What’s a man to a king, what’s a king to a god, what’s a god to a non-believer?

January 27, 2012

My post about the 1% in F2P games did not finish my thoughts on that topic completely, and hopefully in this post I can bring all of this around and wrap it up (not likely). The predatory nature of the model, and how it influences developer focus, are very important aspects, but equally important are the options players have, and how their voice might be heard.

Compare the LotRO cash armor incident with EVE’s monocle fiasco.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that selling items of power (be they BiS or not) has a little more impact on a game than selling an overpriced fluff piece, right? And long-time LotRO fans have every right to suggest that their game is heading (plummeting) down a slippery slope. This is especially true in a game like LotRO, where supposedly the integrity of the IP is so important. WoW has always had its fair share of silly crap, so sparkleponies almost make sense, but LotRO was a pretty serious game in terms of respecting the IP.

Yet it’s CCP and EVE that changed course and listened to player demands, while Turbine further insulted their players with some weak-ass explanation of why selling The One Ring is not that big a deal.

EVE, because it’s a sub-based MMO, is ruled by the majority (more on this in a bit), while LotRO is ruled by the 1%. The only way Turbine is going to pull the cash gear out of the shop/game is if the 1% not only refuses to buy it, but also stops buying everything else. And like I stated previously, sadly the 1% are not exactly die-hard MMO purists or hyper-invested in the future prospects of that MMO. They show up, grab all the candy, and leave when they overdose on sugar, only to be replaced by the next ‘child’ with too much money.

About EVE, and sub MMOs in general: While CCP’s goal is ultimately to get as many subscribers as possible, this is by no means accomplished by catering to the casual majority at the expense of the die-hard minority. Again, one SynCaine is worth 30 Casual-Calvins (formerly known as Casual Billy). And not only that, but one SynCaine keeps those 30 Casual-Calvins playing for months/years, where if left to their own devices the Calvins would “run out of content” in a month, while also failing to attract a single friend. If you want to see what happens to an MMO when you drive away the hardcore to cater to the casuals, take a look at current-day WoW, and Blizzard scrambling to replace the churn rather than attempting to retain players. If you are a current-day WoW player, what does that stance by Blizzard tell you?

The Jita riots in EVE were not organized by the Calvins, but in order to be effective the casuals were herded over and told to shoot the pretty structure. And then when the content-drivers started to unsub, it did not take long for their flock to follow.

CCP’s hand was forced because of the sheer number of lost accounts, but those losses were not driven by a lack of catering to the casuals. Hell, Incarna was the most direct attempt from CCP to do exactly that, to ‘break EVE out of its niche’, and while certainly not perfect, it did somewhat accomplish its goal (casuals love dresses after all). But casuals don’t make EVE an 8 year old MMO that is still growing. They never have, and they never will.

Consider the CSM. If there was ever a “let’s listen to the super-hardcore minority” program, it’s the CSM. It’s a collection of players that not only know the ins and outs of a very complicated game, but have been around said game for years. They have no doubt poured THOUSANDS of hours into it, and are willing and able to take large chunks of time out of their lives to fly to another country and talk about it for DAYS straight with the devs. And yet upsetting the CSM to the point of protest is/was the single biggest mistake CCP ever made, and all it took was selling a fluff item. Not gold ammo, not even lower-tier ‘noob help’ items or catch-up potions. Nope. Fluff. Dumb, zero-impact fluff (yes, this oversimplifies the whole issue, but this post is already too long).

It’s also disingenuous, and IMO outright silly, to suggest that when the devs cater to the die-hard minority, they must do so at the expense of the casual majority. Back when I played WoW, all you would hear from ‘casuals’ is how Blizzard needs to stop making more raids that ‘no one’ will ever see, and focus more on the ‘fun fluff’ that casuals can’t get enough of. That since ‘only 1%’ all of players defeated a boss, that content was ‘wasted’ and did nothing for the vast majority of the players.

Of course all of this was happening while WoW was growing at an astronomical rate, and pushing what an MMO could do in terms of a subscriber base further and further. It was also during this time that the die-hards created the UI for WoW, created its first PvP system (town invasions, NPC leader raids), and created all the guides/websites/podcasts that further expanded the popularity and growth of WoW. This was long, long before Mr. T or Chuck stepped in.

EVE in many ways is very similar. Non-EVE players love to point out that most pilots live in Empire as some sort of evidence that PvP does not matter, or that EVE is successful DESPITE its neg-sum PvP. And those who play EVE or at least are able to comprehend a bit of it understand why this is laughable. Why the minority that fights over 0.0 space drive the game. Why people like The Mittani ‘matter’ a whole hell of a lot more than Casual-Calvin ever will. And most importantly, why listening to the CSM (in moderation of course, and still doing their jobs as game designers) is not catering to the minority, but doing what’s best for the game, which in turn is what’s best for everyone playing.

