You want the players of your game to talk about getting max level and epic loot? Please tell me those are not the first two things you thought about.Ngruk said:
Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
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tyen
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The road you travel to get to that point is definitely the bulk of adventuring, I don"t disagree.Mannorai said:
But seeing the fruits of your labor is something you will talk about and be proud of more so than the actual adventure.
It"s obvious those aren"t the two things he thought about off the bat, but it is most certainly the first 2 things that you feel first. It puts everything into perspective and allows you to have confidence in boasting about a game"s quality and character.
I think he"s saying he wants people to talk about the fun they"re having in his game regardless of what that fun is.. But yeah, raiding, max level, sweet loot, those are fun things I enjoy in a game.Mannorai said:
A cool zone, or fun dungeon crawl, a first kill on a boss mob you"re guild has been working hard on is cool too.
There are a lot of things that make a game fun, he was just giving an example of a couple of them.
The problem with SoE for many years was that was all they thought about. Thats why EQ sucked for a number of expansions.Mannorai said:
Blizzard won the internet by making the experience leading to, and alongside, that more engaging and fun that it had been in any previous MMO. After four years my favorite memory in WoW is still the first hour in the Dorf starter area, not my leetest item or being first to max lvl on my server at launch.
Interesting read, but it misses out asking yourself, and others, "What if ?" and preparing for eventualities 1,000 times a day.Ngruk said:
That is really what I was getting at. I understand that for a lot of players, level and gear is an important aspect of the game, but to me this really defeats the purpoose of the game as a whole and why the genre became so popular in the first place. My most memorable moments in EQ consisted of the journey and not the destination.Flight said:
Even though the focus in EQ shifted, in a five year span, I never felt as though my only destination in the game was reaching max level or acquiring better gear. As far as WoW is concerned, I felt that pretty much right away and that feeling never diminished up until the two year anniversary when I left. If anything, the idea has been enforced with TBC and WOTLK.
Given Schilling"s apparent love for WoW, comments like the one I quoted, his financial and personal interest in making a "succesful" game, it would stand to reason the WoW model is one we holds in high regard. Does it not make sense to assume that with this, the aspects of the game we"re here to discuss will draw the same type of player? What then will set it apart from the game on which aspects it is based?
true the game was very item centric, but there was also a feeling of exploration in the game that was pretty cool. i still remember my first journey from felwithe to qeynos and saying to myself "holy shit this game is huge." and that was before any of the expansions.Camerous said:
I love nostalgia posts, I remember reading my first one thinking, man that"s some good writing. Most of them lately have been shit and ill-thought out.
This kind of discussion and consideration gets me so excited I pace around my office all day chewing it over and will even lay in bed all night thinking about it - sad I know. Anyways I can feel one of my lengthy (two part) rambling guy posts coming on, so bear with me.Mannorai said:
First what every dev studio need to realize is that for all the hype and sell it is the game experience that will "grow" a game. Not the PR, not the media sell, not the purple loot and not whatever max lvl is. Its how much people enjoy every single level from start to finish, with emphasis on the first few hours.
I"ll back that up with a few numbers. I keep a record of all sorts of stuff. This is my personal record of how many players there were, by class and evil/good, in WoW beta shortly before it was unleashed on the world. Following lists are class followed by the number playing them, first number Alliance and second number Horde.
Friday 08/10/04 Peak
Warrior 189.....124
Warlock 59......73
Mage 119......51
Rogue 88......38
Hunter 152.....60
Priest 58.......19
Druid 101......37
Pal/Sham 163.....67
Sat 09/10/04 Off Peak
Warrior 28......14
Warlock 14......10
Mage 22.......2
Rogue 17.......6
Hunter 31.......10
Priest 10........0 (zero)
Druid 16.......1
Pal/Sham 23.......8
There"s all sorts of discussions you can have about those figures. I can vouch for them - I recorded them. Even Vanguard beta numbers blew those away - and WoW beta wasn"t too tough to get into. The fact is that there was nothing at all to indicate the kind of success it was going to have.
The point here is no amount of pre-hype, PR or advertising will help your numbers.Its purely about how enjoyable the game is and word of mouth.Having said that the fun has to not only sell itself to increasing numbers of players - that demands accessibility and retention / replayability, most importantly at max level (if its a level based game) - end game - but also through the leveling process.
Random rambling time - throwing things out from inside my head I haven"t fully thought through. Wish there were a half dozen of us brainstorming together in a room with a whiteboard and a zillion yellow stickies.
Game designers seem to get so wrapped up in their worlds, that they don"t give specific thought to retention and replayability.
