Although I did enjoy the PvP BGs in Warhammer the whole game did come off as being rather lack lustre in the end and not really worth playing. I did love some of the classes though like the Disciple of Khaine and the engineer. I just think the world itself was badly done but the classes were good.
One of the big things nobody seems to be remembering is just how badly unfinished WAR was when it was released. They managed to add some of the missing promoted classes later but by that time the damage was done. Thinking back I remember the huge amount of servers they had at game launch. Its like they really expected the game to quickly grow to become the next WoW. So I have to wonder, was the real issue that they bought too much into their OWN hype and couldn't fathom the flaws in their game?
Like I said, this was a time when people believed you could actually kill WoW. WoW was just another MMO and potentially just an indicator that MMO popularity was on a steep rise. AoC had just stumbled really hard, but people at Mythic had no real reason to believe every MMO that tried to seriously contest WoW would fail doing so.
I don't remember the game being badly unfinished. I played it at launch and for many months after and this is the first time I heard of the missing classes. I wasn't following they hype very much, though. But the game worked just fine. Certainly at least as good as WoW did when it first released.
Marketing isn't intrinsically bad. If someone makes an awesome game, but no one finds out about it and so the developer goes bankrupt, is that really a desirable situation?
A lot of stuff is really just differences of opinion. If a marketing person says a game is great, and you think it's mediocre, that doesn't mean he lied. That just means you disagreed with the opinion he expressed. You're supposed to learn to distinguish between facts and opinions sometime around elementary school.
There is a difference between marketing pre-orders and marketing games that have already been out for a year. The latter is commonly a good thing, as there is plenty of information about the game out there for you to get a good idea of whether you'll like it. The former is mostly just bait for suckers. If you pre-order games that disappoint you, it's 100% your own fault for pre-ordering games. If you don't like that, then stop.
I'm sure you've heard, "A fool and his money are soon parted." Apparently it's attributable to some guy in the 16th century, but I'm sure the sentiment predates him. The phrase "buyer beware" goes back at least to Roman times (the Latin is "caveat emptor"). Hype wasn't first invented a decade ago.
This is a really good point. There's no point lamenting marketing or thinking anything we say will do a damn thing to stop it. It's not going away, especially here in America.
The only thing to do is deal with it. Try before you buy if possible, if it's not possible make educated decisions based on skeptical evaluation.
Like I said, I have no idea why BDO was suddenly thrown in at the end of the OP as the culimilation of marketing evils. There has been almost no visible marketing for the game here in the West.
I assume he's referring to forum hype, which can end up being very similar to marketing. We do basically act as free marketing agents for the games we like. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything but buy into hype. And keep in mind it goes both ways- there's currently negative hype about BDO, especially here on this forum. If you've never played the game, I'd suggest being skeptical of that too.
As for me- here's what I did with BDO. When I first saw it and saw the things it offered a year ago I was incredibly hpyed, but I've been burned by enough MMOs to remain skeptical. I tried the game on the RU server. I tried it on a guest pass from a giveaway and then again on a guest pass from someone from these forums.
I liked the game, felt it delivered on what I read about it (making sure to keep in mind both good and bad things I had read about it), but was heavily against the monetization model. After experiencing the release of insane rng boxes in BnS and evaluating monetization models from all other MMOs, I decided it wasn't too bad. I bought the game a month ago and haven't regretted it.
So basically I "tried before I buyed" 3 times. I spent a long time considering what I was buying into before ultimately deciding it was something I wanted to do.
I suggest everyone do the same or something similar for all MMOs. If you do this, there's far less chance you'll end up feeling burned. It will also be good for the industry- if less people buy into pre-order packages, the more Devs will actually have to deliver before getting paid.
Why was BDO was suddenly thrown in at the end of the OP ?
Because it's a perfect example of modern day tricked.
Read all recent post. What, the game is 30 or 60 days after launch and the majority is complaining about everything, again EVERYTHING !.........Infact its much worst than that ,the Forum is dying. Meaning more often than not people leave instead of complaining.
It has a Cash Shop, this is the bottom line !
Play to win....No play to win....It's a Cash Shop game. Sure it has a $30 price tag, this is actually a sneaky new trick to soften up the cash shop !
It also has 30 days worth of content.
People here say MMO's are dying off.......No, Developers are making pure tricks.
