How about stop announcing titles 5-10 years in advance? How about stop doing stupid P2W pre release packages? Like Black Desert, it's already yelling "EPIC FAILURE" with their 3 lame packages. Just do one stupid package at a flat rate of 50 bucks and watch the millions roll in. It's these type of moves that kill a game before it even sees the light of day.
I'll respond with the obvious... 1 Who says they are 100% transparent,that would make the assumption developers are 100% honest with you the gamer. 2 You SHOULD question everything in life,almost nothing is black n white.Do you walk into a store to make a purchase without reading a label,or reading the warranty or reading it's statistics etc etc?Buy a car without a test drive ,buy a house without looking at it? 3 It is called "community" something developers keep telling us they are a part of. We are often not talking about single player games that are simple one time purchases,end of story,we are talking about games that are ongoing ,possibly 2/3/4/5+ years where your input and the community matters.
Why do you think there is such a thing as analytic's and website cookies?They want to know what YOU the gamer is thinking,where you go ,why should it be a one way street?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I think a better title would be "Developers Should Stop Making Pretend They're Being Transparent".
The whole "we want you to be apart of the process" thing is a way to sell founders packs and build a fan base of knights.
You can't blame the player base for having reactions to decisions, double talk, and mission statement changes in these situations. So NO, it's not us. It's them.
I have an idea, how about all developers STFU, stop announcing games 6 years before the half assed bug filled release date. Stop putting cruddy location fly-thrus, and showing concept art that doesn't even translate into the game. When the game is READY do your PR push then be accountable for the success or failure after.
"As far as the forum code of conduct, I would think it's a bit outdated and in need of a refre *CLOSED*"
I feel the exact opposite. It isn't the developers being transparent it is them saying they are but not doing it. If you give out a list of things you are going to do you must do that list. Especially if you did something like a kickstarter. I wouldn't think twice about giving any developer money that post a list of were the money going and follows up on that. It's developers saying I am going to do all these things and in the end only giving 1 out of the 10 promised things that are causing problems with a lot of gamers.
The problem is not transparency per say but not having a real development cycle like we used to have. It used to be you had a game alpha created that was used to draw in investors, then beta testers where brought in that didn't just play the game but tested it. Next would be the first time the average gamer heard of the game which would be the hype with a launch window. The problem now is developers sell testing invites to players before an alpha is even completed, who do not test the game and report bugs they just want to play it. Then these same players go onto sites like this one and complain about the bugs etc...
Yeah something that really baffles me is how easy gamer's become fanbois.
The example i am thinking of is that Star Citizen video that basically showed us a lot of OLD stuff but he was panning it off as a new 2.xx release update.
Then to make things worse ,again baffling me,the guy shows a camera fly by of a barren land mass that would take 1 person less than a day to prepare and everyone was like "looks amazing !!".
I often feel like i am watching some comedy TV show where the y have the laugh tracks and que cards telling people when to stand up and cheer.I still remember that one Everquest gaming expo where Georgeson stood up on stage and every single idea he smiles and TELLS people what a great idea instead of really asking but not like all those in attendance were not going to stand up and cheer anyhow.I mean he could have held a chicken in his hands and said "see amazing right?" and everyone would have cheered.
I would like to see a lot more criticism of game developers,they can most certainly 100% do a better job but we won't get there with so many EASY bandwagon jumping fanbois.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I dunno that, Guildwars (1) were also pretty closed in development. If EQN is a great game it will do fine and if not it will fail, being more open in development might give you a good pre-order number though but to be fair is that only needed for bad games.
If a great MMO suddenly released without us hearing a word of it before it released we will get it anyways rather soon.
It is different for crowdfunded games since a developer needs to update the investors. In other cases being "open" have mainly been used to hype mediocre games and maybe for selling life time subs for a certain MMO before launch that went F2P pretty soon anyways.
I don't care myself (unless as I said above it is CF), just get out a good game and Im a happy camper no matter if I hear about since the start of development or at launchday.
Yeah, this is exactly right. A game's success doesn't rely on how much information it gives out pre-launch.
The only exception being that if you're a B2P game, you want to get players hyped about your game. B2P games make all their money on the player thinking they might have fun, rather than whether the game actually is fun to that player. But hype doesn't require full transparency, and in fact is probably more easily accomplished via vague teasers and emotional cinematics.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
All this "transparency" and "being part of the dev process" BS came about because of crowdfunding. Backers have to be fooled into parting with their cash, and telling them they will be able to influence the dev process is a great way to get them to open their wallets.
Before Kickstarter, the game develepment was done under tight wraps, and people fought hard to get into closed beta tests so that they could get an advantage on everyone else. Some of them even tested and filed bug reports, but most just worked on winning strategies, lol
Before Kickstarter, the secretive and "closed" dev process produced some excellent games, so it's by no means a failed methodology. I'm not seeing the new openness producing anything of superior quality to what went before.
2 You SHOULD question everything in life,almost nothing is black n white.Do you walk into a store to make a purchase without reading a label,or reading the warranty or reading it's statistics etc etc?Buy a car without a test drive ,buy a house without looking at it?
I'm wondering who you actually work for . . . and if in fact you are a bot!
Players want to know what's going on with a game. If devs say nothing they're wasting time that could be used to hype the game and get the word out.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Honestly, I hate knowing about something I want before I can get it. As a kid when I saw the first Predator coming attraction it was torture waiting. It seemed like years before it came out in theatres, and I was punished when it did so had to wait until it came out on video to rent it.
Fast forward lots of decades and I still hate waiting. Now, I only get to see good movies on-demand at home, so I have a really long wait for everything since all my theatre trips are with the kids for kids movies (some are pretty good, like King Fu Panda 3, but most are princess singing crap).
I hate waiting. I wish there was a law that a game or a movie could not be announced until one month before it was going to be released. I especially hate (and no longer do this) getting invested in a game that doesn't come out.
Now, when a game is out, I love transparency. For instance, the new DDO head something or other (Severan) is great about laying out immediate and future plans. It is great knowing whats going on in the next patch or whats the general plan for the next year or two. If something changes he explains why. Some people have hissy fits, but most people are cool and understanding about it.
I disagree - I think that transperancy (up to a point) is ultimately what brings devs and players closer to the same page which is a better option long term.
The thing is just because devs choose to be transparent it doesn't mean that they have to listen to everything players want and abandon their own vision and goals for the game.
Experienced devs teams don't get rattled by forum posts.
Show me an example if this working out for the better for any MMO in the last 15 years please.
Being transparent should be about connecting with gamers to make a better product. However, in most cases its about creating buzz for your project and selling an unfinished product.
Telling gamers what they want to hear isn't about being transparent, telling gamers what they might not want to hear is about being transparent.
I find that Crowfall and Camelot Unchained have a transparent development, they will tell you the good and the bad stuff. That's not the case with Everquest Next and Star Citizen.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
I disagree - I think that transperancy (up to a point) is ultimately what brings devs and players closer to the same page which is a better option long term.
The thing is just because devs choose to be transparent it doesn't mean that they have to listen to everything players want and abandon their own vision and goals for the game.
Experienced devs teams don't get rattled by forum posts.
Show me an example if this working out for the better for any MMO in the last 15 years please.
Look what happened to SWG when devs weren't transparent. The NGE happened.
Completely the opposite. "By this and this date we will have created this mechanic. By this and this date we will have created this planet. By this and this date we will have created this race. By this and this date we will have created this class. By this and this date we will have created this crafting skill. By this and this date we will have created this looting system. By this and this date we will have created this node system. By this and this date we will have created this combat system. Etc. Etc. Etc."
Of course there will always be delays, but revealing what your working on and what your road map is in no way a bad thing if you know what your doing, but if you don't know, then it will reveal that.
Talking about games where thousands of players exist simultaneously in a single instance and mechanics related to such games.
WoW was successful primarily because of word of mouth and because they left it mostly under wraps until about 6-12 months before release. Transparent development gives too much credence to the nay-sayers of our world and poisons the well. Games are meant to be unfolded or unwrapped, like a good book. If the author of a good book sat and gave you a few pages pre-edit every week for 5 years, would you think it was a good book? Well maybe you would, or maybe not, that depends on you, but I still don't think it's a good idea or approach to authoring a book.
You may think you want transparency, but what you want is assurance it will be good. Games aren't that. They simply can't appeal to everyone. Stop hoping they will, and destroying their communities before they grow, simply because you latched onto a fantasy and the game you see being transparently developed isn't meeting that fantasy.
Transparency is destroying the magic. It makes for an interesting read now and again, some nice forum banter, but it certainly doesn't make for a good game experience.
I don't think that lack of transparency had much to do with WoW's success. The internet population was booming from social media blowing up and here comes blizzard a well known developer releasing an mmorpg so people already assumed it was going to be good. It didn't really bring a lot of new stuff to the table but it had a very polished engine and the competition was what? UO, EQ, AC, and DAOC? people were tired of those games and if my memory serves me correct didnt a lot of the EQ players decide to stay in EQ and not switch to EQ2? Anyway WoWs success is simply because people gave it a real shot. If WoW launched today like it did when it originally launched with the servers crashing and things like that it would have gone free to play in a month.
If you want to release an mmorpg today you better give people plenty of reason to give it a chance and when they start the game for the first time you better grab their attention quick or its over. (though to be honest i'm not really sure how FFXIV escaped this fate but I suspect it has to do with console support and a better player community).
I do agree with you to some extent a little transparency to allow for some surprise features for players getting into the game for the first time would be nice but without showing the world some cool aspects of the game it will fail before it even gets started. It didn't use to be like that but it is now.
I disagree - I think that transperancy (up to a point) is ultimately what brings devs and players closer to the same page which is a better option long term.
The thing is just because devs choose to be transparent it doesn't mean that they have to listen to everything players want and abandon their own vision and goals for the game.
Experienced devs teams don't get rattled by forum posts.
Show me an example if this working out for the better for any MMO in the last 15 years please.
Trove - that's easy.
Just one? And a mediocre niche game at that?
If I racked my brain I could probably think of another, but that is beside the point, because on the flipside I can think of many more that worked better with a more opaque approach to development.
Transparency just means letting the community see how a game is built.
In reality, no developer is fully transparent. Those which claim to be (generally crowd-funded games) just start doing press releases earlier in the dev cycle and with more frequency. The big game developers still aren't transparent.
The only problem I have with games companies trying to be more transparent is if they listen to community feedback. Computer games are massively complicated and it is simply not possible for developers to express their decision making process through a few press releases. This means that, despite their best intentions, the community will always remain ignorant of all the facts and so any input the community has during the development cycle is pretty meaningless. Even if the community did have all the information, chances are most people wouldn't understand it anyway.
Personally, I'm happy with a few press releases, some interviews and then release. For an MMO, throw in some beta tests as well and I'm good. Devs should build the game they want, stick to their vision and then sell it to us.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I love the idea of transparency, but I don't think it works. Generally speaking, when bad things happen, people aren't educated enough (in neither academics nor the process) to come up with plausible reasoning or understanding, even in the event that the developer tells them what's gone wrong, specifically. So, instead, it's mob-mentality, Internet Edition and the effectiveness of transparency in the development process will be linked directly to the collective maturity of the Internet, which appears to be approaching zero.
WoW was successful primarily because of word of mouth and because they left it mostly under wraps until about 6-12 months before release.
So all those press releases, leaks, and Blizzcon announcements didn't happen?
Showmanship at events that expect it and devblogs 1 or more times a week are two different things entirely. I tracked World of Warcraft as it was in development and do not recall them being very transparent. Blizzard released features in broad strokes and open them up for discussion but said, "Here is what we're doing, hope you like it!". Unless you were in the Beta you still didn't have a firm grip of what was going to be released.
Compare that experience to now. If you don't know what is going to be in an MMORPG by release day, you've either a) been living under a rock, b) completely ignored the game being developed or, c) the exception. Frankly, I made this thread for everyone to be more self-conscious of the fact that developers are being transparent, not necessarily as a call-out to developers to stop being transparent.
The worst thing that has happened to MMORPGs over the years is that their demographic has turned from an enthusiastic group of niche adopters into a ravenous pack of "gamers" with exceedingly high expectations and unquenchable energy for over-hyping and over-criticizing everything that is being produced.
WoW was successful primarily because of word of mouth and because they left it mostly under wraps until about 6-12 months before release.
So all those press releases, leaks, and Blizzcon announcements didn't happen?
Showmanship at events that expect it and devblogs 1 or more times a week are two different things entirely. I tracked World of Warcraft as it was in development and do not recall them being very transparent. Blizzard released features in broad strokes and open them up for discussion but said, "Here is what we're doing, hope you like it!". Unless you were in the Beta you still didn't have a firm grip of what was going to be released.
Compare that experience to now. If you don't know what is going to be in an MMORPG by release day, you've either a) been living under a rock, b) completely ignored the game being developed or, c) the exception. Frankly, I made this thread for everyone to be more self-conscious of the fact that developers are being transparent, not necessarily as a call-out to developers to stop being transparent.
The worst thing that has happened to MMORPGs over the years is that their demographic has turned from an enthusiastic group of niche adopters into a ravenous pack of "gamers" with exceedingly high expectations and unquenchable energy for over-hyping and over-criticizing everything that is being produced.
I think this goes for gaming as a "whole" to an extent. That said it's not so much the demographic's fault so much as who got in charge at gaming companies. You had scenarios of game developers making games and getting funded and being able to pay it back and then we had the rise of game publishers which essentially brought "suits" into the mix. Gaming became a big money scenario rather than something that appealed to the people that would buy those types of games.
Gaming as the budgets increase more and more and more cannot sustain itself on a "niche" market and be profitable thus the dilemma. I think Blizzard is a horrible example with World of Warcraft as they are in large part responsible for what you claim is the worst thing to happen to MMORPGs. They are responsible for dumbing down the genre heavily to try and target the widest demographic possible and expansion after expansion and even on release of the game initially (though it was tougher than it is today) was far more casual than Everquest or even everquest 2 that launched around the same time.
What has happened with the apparent demographic and in large part is is the "gamers" that WoW brought to the table that are literally the problem demographic is that they are impatient. They come from a game that has been out for X amount of time and has X amount of content and seemingly seem to think that a game just coming out is going to have the same amount of content vs a game that has been out for as long as something like WoW has.
Many WoW players are in large part not a fan of the MMORPG genre as a whole and seldom like new titles because they have their heads up their asses as far as realizing that a game will not have as much content when it is brand new as something 10+ years old... Many WoW players should not really even be considered the "MMORPG Demographic" because they are simply NEVER going to enjoy something outside of World of Warcraft unless it is literally something like WoW 2.0 or something.
Transparency in game development, talking to the community, revealing things etc, are not ruining MMORPGS and while I stand that the WoW generation of player is a large problem (those that actually can look past WoW aren't so much) it really boils down to no one trying anything new and game publishers wanting to try and target this same demographic that WoW has done over and over and over and over.
They need to realize this strategy is NOT going to work and take more chances. Carve out a niche, get proftable and develop the game further and stop trying to get WoW numbers. Realistic growth projections on MMORPGs would put the max sub count of a top level game at or around 1.5 - 2 mill range as far as more "popular" games would go. Trying to shoot for 5 - 10 million too often is very absurd and leads to mass problems. Get the game proftable with enough content that isn't steam rollable and develop more content and people will come in slowly.
And the worst thing that has happened to MMORPGs isn't the demographic it is literally the over casualizing of the genre to try and appeal to the masses plain and simple.
Transparency just means letting the community see how a game is built.
In reality, no developer is fully transparent. Those which claim to be (generally crowd-funded games) just start doing press releases earlier in the dev cycle and with more frequency. The big game developers still aren't transparent.
The only problem I have with games companies trying to be more transparent is if they listen to community feedback. Computer games are massively complicated and it is simply not possible for developers to express their decision making process through a few press releases. This means that, despite their best intentions, the community will always remain ignorant of all the facts and so any input the community has during the development cycle is pretty meaningless. Even if the community did have all the information, chances are most people wouldn't understand it anyway.
Personally, I'm happy with a few press releases, some interviews and then release. For an MMO, throw in some beta tests as well and I'm good. Devs should build the game they want, stick to their vision and then sell it to us.
As a game maker I agree with the majority of this.
The only weird part is calling feedback "pretty meaningless". Player feedback is actually really important. But even the best ideas often aren't necessarily immediately actionable (sometimes it'll literally be 6 months to a year to implement some of the better player ideas after reading them; other times it's faster because it's a quick balance change, but you still need to test it to ensure it doesn't create bugs.) And most ideas aren't the best ideas (often because the player isn't in the target demographic, or because he/she simply suggests a bad fix to the underlying problem.) A lot of other ideas are features which are already planned but work hasn't started on them yet.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
So all those press releases, leaks, and Blizzcon announcements didn't happen?
The first BlizzCon happened in 2005, after WOW had succeeded.
I do think it's wrong to say WOW succeeded "primarily" due to word of mouth, as the game succeeded primarily because it was a far better-designed MMORPG than the other options. This would've naturally led to higher player retention, and more word of mouth advertising than other games, but that wasn't the "primary" reason it was successful.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm working on an MMO style game and to be honest if I wanted to make a killing I should do what other big games do. Make a lot of lofty promises, post a lot of Photoshoped screenshots. Be obscure about the features of the game and generally let the player use there imaginations to envision a game that is everything they want it to be. Then take money as fast as you can until they realize these chicken nuggets look awesome on the menu but are really just deep fried grey paste made from mechanically separated chicken.
I'm working on an MMO style game and to be honest if I wanted to make a killing I should do what other big games do. Make a lot of lofty promises, post a lot of Photoshoped screenshots. Be obscure about the features of the game and generally let the player use there imaginations to envision a game that is everything they want it to be. Then take money as fast as you can until they realize these chicken nuggets look awesome on the menu but are really just deep fried grey paste made from mechanically separated chicken.
Well I don't know the size of your team, but if you're not a large company then the way to make a killing isn't to follow what the big games do (because they can do it better.)
At least not in the sense of specifics. Good design decisions are good design decisions regardless of your scale, but "small company strategy" is very different from "large company strategy".
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
1 Who says they are 100% transparent,that would make the assumption developers are 100% honest with you the gamer.
2 You SHOULD question everything in life,almost nothing is black n white.Do you walk into a store to make a purchase without reading a label,or reading the warranty or reading it's statistics etc etc?Buy a car without a test drive ,buy a house without looking at it?
3 It is called "community" something developers keep telling us they are a part of.
We are often not talking about single player games that are simple one time purchases,end of story,we are talking about games that are ongoing ,possibly 2/3/4/5+ years where your input and the community matters.
Why do you think there is such a thing as analytic's and website cookies?They want to know what YOU the gamer is thinking,where you go ,why should it be a one way street?
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The whole "we want you to be apart of the process" thing is a way to sell founders packs and build a fan base of knights.
You can't blame the player base for having reactions to decisions, double talk, and mission statement changes in these situations. So NO, it's not us. It's them.
I have an idea, how about all developers STFU, stop announcing games 6 years before the half assed bug filled release date. Stop putting cruddy location fly-thrus, and showing concept art that doesn't even translate into the game. When the game is READY do your PR push then be accountable for the success or failure after.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The problem is not transparency per say but not having a real development cycle like we used to have. It used to be you had a game alpha created that was used to draw in investors, then beta testers where brought in that didn't just play the game but tested it. Next would be the first time the average gamer heard of the game which would be the hype with a launch window. The problem now is developers sell testing invites to players before an alpha is even completed, who do not test the game and report bugs they just want to play it. Then these same players go onto sites like this one and complain about the bugs etc...
The example i am thinking of is that Star Citizen video that basically showed us a lot of OLD stuff but he was panning it off as a new 2.xx release update.
Then to make things worse ,again baffling me,the guy shows a camera fly by of a barren land mass that would take 1 person less than a day to prepare and everyone was like "looks amazing !!".
I often feel like i am watching some comedy TV show where the y have the laugh tracks and que cards telling people when to stand up and cheer.I still remember that one Everquest gaming expo where Georgeson stood up on stage and every single idea he smiles and TELLS people what a great idea instead of really asking but not like all those in attendance were not going to stand up and cheer anyhow.I mean he could have held a chicken in his hands and said "see amazing right?" and everyone would have cheered.
I would like to see a lot more criticism of game developers,they can most certainly 100% do a better job but we won't get there with so many EASY bandwagon jumping fanbois.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The only exception being that if you're a B2P game, you want to get players hyped about your game. B2P games make all their money on the player thinking they might have fun, rather than whether the game actually is fun to that player. But hype doesn't require full transparency, and in fact is probably more easily accomplished via vague teasers and emotional cinematics.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Before Kickstarter, the game develepment was done under tight wraps, and people fought hard to get into closed beta tests so that they could get an advantage on everyone else. Some of them even tested and filed bug reports, but most just worked on winning strategies, lol
Before Kickstarter, the secretive and "closed" dev process produced some excellent games, so it's by no means a failed methodology. I'm not seeing the new openness producing anything of superior quality to what went before.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
Honestly, I hate knowing about something I want before I can get it. As a kid when I saw the first Predator coming attraction it was torture waiting. It seemed like years before it came out in theatres, and I was punished when it did so had to wait until it came out on video to rent it.
Fast forward lots of decades and I still hate waiting. Now, I only get to see good movies on-demand at home, so I have a really long wait for everything since all my theatre trips are with the kids for kids movies (some are pretty good, like King Fu Panda 3, but most are princess singing crap).
I hate waiting. I wish there was a law that a game or a movie could not be announced until one month before it was going to be released. I especially hate (and no longer do this) getting invested in a game that doesn't come out.
Now, when a game is out, I love transparency. For instance, the new DDO head something or other (Severan) is great about laying out immediate and future plans. It is great knowing whats going on in the next patch or whats the general plan for the next year or two. If something changes he explains why. Some people have hissy fits, but most people are cool and understanding about it.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Telling gamers what they want to hear isn't about being transparent, telling gamers what they might not want to hear is about being transparent.
I find that Crowfall and Camelot Unchained have a transparent development, they will tell you the good and the bad stuff. That's not the case with Everquest Next and Star Citizen.
Completely the opposite.
"By this and this date we will have created this mechanic. By this and this date we will have created this planet. By this and this date we will have created this race. By this and this date we will have created this class. By this and this date we will have created this crafting skill. By this and this date we will have created this looting system. By this and this date we will have created this node system. By this and this date we will have created this combat system. Etc. Etc. Etc."
Of course there will always be delays, but revealing what your working on and what your road map is in no way a bad thing if you know what your doing, but if you don't know, then it will reveal that.
If you want to release an mmorpg today you better give people plenty of reason to give it a chance and when they start the game for the first time you better grab their attention quick or its over. (though to be honest i'm not really sure how FFXIV escaped this fate but I suspect it has to do with console support and a better player community).
I do agree with you to some extent a little transparency to allow for some surprise features for players getting into the game for the first time would be nice but without showing the world some cool aspects of the game it will fail before it even gets started. It didn't use to be like that but it is now.
If I racked my brain I could probably think of another, but that is beside the point, because on the flipside I can think of many more that worked better with a more opaque approach to development.
In reality, no developer is fully transparent. Those which claim to be (generally crowd-funded games) just start doing press releases earlier in the dev cycle and with more frequency. The big game developers still aren't transparent.
The only problem I have with games companies trying to be more transparent is if they listen to community feedback. Computer games are massively complicated and it is simply not possible for developers to express their decision making process through a few press releases. This means that, despite their best intentions, the community will always remain ignorant of all the facts and so any input the community has during the development cycle is pretty meaningless. Even if the community did have all the information, chances are most people wouldn't understand it anyway.
Personally, I'm happy with a few press releases, some interviews and then release. For an MMO, throw in some beta tests as well and I'm good. Devs should build the game they want, stick to their vision and then sell it to us.
Crazkanuk
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Compare that experience to now. If you don't know what is going to be in an MMORPG by release day, you've either a) been living under a rock, b) completely ignored the game being developed or, c) the exception. Frankly, I made this thread for everyone to be more self-conscious of the fact that developers are being transparent, not necessarily as a call-out to developers to stop being transparent.
The worst thing that has happened to MMORPGs over the years is that their demographic has turned from an enthusiastic group of niche adopters into a ravenous pack of "gamers" with exceedingly high expectations and unquenchable energy for over-hyping and over-criticizing everything that is being produced.
Gaming as the budgets increase more and more and more cannot sustain itself on a "niche" market and be profitable thus the dilemma. I think Blizzard is a horrible example with World of Warcraft as they are in large part responsible for what you claim is the worst thing to happen to MMORPGs. They are responsible for dumbing down the genre heavily to try and target the widest demographic possible and expansion after expansion and even on release of the game initially (though it was tougher than it is today) was far more casual than Everquest or even everquest 2 that launched around the same time.
What has happened with the apparent demographic and in large part is is the "gamers" that WoW brought to the table that are literally the problem demographic is that they are impatient. They come from a game that has been out for X amount of time and has X amount of content and seemingly seem to think that a game just coming out is going to have the same amount of content vs a game that has been out for as long as something like WoW has.
Many WoW players are in large part not a fan of the MMORPG genre as a whole and seldom like new titles because they have their heads up their asses as far as realizing that a game will not have as much content when it is brand new as something 10+ years old... Many WoW players should not really even be considered the "MMORPG Demographic" because they are simply NEVER going to enjoy something outside of World of Warcraft unless it is literally something like WoW 2.0 or something.
Transparency in game development, talking to the community, revealing things etc, are not ruining MMORPGS and while I stand that the WoW generation of player is a large problem (those that actually can look past WoW aren't so much) it really boils down to no one trying anything new and game publishers wanting to try and target this same demographic that WoW has done over and over and over and over.
They need to realize this strategy is NOT going to work and take more chances. Carve out a niche, get proftable and develop the game further and stop trying to get WoW numbers. Realistic growth projections on MMORPGs would put the max sub count of a top level game at or around 1.5 - 2 mill range as far as more "popular" games would go. Trying to shoot for 5 - 10 million too often is very absurd and leads to mass problems. Get the game proftable with enough content that isn't steam rollable and develop more content and people will come in slowly.
And the worst thing that has happened to MMORPGs isn't the demographic it is literally the over casualizing of the genre to try and appeal to the masses plain and simple.
The only weird part is calling feedback "pretty meaningless". Player feedback is actually really important. But even the best ideas often aren't necessarily immediately actionable (sometimes it'll literally be 6 months to a year to implement some of the better player ideas after reading them; other times it's faster because it's a quick balance change, but you still need to test it to ensure it doesn't create bugs.) And most ideas aren't the best ideas (often because the player isn't in the target demographic, or because he/she simply suggests a bad fix to the underlying problem.) A lot of other ideas are features which are already planned but work hasn't started on them yet.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The first BlizzCon happened in 2005, after WOW had succeeded.
I do think it's wrong to say WOW succeeded "primarily" due to word of mouth, as the game succeeded primarily because it was a far better-designed MMORPG than the other options. This would've naturally led to higher player retention, and more word of mouth advertising than other games, but that wasn't the "primary" reason it was successful.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
At least not in the sense of specifics. Good design decisions are good design decisions regardless of your scale, but "small company strategy" is very different from "large company strategy".
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver