Stop it already, let me blog about something else, PLEASE

Posted on January 19, 2012 by SynCaine

I mean come on.

Stop the trolling already. Take a break. It’s NOT EVEN FRIDAY!

“We kept the team together” – Over/under layoffs get announced next month?

“Rise of the ghouls took over a year to produce” – No shit. Thank you for reminding us why you won’t be able to produce content fast enough to keep people around after the first month. Also, splitting something into two parts does not make it “epic”. It makes it a two-part update.

“PvP is going to be a big focus for us” – Clearly.

“Legacy system” – Please grind more character while we take a year to produce more voice-work. Thank you.

“Guild banks” – To be fair, Rift also failed to launch with guild banks, so BioWare are not alone in overlooking a critical feature. Also, since when do sRPGs have guilds?

“UI customization” – Tell that UI ‘team’ 2004 called.

“Listening to the community” – How’s that rollback coming?

Oddly no mention of allowing people to un-sub.

Also lack of white shades kinda killed this for me. I can’t take a PR guy serious without them anymore.

Is it 6 weeks yet?

Posted in Rant, SW:TOR | 16 Comments

Medical License Revoked

Posted on January 19, 2012 by SynCaine

People are lucky I’m too lazy to find my own “told you so” quotes about stuff. You know, stuff like “EA might shut down thanks to SW:TOR”. Because, um… EA might shut down thanks to SW:TOR.

This is the best quote:

“Specifically, initial sales appear to be below expectations, and casual observation of early play is causing us to rethink our churn assumptions,” Mitchell wrote

In other words, even people who just remotely observe the genre can already tell that SW is god-awful in terms of retention. No big deal except that oops, our business model is based on retention.

Sure, certain bloggers told you that in 2010. No big deal. It’s why they make the big bucks (do analysts like that make the big bucks?) and I drive my ‘thanks Darkfall’ Ferrari to attend “how are we going to liquidate Zynga” board meetings, during which meeting I write up posts to entertain the little people (that’s you).

Luckily, EA has figured out, no doubt thanks to a tip from the one Mythic employee still left, that if you disable the ability to cancel an account, it stops people from leaving. I do like the tip to call support to cancel. It keeps with the whole 4th pillar ‘voiced’ content theme all the way to the end. Well played EA, well played.

EA's stock price, or SW:TOR retention rate?

I’m also amazingly entertained by certain people who, just now, are suggesting that, maybe, sandbox MMO design might work better for long-term retention. Where do people come up with such groundbreaking thinking?

Oh and don’t worry, the think-tank over there has already brought up some very valid, very informed opinions.

Personally, I dont actually like the Skyrim-type games. I find that there is just too much to do and get paralysed by choice.

The fact that I might play two or three characters to level cap in three or four months and consider myself ‘done’ with SW:TOR until the next major expansion is a huge plus from my point of view

Neither EVE nor WoW are actually very good at player interaction, because the range of interactions you can have with another player in these games is so limited compared to real life interactions

I feel like the more we ask “how can we increase the longevity of MMOs” the more we move away from “what is fun?”

They could probably ‘Skyrim-ize’ WoW today with not too much effort.

Personally I don’t think a Skyrim type mmo would be successful at all because there is too much. My friends bought skyrim and liked it but stopped half way story-wise because they got overwhelmed with side quests and such. It would captivate you for a good 40-60 hours playtime and then you’re burned out. while I agree some more variety or alternate leveling paths should be in games, you will need to have some linearity or you’ll lose all your 2million subscribers before the 2nd month

The only way to really make an MMO everlasting is to randomply generate the story of the PC. Not the quests he gets, but the story behind the quests, allowing go’n’kill quests as well as those more complex, both morally challening and epic.

Just think, any of the above might be in your next random dungeon group!

Posted in Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, SW:TOR | 25 Comments

Rebuilding the genre on SW:TOR’s ashes

Posted on January 18, 2012 by SynCaine

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.

Posted in 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 | 48 Comments

EVE: Down the rabbit hole we go

Posted on January 18, 2012 by SynCaine

Last night I went into wormhole (WH) space for the first, and it was pretty impressive. The thing that hits you immediately is how different the space functions and feels. You don’t see people in local, you don’t see items of interest in your overview, and the whole place looks different. You are still a spaceship in space, but this space is just a little bit different visually.

