppers", which again I think might hamper their ability to create virtual worlds designed to draw in gamers for the long haul.

Think of it another way, they are developing a sub based game as I recall, yet appear to be playing very few games that offer a sub, optional or otherwise.

Sure, only one small team but still I wonder how typical they are. The few self avowed devs here appear to have similar game playing patterns, mostly dabblers in the MMORPG genre, not really the target audience for these sorts of titles.

"Bountycode - What games are you guys playing in between development for fun/inspiration?

Minus: I still put time into Hades on occasion, but I also played through 12 Minutes, a really neat indie game on Xbox Game Pass. I dabbled in New World for a bit and played some original Quake. That said, there’s no game I play more than the Adobe Creative Suite. That said, the team had some fun with this one in our group chat, so here’s what everyone said below:

Joppa has been spending time in Metroid Dread, Minecraft, and FIFA 22 Career mode. I also have it on good accord that he has died quite a bit on Metroid Dread bosses, but he will not say just how much.

Kyle has been putting some time into Valorant and still dabbles a bit in World of Warcraft. 

Saicred has put a small amount of time into Valorant, P99, and Smite, but also just downloaded Breath of the Wild and is looking to get into that a bit. 

Adam is always trying new items, but currently is putting time into Monster Hunter (Rise), Gloomhaven, and Final Fantasy XIV.

Artois has been mostly playing D&D and the Age of Sigmar Tabletop.

Tod has been playing a lot of Gloomhaven and is currently working his way through Dragon Quest XI on the switch.

Nephele has been short-bursting a rotation of MMORPGs, but mostly Final Fantasy XIV and SWTOR, after dipping into New World a bit. Outside of MMORPGs he’s spent some time playing Stellaris, Age of Empires IV, Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, and Solasta.

JN has been playing mostly Age of Empires 2 & 4, while spending some time in Final Fantasy XIV and SWTOR.

Kilsin has been rotating through Call of Duty Vanguard, Football Manager 2022, Age of Empires 4 and Forza Horizon 5. 

Kim just finished playing through The Last of Us 2, and usually sticks to single player RPGs, and of course testing Pantheon!

Jeanna played 100s of hours in Atlas, making her island into a resort and selling animals, she admits to being rather addicted to it, but has recently gotten away from it with some Dead by Daylight.

Roenick has been playing Marvel Strike Force on his phone and can’t explain because he typically doesn’t like games like this, but he’s gotten sucked in.

Rob played some Minecraft Dungeons with his kid, but admittedly hasn’t played it in a while, or much of anything.

Ben Dean has been checking out New World, dabbling in Genshin Impact, VRing in Resident Evil 4 on the Oculus Quest 2, and going retro with Final Fantasy 9."

https://seforums.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/13367/november-newsletter-extra-more-ama-questions-answered

Scot

The Pub is certainly the place for this thread because I wonder how many of todays developers have every played an old MMORPG or have indeed have only been butterfly/hopper players in MMO games? I don't think the whole team needs that experience, but if it is just one guy he is just going to keep being overruled unless he is overall in charge.

Iselin

Kyleran said:

Found this over on the Pantheon subreddit, during an AMA the question came up on what games their team is playing, surprisingly few MMORPGs it seems.

I guess as @Iselin mentioned in another thread who works all day on something, then goes home at night and plays their own or other same types of games.

But it might partially explain how dev teams seem out of touch sometime and make design mistakes the actual player base seem quite obvious or avoidable.

I really think it has more to do with developers devaluing feedback, which in a way is kind of understandable these days with the crazed social media mobs and their useless, hateful and insulting "feedback."

Can't really blame developers too much for developing an "us v. the world" bunker mentality in today's social media climate.

But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't pay close attention to that part of their player base who plays their game much more than they do and have an intimate knowledge of the fine details through their hands on experience for 100s of hours.

Like I said to Scot in the other thread, it's all about the art of listening, dismissing the useless shit and parking developer egos at the door despite the temptation to dismiss it all as the rabids (as Blue calls them) being rabid

Scot

Iselin said:

Kyleran said:

Found this over on the Pantheon subreddit, during an AMA the question came up on what games their team is playing, surprisingly few MMORPGs it seems.

I guess as @Iselin mentioned in another thread who works all day on something, then goes home at night and plays their own or other same types of games.

But it might partially explain how dev teams seem out of touch sometime and make design mistakes the actual player base seem quite obvious or avoidable.