One of the big things nobody seems to be remembering is just how badly unfinished WAR was when it was released. They managed to add some of the missing promoted classes later but by that time the damage was done. Thinking back I remember the huge amount of servers they had at game launch. Its like they really expected the game to quickly grow to become the next WoW. So I have to wonder, was the real issue that they bought too much into their OWN hype and couldn't fathom the flaws in their game?
Like I said, this was a time when people believed you could actually kill WoW. WoW was just another MMO and potentially just an indicator that MMO popularity was on a steep rise. AoC had just stumbled really hard, but people at Mythic had no real reason to believe every MMO that tried to seriously contest WoW would fail doing so.
I don't remember the game being badly unfinished. I played it at launch and for many months after and this is the first time I heard of the missing classes. I wasn't following they hype very much, though. But the game worked just fine. Certainly at least as good as WoW did when it first released.
Marketing isn't intrinsically bad. If someone makes an awesome game, but no one finds out about it and so the developer goes bankrupt, is that really a desirable situation?
A lot of stuff is really just differences of opinion. If a marketing person says a game is great, and you think it's mediocre, that doesn't mean he lied. That just means you disagreed with the opinion he expressed. You're supposed to learn to distinguish between facts and opinions sometime around elementary school.
There is a difference between marketing pre-orders and marketing games that have already been out for a year. The latter is commonly a good thing, as there is plenty of information about the game out there for you to get a good idea of whether you'll like it. The former is mostly just bait for suckers. If you pre-order games that disappoint you, it's 100% your own fault for pre-ordering games. If you don't like that, then stop.
I'm sure you've heard, "A fool and his money are soon parted." Apparently it's attributable to some guy in the 16th century, but I'm sure the sentiment predates him. The phrase "buyer beware" goes back at least to Roman times (the Latin is "caveat emptor"). Hype wasn't first invented a decade ago.
This is a really good point. There's no point lamenting marketing or thinking anything we say will do a damn thing to stop it. It's not going away, especially here in America.
The only thing to do is deal with it. Try before you buy if possible, if it's not possible make educated decisions based on skeptical evaluation.
Like I said, I have no idea why BDO was suddenly thrown in at the end of the OP as the culimilation of marketing evils. There has been almost no visible marketing for the game here in the West.
I assume he's referring to forum hype, which can end up being very similar to marketing. We do basically act as free marketing agents for the games we like. But that doesn't mean you can't do anything but buy into hype. And keep in mind it goes both ways- there's currently negative hype about BDO, especially here on this forum. If you've never played the game, I'd suggest being skeptical of that too.
As for me- here's what I did with BDO. When I first saw it and saw the things it offered a year ago I was incredibly hpyed, but I've been burned by enough MMOs to remain skeptical. I tried the game on the RU server. I tried it on a guest pass from a giveaway and then again on a guest pass from someone from these forums.
I liked the game, felt it delivered on what I read about it (making sure to keep in mind both good and bad things I had read about it), but was heavily against the monetization model. After experiencing the release of insane rng boxes in BnS and evaluating monetization models from all other MMOs, I decided it wasn't too bad. I bought the game a month ago and haven't regretted it.
So basically I "tried before I buyed" 3 times. I spent a long time considering what I was buying into before ultimately deciding it was something I wanted to do.
I suggest everyone do the same or something similar for all MMOs. If you do this, there's far less chance you'll end up feeling burned. It will also be good for the industry- if less people buy into pre-order packages, the more Devs will actually have to deliver before getting paid.
Why was BDO was suddenly thrown in at the end of the OP ?
Because it's a perfect example of modern day tricked.
Read all recent post. What, the game is 30 or 60 days after launch and the majority is complaining about everything, again EVERYTHING !.........Infact its much worst than that ,the Forum is dying. Meaning more often than not people leave instead of complaining.
It has a Cash Shop, this is the bottom line !
Play to win....No play to win....It's a Cash Shop game. Sure it has a $30 price tag, this is actually a sneaky new trick to soften up the cash shop !
It also has 30 days worth of content.
People here say MMO's are dying off.......No, Developers are making pure tricks.
My point is that whatever you feel the state of BDO is, it had nothing to do with marketing. There was almost no marketing for the game.
Yes people are complaining on the forums. People do that pretty often on every forum if you haven't noticed.
The current hot topic is being able to sell certain cash shop dyes on the marketplace. You could theoretically get in-game silver with this, although it would be incredibly annoying and expensive to get meaningful amounts of silver.
Daum made a point when the game launched to say that cash shop items would not be sellable on the marketplace "during the launch phase". I guess the launch phase is over. So they didn't lie.
They also mentioned that there would be restrictions in place so it would be prohibitive to easily turn dollars into silver. So far that's true.
I am concerned about the issue as it opens the door for real p2w down the line. But everyone knew this was coming. Nobody was tricked.
AoC crashed and burned less than a year before WAR. Much the same audience devoured the same hype again six months later.
The DAoC dream, a PVP-driven primary market MMO fizzled to a slow death.
Tough on those folks that didn't experience the AoC bellyflop personally. But maybe a lesson about believing anti-hype forum chatter?
After 2008, people were a looooot less trusting of big promises wrapped in AAA paper. They were wary all the way into 2011 when the SWTOR buildup began... ...
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
Marketing was a thing before computer gaming was invented. That you started noticing it only after 2008 came around is not the same thing as marketing magically appearing at the same time.
That said, it's true that Everquest -> WoW was the path of MMO mainstream popularity - and as such, the suits took notice of the genre, and obviously the explosion happened after WoW was released.
It was at that point that a lot of suits got involved - and as such, marketing became a lot more noticable, because that's how suits operate.
That said, I consider the launch of games EverQuest 2 and Anarchy Online tremendous failures in terms of delivering on promises. Same goes for EvE - which took years before it became fully playable and close to the original vision.
Marketing gets people into the game. The game itself keeps people playing the game
So, whilst some marketing may be outright lies, in my experience marketing is just intentionally vague and is just there to make people aware of the products. There is no way I can understand the intricacies of an MMO from a 30s advert!
I still place most of the fault with the games themselves. There will always be marketing and if a game sucks, player retention will be crap and the game will fold or evolve. EA chose not to invest more money into WAR and "fix" it, so it folded. With SW:TOR flopping, they decided to invest in it instead in order to recoup their money.
Do I wish companies would stop spending on advertising and instead invest in the games? Hell yes! That extra 50 - 100mil of marketing spent on development......yes please! SW:TOR might have actually been good! WAR might have had decent server tech, fortresses, all the cities and a better combat system!
But, marketing will always be needed and as long as publishers can recoup the cost of their games through initial marketing / churn then they will continue to do so. It is only when games need to rely on retention that developers are forced to build good games.
The slightly duplicitous and disingenuous marketing techniques used in many industries is only part of the problem; people's willingness to believe absurd claims, and their failure to learn from past mistakes makes them equally culpable. But in today's blame culture, no-one is prepared to take responsibility for their own foolishness.
You received 25 LOLs. You are posting some laughably bad content, please desist.
The thing about marketing, is its great when the product is great. I really want to know about good items, and sometimes the marketing helps them become known.
Unfortunately, the products aren't great with this genre, so marketing is nothing but deception.
I do not believe deception applies to just gaming companies. As of late deception seems to be a way of life when it comes to anything media. Gaming, News, Music, Movies. Seems to be a trend. Has to be a bigger problem than just what we see in gaming. Perhaps a lack of integrity? Also "Greed".
Marketing? Sort of. The answer is more akin to what you find in the documentary Atari: Game Over (currently on Netflix). [Spoiler!] Atari didn't collapse because E.T. was the worst game ever (it was bad, but hardly the worst), or that Atari produced a whole string of bad games (they did). Rather Atari collapsed when they tried to shove ten million more consoles into an already saturated market.
Same here. By 2008 (we can quibble over dates, but seems good enough for illustration) lots of companies wanted a slice of the big but finite mmorpg pie, but all these new games did was splinter and balkanize the mmorpg community. Also mmorpg players lost their innocence which once united people in the shared thrill of exploration and discovery. Now, mmorpgs have the quality of pornography in than any initial thrill turns hollow quickly and not only is there no shared bond, but also no real incentive to form them when everyone just walks away to the next thing in a joyless pursuit of joy.
The thing about marketing, is its great when the product is great. I really want to know about good items, and sometimes the marketing helps them become known.
Unfortunately, the products aren't great with this genre, so marketing is nothing but deception.