To bring this all the way back around, compare how that mentality, of doing what’s best for the game leading to success, compares to doing what will get the 1% to spend again. Is it any surprise that CCP is motivated and rewarded for putting out something like Crucible, while SOE is pouring resources into coming up with the next ‘wings’ mount? That Turbine is willing to upset a large section of their playerbase just to get a few to buy mid-level gear?

Now both models work. Zynga after all was worth something at some point, right? But pure business model aside, as a player, which game would you rather play? The one getting updated in order to make it better, or the one with an ‘addictive’ shop that is able to lure in the 1% ‘kids’?

25 Comments | EQ2, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, RMT, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Preying on the weak

January 26, 2012

I have a friend who is in the 1%. No, not the Occupy nonsense, but the 1% of F2P players that spend a silly amount of money in the cash shop. He is the guy who buys up every DLC regardless of what it is. He is the one who buys fluff just to own it. And he is the guy who runs XP pots/boosters/whatever because ‘he can’, even if they don’t make the game actually more fun to play. If it’s in the shop odds are high he has it. Cost is not a factor either, so whether a pony costs $5 or $50 is irrelevant to him.

And he is notorious for playing a game for a month or two and getting bored. He is also fairly anti-social, preferring to solo whenever remotely possible, and is someone who often gets excluded anyway thanks to his attitude. To put it bluntly, he is not someone I’d want in my MMO from an in-game activity/actions standpoint.

Yet in that month or so of playing something like LotRO, he was the ideal customer for Turbine. He certainly ‘counted’ a whole hell of a lot more than anyone not spending, or spending little, in terms of influencing what Turbine should work on next. His voice (wallet) was far more important.

Which brings me to my point: considering the above, is it at all surprising that F2P MMOs do what they do, and suck as much as they suck for people who like the sub model? Turbine selling you The One Ring next month is not done with consideration for the 99% that don’t pay and want the game to remain ‘fair’. It’s not done with consideration for how the average player will feel, or how the game will play once you buy the ability to turn god-mode on. The 99% don’t count. Game balance does not count.

What counts is my buddy putting down $100 for The One Ring, putting it on, one-shotting Frodo, and moving on from the game (because it’s too easy…). You can make a forum post about it, get 1000 ‘likes’ for it, and Turbine will feed you BS about “we never said we won’t sell The One Ring, we said we won’t sell direct passage to the Game-Over screen. God-mode is more of a convenience for our players”.

Now whether this practice is sustainable or not is another issue. We have all seen how ‘amazing’ the F2P conversion is the day after it happens. Announcements/tweets/forums posts all proclaiming activity is up 10,000% (from zero), that everyone loves the new ‘options’ in the shop, and that the game has been giving a new life blablabla PR speak. It’s odd that those same sources fail to continue telling us how awesome F2P continues to be a year after, but I’m sure that’s just a technical issue and not the reality of everyone checking things out the first day, seeing the same game they left (but now with pay-walls), and leaving after maybe buying a cute dress. Naw.

What’s even more disturbing is that the only way to keep a F2P MMO flying high is not by introducing great new content, or providing a long-term plan, but by ‘encouraging’ the 1% to keep spending. And the only real way that is going to happen is if the shop continues to get re-stocked with bigger and greater things. If The One Ring one-shots Frodo, then next month The Two Ring does it twice as fast and with fireworks after to announce your victory. And looks, its only $125! Soon as Two Ring sales slow, you better believe the devs have The Three Ring ready to go, along with super-Frodo, who is way too ‘epic’ to be taken down by unworthy adventurers and their outdated Two Rings.

And if you think the above is me being over-the-top to make a point, go check out the cash shop in Atlantica Online. Or just check back on this post in a year from now, after the latest LotRO update.

The whole model is also predatory. It targets those too weak/dumb to know better. Because let’s be honest, buying god-mode is not going to keep you playing anything long-term. Buying a pony that now gives you 20% more HP instead of 15% does not make a game more fun. A game does not get better or have more content when every month a new ‘convenience’ item that is more or less required is added. Solving the problem of low-level gear being ‘hard to get’ by selling it is not a smart long-term solution (it makes the cause worse, actually). SOE recently said that 25% of all their sales are ponies. Outside of pony addicts, what real benefit do EQ2 players get from more devs being focused on producing more ‘must have’ ponies? Because make no mistake about it, SOE is most certainly re-allocating more resources to ponies.