The fact is, even though, long term, end game may make up a large part of the game, unless its fun enough and has enough replayability, people will not stick around to be part of it.
WoW has had numerous goes at the replayability thing, but they"ve not cracked it yet. One of the times they came closest was with ultra rare drops in dungeons. There"s something in this that hasn"t been done in an MMO, yet. The same thing that kept people doing loot runs a zillion times in Diablo five and ten years after it launched. It has to do with dynamically generated areas, with random bosses and a random loot system, with some really, really rare items. A cross between a LDoN and a Diablo Mephisto run would generate MASSIVE replayability and retention. And of course theres never been a decent, similar system for solo or small group play, although SoE came close more than once, for instance with monster missions.
Lets also think out of the box; there are other things to promote retention than how fun the content is. EvE skill system is a good example. There are times I get bored of EvE, but I"ll leave my accounts ticking over just because my skills are developing while I"m offline.
This doesn"t have to encompass your entire skill system, if it was, for example, just your crafting system you would get people who would keep accounts permanently open just for that. Or it might be that elite adventuring or crafting skills were time locked.
SoE gave annual rewards for how long you had an active account, but they missed the boat on using it to sell the game because it wasn"t planned ahead. But if, at launch, you used it to sell the fact you weren"t just another game developer who was struggling to get the game shipped and some money coming in, but you had plans for the future, it would grab peoples attention. It would grab people so much more if they knew potential future benefits at launch - half an hour of double XP once a day for an account that had accrued a years subscription, summon a vendor once a day/week after two years, get an elite mount or weapon after three years .......
Not only that, but abilities (again crafting and/or adventuring) that you could only get with a near perfect sub record since game release. Of course other people could get them, but they would be time locked so you would have to wait until you had accrued the same amount of sub time. Powerful crafted items or ingredients that could only be made once a week/month and only by someone with "X" amount of subbed time, for a crafting example.
I"m getting carried away, but there are massive possibilities for a similar system.
Lots can be said about accessibility, but I"ll throw a different slant on it. I can throw out one issue that could increase subscription numbers through a games life cycle by 30-40%. No MMO has yet thought ahead and made allowances for multi boxers. By allowances I mean consider multi boxing in class design, travel, instances etc There are certain class combos that typically appeal to boxers - eg whole party of the same class or a tank, a healer, multiple ranged DPS. And travel can often be a pita boxing - nothing better than the aforementioned random dynamic LDoN type dungeon for a boxer - speak to an NPC and get ported to your instance. Said instances also help a lot with non-boxers perception of the affect of boxers on the game world. Or even static camps.
Like it or not boxers and multiple accounts now account for a large part of the MMO subscriber base; I would be surprised if it is any less than 40%. This in an industry were no game has yet taken their needs and wants into account. Of course if you decide you don"t want any boxers in your game world its as easy to facilitate as removing any kind of follow and assist from the game.
Last random rambling for the day - developers are too afraid to flat out steal or evolve other games ideas. When, oh when will someone re-use FFXI system of each character being able to play any and all classes, though they have to raise them all up through the levels. FFXI"s group game and grind is possibly the worst in MMO history, but people play it over and over because of the class system.
If not using the FFXI class / job system why not make no trade items usable by all characters on the same account. This and a hundred things like it are just little things that increase replayability.
In closing, Curt, and kind of related to the other games ideas in my last point, your lead design team are letting you down if someone or some group has not been assigned the job of getting to know the Final Fantasy series inside out and doing their homework on what may well be in their next MMO. the "we"ll develop our own game and let the competition get on with theirs" attitude is not the best approach for this industry and the next online Final Fantasy game is probably going to be amongst your main competition when you move to beta and release. They"ve been in development for a few years now.
/rambleOff
Game designers seem to get so wrapped up in their worlds, that they don"t give specific thought to retention and replayability.
The fact is, even though, long term, end game may make up a large part of the game, unless its fun enough and has enough replayability, people will not stick around to be part of it.
WoW has had numerous goes at the replayability thing, but they"ve not cracked it yet. One of the times they came closest was with ultra rare drops in dungeons. There"s something in this that hasn"t been done in an MMO, yet. The same thing that kept people doing loot runs a zillion times in Diablo five and ten years after it launched. It has to do with dynamically generated areas, with random bosses and a random loot system, with some really, really rare items. A cross between a LDoN and a Diablo Mephisto run would generate MASSIVE replayability and retention. And of course theres never been a decent, similar system for solo or small group play, although SoE came close more than once, for instance with monster missions.
