Darren over at Common Sense Gamer has a post up commenting on a Gamesutra article, which contained the following:

“The biggest lessons I’d like to see products like World Of Warcraft and other traditional, retail games learn are:

1) Free to Play – the traditional game world needs to embrace this when possible to avoid missing the next generation of gamers.

2) Little to no install (or let me start playing and stream in the rest).

3) Minimum spec graphics compatibility.

4) Deferred/minimized sign up process.

5) Warp not walk (trudging all over the world is a hardcore “feature”).”

He agrees with all but the first point, which I found very surprising. I agree with him on point 1, no game is completely free in the F2P model, and more times than not it ends up being MORE expensive if you get into it than it would be in a per-month payment basis.

Point 2 seems very odd to me, unless we are talking simple 2d games. How is a game expected to function and make a good first impression if you don’t install all the art/sound? Forget intro movies, which can really set the tone if done well (WoW, EVE, EQ2), what about simply not having to download huge chunks of data while you try to get into something new? Is it really that difficult to put a DVD into a drive and click a few times through the auto-install? Especially since for an MMO you have to set up an account, you might as well do it while the game is installing itself. Maybe I’m missing something, but what advantage other than playing 5-10 minutes sooner ONCE does limiting a game to ‘no install’ give?

I agree with 3, but that does not mean the graphics should be last-gen stuff. Developers need to find a way to get the most out of hardware, instead of just dumping a laundry list of features and hoping everyone can handle it. Part of WoW success is not that it has low hardware requirements, but that it looks so good while requiring so little. As Darren points out, personality is great in the long run, but it won’t get you in the door. Very few people are going to give a game a shot in the very competitive market we have now if it looks like trash, even if it runs on your calculator.

Point 4 is somewhat simple. Don’t make me write an essay to sign up for your game, but at the same time do SOMETHING to keep out the bot programs that sign up and send out gold spam. If reducing gold spam requires us to fill out an extra field or two during the account setup process, I’m very ok with that. Similar to my comment on point 2, I’ll gladly give you 5 minutes up front to avoid hours of trouble later.

Point 5 is the one I really have an issue with. It’s very easy to point out things that are not fun in an MMO and say “ok remove all that, it will be more fun”. Problem is, the game WON’T be more fun, and very likely will be awful. Bind on Equip is a pain to players who want to sell old gear, but we all know the overall game is better with BoE. Repair costs annoy players, but we all know they are necessary to balance the economy, or try to at least. Why then would you view travel time as anything different? Granted, if you have to run in a straight line for an hour pointlessly to complete a quest, that’s not good, but the run is not the problem, the quest design is. Travel time, if used well, can actually ADD to a game. Look at EVE; prices of items vary based on the market, and travel time plays a HUGE roll in that. If you could instantly jump to any location you wanted, the entire concept of being a trader in EVE would be destroyed, an aspect many people greatly enjoy.