I really think it has more to do with developers devaluing feedback, which in a way is kind of understandable these days with the crazed social media mobs and their useless, hateful and insulting "feedback."

Can't really blame developers too much for developing an "us v. the world" bunker mentality in today's social media climate.

But that doesn't mean that they shouldn't pay close attention to that part of their player base who plays their game much more than they do and have an intimate knowledge of the fine details through their hands on experience for 100s of hours.

Like I said to Scot in the other thread, it's all about the art of listening, dismissing the useless shit and parking developer egos at the door despite the temptation to dismiss it all as the rabids (as Blue calls them) being rabid

The rabids, sounds like a new zombie horde, chasing developers for "da flesh".

I don't give the developers all the blame here, player "suggestions" can be awfully unbalancing and though developers egos may be an issue they need the courage of their convictions. It is a tricky balance, rarely gotten right.

I should mention as well its good to see the Pantheon team plays a wide range of MMOs, and that SWTOR, WoW, DnD and FFIV were mentioned. But all of us today, developers and players have been altered by the way gaming has changed which today does not promote the idea that MMOs are made as somewhere you can live online.

cameltosis

First thing I'd like to point out is that these sorts of indie studios, building games using crowdfunding, are doing so specifically because the rest of the industry isn't building the sorts of games that they want. So, it does seem somewhat natural that the Pantheon devs aren't playing many mmorpgs right now.

Second, its not uncommon, though I can only give you some insight into the company i worked for.

Back in 2014 I did 6 months QA at a AAA studio in the UK.

In the QA department, 100% of the employees were gamers. We were all into gaming in a big way, we'd play games together during our lunch breaks etc. But, we'd have to be gamers to put up with such low pay and shitty contracts! We were doing what we loved!

In the art department (modelling, textures and animation), it was somewhere in the region of 60% gamers, but I didn't know many people in this department so im just going off second hand info.

In the dev department (programmers), only about 50% were gamers.

In the marketing department, it was only about 25% that were gamers

Of the top 3 in the company (CEO, CFO, CTO), only one was a gamer. But, he was a gamer in his youth, rather than an active gamer as an adult.

Chatting to colleagues who had been in the industry a long time and had worked for lots of gaming studios, I got the impression that this is normal for the UK.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is a massive skills shortage globally for technical subjects. Programmers seem to be the hardest to come by, but even modellers and animators can be hard to find. So, studios pretty much have to take whoever they can get, rather than being selective and only hiring gamers.

The lack of gamers in the marketing department is part of the reason we have all these issues with terminology and stuff. They just dont have a clue what they're talking about, which is why we get small multiplayer games getting called massively multiplayer, or action adventure games getting called RPGs.

On a final point, I will also say that my personal gaming time dramatically reduced when I was working QA. Spending 8 hours a day testing a game, plus 45 minutes at lunch playing with friends, meant that when I got home I didn't often feel teh need to game. I went from maybe 3 hours an evening on average, down to 45min-1hour on average.

Brainy

Kyleran said:

They also appear by and large to be "hoppers", which again I think might hamper their ability to create virtual worlds designed to draw in gamers for the long haul.

You nailed it, very intuitive observation.  This is exactly who programmers are and its not just with MMO's either.

As an programmer who transitioned to the executive suite early on, I firmly believe in MBTI personality traits.  The vast majority of actual programmers (not talking art/graphics designers), are dabblers in their life on EVERYTHING.  If you ask these people the list of hobbies they are doing, LOL you would be surprised at how many personal projects they are actually involved in, anything from dungeon masters, model airplanes, drones, statistical sports, hunting, mechanics, electrical repair, volunteer firefighters, volunteer paramedics, part time EVERYTHING.  Their sheer list of knowledgeable subjects is astounding.  Don't get me wrong they know a lot about the subject material, many would say experts of all these things at the same time.

However with so much all around knowledge there is a cost, example they might know every baseball rule and player stat on every team, but ask them to hit a baseball or throw a football, LOL prepare to watch the funniest thing you ever seen.  No clue how to do the most fundamental things they supposed to be experts in.

All knowledge no execution.  They bumble their way through execution trial and error.  What is common sense for end users is completely missed by them.

I am not saying they are all this way, but the vast majority of programmers fit this model, and its so common you actually hire using this information.  Now graphics department is a different animal all together.

Brainy

tzervo said:

Kyleran said:

They also appear by and large to be "hoppers", which again I think might hamper their ability to create virtual worlds designed to draw in gamers for the long haul.

I can only see hopping as a good thing for their work, it gives a better perspective, the chance to experience different designs, and opportunities to see ways that things can be done differently or better.

I have never seen getting wider experiences in any field to affect one's work negatively, apart from the obvious time trade-off versus getting more narrow and specialized knowledge. And since it is their off-time/hobby...

Surface level knowledge only gets you so far in making a good game.  Details matter in MMO's.  What separates a good MMO from a bad one is all about the details.  People say a game has this or that feature, none of it matters because its all about how those features are implemented and interlace with everything else.

If this hopper mentality was working then we would be seeing the MMO genre improving not devolving like it is.  Bring back good management and people with a better working understanding of the details of a game its in-depth mechanics and not just surface, then you will see some quality games that arrive ON TIME, within budget and quality tested systems.

Kyleran

tzervo said:

Brainy said:

tzervo said:

Kyleran said:

They also appear by and large to be "hoppers", which again I think might hamper their ability to create virtual worlds designed to draw in gamers for the long haul.

I can only see hopping as a good thing for their work, it gives a better perspective, the chance to experience different designs, and opportunities to see ways that things can be done differently or better.

I have never seen getting wider experiences in any field to affect one's work negatively, apart from the obvious time trade-off versus getting more narrow and specialized knowledge. And since it is their off-time/hobby...

Surface level knowledge only gets you so far in making a good game.  Details matter in MMO's.  What separates a good MMO from a bad one is all about the details.  People say a game has this or that feature, none of it matters because its all about how those features are implemented and interlace with everything else.

If this hopper mentality was working then we would be seeing the MMO genre improving not devolving like it is.  Bring back good management and people with a better working understanding of the details of a game its in-depth mechanics and not just surface, then you will see some quality games that arrive ON TIME, within budget and quality tested systems.

I was clearly not talking about surface knowledge, but about awareness of what's happening around you in the wider professional field. This is what drives evolution pretty much everywhere. Same reason why conferences take place etc. Being myopic and only looking at what you are working on is a recipe for stagnation and failure.

Yet I'm not convinced an awareness of the latest sports or moba teaches developers anything much of use in designing a game I'd like to see them make, but your theory does help explain how they keep missing the mark so often.

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Theocritus

Well many of us aren't playing MMOs either and we are fans with more time....Most of the games in the industry just are not very good. There are alot of good single player games, some with co-op features that are more entertaining than most of the MMOs out today.....

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ConstantineMerus

blueturtle13 said:

Arterius said:

blueturtle13 said:

Well I develop and I play MMORPGs but I have zero desire to be a part of making one again. 
The technology is not ready for the type of MMORPG I would be interested in making to get involved with another mmo project. 

out of curiosity what kind of job do you have the gaming sphere? Are you an artist or do you work on mechanics 

Animation 
I typically use Maya, ZBrush, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects with Unreal Engine and Unity. 

Does being a turtle hamper your abilities in any way? 

?

Quizzical

A friend's son once went to work for a major game developer.  He told me that when his son accepted the job, but didn't start immediately (as he had to move for the job), they asked him to play a lot of different games in the meantime to get some exposure to what's out there.

To some degree, it does make sense to play a lot of different games if you're going to be a game developer.  You want to see what a lot of other games have done, and what worked and what didn't.  The downside is that if you play a zillion other games, you probably don't play any of them very much.  Things that seem fine at first can completely break a game once you figure out how to exploit them, but you won't necessarily see that in your first impressions.

Kyleran

ConstantineMerus said:

blueturtle13 said:

Arterius said:

blueturtle13 said:

Well I develop and I play MMORPGs but I have zero desire to be a part of making one again. 
The technology is not ready for the type of MMORPG I would be interested in making to get involved with another mmo project. 

out of curiosity what kind of job do you have the gaming sphere? Are you an artist or do you work on mechanics 

Animation 
I typically use Maya, ZBrush, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects with Unreal Engine and Unity. 

Does being a turtle hamper your abilities in any way? 

?

My guess is they let him work on all of the armor sets.

ConstantineMerus

Kyleran said:

ConstantineMerus said:

blueturtle13 said:

Arterius said:

blueturtle13 said:

Well I develop and I play MMORPGs but I have zero desire to be a part of making one again. 
The technology is not ready for the type of MMORPG I would be interested in making to get involved with another mmo project. 

out of curiosity what kind of job do you have the gaming sphere? Are you an artist or do you work on mechanics 

Animation 
I typically use Maya, ZBrush, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects with Unreal Engine and Unity. 

