Sep
14

Why they Talk.

17 Comments

Before I get into why the heck I’m writing today there are a couple of things that caught my attention.

First is an article over at femalegamer.com asking the question “Will PoTBS PLay Run economy work?”:

The question is, will there be enough traders and builders to move the economy along? These roles will definitely have to be filled by those who prefer (and have the time) to pore over data – logs, recipes, maps, etc – and to plan trade routes and factory placement, instead of fighting over control of ports and seas. Ultimately, I think the success of this strategy will depend on the thinkers and whether or not PotBS? economic model will attract them to the game.

I commented on her site saying that out of all of the MMO crafting/economy designs, I find this one to be the most attractive. Why? Because my eyes won’t bleed from doing it…or at least, it sounds like they won’t. I’m playing VG right now and doing some crafting and, ummm, …oh…my…gawd. EQ2′s crafting is ok, but its not perfect and gets “eye-bleedy” after level 20-ish. WoW, well….never mind. In PoTBS, if you have the resources and the labor, you can build it. It is more complex than that, and I encourage you to read her article and those she links to in order to get the full picture. Will the economy run in PoTBS? I think so. I think it’ll work quite nicely. PoTBS has been compared to Eve Online in terms of it’s gameplay and I can see its economy following the “Eve model”. I don’t think we have to worry about the lack of people participating on the economic side because there are always “those spreadsheet types” playing MMOs. No, I think it’ll be just fine…if PoTBS delivers on what its selling.

GU#38 for EQ2 went live a couple of days ago and here are some of the highlights:

* Rumors have it that Bristlebane has returned. Is this just another joke, or has another deity returned to Norrath?
* The dual wield designation has been removed and replaced with a system that will allow for more variety.
* There is a new Appearance tab in the Inventory window. Items worn here will not convey benefits, but will override what people see on your character.
* The Estate of Unrest is now a persistent instance.

The dual wield and the Appearance tab are probably the two most talked about features for this update. For me, I can’t really get excited about either of those…but some players are. I have stated before that I think that EQ2′s armor sets are not, ummm, well done. They just don’t look “kick-ass” enough…so having an appearance tab won’t really mean much for me until those armor sets start to make me look like I’m a bad-ass from hell. Oh…and hey, apparently shrubs are going to look more “shrub-like”…lol…I loved that one :)

I have noticed some blog posts regarding the “obviousness” of some of the statements made by Walton and others. Some of these post are wondering why the leaders of the industry are going around and hitting talking points that we already “know”. Here’s why….because that’s what leaders do. They talked about quality and the effects of WoW in AGC 2006, just like they talked about it this year. Of course, something really big happened between last AGC and the one we just had…we had an MMO get smacked because of, say it with me, premature release and poor quality. So, get use to the message being sent over and over and over until it’s a reality and a standard for all MMOs going forward.

D out.

Posted in Editorial
17 Comments Posted by Darren

17 Responses to "Why they Talk."

  • Brandon says:
    September 14, 2007 at 7:47 am

    It’s not a matter of how “obvious” what they say is, it is a matter of how they tout quality as an important part of development but in all honesty don’t care about it at all. That’s evidenced by the fact that crap still comes out. Yes, there are factors, mainly money, that contribute to a poor release/early release but there is a lot more to it also. If you sit down at a meeting and your concept for a game is “sci-fi” or “fantasy” well, that isn’t a game concept at all. It’s a loose genre definition that a game may fall into. Yet that’s how some of these games look. Somewhere, and it seems as if it is in the planning/conceptual stages of the game development, there is a major problem. I don’t know what happens at this point, maybe there isn’t enough time or maybe people just figure they can do most of the designing alongside the rest of the work but it all seems to unravel at this point.

    Look at the highest quality MMO to date at release, World of Warcraft. We can track down factors that made it great for weeks, but there is one no one ever seems to mention…they knew what they wanted to do with it. They had 3 previous games to build off of and they knew where they were going more than just “it’ll be a fantasy MMO.”

    I’m also not saying original IPs can’t work, because I actually prefer them but I believe that if you couldn’t develop at least a couple of other entire games in your world, from the concept you have in mind, it isn’t fleshed out enough.

    Also…why isn’t it already a standard for all MMOs (quality I mean)? Shouldn’t pride in your work make quality a standard? Shouldn’t enjoying what you do make quality a standard? Shouldn’t the idea for your game invite quality to be a standard? It may not be a reality, but there is no good reason why it isn’t. You can make a lot more money putting out a good product than you can a bad one. You may turn a profit on both but you will get more profit from the higher quality, longer retention from the higher quality, and hopefully you won’t feel like you unleashed a steaming pile on the unsuspecting masses.