Lets also think out of the box; there are other things to promote retention than how fun the content is. EvE skill system is a good example. There are times I get bored of EvE, but I"ll leave my accounts ticking over just because my skills are developing while I"m offline.
This doesn"t have to encompass your entire skill system, if it was, for example, just your crafting system you would get people who would keep accounts permanently open just for that. Or it might be that elite adventuring or crafting skills were time locked.
SoE gave annual rewards for how long you had an active account, but they missed the boat on using it to sell the game because it wasn"t planned ahead. But if, at launch, you used it to sell the fact you weren"t just another game developer who was struggling to get the game shipped and some money coming in, but you had plans for the future, it would grab peoples attention. It would grab people so much more if they knew potential future benefits at launch - half an hour of double XP once a day for an account that had accrued a years subscription, summon a vendor once a day/week after two years, get an elite mount or weapon after three years .......
Not only that, but abilities (again crafting and/or adventuring) that you could only get with a near perfect sub record since game release. Of course other people could get them, but they would be time locked so you would have to wait until you had accrued the same amount of sub time. Powerful crafted items or ingredients that could only be made once a week/month and only by someone with "X" amount of subbed time, for a crafting example.
I"m getting carried away, but there are massive possibilities for a similar system.
Lots can be said about accessibility, but I"ll throw a different slant on it. I can throw out one issue that could increase subscription numbers through a games life cycle by 30-40%. No MMO has yet thought ahead and made allowances for multi boxers. By allowances I mean consider multi boxing in class design, travel, instances etc There are certain class combos that typically appeal to boxers - eg whole party of the same class or a tank, a healer, multiple ranged DPS. And travel can often be a pita boxing - nothing better than the aforementioned random dynamic LDoN type dungeon for a boxer - speak to an NPC and get ported to your instance. Said instances also help a lot with non-boxers perception of the affect of boxers on the game world. Or even static camps.
Like it or not boxers and multiple accounts now account for a large part of the MMO subscriber base; I would be surprised if it is any less than 40%. This in an industry were no game has yet taken their needs and wants into account. Of course if you decide you don"t want any boxers in your game world its as easy to facilitate as removing any kind of follow and assist from the game.
Last random rambling for the day - developers are too afraid to flat out steal or evolve other games ideas. When, oh when will someone re-use FFXI system of each character being able to play any and all classes, though they have to raise them all up through the levels. FFXI"s group game and grind is possibly the worst in MMO history, but people play it over and over because of the class system.
If not using the FFXI class / job system why not make no trade items usable by all characters on the same account. This and a hundred things like it are just little things that increase replayability.
In closing, Curt, and kind of related to the other games ideas in my last point, your lead design team are letting you down if someone or some group has not been assigned the job of getting to know the Final Fantasy series inside out and doing their homework on what may well be in their next MMO. the "we"ll develop our own game and let the competition get on with theirs" attitude is not the best approach for this industry and the next online Final Fantasy game is probably going to be amongst your main competition when you move to beta and release. They"ve been in development for a few years now.
/rambleOff
Another thing which I"ll throw out, which, at the moment, I have absolutely no answer to, but is a definite potential selling point.
How can you come up with a system so that there"s a cost structure with benefits for someone with multiple accounts, that isn"t so easily abused by multiple people who would have their accounts anyway ?
Can it be cost effective ?
I have no doubt that its something that"s needed and many people would validly qualify for, but I don"t know how you can give financial incentives to the person with six accounts, without it being abused by six people with one account.
The problem wouldn"t be farmers etc as you could just tie warnings and bannings across the linked accounts.
How can you come up with a system so that there"s a cost structure with benefits for someone with multiple accounts, that isn"t so easily abused by multiple people who would have their accounts anyway ?
Can it be cost effective ?
I have no doubt that its something that"s needed and many people would validly qualify for, but I don"t know how you can give financial incentives to the person with six accounts, without it being abused by six people with one account.
The problem wouldn"t be farmers etc as you could just tie warnings and bannings across the linked accounts.
wow beta was hard to get into, and its popularity really shown in open beta. those look liked closed / friends and family numbers when beta keys were going for $3-500 easy.
Not at all; that was the month before release, as shown by the dates. I think people just forget how little attention it got outside of the established MMO community. Four years later and a lot has changed.findar said:
release date was nov 23rd, your dates are oct 8/9. open beta started nov 8th.Flight said:
i was in the closed beta. those numbers seem "sort of" correct.
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
- 14,625
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I"m not sure what you are talking about. Way more people signed up to get into the closed beta then could. Record numbers.Flight said:
"500,000+ World of Warcraft Open Beta Test Signups!
This past Monday we launched the World of Warcraft open beta test, and by the following day, we had already reached a total of more than 500,000 signups! To everyone who signed up, we"d like to say thanks again for helping us make this the most extensive beta test ever for a Blizzard game. We take this as a strong indication that the gaming community is as excited about World of Warcraft"s upcoming release as we are.
As for the status of the open beta test, more than 40 servers are currently active, and testing is running smoothly, with additional players completing their client installation and joining by the hour. Each server hosts thousands of concurrent users, most of whom are seeing Azeroth through the eyes of the Horde or the Alliance for the first time. We continue to review every suggestion submitted, so please keep them coming in!"
500k+ signed up for open beta.
Certainly not 11million. But 500k is a ridiculously high number for an open beta, especially in 2004.
Branding is huge, and Blizzard already had the reputation before WoW, so its no real surprise.
Yeah, you are just wrong about this, Flight. Closed beta was not easy to get into, for one, and the buzz about World of Warcraft was massive.
I don"t think I"m expressing myself very well, so I apologize for that. Its closed beta, but its certainly not just family and friends. We"re getting sidetracked onto an issue that is relatively unimportant and taking this thread off topic.
The point is this : its destined to be a massive MMO and it only has a few hundred people playing the beta a small number of weeks before launch. Also, 500,00 might have been a lot of people signing up to open beta back then, but most games peak in interest and numbers around late beta and launch and very few people expected it to grow beyond those numbers.
Significantly - WoW grew and grew not because of the hype, the rep or the franchise. It was down to it being a solid, fun game, that didn"t let you down from first level until last. And its peoples first hand experience of that and word of mouth that has lead to WoW continued growth.
The point is this : its destined to be a massive MMO and it only has a few hundred people playing the beta a small number of weeks before launch. Also, 500,00 might have been a lot of people signing up to open beta back then, but most games peak in interest and numbers around late beta and launch and very few people expected it to grow beyond those numbers.
Significantly - WoW grew and grew not because of the hype, the rep or the franchise. It was down to it being a solid, fun game, that didn"t let you down from first level until last. And its peoples first hand experience of that and word of mouth that has lead to WoW continued growth.
I"d like to note once again that I was one of those, having predicted it would reach seven digits in subs months before it released.
Just sayin.
This kind of quote gets thrown around fairly often. Almost as often as the old "current MMO devs are in a huge diku rut and never come up with anything innovative" line.Flight said:
These two points of view would seem contradictory, were it not for the fact that neither is entirely accurate.
I could argue that as mainstream MMOGs have progressed, they"ve done an overall good job of evolving some of the key concepts and coming up with innovative twists (or to put it bluntly, the best developers I know are outright thieves, and have absolutely no qualms about admitting so). However, that"s a matter of perspective; if you are someone bored with diku-influenced games, you"re probably going to see the genre as hopelessly stagnant; if you are someone who loves a few specific features from certain games and haven"t seen those particular features evolved, you"ll probably think the genre isn"t learning enough from its past.
The thing is that no feature exists in isolation, and just because it works in one game doesn"t mean it"s going to fit in another. The jobs system in FFXI is a good example; for every argument in favor of its benefits, another can be made about the undesired effects it can have when coupled with certain other systems. All I can tell you is that we"ve had plenty of conversations about this kind of thing, as well as a host of other potential features which are, more than anything, design choices rather than something which is clearly good or clearly bad.
Someone who attended our NYCC panel would be able to tell you about our design philosophy, which in an ultra-condensed form reads something like this: question assumptions about what has gone before but don"t feel the need to reinvent the wheel just for the sake of being different.
(This is the part where Cynic A chimes in about how, see, they"re just a bunch of hacks ripping off WoW, and Burned Out Player B says that, see, they haven"t learned anything from Vanguard, and OMFG Moorgauard is still talking.)
And now we come to the part in this thread where it becomes clear that we can"t have a meaningful dialogue about Copernicus because you can"t see it yet and we can"t show it to you yet. The only way player and developer can have an informed conversation about a game is for you to actually play it and talk about what you experienced. (This is a philosophy of the DC Universe team that I really like: they don"t talk about what powers and missions they"regoing to putin the game, they talk about the powers and missions thatare inthe game, which means you can actually see them for yourself and say "hey, I like that" or "hey, that"s not cool enough.")
So if you want to discuss specifics about what will be in Copernicus, it is unlikely you will find this thread useful for quite some time. If you want to discuss design philosophy and frame conversations based on what you have experienced in other games, then it has the potential to be extremely useful and informative.