Does being a turtle hamper your abilities in any way? 

?

My guess is they let him work on all of the armor sets.

I've heard he is extremely biased towards slow progression and against rabbits. 

Ralphie2449

Mmorpgs simply are not like other games, you are not making individual stand alone games, you are making an entire world that should function and work appropriately as an actual online universe that keeps existing and evolving.

More importantly a major part of mmorpgs is that they dont end, but that you also can never make content faster than people consume, which means you need to have replayable content which is often done through the use of attractive rewards because no matter how fun, doing the same thing 10 times stops being fun.

If you keep playing games because you enjoy different experiences and they are fun to go through, especially the first time, you are clearly not playing something that resembles mmorpgs.

Though I am feeling old mmorpg devs are also problematic to the genre, many old devs who might enjoy mmorpgs were playing a lot during the early days of mmorpgs, learned lessons and created design philosophies based on something that is no longer valid because both games and the gaming population has changed, this isnt 2004, you cannot copy outdated design philosophies and expect to work in the modern world.

MMORPGs have MMO in their game, yet a majority of their players often avoid activities that require direct content with others, as in talking and forming groups manually instead of letting a que system do its work with 0 need to bother with other people, they might as well be npcs that assist you in doing the dungeon.

Yet to this day we ve seen many mmorpgs die because they keep pandering to the hardcore crowd, how much money is wasted on high end raiding that is only touched by a tiny population? All those resources spend on something a majority doesnt see, which is why I like how ff14 started the system of NPC groups for dungeons and some trials, that way, you can experience all the game has to offer.

Even a casual would try out raiding if all his allies were npcs, because he can play and try that out anytime he feels like, no schedules needed, no angry toxic babies, it is treated as just yet another type of content you can do.

Yet many oldschool mmorpg devs just cant handle the idea that mmorpgs are often being played with a solo mentality and keep trying to push people to play with others by locking the best rewards behind a social barrier.

Amaranthar

Ralphie2449 said:

(Snip for space)

In UO, GMs did play the game. They even had a setup with players who were good RPers that they enlisted as "Troubadours" to act the part of evil warriors in their GM Events. 
While the GMs played the lead roles, naturally. 

There was one guy in the Guild I joined that I swear was a GM, but he never said so. He just knew too much that I didn't think a regular Gamer would know. 
He's the one that informed me of, and got me started on this...
"The Greatest Quest Artifact To Ever Exist In MMORPGs"
https://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/487824/the-greatest-quest-artifact-to-ever-exist-in-mmorpgs 

I miss that stuff in MMORPGs. The genre has missed the boat. 

AlBQuirky

ConstantineMerus said:

blueturtle13 said:

Arterius said:

blueturtle13 said:

Well I develop and I play MMORPGs but I have zero desire to be a part of making one again. 
The technology is not ready for the type of MMORPG I would be interested in making to get involved with another mmo project. 

out of curiosity what kind of job do you have the gaming sphere? Are you an artist or do you work on mechanics 

Animation 
I typically use Maya, ZBrush, Cinema 4D and Adobe After Effects with Unreal Engine and Unity. 

Does being a turtle hamper your abilities in any way? 

?

I bet not, but they're really s-l-o-w... LOL

AlBQuirky

tzervo said:

Wargfoot said:

In every game I play I run across a feature that makes me think:  "Wow, this right here is how I'd do it."

If the guy designing the crafting in your game cannot describe 5 different approaches to crafting that have been implemented from 2000 - 2021 with a list of pros and cons for each then that guy shouldn't be designing your crafting system. Period.

Same for PvP, Housing, Progression, Auction Houses, etc.

And you get that by looking around and exposure to all these different ways. And then, why not also crafting outside 2000-2021? And in different genres?

Kind of, but I'm not 100% sure.

MMORPGs have a different "experience" where many players interact with each other. A single player game experience may not (of course it could) translate well into an MMO.

I do like the idea of "how do other games do [things}" idea overall, but one must be careful. There is a balancing act between what "could work" and what "will work."

It's the implementation of other ideas into "your specific"game

laserit

blueturtle13 said:

Well I develop and I play MMORPGs but I have zero desire to be a part of making one again. 
The technology is not ready for the type of MMORPG I would be interested in making to get involved with another mmo project. 

I take that to heart. 

Not a rosy forecast, the tea leaves are speaking

TwoTubes

As far as the example you used with Pantheon, I think a lot of the disconnect is that the devs were highschool kids or younger during the first gen MMO era.  Games back then were very similar in a lot of ways to the style they are trying to build their game around today.

The problem is, after 2002ish  was the start of a shift in the genre which makes it hard to have that experience again.  The closest you can come is emulators and it's simply not the same experience so they are trying to build a game without having completely experienced what they are trying to build toward.  They were just kids.

Though I don't blame them for not playing mnorpgs currently.  I think many of us don't.  The genre is a mess filled with cash shops and no penalty for failure and gear handed out on a silver platter.  

KnightFalz

What difference does it make? I don't see why developers would be obliged to spend their free time on hobbies related to their work more so than any other profession, nor would I expect doing so would make them more competent at what they already do all day, every work day.

Ralphie2449

KnightFalz said:

What difference does it make? I don't see why developers would be obliged to spend their free time on hobbies related to their work more so than any other profession, nor would I expect doing so would make them more competent at what they already do all day, every work day.

If they dont play mmorpgs or enjoy them much then clearly shouldnt be in charge of developing one, if they only played a few mmorpgs years ago and think they are cool but havent bothered playing any for a while they are even more dangerous because they are completely out of touch with modern mmorpgs and mmorpg community and will try to implement oudated design philosophies from 2005 and then wonder why it didnt work.

It is like putting a guy who loves and plays fps games to design a horror game, the chances of success are small.

It is like the lead WoW dev, who to this day literally raidlogs, has philosophies who are based from classic WoW as if the community is as social or the same and raids with his consistent year long guild.

None of these are the average experience of a modern mmorpg player, and that person is in charge of trying to lead the development of the game yet lacks modern mmorpg experience, which also leads to him being unable to comprehend many of the complaints and think "just find a guild yo"

Kyleran

KnightFalz said:

What difference does it make? I don't see why developers would be obliged to spend their free time on hobbies related to their work more so than any other profession, nor would I expect doing so would make them more competent at what they already do all day, every work day.

Funny story, I've been delivering business  software for over 30 years, and of course none of the development team ever went home and spent their free time on using the product or software similar to it.

The number one complaint from our users has always been that technology doesn't actually "use" the software they build therefore don't really understand what is needed.

Every now and then we've sent dev leads to sit side by side with the users and they always come back amazed at how the software is being utilized and at the difficulties faced and workarounds being employed to get the job done.

We used to have a limitation that only IE could be used due to some hard coded functionality specific to that browser (we actually had a special version from MS which they created for our firm).

Imagine our surprise when we did an investigation and found out over 80% of the users were connecting with Firefox instead, which was the only other browser sanctioned by the firm but it didn't support the special functionality so we were receiving bug reports regularly when the users would try to invoke it.

So yeah, definitely can deliver software w/o being a user of it, but I think nthe results might turn out much better if at least the designers and leads understood and had a passion for what was being created.

BTW, we recently hired two 15 year user leads to come work as BAs in technology to help us create some new products with more focus on the end user experience.

Should have done so years ago.

ConstantineMerus

Kyleran said:

KnightFalz said:

What difference does it make? I don't see why developers would be obliged to spend their free time on hobbies related to their work more so than any other profession, nor would I expect doing so would make them more competent at what they already do all day, every work day.

Funny story, I've been delivering business  software for over 30 years, and of course none of the development team ever went home and spent their free time on using the product or software similar to it.

The number one complaint from our users has always been that technology doesn't actually "use" the software they build therefore don't really understand what is needed.

Every now and then we've sent dev leads to sit side by side with the users and they always come back amazed at how the software is being utilized and at the difficulties faced and workarounds being employed to get the job done.

We used to have a limitation that only IE could be used due to some hard coded functionality specific to that browser (we actually had a special version from MS which they created for our firm).

Imagine our surprise when we did an investigation and found out over 80% of the users were connecting with Firefox instead, which was the only other browser sanctioned by the firm but it didn't support the special functionality so we were receiving bug reports regularly when the users would try to invoke it.

So yeah, definitely can deliver software w/o being a user of it, but I think nthe results might turn out much better if at least the designers and leads understood and had a passion for what was being created.

BTW, we recently hired two 15 year user leads to come work as BAs in technology to help us create some new products with more focus on the end user experience.

Should have done so years ago.

Don't take it too hard on yourself mate, we have been making cities without considering the user for decades now.