    I don’t think anyone really does “get it” yet, and that’s my biggest concern. I say, you say it, we all end up saying it whenever we hear a developer make a logical statement like this…”Oh, they ‘get it’” but if they have to say it then they already don’t because it isn’t a byproduct of any work they do, it is a thought process that they have to specifically undertake.

  • Darren says:
    September 14, 2007 at 7:52 am

    Good points Brandon, however, name an MMO that has come out since Vanguard that’s been “crap”.

    Let me add to this. The dialog that that you are seeing right now between industry heads and their customers re: quality, is not a bad thing, its good. Of course they should be delivering good software as a standard, but they are obviously not and its up to us to continue the dialog until they do.

    We are seeing signs that it is getting through with how long EA Mythic is sitting on WAR, and to some extent the delay of AoC.

    …also, I wasn’t really picking on you specifically when I mentioned all of this ;)

  • Pixie Styx says:
    September 14, 2007 at 9:15 am

    ” name an MMO that has come out since Vanguard that?s been ?crap?.” well i would actually say this is a bit misleading, vangaurd did come out to early *nuff said* however we seem to forget that TR and AOC were all due out prior to vangaurd but got delayed, the only difference is that two out of the 3 companies had enough money to be able to do this one didnt … so I guess the whole polish thing really is about how much money vs time have you got to achieve a lvl of polish that wow set.

    But really if you took out wow from the equation and with the explosion of the mmo market how long would it have been before polish became a buzz word anyway …

  • Darren says:
    September 14, 2007 at 9:42 am

    I don’t think “polish” or “quality” wouldn’t have been a buzz word if it weren’t for the example that VG gave the industry. I may be overstating its importance, but I think it was a crucial event.

  • Brandon says:
    September 14, 2007 at 9:48 am

    Darren, I wasn’t referring specifically to MMOs as far as crap coming out goes. Since Vanguard I can’t really think of any MMOs that have come out (at least major titles) so relating to that specifically there may not have been any. I guess my problem is I’m trying to combine several different problems I have with the way the industry is relating things all into one. My main problem, here, is that quality should not need to be spoken. This tells me that they would rather put out a poor product than a good one and are only just starting to realize it is important to develop quality as an inherent part of design.

    This is a problem of both the developers and the players though. If we didn’t accept a poor product they wouldn’t make one…at least that’s how things should go. Of course the blame lies more heavily with the developers. Why? Because in order to play at all we have no choice but to play bad games. It isn’t as if the choice is between a meal prepared by a five-star chef or a plate full of spiders. It’s a choice between eating the spiders or starving to death.

    Obviously not all games are the garbage I am talking about, there are plenty of good, quality titles to keep people busy but I would say that there are probably more bad games that come out than good ones. We just tend to overlook them because we don’t play them all.

    Why is it that I get the feeling these developers, every meeting, have to repeat the phrase “Quality is good” so they get it through their heads? They just repeat it constantly so they won’t forget…because it isn’t deeply entrenched in everything they do. And that is the entire problem, as I mentioned before. Quality requires a dedicated thought process when it should be second nature.

    I didn’t mean to come off as if I thought you were picking on me, just the arguments you made in this post seemed to come off as more of a sidepoint to the real issue I mentioned.

  • Darren says:
    September 14, 2007 at 10:06 am

    You’re right, quality shouldn’t have to be spoken, but we’ll all have to get used to it. The gaming industry seems to be taking a page from the hightech industry because that’s all those guys talk about when speaking to both customers and employees. If you’re in hightech, then you’re nodding your head right now, I guarantee it.

    The MMO industry has to go this route, because unlike single player games, they are offering a continuous service. Message has to be quality, customer service and gameplay and we’ll never escape it now.

    You’re right, a good quality process should be second nature, however, the MMO industry is not mature enough just yet.

    All the noise you’re hearing is a good thing…for now :)

  • MMO Gaming » Blog Archive » Calming Down says:
    September 14, 2007 at 10:07 am

    [...] in a couple others so that my main point didn’t really stand out. This morning though I made a few comments over at Darren’s site to really specify what I meant. I’ll quote the important bit [...]

  • Tipa says:
    September 14, 2007 at 10:40 am

    @Brandon: Lord of the Rings Online, Dungeon Runners, and Swords of the New World were all pretty major MMOs that came out since VG. LotRO and DR were pretty polished; I’ve heard Swords had some conversion issues, but I haven’t played it myself.

    @Darren: Tier 1 “shrubs” used to look like roots (and so did roots), so it was a decent change. They didn’t look like shrubs at all before!

  • SmakenDahed says:
    September 14, 2007 at 11:06 am

    I’m skeptical on how PotBS’s economy will work….