Another big aspect of WH space is the Sleeper race; mobs that are smarter than the average rat. They change targets during combat, use things like neuts, and when killed drop items that can be sold to NPC buy orders in empire space rather than pay direct bounties. They also look different, having a creepy ‘living machine’ kind of vibe to them. The little bits of flavor text you get when you warp into one of their areas are a nice touch.

WH space is also lawless. This, combined with the changes in local and the overview, create a new sense of danger, or at least of the unknown. The fact that WH space is also not thriving in terms of pilots (at least the spots we have scouted) adds to this. 9/10 times the space being empty is both a good and a bad thing, right? Getting blown up 1/10 time is fine if you are in a frigate, it’s less cool if you are flying some decent PvE ship or heading out to mine. And then of course there is the subject of defending the space, should one choose to live there out of a POS.

And that last bit, the whole “live there” aspect, is yet ANOTHER possible goal for the Corp. In terms of profits, I think even a C3 WH would be better than low-sec. I’m not sure, of course, but it’s looking like it. But this raises the issue of having everyone ready to make that jump, of making sure people can scan down exits and such. Of putting up a POS, fueling it, etc. It’s all very exciting, potentially very profitable, and could all end in flaming wrecks if the wrong group comes along.

Fun stuff.

EVE-related blog post notice: If you would like to join us, comment here or shoot me an email. If you don’t have an EVE account, I’m more than happy to send a 21-day trial invite, and split the PLEX-related profit if you decide to sign up. Again just comment or email me.

Posted in EVE Online, Inquisition Clan | 7 Comments

You should return those glasses to their rightful owner

Posted on January 17, 2012 by SynCaine

Syp over at Biobreak has a post talking about the pre-2003 MMO market and todays, and how you can’t pay him enough to go back to that time.

First I find this odd, as looking at his About page, I’m not seeing pre-2003 MMOs on his list of games he has played extensively, but maybe that’s just an omission on his part? Maybe he is a pre-2003 MMO vet? Is he just hiding the fact that he was Dreadlord Syp?

Anyway, here is his list of reasons why the genre is better today:

The quest system, dynamic events, full voice-overs, customizable appearances, public grouping, hybrid gameplay (such as STO’s ground/space combat), genre blending, business models

The quest system of 2012 is Cataclysm and SW:TOR. I’ll leave it at that.

‘Dynamic Events’ are a buzzword today for games like Rift, which are painfully static. Dynamic events in games like UO or EQ, which were player-driven, were actually dynamic. And actual events. The killing of Lord British anyone?

Voice-overs – Yup.

Customizable Appearances – In UO you had more options for this than you do today in WoW. With more impact as well. The game also had customizable housing on a scale most games today can only dream about (or declare technically impossible, depending on how little the devs think of their player-base).

Public Grouping – UO had this feature. Only it was called “Talk to that played, see what they are doing, and do stuff together”. When this happened regularly, it was called a guild. And since people actually lived in those worlds, rather than just ‘progressed’ through one hub to the next, knowing the locals meant something. I’d be dying to hear how someone who has experience with that prefers the random dungeon finder instead, as relates to group quality and the overall enjoyment of grouping.

Hybrid gameplay – The genre is better now that we have a poor man’s version of Starfox that we have to pay $15 a month to play? Odd, I was under the impression that when I loaded up an MMO, it was because I wanted to play an MMO, and when I loaded up Starfox, it was because I wanted to play Starfox. That said, UO had chess, although it required two players, so I understand why it would not work today.

Genre blending – We sure are.

Business Models – I love Pay-2-Win enhanced games like Atlantica. That game would suck as a pure sub game. I also love an immersive experience like LotRO turn into a slot-machine. Finally how can you not love what accounts being free does to server communities (lulz what is that?). In all fairness this can work sometimes. LoL being F2P is cool. EVE having PLEX is nice. Games like DDO/EQ2/LotRO/AoC not shutting down but instead milking a few dummies is cool, I guess.

And finally on to his real argument as to why those who enjoyed the genre pre-2003 love it today.

Oh wait he’s done? I see. Fine, let’s move on to the horrors of pre-2003 games, shall we?

You think the quest grind is bad today? Try simply grinding mobs endlessly for no reason other than a lack of other options. Or the horrible death penalties. The lack of real support for solo players. The incredibly obtuse nature of game mechanics and stats. The lack of free-to-play resulting in fewer gaming options on any given day

What game was Syp playing where he was grinding mobs endlessly because he had no other options and that was it? Doesn’t sound like UO to me. Nor AC. Nor DAoC. EQ1 players? The original carebears? Is it you?

Death penalties – The funny thing about WoW-only players is they just don’t know better. Tell them that if they die they lose all their stuff, and their heads explode. Now Syp, I guess being a pre-2003 vet, (right?) knows better. So he knows why the death penalty in UO was awesome. Just how much gameplay came out of the penalty in AC (Darktide, the only version of the game that mattered). And how many of you original carebears have epic corpse-run stories? I don’t think I need to talk about dying in DaoC, do I?

Solo players – What a horrible crime, that in a genre called massive MULTIPLAYER, we don’t cater to solo players. One can only imagine how horrible server communities and guilds were back when the only people playing were those who wanted to be social, who wanted to play something with others, who cared for group progression over personal. The horror! What would I do without little solo-Billy never talking and always being in his personal instance? Do you know how much worse my MMO experience would be without people like him… not around?

Game stats – I’m so glad the genre moved away from needing a website like EJ to play ‘the real game’, where groups are no longer formed based on gearscore, and that we no longer suffer with FOTM builds in games like Rift. That finally, we did away with obtuse things like being stuck playing a character in DAoC and making the best of it, rather than just re-spec’ing. That finally, rather than having to work towards a new build like we did in UO, you can just instantly hop from one solo-build to another. Amazing progress has indeed been made, and it’s clearly reflected in not just the games, but their communities as well.

Lack of free-to-play – Ah yes, the land of infinite quality, where only the best and brightest games dwell, and where only the finest of citizen reside.

I think I get where Syp is going with this. Now that I think about it, the 1997-2003 years were indeed horrible. Dealing with server communities, playing with tight-knit groups that stuck around longer than a month, building a server reputation, being judged not by my epics but by my personality. Just terrible, nightmarish days.

And remember all those awful days of Relic keep raids? Of invading Darkness Falls? Or all that time spent ‘grinding’ away in Minoc? Just talking to other players around your house because, damnit, you had no other options? Remember how painful it was to go into a dungeon in AC-DT, only for it to escalating into a server-wide brawl? Do any of you know how much time I ‘wasted’ fighting over a city in that game? How many people I knew by reputation, how deep the connections were? It was just awful man, awful. Not a single solo instance around, no ‘epic’ gear handed to me, absolutely no way to instantly teleport to a dungeon with some bots to go on an ‘epic’ quest to kill a god (for the 400th time).

Syp didn’t mention these things, but I will. You know what’s awesome about 2012? That thanks to $300m budgets, the games of today are bug-free (just don’t /dance), that they get prompt content updates (delayed until next week), look amazing (SW retro 2004 vibe is great), run great (just don’t turn on those now-gone high textures), have awesome server hardware (up to 10 people in one area) and they offer such a wide variety of things to do compared to games of old.

I mean look, when I’m tired of listening to those B-rate voices on my main solo-quest, I can go and do this side-quest. Solo. While listening to B-rate voices. In only one zone (sorry, planet) See? It’s awesome. So much better than being ‘forced’ to grind the same mob camp (one out of about a few thousand, if we’re talking UO) all day. Assuming I’m not a crafter. Or a shopkeeper. Or a PK. Or an anti. Or exploring. Or sailing. Or acting like an orc. Grinding mobs all day, yo!

Man I’m glad it’s 2012!

(Apologies for it not being Friday)

Posted in Asheron's Call, Atlantica Online, EQ2, Housing, MMO design, Random, Rant, Rift, RMT, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 82 Comments

EVE: Pirating and War-Decs

Posted on January 17, 2012 by SynCaine

Last Thursday INQ-E had its first PvP night, and it went great.

We put together a balanced fleet of BCs and tacklers, and went into some local low-sec systems to see if we could cause some destruction. We started things off in high fashion, scanning down and swarming a T1 frigate. Go us! And then the tacklers podded him, only to discover that podding in low-sec hits your security status HARD. That is likely the last pod we pop in low-sec.

In the next system over, someone scouted down a cyno ship, and when we found out that fit sells for 2m, we quickly popped it, got lucky with the drop, and immediately put it up for sale. As I mentioned in fleet chat, I know at least one person who might be in the market for such an item. (Can’t quickly find the kill-mail for this, sorry)

Our next target was better, a hauler trying to move some semi-expensive stuff. What was interesting about this kill was that I had to go grab my alt and his hauler to clean it up. The target was rather upset with us, and it appeared that she was rallying some help to blow us up. After some quick scouting, we decided not to stick around and engage a quickly forming fleet of Tengus and T2 ships.

I got a quick scare around this time when I jumped back into high-sec. Due to how aggression timers work (or something…), the local Amarr police were not happy with me, and starting shooting. Now local police is different than Concord (who insta-gib you), but it was still odd/scary to have NPCs shooting at me. I warped off the gate to a planet, yet still the cops were on me. They don’t scram you, but they do web you. Odd. I was able to dock up, waited out the timer, and all was well eventually, even though I got the “you are a criminal” text when I undocked.

We ended the night scouting a few systems, but they were either quiet, or too busy, and since we wanted the first night to not end in wrecks, we called it, claiming victory!

The next day, we had a new war-dec against us, from what looked like a merc corp. Was it retaliation from that Indy pilot? Blog-inspired? Random? Who knows.

It was good to see the Corp react better to this war-dec than our last. People for the most part did not panic, we had ships ready, and we were looking forward to the war. Once the 24 hour timer expired, we did some scouting and found our enemies, 7 pilots strong, sitting at a nearby gate in a BC fleet with one support Falcon. As we did not have the number online at this time, we instead went for the moral grind tactic, and parked as many pilots as we could in cloaked ships around various systems.

As I played Shogun 2, LoL, or Skyrim, I would occasionally check in on our enemies, amused to see them still sitting at that gate, waiting. This continued for a good two days, with our Corp waiting for the enemies to log off before going about our business, but otherwise always keeping 7-10 people ‘online’, afk and cloaked.

On the second day, their CEO sent me an in-game mail, complaining that we clearly did not intend to fight them, and that if we just pay them 250m ISK, they will stop the war. He also let us know that they have us on watchlists and use alts to scout. This let me know we are dealing with amateurs rather than experts, and actually had me looking forward to a battle. I fed him some BS about us being busy in WH space etc in my reply, and that we are looking forward to finding them for a fight.

On the third day, we noted that our enemies were not logging on, and when they did, they did not undock (scouts yo). In just three days we had ‘reversed’ the war on them.

To no surprise, the CEO emailed me again, informing me that he is part of a ‘cartel’ and that had I accepted the 250m offer, another member of the cartel would have war-dec’ed us to repeat the cycle. As we had not fallen for the offer, and instead made life difficult for his members, he was cancelling the war. Victory.

And we had just put together some rather nice ships for the war too… Next time.

And in EVE, there is always a next time.

EVE-related blog post notice: If you would like to join us, comment here or shoot me an email. If you don’t have an EVE account, I’m more than happy to send a 21-day trial invite, and split the PLEX-related profit if you decide to sign up. Again just comment or email me.

Posted in EVE Online, Inquisition Clan, PvP | 13 Comments

Expectations

Posted on January 17, 2012 by SynCaine

Quick item I found interesting from the CCP/CSM meeting notes: EVE New Player Experience according to CCP =  The first six months.

SW:TOR entire player/pillar experience: One month.

Both games use the same business model.

Posted in EVE Online, MMO design, SW:TOR | 5 Comments

I’m kind of a big deal

Posted on January 16, 2012 by SynCaine

I often state that I’m kind of a big deal. I usually say it in jest, but for this post I’m being serious. I’m kind of a big deal. Some facts (since those are trending of late).

At last count (and most likely still true) I was responsible for getting more players to try/buy Darkfall than anyone else through the Community Publisher Program. Over 100 people followed my link and put money in Aventurine’s pocket while I was actively blogging about the game. And the CPP was not around right after launch, while I was blogging/generating interest from day one. I also don’t have a count of how many people returned/resubbed, because they don’t show up on my CPP page, but I’m guessing that’s a sizable number as well.

In EVE currently we have 15 or so people in my Corp right now, with a few people waiting to get in (war-dec, more on that in another post). Almost all of these people are either new to EVE, or returned due to this blog. The Corp has been around for over a month now, and only one member that joined has gone inactive. In addition, more than one member has multiple accounts, and a few used the PLEX fast-forward feature, in part thanks to Corp-inspired goals. We show no signs of slowing down. Actually, we are just getting started on a number of initiatives (more on THAT in another post as well).

Now, you can either design games intended for long-term retention for people like me, or you can design them for people like this.

And let’s be very clear here, we are talking about games whose business model is based on retention. On collecting that 15 bucks a month. If you want to create the next Skyrim, that’s a different topic.

The sad and ultimately futile trend over the last few years, at least in the AAA themepark space, has been not to attract people like me into the game, but to prolong the stay of the ‘others’. Feeding them welfare epics was attempted and failed. Allowing them to faceroll all of the content was attempted and failed. Dumbing down classes, skills, stats, gear; all attempted and failed. And now, in (hopefully) the final and most costly attempt; voice. Get paid actors to drone (get it) on and on, hopefully long enough to stretch the content beyond a few months. It’s laughable, in a tragic kind of way.

It’s tragic because the real source of endless content has been known since 1997 (and even before that). Players ARE the content in an MMO. Endless, ‘free’ content that not only keepings people subscribed, but gets their friends to join in as well. Without the need to pay Mr. T or Chuck! Or can be, if you allow them anyway. Which is why things like certain instancing, phasing, and quest-chain design is just so wrong on such an elementary level. It’s why voice/NPC-story as a pillar is a joke. SW:TOR never had a shot of being a successful MMO, no matter how enjoyable the stories were, how strong the SW IP is, or how highly regarded BioWare was prior to this release, because of it’s fourth pillar. They might as well have included a “Game Over” screen after the 1000th blaster shot to the face kills Vader.

Is it 6 months yet?

Posted in Darkfall Online, EVE Online, Inquisition Clan, MMO design, Rant | 23 Comments

I was replying to Tobold’s post… I lost the will to live, deleted my comment and came here instead.

Posted on January 13, 2012 by SynCaine

Who’s better than Bhagpuss, stepping up on this fine Friday?

/hat-tip

Posted in Random | 12 Comments

Fact not opinion

Posted on January 13, 2012 by SynCaine

The only fact that exists about WoW right now related to its success and failure is that it went from a game that was rapidly growing to one that is rapidly shrinking.

Every comment or theory behind the ‘why’ is an opinion. Blizzard has an opinion, I have an opinion, and commentators here have an opinion. I’m waiting for Azuriel to give his opinion. He has so far spent a lot of time, a lot of typing, and a lot of quoting to show that my opinion of the ‘why’ is not a fact.

Thanks.

Backing up an opinion with a fact (WoW is shrinking) does not make the original opinion a fact itself. I find it terribly boring to debate this, since, you know, it’s not a debate.

What I don’t find boring, and clearly what others are interested in reading, are just those opinions about the ‘why’. It’s actually what this blog is mostly about (well that and shilling Darkfall).

You know what else is boring? Spending a lot of time/typing arguing something that was never actually said (At least seriously, good trolling is an art after all). Counter-arguing that making WoW harder/easier would not have completely solved all its woes is pointless. Difficulty/accessibility is not some be-all end-all cure/disease for an MMO. It’s a factor, and perhaps a very important one, but not THE one and only factor. But in order to keep posts focused, and in order to keep them at a length that most people find readable, I often talk about one factor at a time. That does not mean that magically that one point is now all-important, and pointing this out in every post is a waste of everyone’s time.

EVE is not solely successful because everyone plays on one server.

EVE is in-part successful because everyone plays on one server.

And the above is not fact. It’s my opinion. We all on the same page here?

I love to debate MMO design and theory. Tell me why you think something works. Tell me why you think it doesn’t. Feel free to use past experiences or the success/failure of games to support this. Bring up some little-known fact from some game as an example of something. All good. Really good actually.

But don’t attempt to turn a discussion of opinion into some scientific formula where you plug in a few values and get an absolute result. Not only does it not work, it’s not very entertaining.

And at the end of the day, that’s why we read blogs, to be entertained (fact).

(Bonus points if you can tell me the source of this post’s title)

Posted in Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, Site update | 17 Comments