Honestly I have not actively played for a while now(doesn't help that my current computer is a junk pile); however, I must say that one cannot just blame players for this. The companies are the one holding the cards. True the players help accelerate/accent the issue, but the ones who can stop/beat it are the card holders. But it would take work.
As for how to beat it. . . dealaka brings up many good points. I can recall back when I played The Fourth Coming of playing with the folk running the server and making the rules. It really helped me feel connected with them. There were also discussions between players and those in charge and news updates posted to keep players updated. I think part of my problem in the 'recent age' is that I keep expecting that play experience and am not finding it. Perhaps they have gotten too massive for me(if the crowd gets too big it will not be one community but rather several smaller communities sharing the same space. . . sorta like the big school versus small/medium school. The smaller schools often have stronger 'school spirit' and cohesion than the bigger schools. There are just TOO many people at the bigger schools for them to be as tightly nit as the smaller schools. In my experience of course).
Getting back on track there will always be drama chasers who must be involved in drama at all times(oh wait. . . most people call the drama queens don't they?); however, that is just to be expected. Every large group has a rotten apple or two to deal with. But the points dealaka brings up can definitely go a long way towards reducing drama from spreading uncontrollably like it seems to be doing these days(I gave up trying to follow game forums for the most part ).
As a final note the article is definitely right in that this us or them(or the with us or against us) attitude does not at all help solve the issues, it just sets the battle lines. And these battles waste resources/effort/time that could be spent much more productively. And perhaps worse these drawn battle lines could lead to the destruction of all that both sides hold dear.
You make some really good points. If only they would read them. But sadly i douby any dev really reads it here. And after so much negative posts above yours i doubt they would have scrolled down. But still good points.
I know that codemasters here in europe does have dev chats with players from Lord of the Rings. From that player and guild houses emerged. I don't like LotrO myself but atleast they seem to care about their community. Also i heard blizzard has dev chats these days.
In defence of blizzard, yes they opend a shop but they send half the income on a bought ingame pet to chairity. Plus that its just a extra. Unlike the free to play MMORPG's where you can't really proceed without spending money in the item shops (allods you can't defeat bosses without expensive potions). So you can find them greedy but you don't have to buy those pets or pony's. Those who want can, others don't miss a thing and aren't punished in anyway for not buying items at the shop.
It looks like the discussion is actually about participation in the development process. This is an important meta-game hobby around MMORPGs. It is part of the culture with a long tradition, almost as old as internet gaming itself.
Developers are part of that culture and that is a well known fact. Now the problem is precisely, how can you include someone into a development process as part of a hobby, when it is at the same time a very complex creative process with a lot of people and resources involved. Things will change. Frequently. They don't pan out as hoped, often.
When developer Bob claims that the game is going to have 23 classes with 42 skilltrees, then he is mostly also stating that he really believes that this will be the case at release and that this is the current idea. This is an attempt to give something for the forum hobbyists to discuss. This was taken for granted often. Devs recognized this a few years ago already and often include some kind of disclaimer (…we plan, …we hope to ...), again to play towards the hobby game discussion culture. Then there are also press releases and pr stuff, things that are really "polished and public ready".
Companies and press often fail to make a clear distinction what is what. The rest is done by players who also don't make a distinction. This backfired and the result is that now all information shifts towards corporate speech (press release) as the "correct" way to handle the public (like in every other business).
It cannot be "solved" by making townhall meetings with devs and the like, as it misses the point entirely.
First off to the first reply in this thread, I've never once seen a developer treated as a rockstar. Perhaps that's because I'm not crazy and realize that devs are just working people like everyone else, but I can't possibly believe they have groupies anything like actual rock stars do.
I will get yelled at by saying I think most of the issues we have now came from the players.
I played MMOs starting with The Realm and moved on to new ones as they came, like UO, EQ, AC, DAoC, AO, WoW etc etc. I also never visited official forums (or even non official forums) about MMOs until a couple years ago. The reason being I had no interest in it, I was in the games playing and having fun. And when I wasn't having fun anymore I'd try a different game.
Mostly out of boredom one day I started to check out the forums at some of my more favorite games, and to be honest I was shocked. The amount of bile and filth that pours out of the rabid gamers is insane, and to see it for the first time was eye opening. I've personally never been one to put up with much crap from people, especially ones I don't know, and I was amazed that this amount of name calling and hatred was allowed to just sit there. It is just as easy to express your concerns or complaints with proper etiquette and start an active positive discussion. Why players feel the need to come up with as many version of "You Suck" or "I hope you die" is baffling.
I truly think that is the root of all of the issues now. Why would you want to read that crap as a developer? You don't nearly as much positive feedback because those who enjoy the game are playing it and have no need to go to a forum. So all you would get to read all day is hatred posts that are made to be as angry and evil as they can, since in their warped mines that is how you get a point across. But the opposite is true, you post like that and your point is lost forever. No one will waste time reading it and responding since you didn't take any time to post properly.
The die hard fans of MMOs need to relax a bit and remember to tell themselves it's just a game. Seriously it is just a game. There is never a need to nerd rage out and make 10 posts in a world with as many expletives as you can conjure up. Simple post "I am not happy with change to X, why was it made and can we get it changed back.", then maybe a discussion can be started where a dev will explain why the change had to be made. You never know, that positive discussion might lead to the dev realizing it should be changed back too, or to you realizing it did need to be changed and it makes sense.
So yes, it is an unpopular position on a gaming forum full of players. But I truly believe the hardcore fanatic gamers are the cause of all the communication issues and hatred flowing around. If they learn to relax and post like an adult then I'm sure more communication will result.
There is so much truth in this post. In so many forum post the players use some of the harshest words to describe the smallest problem they have with a game. Who can blame the developers for not wanting to go through all of the hate. And like you said, if players were civil about what they posted, they may actually be heard. And like you I only visited the forums a few years after I started MMOs and I was shocked. In game I had never seen and of this extreme hate going on. Its sad because the forums represent such a small portion of the player base, and yet the have managed to turn the best way to communicate with the devs into something the devs don't even want to read.
The solution is for software developers to stop releasing half finished software and expecting customers to not only eat the purchase price, but expecting them to continue to fund development to the point it should have been at release month to month. Until consumer protection laws apply to software the way they apply to more tangible items, what options do consumers have other than bitch or stop buying software period? Why should consumers have to eat that $50 and chalk up it up to lesson learned? If you buy a phone that doesn't work right or have promised features, you take it back and get a refund, but with software you're SOL. Software seems to be the only product where shoddy work is accepted and practically expected.
If devs want to cry about customers being mean to them, just start giving refunds within a reasonable time frame to dissatisfied customers.
Very true article Jon - I think one of many ideas and ways this could be solved for many MMO's is to have 2 types of servers, much like the original EQ did, except they did it a bit differently then I am insisting.
think about all the problems that would be solved.
A pre-tram UO server with live events = 100k+ subs instantly
A Vanilla WoW server with live events = 2mil+ subs instantly
EQ server with the first MAYBE 2 x packs, maybe none at all wtih live events = 50k+ subs instantly
SWG server pre NGE = 75K+ subs instantly
you get my point - give players choice in what they play, give them live events, don't force changes al the time.
Gaming is about the only industry I know where they want to reduce commincation, feedback and contact with the customer. Most other industries would drool to get those kind of connections with the purchasers and users of thier products.
Yes there can be a bad signal to noise ratio and yes forums can get pretty vitriolic. There ARE ways to deal with that however. Generaly don't have your Developers interact DIRECTLY with your customers. They should be READING the forums...but in general shouldn't do much POSTING. Frankly, most Developers lack the people skills to deal with the public directly. Letting them talk privately with a limited/trusted group, fine..... but letting them POST publicaly, unless they actualy happen to have good communication skills...usualy back fires. Same for most executives, frankly.
The people that you WANT keeping the lines of communication open are your customer relations folks....and you DEFINATELY want these guys to be approachable to the public. Hiring people with good skills for that position can really be invaluable for a company. They can sift through the noise on public channels to come up with pretty good actionable info for developers to work with. They can also can also keep your user base informed about the company and the product without putting thier foot in thier mouths. The problem that many companies have is that good CRM skills are NOT easy to come by and far too often companies don't make adequite investments in this area. Some don't even have dedicated CRM people, others rely on unpaid volunteers, low paid grunts or the CEO's nephew to do most of this work. Many times when they do hire CRM folk, it's done through thier marketing agencies and often these people are unfamiliar with the type of audiance (gamers) that they are dealing with and make idiotic mistakes. However, a skilled CRM person who actualy understands a products audience well can be worth thier weight in gold to a company.
I work for a Software company as an Engineer. We're in B2B and B2C software...not Entertainment or Gaming....but I can tell you that one thing absolutely holds true across all development verticals. Developers, Exec's, Project Leads may all THINK they know what works for a product...but until it's in the hands of actual end users... you really don't know squat.... you are just taking your best guess. You may think you have absolutely the most clever design in the world....but if it's not meeting the end users needs... you screwed up. Very often Developers do get hit with big surprises when their products first get into the hands of customers. One thing is true...if the product isn't being used the way you think it should be..it is NEVER, EVER, EVER the end users fault. You as a developer screwed up somewhere....whether it's in your basic design, or training or documentation for the product, or how inutitive it is to use, or targeting the right audiance or making sure your communications people set the right expectations. However, you'll never know that unless you've got good lines of communication open with the users of your products. They may, often don't know HOW to make the product better... but they definately know what is or isn't working well for them...and at the end of the day, that's really all that matters.
BTW if people don't get that concept that as long as you're paying a monthly fee and complaining, that you're paying a monthly fee to complain;
INTRODUCING MY NEW MMO CALLED "ETERNAL DEVELOPMENT"! The game will never be made, but for the low price of 7.99 a month you can come to my forum and arm-chair developer pick apart every new idea I'll 'introduce' daily. Make yourself feel like a man as you berrate my 'permadeath' idea & my 'real cash or dirty pics of your Mama item shop that sells +2 everything'.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Having done quite a few beta tests I try to communicate to the development team the issues I experience with the game I happen to be testing. That being said the last few beta tests I have done I have noticed a distinct lack of communication from the development side of things. For example it use to be that you would say I found that when doing X I see this happening, you would post this in the beta development forums and put in a trouble ticket with the proper channels. At some point when enough people have been able to recreate or the dev team has been able to recreate the issue you would get a response that said either we see the issue and at the moment we have a fix or are working on one it shouldn't take too much to fix or this is a somewhat complex fix we are working on it and either have a time line or do not have a timeline for when a fix will be implemented.
Lately this is not the case, the line of communication that use to exist has broke down. Too often it seems that valid and legit gripes go unanswered or completely ignored when they still have months to correct them. I can understand if it is something that is going to take a lot of effort to correct but at least communicate that back to your customers all I am looking for is some acknowledgement that you have seen the issue and are working on it and do try to keep us informed about what you are doing. It seems that games are shrouded in mystery these days with no real information being passed on to the customers besides vague terminology or beating around the bush on issues. If you don’t have a good answer for a question or gripe then say so but also attempt to get that information and share it.
From my perspective the issue has been a game is advertised as X but when it releases it does not deliver and when your understandably upset customers voice their opinions about it all communication ceases or goes on the defensive. This is not to say that complaints from customers are not inappropriate there is a lot of venom shot at dev teams and so much inappropriate language and accusations made I really don’t blame some of the devs, CM's or whoever is responding to them to retaliate with a big FUUUUUUUU. Some appropriate manners from the gaming community are much needed but the anonymity of the internet provides people a way to be incorrigible with no repercussions.
Gaming is about the only industry I know where they want to reduce commincation, feedback and contact with the customer. Most other industries would drool to get those kind of connections with the purchasers and users of thier products.
Yes there can be a bad signal to noise ratio and yes forums can get pretty vitriolic. There ARE ways to deal with that however. Generaly don't have your Developers interact DIRECTLY with your customers. They should be READING the forums...but in general shouldn't do much POSTING. Frankly, most Developers lack the people skills to deal with the public directly. Letting them talk privately with a limited/trusted group, fine..... but letting them POST publicaly, unless they actualy happen to have good communication skills...usualy back fires. Same for most executives, frankly.
The people that you WANT keeping the lines of communication open are your customer relations folks....and you DEFINATELY want these guys to be approachable to the public. Hiring people with good skills for that position can really be invaluable for a company. They can sift through the noise on public channels to come up with pretty good actionable info for developers to work with. They can also can also keep your user base informed about the company and the product without putting thier foot in thier mouths. The problem that many companies have is that good CRM skills are NOT easy to come by and far too often companies don't make adequite investments in this area. Some don't even have dedicated CRM people, others rely on unpaid volunteers, low paid grunts or the CEO's nephew to do most of this work. Many times when they do hire CRM folk, it's done through thier marketing agencies and often these people are unfamiliar with the type of audiance (gamers) that they are dealing with and make idiotic mistakes. However, a skilled CRM person who actualy understands a products audience well can be worth thier weight in gold to a company.