    I prefer the look of EQ2 armor, though I wish there would be more variance. And I loathe the tier system. I do admit a game like WoW tends to look more fun and fantastic (in an unbelievable sense), but in a technical sense, EQ2 armor was more accurate and looked more detailed (shaders, bump mapping, etc.).. both have a sort of specular lighting that you could apply which is cool too. I wonder if WoW will ever add bump mapping/shaders on to the armor and gear? That would be a cool addition, though I guess it might break the overall look of the game. :(

    I think it’s definitely a changing viewpoint for MMO companies – that or it really is just the latest bunch of marketing buzz words. I think a basic attitude for management or even developpers in MMOs was, “Well, we can patch it in later and hope no one notices until then”. WoW didn’t subscribe to this mentality as far as I can tell. They stuck to their ideals of quality and I think it helped that they had released ‘boxed’ games previously. They carried that attitude over from non-MMO games to their MMO games.

    I do agree that it shouldn’t have to be spoken, but VG sort of ruined it for the MMO market and gamers who played VG (I still play and I do have fun, but there is no excuse for the class issues, zone implementations and instability of the client) likely want to hear the reassurance whether they realize it or not.

  • Pixie Styx says:
    September 14, 2007 at 12:03 pm

    maybe devs need to look at releasing smaller sized mmo’s that are highly polished, and more content related and then update 4 -6 times in a year for a small ‘adventure pack’ cost. I think the dev time on larger mmos and increasing time vs cost of polishing will start to take its toll soon enough …

  • Tom says:
    September 14, 2007 at 1:53 pm

    When it comes to PotBS economy don?t be too sceptical, all I will say on that.

    Polish and quality are words used in the industry quite frequently and has been used for a long time. Just the last couple years has they have become buzz word on message boards and blogs. I personally think that people need to spend more time using those words but not for general statements like ?(game) needs more polish?, People need to explain why they think something is not polished enough. Quality is a totally different thing that I won?t get into while I am at work atm.

  • SmakenDahed says:
    September 14, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    Any solid (non-marketing) information on how it’s supposed to work? I’m genuinely curious. Also what are they going to do about exploiters, botters (in the sense of automating play) or farmers?

    Pixie, what you described reminded me of DDO. :(

  • Tom says:
    September 14, 2007 at 3:20 pm

    The problem with the smaller MMO idea with more adventure packs is the fact that the game will too short to do it all. I personally like the idea as I play a lot of different games at the same time but the majority of people play one game that costs money per month. Marketers would cry having to market a game that is smaller, it is sort of a mmo marketing departments e-penis to boast how large the game is and how much there is to do. So telling the user that there is only the same amount of content as in another games X through X. That would make gamers shrug that game off and go with the one that is larger.

  • Pixie Styx says:
    September 14, 2007 at 3:34 pm

    Intersting but disagree, I think the days of large, big budget mmo games is going to slowly decrease over the next few years and we will see smaller, highly polished games coming out that have little of no subscription and are funded with adventure packs / microtransactions. Essentailly you will see communities / guilds of people playing multiple mmo games and consuming what they want and only paying for what they use … that is not to say there wont be a market for big subscription based mmo’s I just think we will see less and less of them …

  • Bildo says:
    September 14, 2007 at 3:52 pm

    Very right Pixie. Because they’re too risky, and things will be too competitive with people losing lots of money.

    Simpler, more generalized topic MMOs will be coming in the future. If Hellgate: London’s model (make no mistakes, this game has all the trappings of a full-featured MMO, it just uses heavy instancing) does well, expect to see more games use it in the face of games not selling it all because it’s either pay or don’t play.

    I’m HG:L’s Alpha (yes I can say that), and while I can’t talk about the process or the game in detail I can tell you I’ll be rushing out to stores and buying it on Halloween.

  • ogrebears says:
    September 16, 2007 at 4:25 pm

    There are some kick ass arrmor in the game, but it mostly reserved for the high end raders. Which is why it is rarely seen, i have screen shots of the various set here. http://ogrebear.com/?page_id=97

  • SmakenDahed says:
    September 17, 2007 at 7:38 am

    Looks neat, but they’ve reused a lot of the models and just textured them different. Some of them are not repeats of previous tiers, but some are (the class hats and shoulders are different, but they get reused on the end tier armor sets it seems). Some of those armor pieces look like cobalt just colored differently, others look like fulginate or even carbonite. I think some of those look like the original release fabled raid rewards. They look neat, but they seemed to have tried to step towards ‘fantastical’ but didn’t push it far enough (IMO).

    That said, I am happy they’ve tried to take this route. On release, most plate classes were indistinguishable from each other. You had all ebon or maybe the same sort of fabled loot. Class armor is a good thing.

    (thanks for the pictures Ogrebear)

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