Uggh, this is a problem I struggle with daily.
I am a web developer and in my company we build a lot of brochure sites - advertising the products and services of others. But, we have no control over what we're advertising. Sometimes, we get clients with great products and you can feel the difference in the company - everyone is excited to be helping a genuinely good brand / product. But then we get customers who are just dickheads with inferior products, but we still have to do our best to help them increase sales.
I really hope that if I ever get to run my own company that I have the financial freedom to turn away clients with inferior products and services.
Phillip K Dick predicted it. He wrote the short story minority report and about 20 other books made into movies such as Bladerunner, Total Recall, The adjustment Bureau ETC. He wrote Minority Report in 1956.
One of my favorite all-time SF writers.
Also written in the 50s and well worth a read still today is Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano.
Every Vonnegut book I've read has been worth the time and provokes this sort of critical thinking. I love him because he seems to effortlessly rip the face off of pop culture and marketing.
If you're a PK Dick fan then I would recommend the original "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". I know Dick worked with and endorsed Blade Runner, but is so much deeper and more complex. It's really a mind twist into questioning what makes something real.
I think these sorts of stories help nurture critical thinking which is exactly what is needed to deal with the farcical marketing machine of corporate America the international corporate behemoth.
My daughter is graduating from HS this week (and she's the valedictorian... woohoo! proud dad .) One of the things I'm giving here as a graduation present is Slaughterhouse 5... she's ready fr it.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Unfortunately, the products aren't great with this genre, so marketing is nothing but deception.
Are you saying the products were "great" in the past? Technical issues alone makes that a questionable idea. Not to mention the archaic nature of most of the game-play back then, compared to single player games at the time. Most old MMORPGs were rife with issues. None of which were pointed out in their marketing. Just as it isn't today...
Such selective application is disingenuous, especially when trying to determine one era being great and another not, all based on subjective reasoning.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
My daughter is graduating from HS this week (and she's the valedictorian... woohoo! proud dad .) One of the things I'm giving here as a graduation present is Slaughterhouse 5... she's ready fr it.
My son also just graduated.
He got a trip to CA with his friend attending an anime convention :P (Sorry to one-up you).
My daughter is graduating from HS this week (and she's the valedictorian... woohoo! proud dad .) One of the things I'm giving here as a graduation present is Slaughterhouse 5... she's ready fr it.
My son also just graduated.
He got a trip to CA with his friend attending an anime convention :P (Sorry to one-up you).
Pretty sure the valedictorian part one-ups anything you can come up with :P
Unfortunately, the products aren't great with this genre, so marketing is nothing but deception.
Are you saying the products were "great" in the past? Technical issues alone makes that a questionable idea. Not to mention the archaic nature of most of the game-play back then, compared to single player games at the time. Most old MMORPGs were rife with issues. None of which were pointed out in their marketing. Just as it isn't today...
Such selective application is disingenuous, especially when trying to determine one era being great and another not, all based on subjective reasoning.
I agree with this ...however ... there's always a however ain't there..... back then companies were focused on making a game you'd want to buy and play. Now they're focused on making a product they can sell you in bits, and keep selling multiple times. And in fact many of these companies have become so focused on what I call the "dress up Barbie" factor they are neglecting creating much actual game play. So yeah in that respect I'd have to say the old games were better as while they were in no way perfect, they were focused on your entertainment factor and not just on the contents of your wallet.
I honestly don't feel that's a fair assessment. It's too much of an extreme..
It really depends on the company we're talking about in that regard, this could certainly be true for the EA's of the gaming world. Yet there are still plenty of companies that live or die based on the effort put into their games. They simply don't have the pockets to survive any other way. When they put out a stinker they truly suffer for it, even with partnerships with publishers, who quite often end up with the product while those who made it fall into relative obscurity. Those folks know a good product is key, more so than any of us.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Comments
거북이는 목을 내밀 때 안 움직입니다
Why was BDO was suddenly thrown in at the end of the OP ?
Because it's a perfect example of modern day tricked.
Read all recent post. What, the game is 30 or 60 days after launch and the majority is complaining about everything, again EVERYTHING !.........Infact its much worst than that ,the Forum is dying. Meaning more often than not people leave instead of complaining.
It has a Cash Shop, this is the bottom line !
Play to win....No play to win....It's a Cash Shop game. Sure it has a $30 price tag, this is actually a sneaky new trick to soften up the cash shop !
It also has 30 days worth of content.
People here say MMO's are dying off.......No, Developers are making pure tricks.
Yes people are complaining on the forums. People do that pretty often on every forum if you haven't noticed.
The current hot topic is being able to sell certain cash shop dyes on the marketplace. You could theoretically get in-game silver with this, although it would be incredibly annoying and expensive to get meaningful amounts of silver.
Daum made a point when the game launched to say that cash shop items would not be sellable on the marketplace "during the launch phase". I guess the launch phase is over. So they didn't lie.
They also mentioned that there would be restrictions in place so it would be prohibitive to easily turn dollars into silver. So far that's true.
I am concerned about the issue as it opens the door for real p2w down the line. But everyone knew this was coming. Nobody was tricked.
The DAoC dream, a PVP-driven primary market MMO fizzled to a slow death.
Tough on those folks that didn't experience the AoC bellyflop personally. But maybe a lesson about believing anti-hype forum chatter?
After 2008, people were a looooot less trusting of big promises wrapped in AAA paper. They were wary all the way into 2011 when the SWTOR buildup began... ...
'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.'
Marketing was a thing before computer gaming was invented. That you started noticing it only after 2008 came around is not the same thing as marketing magically appearing at the same time.
That said, it's true that Everquest -> WoW was the path of MMO mainstream popularity - and as such, the suits took notice of the genre, and obviously the explosion happened after WoW was released.
It was at that point that a lot of suits got involved - and as such, marketing became a lot more noticable, because that's how suits operate.
That said, I consider the launch of games EverQuest 2 and Anarchy Online tremendous failures in terms of delivering on promises. Same goes for EvE - which took years before it became fully playable and close to the original vision.
The game itself keeps people playing the game
So, whilst some marketing may be outright lies, in my experience marketing is just intentionally vague and is just there to make people aware of the products. There is no way I can understand the intricacies of an MMO from a 30s advert!
I still place most of the fault with the games themselves. There will always be marketing and if a game sucks, player retention will be crap and the game will fold or evolve. EA chose not to invest more money into WAR and "fix" it, so it folded. With SW:TOR flopping, they decided to invest in it instead in order to recoup their money.
Do I wish companies would stop spending on advertising and instead invest in the games? Hell yes! That extra 50 - 100mil of marketing spent on development......yes please! SW:TOR might have actually been good! WAR might have had decent server tech, fortresses, all the cities and a better combat system!
But, marketing will always be needed and as long as publishers can recoup the cost of their games through initial marketing / churn then they will continue to do so. It is only when games need to rely on retention that developers are forced to build good games.
You are posting some laughably bad content, please desist.
Unfortunately, the products aren't great with this genre, so marketing is nothing but deception.
Same here. By 2008 (we can quibble over dates, but seems good enough for illustration) lots of companies wanted a slice of the big but finite mmorpg pie, but all these new games did was splinter and balkanize the mmorpg community. Also mmorpg players lost their innocence which once united people in the shared thrill of exploration and discovery. Now, mmorpgs have the quality of pornography in than any initial thrill turns hollow quickly and not only is there no shared bond, but also no real incentive to form them when everyone just walks away to the next thing in a joyless pursuit of joy.
I am a web developer and in my company we build a lot of brochure sites - advertising the products and services of others. But, we have no control over what we're advertising. Sometimes, we get clients with great products and you can feel the difference in the company - everyone is excited to be helping a genuinely good brand / product. But then we get customers who are just dickheads with inferior products, but we still have to do our best to help them increase sales.
I really hope that if I ever get to run my own company that I have the financial freedom to turn away clients with inferior products and services.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Such selective application is disingenuous, especially when trying to determine one era being great and another not, all based on subjective reasoning.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
He got a trip to CA with his friend attending an anime convention :P (Sorry to one-up you).
It really depends on the company we're talking about in that regard, this could certainly be true for the EA's of the gaming world. Yet there are still plenty of companies that live or die based on the effort put into their games. They simply don't have the pockets to survive any other way. When they put out a stinker they truly suffer for it, even with partnerships with publishers, who quite often end up with the product while those who made it fall into relative obscurity. Those folks know a good product is key, more so than any of us.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson