You guys must be new to the MMO community. I bet you think MMO = Genre too.
You'll see. You guys getting what you think you want has ruined MMO games. AO is now just a standard MMO that has lost its direction. It no longer has anything to stand out from the crowd.
IF you had any experience in the MMO world over the past several years, you would see that all the devs that crumble from their original goal to placate the community have tried to please everyone, and have failed. Its one thing to create a game and then take little tidbits and improvements from the community, its another to create an entirely different game, and barely be able to piece it together because its all over the place now. Thats now why Albion Online, a game meant for UO vets, is now a fully instanced world, with safe areas, private dungeons/islands/homes and a shit ton of other features that are anti-uo.
I played each test so far. I honestly feel the game is "meh". It has nothing special going for it other than the cross compatibility. Thats the only thing that draws me to it. Being able to play on my tablet, pc and phone. Otherwise, its really quite bland, not challenging, safe and boring.
I played UO back in the day, and came back to it just a couple months ago. Still love all the options you can do in that game, from mining to hunting dragons. Now I see a game called Albion Online, and it has the same over head view like UO, and has a huge sandbox too. To me it looks like an updated version of UO. So really is that what this new game is? That's not a bad thing BTW.
Prove that UO would have died without Trammel. Oh you can't? So it's just some random dude's opinion? Gotcha.
EA/OSI employees stated it on numerous occasions and sales charts posted here and elsewhere where UO experienced a sales increase rate that lasted a few YEARS after Ttammel was released seem to back the assertion up.
Exactly. UO, and later EVE, have provided us with over a decade of consistent proof that even in a PVP sandbox MMO, only 20% of your playerbase is going to PVP. To create an environment where the players don't have reasonable escape from PVP activity would be a game ender, at least in the NA/EU markets. In the eastern markets it seems that once you cross mid-level PVP it's all PVP zones.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
There will never be a UO 2.0 - and that is very sad.
At the same time, even if the perfect UO 2.0 were made, I probably wouldn't enjoy it. Tastes change, especially considering it's been well over a decade since the height of my UO play time.
its surely the closest thing to UO you are getting these days. hell, its the only sandbox mmorpg that is releasing in the next 12 months. there is absolutely no competition, so this game will be filled by tons of players that are still waiting 2 to 4 years for games like camelot unchained, crowfall and star citizen.
yeah, every game suffers from casuals demanding more casual game systems. trammel really made uo basically into a pve game. in albion online, gladly, there is no safe zones in the high end areas, only in the newbie area, which won't matter anyway.
yeah, every game suffers from casuals demanding more casual game systems. trammel really made uo basically into a pve game.
Trammel was one of the greatest revelations in MMOs and outside of CCP, no one else seemed to pay attention to what it revealed about sandbox-focused MMOs with PVP. 80% of the players left Felucca when the Trammel facet appeared.
That sounds horrible until you consider it is consistent with every heavily invested playstyle in those games. Plenty may dabble in crafting, but how many dedicated crafters are in your guilds? 1 out of 5 members? Maybe even less? How about dedicated healers? Raid leaders?
20% of your playerbase engaging in PVP is normal. Would it be nice to have more? Sure! Sometimes you do. However, if everyone in your sandbox game was baking bread, you'd nerf breadbaking so people would craft other things. If everyone in your sandbox game was a treasure hunter, you'd nerf treasure hunting so they go enjoy the other aspects. 1 in 5 of your players getting invested in any activity seems pretty normal.
PVP, unlike most activities, directly affects other players. There is nothing indirect about player stabbing, killing, and looting another player. Until one can actively bake bread at PVPers or "mine up in their face" it will be hard to explain to PVPers why the rest of the game world would rather proceed a bit more insulated from them. Trammel didn't prove that open world PVP was a failure. It proved thet it worked. What it proved was that it fails when done intrusively and invasively.
EVE Online created the relatively safe area of Empire space. It's not 100% safe, but the average player can go about their day in High Security space with very little to worry about. Then ther's Low Sec and then Nullsec, the latter being home to the massive battles, sovereignty of systems and territory control. That 20% rears its head again. Actually, it rears nothing, as it has been standing tall since Trammel and all throughout EVE Online history. It's been screaming "Give the 20% an awesome experience, but not at the expense of everyone else's" and that's kind of fallien on deaf ears. Devs constantly want to try to get other players into PVP. They seem obsessed with this fantasized game experience where everyone is PVPing.
As the developer daydream sets in...
The naked herb gatherer (in many MMOs, no armor means more capacity for items and no decay/repairs) gets attacked and he turns around, draws his sword and says "Aha! A battle is what you want? Then a battle you shall have!"
The miner, overloaded with ore and dragging his stamina-challenged ass back to town for 20 minutes pauses, looks to the sky and says "Deities above, if only a roving band of bored PKs descended upon me right now. I am but three minutes from town and I have naught to show for it but this one sack containing everything I have spent the past hour working for. Show mercy and provide some true adventure!"
The amazing battle of the 40-man raid party vs the nefarious, resist-empowered, overly-hitpointed boss monster has brought both sides to near death, where only a few more blows and the fate of the team will be decided. It is at that moment that the remaining raiders collectively ponder how awesome it would be if right now a bored troll would smash into the room and drop a nuke; wiping the party, getting the last hit on the boss, and fleeing with the rare drop that they've run this quest for the 20th time to get.
Until the day comes that a tailor can royally cock up a PVP match, many devs and players will still have trouble figuring out 20% is often a good percentage and piling them onto the other 80% is often a bad way to go about things.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Trammel was indeed a revelation of some kind: it revealed that game companies rather make a quick buck by catering to the casual masses, than stick with their vision of a great game. Trammel essentially provided a "pvp-off" switch for everyone, which made this open world sandbox into carebear-heaven. people don't like to be pked? i got news for you pal, play one of the million casual themepark mmos, and stop trying to ruin the few good sandbox games for those people, who actually like them.
i guess some people just see what they want to see. really, noone forces you to play a game that actually has consequences when you die, some people just prefer it, because it makes playing more thrilling. but if you don't enjoy that, you are really on the lucky side, because most game companies just cater to the masses and therefore there is plenty games for you to choose from where your precious loot never gets touched by anyone. there is still more than enough people who like playing more exiting games, and i wouldn't call the developers stupid, only because they don't casually compromise their vision for any possible buck that could be made from it. i call it integrity. alot of those games are still running successfully, and running for a long time. but if you prefer to ignore reality, your choice.
i guess some people just see what they want to see. really, noone forces you to play a game that actually has consequences when you die, some people just prefer it, because it makes playing more thrilling. but if you don't enjoy that, you are really on the lucky side, because most game companies just cater to the masses and therefore there is plenty games for you to choose from where your precious loot never gets touched by anyone. there is still more than enough people who like playing more exiting games, and i wouldn't call the developers stupid, only because they don't casually compromise their vision for any possible buck that could be made from it. i call it integrity. alot of those games are still running successfully, and running for a long time. but if you prefer to ignore reality, your choice.
Preference is fine. We get that. The problem is, there are not enough players who prefer harsh death penalties and FFA PvP to sustain an MMO with a healthy playerbase, big enough to fund a decent sized dev team.
That's why most developers will rather develop an MMO where the players can choose between PvP and PvE.
And for the record (about the millionth of time). Trammel is what saved UO from dying a lot sooner than it did. The subscription numbers practically doubled after Trammel was introduced. It was the Age of Shadows that introduced an item grind that killed UO, since it was at that point where they turned away from offering a sandbox with low grind and a lots of RP opportunities, and towards a generic gear treadmill MMO, which other games like EverQuest and WoW did a lot better.
i guess some people just see what they want to see. really, noone forces you to play a game that actually has consequences when you die, some people just prefer it, because it makes playing more thrilling. but if you don't enjoy that, you are really on the lucky side, because most game companies just cater to the masses and therefore there is plenty games for you to choose from where your precious loot never gets touched by anyone. there is still more than enough people who like playing more exiting games, and i wouldn't call the developers stupid, only because they don't casually compromise their vision for any possible buck that could be made from it. i call it integrity. alot of those games are still running successfully, and running for a long time. but if you prefer to ignore reality, your choice.
Have you actually ever read or listened to RG's accounts of their vision for UO? They didn't really have one, they essentially didn't even expect people play it, nor know what to expect going forward. They were making it up as they went, how else do you do that other than react to feedback?
Here's what happened, they didn't know how people would approach the freedom they were given... people used that freedom to prey on weaker players, they made changes to address that. Regardless of the tears from griefers it caused, that are obviously still falling. If people didn't do dumb shit when they're given freedom this never would have happened. They have no one to blame but themselves.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
i guess some people just see what they want to see. really, noone forces you to play a game that actually has consequences when you die, some people just prefer it, because it makes playing more thrilling. but if you don't enjoy that, you are really on the lucky side, because most game companies just cater to the masses and therefore there is plenty games for you to choose from where your precious loot never gets touched by anyone. there is still more than enough people who like playing more exiting games, and i wouldn't call the developers stupid, only because they don't casually compromise their vision for any possible buck that could be made from it. i call it integrity. alot of those games are still running successfully, and running for a long time. but if you prefer to ignore reality, your choice.
Have you actually ever read or listened to RG's accounts of their vision for UO? They didn't really have one, they essentially didn't even expect people play it, nor know what to expect going forward. They were making it up as they went, how else do you do that other than react to feedback?
Here's what happened, they didn't know how people would approach the freedom they were given... people used that freedom to prey on weaker players, they made changes to address that. Regardless of the tears from griefers it caused, that are obviously still falling. If people didn't do dumb shit when they're given freedom this never would have happened. They have no one to blame but themselves.
Here is what ACTUALLY happened. They created a game that was supposed to be the spiritual successor to UO. Then they sold founder packs. People who spent money got to try out the alpha and beta. There was no NDA. They had to cater to the idiots who only THINK they could play a true PvP game. So a ton of people got to voice their opinions. And because the developers are sellouts they literally created a new game to cater to all the people. So now they have a generic zone based game.
Griefing was only an issue in UO to people who were not PvP players. In a PvP game you need to know how to survive. Idiots will keep trying to use the same gate to get somewhere over and over regardless of getting pk'd. A PvP player will either fight to get through, or find another way around. UO always offered another way around. It was an open world. Another thing that Albion is NOT.
If the world is built properly, with good rules like UO then Pking isnt an issue. Unless you are a carebear. Unlike many of the posters here I actually played UO. And it worked well. Some people just wanted NO danger. And that is the only reason Trammel existed. Not because Pking was rampant. You could always go somewhere else or achieve your goal another way in UO.
DEvs should never listen to the community unless there are bugs and broken things. Pleasing the community is never a good way to design anything. People think they know what they want but are wrong almost all the time. In games and in life its the same thing.
DEvs should never listen to the community unless there are bugs and broken things. Pleasing the community is never a good way to design anything. People think they know what they want but are wrong almost all the time. In games and in life its the same thing.
"Pleasing the community is never a good way to design anything."
I don't necessarily see it that way, and here's why. I'm of the view that pleasing the people paying for your entertainment service is of utmost priority. However, giving them exactly what they want isn't always the best way to go about it, and if I am reading you correctly, we are both on the same page about that part.
The below copy is an excerpt from an article I had written in 2007 about a developer discussion that tackles this very topic. It addresses your points but I feel it may also explain how the developer can maintain a focus on pleasing the community in the process.
Jessica Mulligan’s Pink Ponies are Real
Jessica presented a scenario that may seem farfetched, but anyone who has played MMOs for a while can attest is a very real possibility and something to be prepared for. What if several creative and determined individuals started a push to turn all of the ships into Pink Ponies? The panel goes through all the motions, does all the paperwork, and completes all the requested tasks - in the end, they bring forth everything necessary to put in the request to change all ships into Pink Ponies.
Do you tell them “No, you cannot have all ships turned into pink ponies?” This is the spot where I don’t feel the discussion really made the headway it should have, as it became wrapped up in this being the final step - the place where the devs either stamp APPROVED or HELL NO on the paperwork. Bartle presented that to say NO at this point is to paint the whole thing as a facade. To say YES is even worse.
Hilmar tried to briefly explain where things go from there, but he didn’t press the issue. The issue got stuck on “Do you say Yes or do you say No?”
The Pink Ponies are a perfect example of how the Council of Stellar Management will be an asset to the EVE Community. The important information gained from the Council of Stellar Management isn’t so much the offered solution as it is identification of an actual issue and the reasons for it.
If the players want Pink Ponies, the documentation and discussion will show why, because players aren’t asking for pink ponies - they are asking for a concern to be addressed and pink ponies is the best solution that they came up with. Maybe the problem is that players are sick of several years of just rust and grey as the only two ship colors. Maybe they are looking for more levity in the game. Maybe pink ponies are all the rage right now and people simply want them everywhere. By the process of the Council, these concerns and wants are identified and expanded upon. In the event that “all ships need to be pink ponies” turns out to be their solution, the devs can offer alternate solutions to the problem based on why they asked for the particular solution. They’re sick of the grey and rust? Maybe more colorful textures on ships is a viable solution. Maybe ship dyes are a solution. The game lacks levity? Maybe a module that allows you to turn your ship into a pink pony when fitted and activated is the solution. Maybe a “pink pony event” where all ships are pink ponies temporarily or some other such nonsense is the solution.
Whatever the case may be, there are issues and problems that the players want resolved. The CSM provides a structured manner in which they can be identified and documented and, as a result, more than likely properly solved. It is system where both players and devs can work together to improve our game world and virtual community, and I really believe it is the next step in productive interaction with a virtual world community.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Trammel was one of the greatest revelations in MMOs and outside of CCP, no one else seemed to pay attention to what it revealed about sandbox-focused MMOs with PVP. 80% of the players left Felucca when the Trammel facet appeared.
That sounds horrible until you consider it is consistent with every heavily invested playstyle in those games. Plenty may dabble in crafting, but how many dedicated crafters are in your guilds? 1 out of 5 members? Maybe even less? How about dedicated healers? Raid leaders?
20% of your playerbase engaging in PVP is normal. Would it be nice to have more? Sure! Sometimes you do. However, if everyone in your sandbox game was baking bread, you'd nerf breadbaking so people would craft other things. If everyone in your sandbox game was a treasure hunter, you'd nerf treasure hunting so they go enjoy the other aspects. 1 in 5 of your players getting invested in any activity seems pretty normal.
PVP, unlike most activities, directly affects other players. There is nothing indirect about player stabbing, killing, and looting another player. Until one can actively bake bread at PVPers or "mine up in their face" it will be hard to explain to PVPers why the rest of the game world would rather proceed a bit more insulated from them. Trammel didn't prove that open world PVP was a failure. It proved thet it worked. What it proved was that it fails when done intrusively and invasively.
EVE Online created the relatively safe area of Empire space. It's not 100% safe, but the average player can go about their day in High Security space with very little to worry about. Then ther's Low Sec and then Nullsec, the latter being home to the massive battles, sovereignty of systems and territory control. That 20% rears its head again. Actually, it rears nothing, as it has been standing tall since Trammel and all throughout EVE Online history. It's been screaming "Give the 20% an awesome experience, but not at the expense of everyone else's" and that's kind of fallien on deaf ears. Devs constantly want to try to get other players into PVP. They seem obsessed with this fantasized game experience where everyone is PVPing.
As the developer daydream sets in...
The naked herb gatherer (in many MMOs, no armor means more capacity for items and no decay/repairs) gets attacked and he turns around, draws his sword and says "Aha! A battle is what you want? Then a battle you shall have!"
The miner, overloaded with ore and dragging his stamina-challenged ass back to town for 20 minutes pauses, looks to the sky and says "Deities above, if only a roving band of bored PKs descended upon me right now. I am but three minutes from town and I have naught to show for it but this one sack containing everything I have spent the past hour working for. Show mercy and provide some true adventure!"
The amazing battle of the 40-man raid party vs the nefarious, resist-empowered, overly-hitpointed boss monster has brought both sides to near death, where only a few more blows and the fate of the team will be decided. It is at that moment that the remaining raiders collectively ponder how awesome it would be if right now a bored troll would smash into the room and drop a nuke; wiping the party, getting the last hit on the boss, and fleeing with the rare drop that they've run this quest for the 20th time to get.
Until the day comes that a tailor can royally cock up a PVP match, many devs and players will still have trouble figuring out 20% is often a good percentage and piling them onto the other 80% is often a bad way to go about things.
Their vision for a new UO is now bastardized. People want the game more care bear. This is why there are now PvE zones in a PvP game. This is NOT what the game was supposed to be like.
Also... I played Runescape and UO. Mainly UO. And I will tell you that you are categorically wrong. Runescape and UO are not a like. They played completely different.
So I stick to what I said... it is not an updated version of UO. UO was a virtual world. You can live or die anywhere. In this game, you cannot. In this game you can literally master EVERYTHING. In UO, you made a character that had limited abilities and could create a server wide name for themselves. This does not exist in Albion. There will be no Brit Graveyard hangout in Albion. People will avoid the open PvP areas.
Furthermore, I am in Alpha. I can back up each and every claim. People are literally avoiding PvP areas like the plague when they can. Where as in UO things were balanced because everyone was forced to coincide in the same world.
This, the issue i have with this game is that they change their vision and make the game more carebear, the worst mistake that you can do because when you try to please more people you end up to make both sides unhappy. Changing the core of the game mean your game is a very bad designed.
Safe zones apart and forcefull flagging, another great mistake is the jack of all trades, let your character grind everything and learn everything, make the game a grindfest that force everyone into the same oneside build to compete.
Last the game seems gear based, another big mistake, because you create a huge disparity in strenght between people who play 24/7 and own the bedt resources and small clans of friends or casuals.
Seems the developers are confused and don't have clear what they want and what kind of people they want to please. Probably they are scared that an hardcore sandbox don't make much revenue so they try to lure in more casuals.
Ah i forget the F2P revenue model, the worst for a sandbox and competitive rpg, expected exploits, hackers and bots.
Praise the gods that Darkfall is hopefully back as a sandbox (at least for the DnD version), also Crowfall and the Repopulation hardcore server are on the road.
Comments
You'll see. You guys getting what you think you want has ruined MMO games. AO is now just a standard MMO that has lost its direction. It no longer has anything to stand out from the crowd.
IF you had any experience in the MMO world over the past several years, you would see that all the devs that crumble from their original goal to placate the community have tried to please everyone, and have failed. Its one thing to create a game and then take little tidbits and improvements from the community, its another to create an entirely different game, and barely be able to piece it together because its all over the place now. Thats now why Albion Online, a game meant for UO vets, is now a fully instanced world, with safe areas, private dungeons/islands/homes and a shit ton of other features that are anti-uo.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
At the same time, even if the perfect UO 2.0 were made, I probably wouldn't enjoy it. Tastes change, especially considering it's been well over a decade since the height of my UO play time.
So you can't really compare it to UO very much (influenced maybe), when one of the main aspects of it is being pushed aside.
Trammel was one of the greatest revelations in MMOs and outside of CCP, no one else seemed to pay attention to what it revealed about sandbox-focused MMOs with PVP. 80% of the players left Felucca when the Trammel facet appeared.
That sounds horrible until you consider it is consistent with every heavily invested playstyle in those games. Plenty may dabble in crafting, but how many dedicated crafters are in your guilds? 1 out of 5 members? Maybe even less? How about dedicated healers? Raid leaders?
20% of your playerbase engaging in PVP is normal. Would it be nice to have more? Sure! Sometimes you do. However, if everyone in your sandbox game was baking bread, you'd nerf breadbaking so people would craft other things. If everyone in your sandbox game was a treasure hunter, you'd nerf treasure hunting so they go enjoy the other aspects. 1 in 5 of your players getting invested in any activity seems pretty normal.
PVP, unlike most activities, directly affects other players. There is nothing indirect about player stabbing, killing, and looting another player. Until one can actively bake bread at PVPers or "mine up in their face" it will be hard to explain to PVPers why the rest of the game world would rather proceed a bit more insulated from them. Trammel didn't prove that open world PVP was a failure. It proved thet it worked. What it proved was that it fails when done intrusively and invasively.
EVE Online created the relatively safe area of Empire space. It's not 100% safe, but the average player can go about their day in High Security space with very little to worry about. Then ther's Low Sec and then Nullsec, the latter being home to the massive battles, sovereignty of systems and territory control. That 20% rears its head again. Actually, it rears nothing, as it has been standing tall since Trammel and all throughout EVE Online history. It's been screaming "Give the 20% an awesome experience, but not at the expense of everyone else's" and that's kind of fallien on deaf ears. Devs constantly want to try to get other players into PVP. They seem obsessed with this fantasized game experience where everyone is PVPing.
As the developer daydream sets in...
The naked herb gatherer (in many MMOs, no armor means more capacity for items and no decay/repairs) gets attacked and he turns around, draws his sword and says "Aha! A battle is what you want? Then a battle you shall have!"
The miner, overloaded with ore and dragging his stamina-challenged ass back to town for 20 minutes pauses, looks to the sky and says "Deities above, if only a roving band of bored PKs descended upon me right now. I am but three minutes from town and I have naught to show for it but this one sack containing everything I have spent the past hour working for. Show mercy and provide some true adventure!"
The amazing battle of the 40-man raid party vs the nefarious, resist-empowered, overly-hitpointed boss monster has brought both sides to near death, where only a few more blows and the fate of the team will be decided. It is at that moment that the remaining raiders collectively ponder how awesome it would be if right now a bored troll would smash into the room and drop a nuke; wiping the party, getting the last hit on the boss, and fleeing with the rare drop that they've run this quest for the 20th time to get.
Until the day comes that a tailor can royally cock up a PVP match, many devs and players will still have trouble figuring out 20% is often a good percentage and piling them onto the other 80% is often a bad way to go about things.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
That's why most developers will rather develop an MMO where the players can choose between PvP and PvE.
And for the record (about the millionth of time). Trammel is what saved UO from dying a lot sooner than it did. The subscription numbers practically doubled after Trammel was introduced. It was the Age of Shadows that introduced an item grind that killed UO, since it was at that point where they turned away from offering a sandbox with low grind and a lots of RP opportunities, and towards a generic gear treadmill MMO, which other games like EverQuest and WoW did a lot better.
Here's what happened, they didn't know how people would approach the freedom they were given... people used that freedom to prey on weaker players, they made changes to address that. Regardless of the tears from griefers it caused, that are obviously still falling. If people didn't do dumb shit when they're given freedom this never would have happened. They have no one to blame but themselves.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Here is what ACTUALLY happened. They created a game that was supposed to be the spiritual successor to UO. Then they sold founder packs. People who spent money got to try out the alpha and beta. There was no NDA. They had to cater to the idiots who only THINK they could play a true PvP game. So a ton of people got to voice their opinions. And because the developers are sellouts they literally created a new game to cater to all the people. So now they have a generic zone based game.
Griefing was only an issue in UO to people who were not PvP players. In a PvP game you need to know how to survive. Idiots will keep trying to use the same gate to get somewhere over and over regardless of getting pk'd. A PvP player will either fight to get through, or find another way around. UO always offered another way around. It was an open world. Another thing that Albion is NOT.
If the world is built properly, with good rules like UO then Pking isnt an issue. Unless you are a carebear. Unlike many of the posters here I actually played UO. And it worked well. Some people just wanted NO danger. And that is the only reason Trammel existed. Not because Pking was rampant. You could always go somewhere else or achieve your goal another way in UO.
"Pleasing the community is never a good way to design anything."
I don't necessarily see it that way, and here's why. I'm of the view that pleasing the people paying for your entertainment service is of utmost priority. However, giving them exactly what they want isn't always the best way to go about it, and if I am reading you correctly, we are both on the same page about that part.
The below copy is an excerpt from an article I had written in 2007 about a developer discussion that tackles this very topic. It addresses your points but I feel it may also explain how the developer can maintain a focus on pleasing the community in the process.
Jessica presented a scenario that may seem farfetched, but anyone who has played MMOs for a while can attest is a very real possibility and something to be prepared for. What if several creative and determined individuals started a push to turn all of the ships into Pink Ponies? The panel goes through all the motions, does all the paperwork, and completes all the requested tasks - in the end, they bring forth everything necessary to put in the request to change all ships into Pink Ponies.
The Pink Ponies are a perfect example of how the Council of Stellar Management will be an asset to the EVE Community. The important information gained from the Council of Stellar Management isn’t so much the offered solution as it is identification of an actual issue and the reasons for it.
If the players want Pink Ponies, the documentation and discussion will show why, because players aren’t asking for pink ponies - they are asking for a concern to be addressed and pink ponies is the best solution that they came up with. Maybe the problem is that players are sick of several years of just rust and grey as the only two ship colors. Maybe they are looking for more levity in the game. Maybe pink ponies are all the rage right now and people simply want them everywhere. By the process of the Council, these concerns and wants are identified and expanded upon. In the event that “all ships need to be pink ponies” turns out to be their solution, the devs can offer alternate solutions to the problem based on why they asked for the particular solution. They’re sick of the grey and rust? Maybe more colorful textures on ships is a viable solution. Maybe ship dyes are a solution. The game lacks levity? Maybe a module that allows you to turn your ship into a pink pony when fitted and activated is the solution. Maybe a “pink pony event” where all ships are pink ponies temporarily or some other such nonsense is the solution.
Whatever the case may be, there are issues and problems that the players want resolved. The CSM provides a structured manner in which they can be identified and documented and, as a result, more than likely properly solved. It is system where both players and devs can work together to improve our game world and virtual community, and I really believe it is the next step in productive interaction with a virtual world community.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This, the issue i have with this game is that they change their vision and make the game more carebear, the worst mistake that you can do because when you try to please more people you end up to make both sides unhappy.
Changing the core of the game mean your game is a very bad designed.
Safe zones apart and forcefull flagging, another great mistake is the jack of all trades, let your character grind everything and learn everything, make the game a grindfest that force everyone into the same oneside build to compete.
Last the game seems gear based, another big mistake, because you create a huge disparity in strenght between people who play 24/7 and own the bedt resources and small clans of friends or casuals.
Seems the developers are confused and don't have clear what they want and what kind of people they want to please. Probably they are scared that an hardcore sandbox don't make much revenue so they try to lure in more casuals.
Ah i forget the F2P revenue model, the worst for a sandbox and competitive rpg, expected exploits, hackers and bots.
Praise the gods that Darkfall is hopefully back as a sandbox (at least for the DnD version), also Crowfall and the Repopulation hardcore server are on the road.
Crowfall - LiF: MMO - Darkfall: New Dawn
They are as obsessed with getting people into null/low sec/PVP as any other dev - proven by history of the game. Imo, it broke their game.