I work for a Software company as an Engineer. We're in B2B and B2C software...not Entertainment or Gaming....but I can tell you that one thing absolutely holds true across all development verticals. Developers, Exec's, Project Leads may all THINK they know what works for a product...but until it's in the hands of actual end users... you really don't know squat.... you are just taking your best guess. You may think you have absolutely the most clever design in the world....but if it's not meeting the end users needs... you screwed up. Very often Developers do get hit with big surprises when their products first get into the hands of customers. One thing is true...if the product isn't being used the way you think it should be..it is NEVER, EVER, EVER the end users fault. You as a developer screwed up somewhere....whether it's in your basic design, or training or documentation for the product, or how inutitive it is to use, or targeting the right audiance or making sure your communications people set the right expectations. However, you'll never know that unless you've got good lines of communication open with the users of your products. They may, often don't know HOW to make the product better... but they definately know what is or isn't working well for them...and at the end of the day, that's really all that matters.
First, you are wrong on every business in the world dying to get the level of communication that MMOs get from their customers. If that were the case they would have forums and many other forms of communication open to allow customers to give that feedback, but they don't because they don't want it. And it is because nobody agrees on a product, everyone wants something different. So getting a million suggestions that all contradict each other gains you nothing.
Second, creating software that a company uses to aid its business is drastically different then creating an MMO. The reason is simple, when you buy a product to aid your business you use it for that purpose. You don't try to exploit it, cheat it, abuse it in ways it wasn't mean to be because you gain nothing from that. With an MMO half the gamers are in there trying to exploit the game and use it in ways to give them an advantage over everyone else. And that one reason is the same reason why all those "great" player ideas can't be implemented. The majority of them have major flaws in them that will be exploited by other players instantly.
So be happy you create software for people who want to use it specifically for what it does. You will also get much better feedback then from the armchair designers that think they have all the answers to what makes an MMO amazing without thinking of how broken their ideas are.
I do think the situation between players and developers has gotten bad the last few years. However, after leadership training I believe it takes a lot before the situation cannot be fixed. Here's my recommendations. They go to game developers as opposed to players because unless developers use them they won't attend (at least in my experience).
1 - Townhall meetings - Developers have to have regular meetings with players to find out what's bugging them, or even just hang out with them and answer questions. It's the fastest way of showing you care about the players by opening up lines of communication. Questions asked should be posted on the forums with answers. There shouldn't be 'I don't know' as an answer. Those in charge of one aspect should answer the question when they can. It doesn't have to last four hours, but it can happen several times over a few days.
2 - Polls - Developers should ask their players about the game and the content they would like to play in game and on the forums. These should be resources developers use to plan content in the future. People who don't vote might not get what they'd like for the game. It's like real life. You don't vote, you might be unhappy with the result. The thing is, developers actually have to develop based on what players would like or it comes across as 'See we asked you what you wanted but we're going to spend the next six expansions on PvP cause we like PvP.'
3 - Show people you play - Developers or community representatives should pop into game from time to time. Answer questions, chat, play minigames with people, host mini events, hold trivia games, be human. Otherwise players get the idea that developers just aren't in game, even if they are regularly. Events don't have to be large scale, but showing up from time to time helps the community associate the developers with friendly people.
4 - Discuss Loot - This is a big issue on why players often fight with developers. I think mainly it's because Developers refuse to discuss the loot system. Players who regularly get poor loot and complain often times get told 'it's fair and balanced' but won't get to see examples of how it works. If you're playing a board game with someone whom you suspect is cheating. You confront them on it in such a way as to see if they're actually cheating. If you're playing monopoly with someone who is the banker who you think is stealing money you put the money where you can see it. No one accepts 'I'm not cheating but I like the money right here' If developers don't regularly examine loot tables, and show players how it works, then players think it's broken, even if it's not.
5 - Give News to Players - Currently when expansion news is approved by marketing it's sent in the following order. Websites (MMORPG/Massively/IGN) then Gaming Magazines then Stockholders/Outsiders, and finally players. Generally by the time players get the information it's so confusing or distorted that players don't know what's going on. This should include having Patch notes for expansions available BEFORE the patch is released. Yet gaming companies don't do that. Players aren't considered to be worth communication. Often times the players of the game don't get patch notes for several hours (or even days). That and often times there are stealth changes which should be a sin.
These are common reasons why developers don't seem to have very good trust and compassion from players. Players care about their game. They might not ever go to the movies, or out to eat, but the character they've created is often very important to them. Players however get really rotten treatment by developers though. Stealth nerfs, rebalancing without discussion or improving something else, decreasing loot while increasing difficulty, or even just simple lack of communication.
If there is a vaccum in terms of communication in a game, then people fill it with their own thoughts. If developers and community representatives don't show people their kindness, compassion, and willing to communicate then they come across as Aristocrats sitting in ivory towers.It comes across as players should be happy to pay for abuse. Players should be treated better then they currently are by many game developers. Unfortunately, there's almost no one to stand up in an official position against game developers, and say "What you're doing is wrong." Players can do it, and they get ignored.
There may come a time when players stop turning to game developers as being the solution though. Eventually it might just go back to console games and tabletop games. I hope that doesn't happen but if developers don't work with players to fix the lines of communication it will not be the players that suffer from loss of business.
There is no other business in the world were players demand something like this from the company. Doesn't that tell you the major flaw in player thinking when it comes to MMOs??
Nobody tells Ford to do these things, or General Mills, Dell, Sony, General Electric, Nike, etc. But yet when it comes to MMOs players DEMAND that this happens and that they get this level of input in the product.
I think that is the true issue here, the players expect and demand way too much from an industry and at some point they started feeling this sense of entitlement to these things.
So much has all ready been stated by posters in this thread and a lot of it covers pretty much how I feel so I almost feel it un-necessary to toss in my thoughts on this subject. However, I would like to say I think if we step back and look at the larger picture it is an amalgamation of many things that created this atmosphere, and to try to push blame onto anyone specific for how we got here(and yes we are here with this Us vs Them mentality - we've been here for a long time) is not very productive.
Okay. We understand that the life of a developer is hard. Has this been therapeutic for everyone? Good. Can we have some reviews or articles about games now?
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
Gaming is about the only industry I know where they want to reduce commincation, feedback and contact with the customer. Most other industries would drool to get those kind of connections with the purchasers and users of thier products.
Yes there can be a bad signal to noise ratio and yes forums can get pretty vitriolic. There ARE ways to deal with that however. Generaly don't have your Developers interact DIRECTLY with your customers. They should be READING the forums...but in general shouldn't do much POSTING. Frankly, most Developers lack the people skills to deal with the public directly. Letting them talk privately with a limited/trusted group, fine..... but letting them POST publicaly, unless they actualy happen to have good communication skills...usualy back fires. Same for most executives, frankly.
The people that you WANT keeping the lines of communication open are your customer relations folks....and you DEFINATELY want these guys to be approachable to the public. Hiring people with good skills for that position can really be invaluable for a company. They can sift through the noise on public channels to come up with pretty good actionable info for developers to work with. They can also can also keep your user base informed about the company and the product without putting thier foot in thier mouths. The problem that many companies have is that good CRM skills are NOT easy to come by and far too often companies don't make adequite investments in this area. Some don't even have dedicated CRM people, others rely on unpaid volunteers, low paid grunts or the CEO's nephew to do most of this work. Many times when they do hire CRM folk, it's done through thier marketing agencies and often these people are unfamiliar with the type of audiance (gamers) that they are dealing with and make idiotic mistakes. However, a skilled CRM person who actualy understands a products audience well can be worth thier weight in gold to a company.
I work for a Software company as an Engineer. We're in B2B and B2C software...not Entertainment or Gaming....but I can tell you that one thing absolutely holds true across all development verticals. Developers, Exec's, Project Leads may all THINK they know what works for a product...but until it's in the hands of actual end users... you really don't know squat.... you are just taking your best guess. You may think you have absolutely the most clever design in the world....but if it's not meeting the end users needs... you screwed up. Very often Developers do get hit with big surprises when their products first get into the hands of customers. One thing is true...if the product isn't being used the way you think it should be..it is NEVER, EVER, EVER the end users fault. You as a developer screwed up somewhere....whether it's in your basic design, or training or documentation for the product, or how inutitive it is to use, or targeting the right audiance or making sure your communications people set the right expectations. However, you'll never know that unless you've got good lines of communication open with the users of your products. They may, often don't know HOW to make the product better... but they definately know what is or isn't working well for them...and at the end of the day, that's really all that matters.
First, you are wrong on every business in the world dying to get the level of communication that MMOs get from their customers. If that were the case they would have forums and many other forms of communication open to allow customers to give that feedback, but they don't because they don't want it. And it is because nobody agrees on a product, everyone wants something different. So getting a million suggestions that all contradict each other gains you nothing.
Second, creating software that a company uses to aid its business is drastically different then creating an MMO. The reason is simple, when you buy a product to aid your business you use it for that purpose. You don't try to exploit it, cheat it, abuse it in ways it wasn't mean to be because you gain nothing from that. With an MMO half the gamers are in there trying to exploit the game and use it in ways to give them an advantage over everyone else. And that one reason is the same reason why all those "great" player ideas can't be implemented. The majority of them have major flaws in them that will be exploited by other players instantly.
So be happy you create software for people who want to use it specifically for what it does. You will also get much better feedback then from the armchair designers that think they have all the answers to what makes an MMO amazing without thinking of how broken their ideas are.
SnarlingWolf,
1) "Every" Company in the world? No....that's an absolute... I don't deal in absolutes. The VAST majority of companies out there.... absolutely! You can bet your bottom dollar that they DO utilize Forums, Blogs, Survey's, Social Networking Sites, Live Events and just about every form of communication you can imagine to try to do just that. They invest big bucks for it too. It's one of the biggest growth fields in business services, in fact. My company is an SaS provider in that area... so I know a little bit about the subject. If corporations didn't value that sort of communication....they wouldn't be paying us 6 & 7 figure yearly fee's to provide such services... but they do..... and we're small potatoes compared with some providers in the area.
Heck there are even service providers out there who's entire business consists of monitoring what's being said about corporations on unofficial channels (3rd party forums, blogs, Twitter, Social Networking sites) and providing live feeds of that info to corporations.
It's a bit of an overhyped buzzword right now... but this is a big part of the core of what B.I. (Business Inteligence) is all about. Take a look at any Technology trade magizine geared toward the Corporate World and you'll find a good 50% of the content is geared toward B.I.
2) Yes there is a large noise to signal ratio (especialy in Entertainment verticles)....and seperating and condensing good inteligence from that is more art then science. However it's not an impossible task. Furthermore, you don't get a "Million" different opinions on any given issue... realisticaly you get maybe 6 or 7..... you have a million different iterations of expressing those same 6 or 7...but that's workable....and in the end it's all about looking at what your target audience...and how much of it...is doing.
3) EVERY software producer....whether they produce for business, government, public has to deal seriously with people that are going to want to "exploit it, cheat it, abuse it". Developers who produce for the corporate world are no less affected by that then Game Developers.... often more. When a Game Developer has it's product exploited, all that usualy happens is that some guy gets to max level in a make believe world. A developer of corporate software getting exploited can result in million dollar losses... from a single incident. In can result in peoples life savings being lost....and federal investigations. Game Developers have it easy in that regards....and it shows. In fact, most of them spend only a fraction of what corporate developers do on securing thier products. Blizzard screws up thier security...some guy one shots a digital Dragon.... I screw up my security... I might get to have a chat with the FBI cyber-crimes unit. Which would you worry about more?
4) EVERY Developer creates thier products for people who, ultimately, want to use it for what it does. In the case of business, that is to help the business be proftiable. In the case of MMO's it (supposedly) is to ENTERTAIN them.
I won't pretend that there is NO difference between producing for different verticles. There are....and big ones.... but some basic things hold true accross verticles. Any developer that doesn't recognize that is deluding themselves.
Nobody tells Ford to do these things, or General Mills, Dell, Sony, General Electric, Nike, etc. But yet when it comes to MMOs players DEMAND that this happens and that they get this level of input in the product.
I think that is the true issue here, the players expect and demand way too much from an industry and at some point they started feeling this sense of entitlement to these things.
No company that produced stereos, refrigerators, or cars that were in as shoddy shape as MMOs would be in business very long.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
I do think the situation between players and developers has gotten bad the last few years. However, after leadership training I believe it takes a lot before the situation cannot be fixed. Here's my recommendations. They go to game developers as opposed to players because unless developers use them they won't attend (at least in my experience).
1 - Townhall meetings - Developers have to have regular meetings with players to find out what's bugging them, or even just hang out with them and answer questions. It's the fastest way of showing you care about the players by opening up lines of communication. Questions asked should be posted on the forums with answers. There shouldn't be 'I don't know' as an answer. Those in charge of one aspect should answer the question when they can. It doesn't have to last four hours, but it can happen several times over a few days.
2 - Polls - Developers should ask their players about the game and the content they would like to play in game and on the forums. These should be resources developers use to plan content in the future. People who don't vote might not get what they'd like for the game. It's like real life. You don't vote, you might be unhappy with the result. The thing is, developers actually have to develop based on what players would like or it comes across as 'See we asked you what you wanted but we're going to spend the next six expansions on PvP cause we like PvP.'
3 - Show people you play - Developers or community representatives should pop into game from time to time. Answer questions, chat, play minigames with people, host mini events, hold trivia games, be human. Otherwise players get the idea that developers just aren't in game, even if they are regularly. Events don't have to be large scale, but showing up from time to time helps the community associate the developers with friendly people.
4 - Discuss Loot - This is a big issue on why players often fight with developers. I think mainly it's because Developers refuse to discuss the loot system. Players who regularly get poor loot and complain often times get told 'it's fair and balanced' but won't get to see examples of how it works. If you're playing a board game with someone whom you suspect is cheating. You confront them on it in such a way as to see if they're actually cheating. If you're playing monopoly with someone who is the banker who you think is stealing money you put the money where you can see it. No one accepts 'I'm not cheating but I like the money right here' If developers don't regularly examine loot tables, and show players how it works, then players think it's broken, even if it's not.
5 - Give News to Players - Currently when expansion news is approved by marketing it's sent in the following order. Websites (MMORPG/Massively/IGN) then Gaming Magazines then Stockholders/Outsiders, and finally players. Generally by the time players get the information it's so confusing or distorted that players don't know what's going on. This should include having Patch notes for expansions available BEFORE the patch is released. Yet gaming companies don't do that. Players aren't considered to be worth communication. Often times the players of the game don't get patch notes for several hours (or even days). That and often times there are stealth changes which should be a sin.
These are common reasons why developers don't seem to have very good trust and compassion from players. Players care about their game. They might not ever go to the movies, or out to eat, but the character they've created is often very important to them. Players however get really rotten treatment by developers though. Stealth nerfs, rebalancing without discussion or improving something else, decreasing loot while increasing difficulty, or even just simple lack of communication.
If there is a vaccum in terms of communication in a game, then people fill it with their own thoughts. If developers and community representatives don't show people their kindness, compassion, and willing to communicate then they come across as Aristocrats sitting in ivory towers.It comes across as players should be happy to pay for abuse. Players should be treated better then they currently are by many game developers. Unfortunately, there's almost no one to stand up in an official position against game developers, and say "What you're doing is wrong." Players can do it, and they get ignored.
There may come a time when players stop turning to game developers as being the solution though. Eventually it might just go back to console games and tabletop games. I hope that doesn't happen but if developers don't work with players to fix the lines of communication it will not be the players that suffer from loss of business.
There is no other business in the world were players demand something like this from the company. Doesn't that tell you the major flaw in player thinking when it comes to MMOs??
Nobody tells Ford to do these things, or General Mills, Dell, Sony, General Electric, Nike, etc. But yet when it comes to MMOs players DEMAND that this happens and that they get this level of input in the product.
I think that is the true issue here, the players expect and demand way too much from an industry and at some point they started feeling this sense of entitlement to these things.
No, actualy Ford, General Mills, Dell, Sony, GE and Nike DO EXACTLY these sort of things. They actualy initiate these sort of programs on thier own....because they understand the value of them. Alot of them actualy hire consulting companies (at a premium fee) to tell them how to do these things better.
As I sit here right now, I have a mailbox full of invites to "Live Webinars" from various vendors (roughly the equivalent of the Town Hall Meeting idea). I've got my Dell reps direct dial number and I've talked to him plenty of times about product suggestions and feedback....in fact, he's called me on more then one occasion to get some feedback. Not only do I have the direct dial number for my account rep at my hosting vendor, but I have his cell phone number and a call escalation sheet for his supervisors going all the way up to a company VP just in case I'm not satisfied with the services I'm getting. I also have a monthly occuring standing meeting with the Account Rep and one of his Engineers....just to discuss my satisfaction with the service and if there is anything I might want handled differently. Pretty much every vendor I deal with (even the ones who's products only cost $100) gives me access to thier forums, including support, Feedback/Suggestions and user groups...on most of those it's routiene to see the companies engineers posting on a regular (daily) basis. They won't talk about things that haven't been approved for public consumption...but thier pretty open about everything else. I also get more invites to fill out product surveys then I could possibly answer.
Granted, some of these things can't be done on the same scale with a customer spending $10 a month....and gamers tend to be pretty heated/passionate/vitriolic in thier opinions (although you should read some of Microsofts technical boards).... but the principle pretty much applies. Not only are many of the same things expected by many companies outside the gaming/entertainment vertical.....but most of those companies devote huge amounts of resources in providing them without any prompting....because they actually (many of them) understand the value of them.
Originally posted by Darth_Osor The solution is for software developers to stop releasing half finished software and expecting customers to not only eat the purchase price, but expecting them to continue to fund development to the point it should have been at release month to month. Until consumer protection laws apply to software the way they apply to more tangible items, what options do consumers have other than bitch or stop buying software period? Why should consumers have to eat that $50 and chalk up it up to lesson learned? If you buy a phone that doesn't work right or have promised features, you take it back and get a refund, but with software you're SOL. Software seems to be the only product where shoddy work is accepted and practically expected. If devs want to cry about customers being mean to them, just start giving refunds within a reasonable time frame to dissatisfied customers.
That's because software generally have free trials that usually do a better job hooking people than most other products. I don't get to test drive every iPod with my own music or camera for a night at the bars/clubs/parties. If you spend $50 on any product and find yourself dissatisfied, you probably do not deserve a refund. We live in the Information Age and there's so many reviews on all sorts of products that you should have a decent idea of the pros and cons of everything before you decide to invest yourself into anything.
This goes double for MMO's where you have open betas (which are very easy to get into) and free trials. About every MMO has free trials and the ones that don't are usually the bad ones anyway. At the very least if you are part of a group of MMO friends/circle, have one of you buy it and all of you try it out before purchasing, thjere's defintiely smart ways to go about it too so don't be a sucker. Not the companies fault if you feel your $50 is sleighted, only your own.
This thread has definetly shown me one thing, and in great detail at that, people who live in a crazy fantasy world in their mind will always live there.
They will always be convinced that every company wants their feedback and is dying for it.
They will always think that they understand the business better then everyone else.
They will always think they're entitled to way more then they actually are.
They will always be ignored by the devs, because they have no clue how human beings, and the world, actually work.
Actually I don't demand anything from MMO companies. Never have, never will. I don't say "Your game MUST have this." I am a strategiest. What I do say is if you do X you get Y. If you Don't do X you're going to end up with Z. Same with the post I recently made, if you read it, I discussed that without improving communication it might break down to where mmo gamers end up becoming tabletop gamers, at which point games lose their money and it will be very difficult to lure people back.
If developers or even websites such as MMORPG aren't interested in fixing the problem, then there's your answer. They have their priorities, you have yours. If you take the money you normally use on a mmo think of how many rpg books you can buy to play with real life friends. Go visit your local comic book shop to meet people. Or even just start on your own system and mmo.
We don't have to accept abuse, but breaking it involves leaving the abuser. If your favorite company doesn't value the players, you don't have to value them. It hurts to lose a favorite character, but isn't that better then just being mad at something you can't change?
Comments
dealaka I like your post! It's so true!!!!!!
Honestly I have not actively played for a while now(doesn't help that my current computer is a junk pile); however, I must say that one cannot just blame players for this. The companies are the one holding the cards. True the players help accelerate/accent the issue, but the ones who can stop/beat it are the card holders. But it would take work.
As for how to beat it. . . dealaka brings up many good points. I can recall back when I played The Fourth Coming of playing with the folk running the server and making the rules. It really helped me feel connected with them. There were also discussions between players and those in charge and news updates posted to keep players updated. I think part of my problem in the 'recent age' is that I keep expecting that play experience and am not finding it. Perhaps they have gotten too massive for me(if the crowd gets too big it will not be one community but rather several smaller communities sharing the same space. . . sorta like the big school versus small/medium school. The smaller schools often have stronger 'school spirit' and cohesion than the bigger schools. There are just TOO many people at the bigger schools for them to be as tightly nit as the smaller schools. In my experience of course).
Getting back on track there will always be drama chasers who must be involved in drama at all times(oh wait. . . most people call the drama queens don't they?); however, that is just to be expected. Every large group has a rotten apple or two to deal with. But the points dealaka brings up can definitely go a long way towards reducing drama from spreading uncontrollably like it seems to be doing these days(I gave up trying to follow game forums for the most part
).
As a final note the article is definitely right in that this us or them(or the with us or against us) attitude does not at all help solve the issues, it just sets the battle lines. And these battles waste resources/effort/time that could be spent much more productively. And perhaps worse these drawn battle lines could lead to the destruction of all that both sides hold dear.
Dealaka:
You make some really good points. If only they would read them. But sadly i douby any dev really reads it here. And after so much negative posts above yours i doubt they would have scrolled down. But still good points.
I know that codemasters here in europe does have dev chats with players from Lord of the Rings. From that player and guild houses emerged. I don't like LotrO myself but atleast they seem to care about their community. Also i heard blizzard has dev chats these days.
In defence of blizzard, yes they opend a shop but they send half the income on a bought ingame pet to chairity. Plus that its just a extra. Unlike the free to play MMORPG's where you can't really proceed without spending money in the item shops (allods you can't defeat bosses without expensive potions). So you can find them greedy but you don't have to buy those pets or pony's. Those who want can, others don't miss a thing and aren't punished in anyway for not buying items at the shop.
It looks like the discussion is actually about participation in the development process. This is an important meta-game hobby around MMORPGs. It is part of the culture with a long tradition, almost as old as internet gaming itself.
Developers are part of that culture and that is a well known fact. Now the problem is precisely, how can you include someone into a development process as part of a hobby, when it is at the same time a very complex creative process with a lot of people and resources involved. Things will change. Frequently. They don't pan out as hoped, often.
When developer Bob claims that the game is going to have 23 classes with 42 skilltrees, then he is mostly also stating that he really believes that this will be the case at release and that this is the current idea. This is an attempt to give something for the forum hobbyists to discuss. This was taken for granted often. Devs recognized this a few years ago already and often include some kind of disclaimer (…we plan, …we hope to ...), again to play towards the hobby game discussion culture. Then there are also press releases and pr stuff, things that are really "polished and public ready".
Companies and press often fail to make a clear distinction what is what. The rest is done by players who also don't make a distinction. This backfired and the result is that now all information shifts towards corporate speech (press release) as the "correct" way to handle the public (like in every other business).
It cannot be "solved" by making townhall meetings with devs and the like, as it misses the point entirely.
There is so much truth in this post. In so many forum post the players use some of the harshest words to describe the smallest problem they have with a game. Who can blame the developers for not wanting to go through all of the hate. And like you said, if players were civil about what they posted, they may actually be heard. And like you I only visited the forums a few years after I started MMOs and I was shocked. In game I had never seen and of this extreme hate going on. Its sad because the forums represent such a small portion of the player base, and yet the have managed to turn the best way to communicate with the devs into something the devs don't even want to read.
I SO agree with the OP. Couldn't have said it better!
Can you explain more how you mean that? Do you think "townhall meetings" are a wast of time, or do you think that it is taken alone not enough.
With the second I would agree, but I think it is obvious that it was ment that way by dealaka.
If you mean it the first way, could you please explain why, I didn't get it from your post.
Players know what they want.
You just can't ask them what it is.
The solution is for software developers to stop releasing half finished software and expecting customers to not only eat the purchase price, but expecting them to continue to fund development to the point it should have been at release month to month. Until consumer protection laws apply to software the way they apply to more tangible items, what options do consumers have other than bitch or stop buying software period? Why should consumers have to eat that $50 and chalk up it up to lesson learned? If you buy a phone that doesn't work right or have promised features, you take it back and get a refund, but with software you're SOL. Software seems to be the only product where shoddy work is accepted and practically expected.
If devs want to cry about customers being mean to them, just start giving refunds within a reasonable time frame to dissatisfied customers.
Very true article Jon - I think one of many ideas and ways this could be solved for many MMO's is to have 2 types of servers, much like the original EQ did, except they did it a bit differently then I am insisting.
think about all the problems that would be solved.
A pre-tram UO server with live events = 100k+ subs instantly
A Vanilla WoW server with live events = 2mil+ subs instantly
EQ server with the first MAYBE 2 x packs, maybe none at all wtih live events = 50k+ subs instantly
SWG server pre NGE = 75K+ subs instantly
you get my point - give players choice in what they play, give them live events, don't force changes al the time.
I play all ghame
Gaming is about the only industry I know where they want to reduce commincation, feedback and contact with the customer. Most other industries would drool to get those kind of connections with the purchasers and users of thier products.
Yes there can be a bad signal to noise ratio and yes forums can get pretty vitriolic. There ARE ways to deal with that however. Generaly don't have your Developers interact DIRECTLY with your customers. They should be READING the forums...but in general shouldn't do much POSTING. Frankly, most Developers lack the people skills to deal with the public directly. Letting them talk privately with a limited/trusted group, fine..... but letting them POST publicaly, unless they actualy happen to have good communication skills...usualy back fires. Same for most executives, frankly.
The people that you WANT keeping the lines of communication open are your customer relations folks....and you DEFINATELY want these guys to be approachable to the public. Hiring people with good skills for that position can really be invaluable for a company. They can sift through the noise on public channels to come up with pretty good actionable info for developers to work with. They can also can also keep your user base informed about the company and the product without putting thier foot in thier mouths. The problem that many companies have is that good CRM skills are NOT easy to come by and far too often companies don't make adequite investments in this area. Some don't even have dedicated CRM people, others rely on unpaid volunteers, low paid grunts or the CEO's nephew to do most of this work. Many times when they do hire CRM folk, it's done through thier marketing agencies and often these people are unfamiliar with the type of audiance (gamers) that they are dealing with and make idiotic mistakes. However, a skilled CRM person who actualy understands a products audience well can be worth thier weight in gold to a company.
I work for a Software company as an Engineer. We're in B2B and B2C software...not Entertainment or Gaming....but I can tell you that one thing absolutely holds true across all development verticals. Developers, Exec's, Project Leads may all THINK they know what works for a product...but until it's in the hands of actual end users... you really don't know squat.... you are just taking your best guess. You may think you have absolutely the most clever design in the world....but if it's not meeting the end users needs... you screwed up. Very often Developers do get hit with big surprises when their products first get into the hands of customers. One thing is true...if the product isn't being used the way you think it should be..it is NEVER, EVER, EVER the end users fault. You as a developer screwed up somewhere....whether it's in your basic design, or training or documentation for the product, or how inutitive it is to use, or targeting the right audiance or making sure your communications people set the right expectations. However, you'll never know that unless you've got good lines of communication open with the users of your products. They may, often don't know HOW to make the product better... but they definately know what is or isn't working well for them...and at the end of the day, that's really all that matters.
Ask the developers how I disagree with them.
With my 14.99 bitches.
BTW if people don't get that concept that as long as you're paying a monthly fee and complaining, that you're paying a monthly fee to complain;
INTRODUCING MY NEW MMO CALLED "ETERNAL DEVELOPMENT"! The game will never be made, but for the low price of 7.99 a month you can come to my forum and arm-chair developer pick apart every new idea I'll 'introduce' daily. Make yourself feel like a man as you berrate my 'permadeath' idea & my 'real cash or dirty pics of your Mama item shop that sells +2 everything'.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Having done quite a few beta tests I try to communicate to the development team the issues I experience with the game I happen to be testing. That being said the last few beta tests I have done I have noticed a distinct lack of communication from the development side of things. For example it use to be that you would say I found that when doing X I see this happening, you would post this in the beta development forums and put in a trouble ticket with the proper channels. At some point when enough people have been able to recreate or the dev team has been able to recreate the issue you would get a response that said either we see the issue and at the moment we have a fix or are working on one it shouldn't take too much to fix or this is a somewhat complex fix we are working on it and either have a time line or do not have a timeline for when a fix will be implemented.
Lately this is not the case, the line of communication that use to exist has broke down. Too often it seems that valid and legit gripes go unanswered or completely ignored when they still have months to correct them. I can understand if it is something that is going to take a lot of effort to correct but at least communicate that back to your customers all I am looking for is some acknowledgement that you have seen the issue and are working on it and do try to keep us informed about what you are doing. It seems that games are shrouded in mystery these days with no real information being passed on to the customers besides vague terminology or beating around the bush on issues. If you don’t have a good answer for a question or gripe then say so but also attempt to get that information and share it.
From my perspective the issue has been a game is advertised as X but when it releases it does not deliver and when your understandably upset customers voice their opinions about it all communication ceases or goes on the defensive. This is not to say that complaints from customers are not inappropriate there is a lot of venom shot at dev teams and so much inappropriate language and accusations made I really don’t blame some of the devs, CM's or whoever is responding to them to retaliate with a big FUUUUUUUU. Some appropriate manners from the gaming community are much needed but the anonymity of the internet provides people a way to be incorrigible with no repercussions.
First, you are wrong on every business in the world dying to get the level of communication that MMOs get from their customers. If that were the case they would have forums and many other forms of communication open to allow customers to give that feedback, but they don't because they don't want it. And it is because nobody agrees on a product, everyone wants something different. So getting a million suggestions that all contradict each other gains you nothing.
Second, creating software that a company uses to aid its business is drastically different then creating an MMO. The reason is simple, when you buy a product to aid your business you use it for that purpose. You don't try to exploit it, cheat it, abuse it in ways it wasn't mean to be because you gain nothing from that. With an MMO half the gamers are in there trying to exploit the game and use it in ways to give them an advantage over everyone else. And that one reason is the same reason why all those "great" player ideas can't be implemented. The majority of them have major flaws in them that will be exploited by other players instantly.
So be happy you create software for people who want to use it specifically for what it does. You will also get much better feedback then from the armchair designers that think they have all the answers to what makes an MMO amazing without thinking of how broken their ideas are.
There is no other business in the world were players demand something like this from the company. Doesn't that tell you the major flaw in player thinking when it comes to MMOs??
Nobody tells Ford to do these things, or General Mills, Dell, Sony, General Electric, Nike, etc. But yet when it comes to MMOs players DEMAND that this happens and that they get this level of input in the product.
I think that is the true issue here, the players expect and demand way too much from an industry and at some point they started feeling this sense of entitlement to these things.
So much has all ready been stated by posters in this thread and a lot of it covers pretty much how I feel so I almost feel it un-necessary to toss in my thoughts on this subject. However, I would like to say I think if we step back and look at the larger picture it is an amalgamation of many things that created this atmosphere, and to try to push blame onto anyone specific for how we got here(and yes we are here with this Us vs Them mentality - we've been here for a long time) is not very productive.
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/4248/page/1
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/staffblog/052010/6160_The-Customer-is-Not-Always-Right.html
http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/feature/4254/Jon-Wood-Us-vs-Them.html
Okay. We understand that the life of a developer is hard. Has this been therapeutic for everyone? Good. Can we have some reviews or articles about games now?
"Never met a pack of humans that were any different. Look at the idiots that get elected every couple of years. You really consider those guys more mature than us? The only difference between us and them is, when they gank some noobs and take their stuff, the noobs actually die." - Madimorga
They did it?! How dare they!
SnarlingWolf,
1) "Every" Company in the world? No....that's an absolute... I don't deal in absolutes. The VAST majority of companies out there.... absolutely! You can bet your bottom dollar that they DO utilize Forums, Blogs, Survey's, Social Networking Sites, Live Events and just about every form of communication you can imagine to try to do just that. They invest big bucks for it too. It's one of the biggest growth fields in business services, in fact. My company is an SaS provider in that area... so I know a little bit about the subject. If corporations didn't value that sort of communication....they wouldn't be paying us 6 & 7 figure yearly fee's to provide such services... but they do..... and we're small potatoes compared with some providers in the area.
Heck there are even service providers out there who's entire business consists of monitoring what's being said about corporations on unofficial channels (3rd party forums, blogs, Twitter, Social Networking sites) and providing live feeds of that info to corporations.
It's a bit of an overhyped buzzword right now... but this is a big part of the core of what B.I. (Business Inteligence) is all about. Take a look at any Technology trade magizine geared toward the Corporate World and you'll find a good 50% of the content is geared toward B.I.
2) Yes there is a large noise to signal ratio (especialy in Entertainment verticles)....and seperating and condensing good inteligence from that is more art then science. However it's not an impossible task. Furthermore, you don't get a "Million" different opinions on any given issue... realisticaly you get maybe 6 or 7..... you have a million different iterations of expressing those same 6 or 7...but that's workable....and in the end it's all about looking at what your target audience...and how much of it...is doing.
3) EVERY software producer....whether they produce for business, government, public has to deal seriously with people that are going to want to "exploit it, cheat it, abuse it". Developers who produce for the corporate world are no less affected by that then Game Developers.... often more. When a Game Developer has it's product exploited, all that usualy happens is that some guy gets to max level in a make believe world. A developer of corporate software getting exploited can result in million dollar losses... from a single incident. In can result in peoples life savings being lost....and federal investigations. Game Developers have it easy in that regards....and it shows. In fact, most of them spend only a fraction of what corporate developers do on securing thier products. Blizzard screws up thier security...some guy one shots a digital Dragon.... I screw up my security... I might get to have a chat with the FBI cyber-crimes unit. Which would you worry about more?
4) EVERY Developer creates thier products for people who, ultimately, want to use it for what it does. In the case of business, that is to help the business be proftiable. In the case of MMO's it (supposedly) is to ENTERTAIN them.
I won't pretend that there is NO difference between producing for different verticles. There are....and big ones.... but some basic things hold true accross verticles. Any developer that doesn't recognize that is deluding themselves.
No company that produced stereos, refrigerators, or cars that were in as shoddy shape as MMOs would be in business very long.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
No, actualy Ford, General Mills, Dell, Sony, GE and Nike DO EXACTLY these sort of things. They actualy initiate these sort of programs on thier own....because they understand the value of them. Alot of them actualy hire consulting companies (at a premium fee) to tell them how to do these things better.
As I sit here right now, I have a mailbox full of invites to "Live Webinars" from various vendors (roughly the equivalent of the Town Hall Meeting idea). I've got my Dell reps direct dial number and I've talked to him plenty of times about product suggestions and feedback....in fact, he's called me on more then one occasion to get some feedback. Not only do I have the direct dial number for my account rep at my hosting vendor, but I have his cell phone number and a call escalation sheet for his supervisors going all the way up to a company VP just in case I'm not satisfied with the services I'm getting. I also have a monthly occuring standing meeting with the Account Rep and one of his Engineers....just to discuss my satisfaction with the service and if there is anything I might want handled differently. Pretty much every vendor I deal with (even the ones who's products only cost $100) gives me access to thier forums, including support, Feedback/Suggestions and user groups...on most of those it's routiene to see the companies engineers posting on a regular (daily) basis. They won't talk about things that haven't been approved for public consumption...but thier pretty open about everything else. I also get more invites to fill out product surveys then I could possibly answer.
Granted, some of these things can't be done on the same scale with a customer spending $10 a month....and gamers tend to be pretty heated/passionate/vitriolic in thier opinions (although you should read some of Microsofts technical boards).... but the principle pretty much applies. Not only are many of the same things expected by many companies outside the gaming/entertainment vertical.....but most of those companies devote huge amounts of resources in providing them without any prompting....because they actually (many of them) understand the value of them.
That's because software generally have free trials that usually do a better job hooking people than most other products. I don't get to test drive every iPod with my own music or camera for a night at the bars/clubs/parties. If you spend $50 on any product and find yourself dissatisfied, you probably do not deserve a refund. We live in the Information Age and there's so many reviews on all sorts of products that you should have a decent idea of the pros and cons of everything before you decide to invest yourself into anything.
This goes double for MMO's where you have open betas (which are very easy to get into) and free trials. About every MMO has free trials and the ones that don't are usually the bad ones anyway. At the very least if you are part of a group of MMO friends/circle, have one of you buy it and all of you try it out before purchasing, thjere's defintiely smart ways to go about it too so don't be a sucker. Not the companies fault if you feel your $50 is sleighted, only your own.
Yep - market researchers. ^_^
This thread has definetly shown me one thing, and in great detail at that, people who live in a crazy fantasy world in their mind will always live there.
They will always be convinced that every company wants their feedback and is dying for it.
They will always think that they understand the business better then everyone else.
They will always think they're entitled to way more then they actually are.
They will always be ignored by the devs, because they have no clue how human beings, and the world, actually work.
Actually I don't demand anything from MMO companies. Never have, never will. I don't say "Your game MUST have this." I am a strategiest. What I do say is if you do X you get Y. If you Don't do X you're going to end up with Z. Same with the post I recently made, if you read it, I discussed that without improving communication it might break down to where mmo gamers end up becoming tabletop gamers, at which point games lose their money and it will be very difficult to lure people back.
If developers or even websites such as MMORPG aren't interested in fixing the problem, then there's your answer. They have their priorities, you have yours. If you take the money you normally use on a mmo think of how many rpg books you can buy to play with real life friends. Go visit your local comic book shop to meet people. Or even just start on your own system and mmo.
We don't have to accept abuse, but breaking it involves leaving the abuser. If your favorite company doesn't value the players, you don't have to value them. It hurts to lose a favorite character, but isn't that better then just being mad at something you can't change?