You can’t stop stupid. There will be thousands of Diablo 3 players who ruin the game for themselves by sending a silly amount of money to buy gear, just like there are currently pony addictions in EQ2 influencing SOE and One Ring buyers influencing Turbine.

And the worst part if it all is that while the stupid might be a niche, a tiny fraction of the overall playerbase, they are all that matter in the F2P model.

13 Comments | Allods Online, Atlantica Online, EQ2, FreeRealms, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, RMT | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Rebuilding the genre on SW:TOR’s ashes

January 18, 2012

I get the feeling that people misunderstand me when I say that I hope SW:TOR is the death of the AAA themepark MMO. I’m not saying the genre would be better if people did not spend 300m to make an MMO game. I’m not saying that spending 300m to make a themepark is wrong. I’m not saying spending 300m to make Darkfall would be right.

Ok that last part I am sorta saying, but more on that in a bit.

Here is what I do know. I do know that spending 300m to clone WoW does not work. Or rather, I know giving BioWare 300m (or 80, or 500, depending on the report) to clone WoW is a waste of money/time/effort. I also know giving Trion 50m to clone WoW is meh. I know giving Mythic any amount of money to clone WoW is doomed. I know that Turbine is one step away from directly selling you the One Ring if it helps save LotRO from shutting down. And finally, I know giving SOE anything is bound to have it hacked, stolen, and made into something you can’t download anyway.

What I, or anyone else for that matter, don’t know is what would happen if you gave someone not trying to clone WoW 50m. Or 300m.

I know that if you have CCP focused, they produce greatness. I know that when they try to go too mainstream and attempt to sell you jeans or vampires, they get into a lot of trouble. And finally, I know they are at least smart enough to realize it and correct that course.

We have at least one example of an MMO that has stuck to its core, and 8 years later it’s as alive as it’s ever been, and the future is looking brighter than most in the genre. It’s not F2P. It’s not “oh that old dated game”. And it’s not “just naturally seeing burnout like every game always sees” (Sorry Raph).

And look, if you are someone who is actually interested in living in a virtual world that evolves but always retains that thing that originally attracted you, how could you not look at EVE and be amazed and wishing that was the case with your favorite MMO? (If you are someone who intentionally jumps from MMO to MMO every 3 months, a bus can’t hit you fast enough. No offense but fuck off.)

What we also know is that when you give someone like Aventurine a bit of money, they release an MMO that has amazing combat (best in the genre IMO), produces some amazing moments, and is rough around the edges (to put it nicely). It’s also a game lacking in a lot of areas. The economy sucks. Crafting is meh compared to the genre norm, but sucks compared to EVE. It was buggy. It sucks that the population is low. Lack of updates. I could go on.

The point is, that even with extremely limited resources, Aventurine still produced an MMO that did a lot more for the genre than SW does, unless you count teaching the world that voice acting is a complete waste in the MMO space, but I’d say EQ2 already did that in 2004.

Furthermore, who is to say that with 50m, someone, be it Aventurine or otherwise, can’t make a version of Darkfall that not only appeals to its current audience, but also others? If Excel Online can get 400k people to play 8 years after release, are you really going to argue against the fact that Fantasy Excel Online would have no chance at 500k+?

We don’t know because, thanks to WoW being what it is, all of the big money has been spent futile chasing that pipedream. That’s why SW:TOR is so significant. It’s the biggest, most expensive copy/paste attempt yet, and when (not if) it fails in spectacular fashion, one would hope the beancounters will wake up and try something else. The world can’t possibly be stupid enough to throw even more cash down that hole, can it? Because make no mistake about it, it is a hole. It’s NOT working. No one has come even close to what EQ1 did, let alone WoW.

And for all of you non-EVE/DF/sandbox players, for those who only really know WoW and its redheaded stepkids, how do you know you only like what WoW offers? Yes, you don’t like EVE because it’s Excel Online. And you don’t like Darkfall because it’s PvP-only. And you don’t like ATitD because it’s crafting-only. And Wurn is dated, etc.

What if someone spent 50m to produce something of Rift’s quality, but with a world and mechanics that were closer to UO than EQ? That the dev team had a plan deeper than “repeat WoW, but with this tweak”? That the community was more than just the die-hard oldschool UO people (if you believe that myth)?

Could you, just maybe, find a game that had more than a few months of solo content to offer you? Could you, possibly, get into something that got its social hooks into you along with its gameplay? Something that, 6 months in, was just getting started rather than scrambling to tack grind on?

Maybe if that was a reality, you wouldn’t need to keep looking into the future, hoping that ‘the next one’ is going to last a little bit longer. That you would leave not when the ‘Game Over’ screen came up, but when you decided it was time for a break. And when you returned, in a month, a year, or five, the core game that you loved was still there, only expanded with a whole bunch of cool stuff as well. And when you did come back, familiar names were there to welcome you back.

Fantasyland.

Right?

(GW2 Jesus-MMO note: Assuming GW2 really is significantly different from current-day WoW, and assuming GW2 really is an MMO in the ‘oldschool’ sense, GW2 being successful, along with SW:TOR burning, may indeed be that ‘trigger’ event, moving us out of WoW’s faded shadow and into a strange new realm of money being spend on producing actual MMO games.)

Edit: Screw 3-6 months, BioWare is attempting to kill SW now! 80-500m can’t buy you a single glance at the history of ANY PvP MMO? I mean come on; this is 100% amateur hour on the grandest stage. It’s your 1.1 update and you DESTROY the game like this? And then to cap it off, your response is that you are “investigating the POTENTIAL issues”? We all knew this was BioWare’s first MMO. Is this the first time anyone on that team has ever done ANYTHING, including playing for an EG-minute, related to an MMO?

Just shut it down already.

Actually no, keep it online for another month, I’m waiting for 1.2 with more anticipation than I have for anything not called DF2.0.

48 Comments | Age of Conan, Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

My genre can beat up your genre

October 21, 2011

I’m melting!!!

Wait no, that’s a pretty level graph isn’t it? So if the sky is falling, and I’m stable, does that mean I’m crushing it as hard as you suspected? I guess it does right?

Epeen measuring aside (did I mention I’m one win away from 1600+ ELO in LoL? No? Well I’m one win away from 1600+ ELO. Guess that makes me the 1% of Occupy Blogstreet or something), let’s talk about the death of MMOs as we know it.

MMOs are dying. SW:TOR is the last gasp of a soon-deceased genre, and I personally hope that rather than going meekly into the grave, it dies in a horrifyingly entertaining train wreck of epic proportions.

By the time I finish writing this post, WoW will have lost another million subs (real subs, not China ‘subs’), Rift might announce it’s going F2P, and LoTRO will be selling you a “One Ring + Frodo mini-pet” combo pack in the item shop.

The MMORPG genre is doing just fine. Aventurine, despite their best efforts for well over a year now, can’t kill Darkfall. Dawntide, which I’m pretty sure is a social experiment in pain tolerance, actually has a following and just got more money to continue. Wyrm Online launched a new server. ATiTD is around and kicking. Etc, etc.

Oh and EVE is still the second biggest sub MMO out, the longest growing MMO out, and CCP actual plans to update it after taking a “hey lets go over here and tinker with WoD” break. Not bad when you consider that the game is Excel with a worse UI, it “welcomes sociopaths with open arms”, sells $8,000,000 vanity items, and has the leader of the Goons as its player representative.

Not that any of this should be a real surprise if you think about it. If it costs $300m to make a themepark that will entertain you for a month or two, or $10 to make Darkfall and keep people sieging and resieging for close to three years, which one would you pick? Or if you are a talented team with limited funds, do you have a choice? I’m a VC with some cash to throw at something risky, do I feel better about throwing $300m or $10?

The worst part of it all is that even if you DO get that $300m (good luck after SW) needed to make a themepark, its dead money. You will need another $300m to keep pumping out the type of content themepark players want fast enough to retain them, and unless you retain 100m of them, the math isn’t going to work out. The biggest red herring of all time is WoW, because DESPITE being somewhat of a themepark at launch, it retained people well-enough initially to make Blizzard rich, and it was only when Blizzard started making WoW more and more of a themepark did the castle start to crumble (and when you factor in the social aspect of having such a huge playerbase, it just amplifies how un-sustainable a themepark really is).

The reason you are seeing people like Tobold panic is that he, and most current-day ‘MMO’ players, don’t like MMORPGs. Games like UO/AC-DT/EVE/DF are scary places where feelings get hurt, and if you don’t have a thick skin, you can’t play. Which is why they like single player online games over staying offline all together. And why not? Who would turn down Bioware spending triple the money making Baldur’s Gate? Who wouldn’t want the sRPG genre going from niche, low budget games to the cream of the gaming crop, even if you have to pay the paltry sum of $15 a month? You know why people are really excited for SW:TOR? Because it’s KOTOR with a massive budget. From a fans perspective with nothing invested in the company, hell yea I want way too much cash spent on my game.

Unfortunately throwing money down the drain is coming to an end, and the reality of WoW being an exception rather than the rule is setting in. You can’t replicate WoW because WoW was a once-in-a-lifetime, perfect storm title (not going to debate that here, feel free to search this blog for those posts). It was also NOTHING like the game it is today, which is why we are seeing trainwreck after trainwreck when other games try to emulate it. You are copying the flawed version of something that once worked. Oh and your version has even more flaws because you’re not Blizzard’s A-team.

Lost in all this is the fact that 100k, or even 20k MMOs are perfectly viable, and have been for years (decades now I guess). If you plan correctly, 20k people paying you $15 a month is a pretty health income. Now you are more limited in what you can develop, which is why you need to provide tools rather than one-and-done content, but well, that’s kinda what MMORPGs are, aren’t they? But those tools enable ‘scary’ stuff like player interaction, and that often results in even ‘scarier’ player conflict. And such concepts, along with the time required to actually get into such games, are simply unacceptable to the thin-skinned octo-mom casuals.

But look on the bright side.

You will always* have Facebook MMOs!

*Always being the next 20 minutes, when that fad also dies. Hurry!

12 Comments | Darkfall Online, EVE Online, League of Legends, Lord of the Rings Online, Mass Media, MMO design, PvP, Rant, Rift, RMT, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

The sky is green, Rift is a WoW-killer, and other fun facts

October 7, 2011

A lot of laughable quotes from Trion here (the only MMO out five years ago was WoW? Really…), but can you really outright lie about how well you are doing these days? I know Xfire is not an exact science, but it’s not totally random either, and Rift is not just the 24th game on the list, it’s behind WoW, Aion, Vindictus, LotRO, and EVE for MMO titles.

If your idea of challenging WoW is having less than 5% of their US/EU* playerbase (based on hours played or total players reporting hours, take your pick) playing your game compared to WoW, um… way to challenge them champ!

*Xfire is clearly not picking up Asia, since Lineage 1 has 0 hours played, yet we know Lineage 1 is still MASSIVILY popular there.

Note: I have not looked at Xfire in a while, but man is LoL killing it.

Fun fact: The login queue last night for LoL had more players (20k+) than Darkfall most likely has in total. Not a bad “PvP hotspot” that queue…

19 Comments | Aion, Darkfall Online, EVE Online, League of Legends, Lord of the Rings Online, Mass Media, Rant, Rift, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

2000 hours with EQ, 5 minutes with the kids.

September 22, 2011

2000 hours to hit the original level cap in EQ1 is not the reason EQ1 was ‘hard’ (not a great way to really look at this, but more on that later). A harsh death penalty wasn’t it either. Nor was camping a mob for 16 hours, or the forced grouping, or red-con zone runs. It was all of that and more, all mixed together.

Another analogy (it’s analogy week here): is your best friend the person you hang out with regularly, or that random guy you occasionally talk to for five minutes? Better yet, can you spend 5 minutes with your kids and still be a great parent? No? So being a parent/friend is really just ‘a grind’, where time = result, right? No? But you just argued exactly that for an MMO. That it’s not about the amount of time you put in, but the level of effort. Why is it that you believe you can get ‘meaningful’ MMO content in 30 minutes, but you don’t believe you can be a great parent/friend in just 30?

Spending “quality time” has time in it for a reason. While time is not the ONLY factor, it still counts.

The MMO genre was built around living in a virtual world. It’s not a ‘casual’ genre by design, because by design the parts that really make a game an MMO require time to be put in. You don’t get great communities, solid guilds, or heated rivalries when you jump in for 30 minutes and log out, no matter how ‘quality’ those 30 were. A well designed game like EVE will allow those 30 minute players to co-exist with those who drive the content, but while the game would continue to function without the 30 minute players, it would not without those who push things forward.

As the genre has expanded (or fractured, really), solid options for the 30 minute player exist. A game like Global Agenda is a pretty horrible MMO in the traditional sense, but it provides great content in small, random, pick-up-and-move-on bites. It works despite failing horrible in areas like server community, but then again it’s also F2P and won’t scratch that traditional MMO itch. For the 5 minute player we have Facebook, etc.

History has very clearly shown that when games get traditional MMO design right, they profit. UO/EQ/AC/DAoC/EVE/WoW (pre-Cata) and others have all made boatloads of money for their designers, specifically because they keep you entertained for months on end. It’s also no surprise that more ‘casual’ WoW clones, ones that minimize the core MMO basics in the name of ‘accessibility’, burn out so fast. Not only do these games fail to capture the core MMO audience, but the more casual players they intended to attract move on quickly because, well, that’s what casuals do. By definition they don’t get super-invested, and so when the next shiny comes along, they chase it. That’s fine if you are selling a one-and-done $50 box, but it’s not going to work out when you hope to collect $15 a month, or even when you try to sell ponies or potions in your item shop.

Back to EQ1 being ‘hard’: getting to the level cap was not a true test of twitch skills or some massive mental hurdle. There was no ‘hard stop’ like in, say, a fighting game, where if you can’t beat the guy you are fighting, you simply can’t progress. The really nice thing about an MMO is that if your personal skill level is lower, you can still progress by putting in more time. What made UO/EQ/AC and such ‘work’ was that ‘putting in more time’ did not just mean grinding more mobs, and certainly not spending more cash in the item shop; it meant reaching out to other players for help, or finding a solid guild. It meant working with others, which in turn creates those solid player communities that keep you logging in day after day.

Mechanics such as a harsh death penalty or a long XP curve encourage (or in EQ1 and grouping, force) playing with others. The better the design, the more natural this encouragement feels, and the more time you spend with those people, the close the bond, and the deeper the ‘MMO hooks’ become.

This is exactly why being able, or in the case of something like WoW-Cata, being encouraged to level solo is so anti-MMO. It’s why solo-instances are a sad, short-sighted design joke. It’s why random, cross-server PUG groups erode communities. The mechanics now work AGAINST what it means to be a true MMO, and by doing so reduce the very thing that made the whole model originally work.

The point is not to exclude 30 minute players. It’s actually a solid design challenge to allow them to co-exist in the same world (it’s no surprise that it works in EVE, when you consider EVE has just one server), but if the goal is to design a ‘real’ MMO, it must be designed to natural encourage the things that make an MMO what it is. Because when you get that design right, and everything comes together, you get a level of gaming that is above anything else, and anyone who has experienced it knows it.

14 Comments | Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, DDO, EQ2, EVE Online, Global Agenda, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

EVE explained, again, this time with vanity items included!

May 31, 2011

I’ll give people that EVE is a complex game compared to other MMOs. But man, is it really that difficult to understand? It might be a game about spaceships, but it appears that some consider the mechanics on par with rocket science given how they talk about it.

I made my short post about the vanity item additions to EVE because, honestly, I assumed it was pretty self-explanatory. Queue the “assumptions” saying.

Let’s go over some basics before we jump into the deep end. The items are vanity-only, so CCP is not adding direct power to the game. We good here?  Not direct power.

Next, the items are not BoP, meaning they can not only be traded to other players, but they also now factor into the economic game. This is one of the +1 reasons for CCP’s shop over MMO X. In MMO X, when you buy a vanity item, the only in-game effect it has is it lets everyone know you enjoy standing in line for a $25 reskins. Helpful, perhaps, but not a huge impact overall. In EVE those who are into the trading game will have something else to factor into the profit equation, and how vanity items trade between the new currency and ISK should be interesting.

Finally, the all-important fact that so many either forget or ignore is that in EVE, items of power are not permanent. This simply can’t be left out when discussing the game, be it balance issues or vanity items. Case in point, this comment from Tobold’s blog (which always does a wonderful job of spreading EVE misconceptions):

on the other hand, there’s bugger-all i can buy in the LOTRO Store that’s going to advantage me with respect to other players – some pots, basically, and yet i honestly don’t know anyone who’s bought them. whereas, i purchase an enormous quantity of PLEX, and i *can* (given scarcity limits, already mentioned) buy my way to end-game Titan happiness.

In LotRO, or just about any other MMO, once you buy something from the cash shop you own it (or own it until the game takes it away, with things like temporary power boosts). It does not matter how many times you die, or how often you play poorly, once you buy that power item from the shop, you have that power forever (or until the company looks to cash in again by selling something even better). To make things worse, often that power is ONLY available in the cash shop, so not only is it permanent, it’s a simple choice of “buy or stay under-powered” (the degree of UP is another issue here, but lets ignore it for now). Even if CCP turns the vanity items into +stat items, players would still have the choice of paying cash or playing to earn them. That is a very, very important difference.

But going back to the quote above, it again highlights a major misconception that non-EVE players have about the game and just how PLEX/ISK works. Buying a Titan with PLEX is not only foolish, it would not get the player what they are looking for. You would NOT have end-game Titan happiness. What you would have is an expensive wreck shortly after you complete the purchase. Congrats, you paid a ton of money to play the role of a temporary loot piñata for some Corp in 0.0. Thank you, come again!

On a lesser scale, the same applies to quickly jumping into high-level missions in Empire, or going deep-end with the market. Simply put, the game will eat you alive before you even realize it, and all that “power” you buy goes poof until, wait for it, you L2P. And once you do, you start to realize just how much impact PLEX really has.

25 Comments | EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, PvP, RMT | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Fun with lists

May 26, 2011

What do the games listed below all have in common?

  • Age of Conan
  • All Points Bulletin
  • Dungeons & Dragons Online
  • Lord of the Rings Online
  • Global Agenda
  • Ragnarok Online
  • Champions Online
  • Everquest 2 Extended

If you answered “failed to meet expectations”, you are correct! (For the LotRO fans, go look at their ads in 2007, telling me to pre-order so I can join the “millions” of players. Oops.)

Another list, same question.

  • World of Warcraft
  • EVE Online
  • Rift
  • City of Heroes
  • DarkFall

If you answered “met or exceeded expectations” you are again correct!

Swing and a miss MMOadCrunch (nice layout…). Story stays the same, if you have a solid product, you go P2P. If your game is average at best, F2P all the way! If you are about to shut the servers off, hey, generate some buzz and go F2P for the quick cash grab. If you hate gamers, F2P is an excellent way to screw them (Hi Allods).

Worst part of it all is, short of a F2P model like LoL’s, the ones getting screwed most by F2P are those who play more, yet it’s those very people cheering the “opportunity” to pay more for less. Good job people.

36 Comments | Age of Conan, Allods Online, Darkfall Online, DDO, EQ2, EVE Online, Lord of the Rings Online, Mass Media, Rant, Rift, RMT, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Celebrating 12 years of themepark hate

May 12, 2011

My enjoyment of virtual worlds goes back to Ultima Online, in large part because I loved the sRPG Ultima games, growing up on Ultima V and always being jealous of a friend who had a PC and had Ultima VI on it. The very basic idea of having an RPG like Ultima, but having it never end, plus getting to play it with others, was a dream scenario for me. And the hype was real, UO was exactly what I imagined it to be, and all was good.

Then came EverQuest, and the birth of my themepark hatred (I’m oldschool like that). Imagining what the MMO space would look like today had EQ1 never been released is, frankly, depressing.

UO was changed drastically with Trammel. I was not happy about that change, and around that time moved on to Asheron’s Call – Darktide. AC-DT was pretty damn great, if less worldly/sandbox than UO (not to mention it did not use the Ultima IP, which again, I loved). After AC-DT came Dark Age of Camelot, another stand-out PvP MMO that, much like AC, was more themepark than UO but still not on the EQ1 level.

2004 comes and, being a fan of Warcraft as an RTS, I jump in on WoW. I was the officer of a very established, successful raiding guild. We have a great time, make some very solid friendships with people that I still talk to today, and enjoy ourselves. Then WoW (slowly at first) began to change, and our guild broke and we all move on.

For a while there I was mad at WoW itself for changing. I liked the original version, I had fun with it. I was not done having fun with it when Blizzard canceled the party, much like I was not done with UO when Trammel arrived, or with DAoC when ToA arrived.

But today I don’t care what happens to WoW itself. I’ve long since come to terms with the fact that WoW is what it is, and no amount of changes short of a total 180 are going to return the game to the state I enjoyed. Again, I’m good with that. Power to the sparkle pony crowd, knock yourselves out.

Today my dislike for WoW is much like my original dislike for EQ1; the influence those games had/have on other titles. Much like I doubt Trammel would have happened had EQ1 never been released, I have my doubts whether something like WAR would have been as flawed had WoW never existed. Would Rift be as generic, and with 1.2, as dumbed down had WoW not set the standard and precedence? My guess is no.

Add in the all-but-scientifically-confirmed WoW tourist phenomenon, Blizzard’s RMT approach, their “innovate by copy/paste” design practice, Bobby being a gamer-hating clueless user car salesmen, etc, and there really is plenty to dislike about WoW beyond whether current heroics are super hard or that the leveling game may or may not be faceroll easy.

Oh, and that whole “expand the audience” angle is BS if you ask me. When a small studio can make EVE/DF, and a big one can make WAR/AoC, I’m not all that sold on this “big money = big win” theory. Toss in that the bigger an MMO gets, the seemingly worse its community gets, and yea, I’m cool with JUST playing along with 100k others. I also don’t see WoW/Farmville outpacing the world in terms of quality, content delivery, or player benefits thanks to those 11.4/100m players.

What I find comical however is those who rage against WoW, or LotRO, or any other established title, and keep crying for those 180 changes like they might actually happen. Or, for that matter, like they would even make those titles better games today. Worldly housing is not going to make WoW a better game, its flaws are much deeper than that, and honestly, the 11.4m playing today don’t even want that. They want more sparkle ponies, and they will get more sparkle ponies. Or whatever is even more ‘accessible’ than $25 ponies to further “broaden the audience”.

I’d love to throw out a counter-example of a game focusing harder on it’s core rather than trying to expand, but I can’t name even one. (EVE is close, but EVE has just been doing what it does since day one, so that’s more a case of business as usual rather than an anti-Trammel/ToA)

On somewhat of a similar note, I’m always amused at people hating on something like DarkFall, with all its 5-50k subs (depending on which fan/hater you ask). DarkFall, short of getting 100x more subs, is never going to influence your themepark. WoW will never get reverse-Trammel’ed because DarkFall exists. Full loot FFA PvP is not coming to Azeroth, don’t worry. The next ten AAA MMO titles won’t be DarkFall clones with “insert not that important change here”.

At least, not for another 7 years, when WoW dies and EVE hits 10m subs. Then you can rant about how it sucks that your carebear title was just made inaccessible because the last safe PvE zone was made FFA PvP with perma-death, and your only themepark MMO option left is some 2D flash title made by a guy in his basement.

I’ll shed a tear for you then, but I’m not holding my breath on it happening.

36 Comments | Age of Conan, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Inquisition Clan, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Random, Rant, Rift, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

Burnouts Anonymous

April 11, 2011

Quick break from the PvE Sandbox series to make an observation about Rift, but no worries (you were worried, I could tell), another post in that series is coming soon.

Over a month in and I’m still having a ton of fun with Rift, sitting on the edge of tier 2 expert dungeons and a few (thousand) points away from rank two in PvP. I’m also amused whenever I read something on Massively about the game, or rather, the comments that follow. There is very clearly a large portion of the MMO population that is simply burned out on themeparks, yet at the same time that population only really plays themeparks. From the outside looking in, it’s a pretty comical situation.

From my personal perspective, Rift does enough things different/better than other themeparks to make it feel fresh and enjoyable. Of course, the last themepark I seriously played was over two years ago (WAR, oops), and that was before Darkfall launched. And before WAR I was playing EVE for well over a year, with some LoTRO mixed to play something with Aria. WoW was before that. Prior to WoW I was playing DAoC, AC, and UO. Other titles have come and gone, but really those are the ones that I’ve spent a significant amount of time with. I’d say it’s a pretty solid mix of themeparks and sandbox titles, with both PvE and PvP focuses.

Had I stayed with WoW from 2004 to Rift’s launch, or jumped between WoW/EQ2/LoTRO during that time, perhaps I’d be as upset or worked up about Rift as well. I’m sure some of the things I’m finding interesting in Rift now are somewhat familiar territory to themepark regulars, and the number of truly unique features Rift sports might indeed be short. If you already hate themeparks (but can’t admit it to yourself), that short list won’t be the cure.

If every dungeon or encounter reminds you of something else, I think that might say more about your gaming history than the game itself. Let’s be honest here, that are only so many ways to design “don’t stand in the fire”, and when you go off the beaten path and create something unique, most of your playerbase won’t be able to handle it, with you either Blizzard’ing it (30% buff!), removing it (Rift werewolf curse), or the players will slowly learn to skip it if the reward is not super-shiny. Skipped content is poor content.

Going back to that burned out playerbase, the sad truth is options do exist for them, whether it be EVE, DF, Fallen Earth, or other titles, but what those games offer is not what these players are actually looking for. Oh, they will tell you it is, just with more polish, or more/less PvP, or just a UI like WoW, or countless other excuses, but for most the honest answer is they just want WoW, but they want it to also feel as fresh as it did for them in 2004. It’s an abomination of the rose-tinted glasses theory in a way, only with a game that is still current rather than something that has truly passed (unless you are playing on the EQ1 progressive server anyway).

It’s also an impossible situation from a dev’s perspective. If you give them what they actually want, you make Rift. If you give them what they say they want, you make Darkfall. The burnouts don’t want either title. They want a revolutionary themepark that feels comfortably familiar. Oh, and can it run on a toaster maxed out while looking like top-end GCI and handling 100s of players on-screen? For free. Gotta be free.

I’m sure someone is crafting that right now, and it’s due to be announced “soon”. Until then, your anguish will continue to entertain us all.

27 Comments | Dark Age of Camelot, Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Fallen Earth, Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, Rant, Rift, Ultima Online, Warhammer Online, World of Warcraft | Permalink
Posted by SynCaine

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