FFXIV: People are nice due to design

Posted on February 19, 2015 by SynCaine

I haven’t done an update post about FFXIV since our return, in part because I wasn’t sure what to write beyond “Playing FFXIV again, still the best themepark out, still has that WoW-vanilla-but-in-2015 feel”, but this post from Loire is a good jump-off point. Go give it a read, including the comments section.

The answer to why FFXIV has such a great community (and it absolutely does) is a large mix of factors, but I do believe the most important or dominant factor is the slower combat; WoW-kiddies and others with that mentality get turned off by it, which helps to filter them out of the game. Related to the slower combat is the need to spend mana or other such resources carefully (ala vanilla WoW) rather than just having basically an unlimited pool like in current-day WoW (so I’ve heard), so having to actually think (not being ‘accessible’) during combat is too much of a barrier for some.

Another large factor is the focus that FFXIV has. It’s not a ‘be all to everyone’ MMO. It owns the fact that it’s a PvE themepark. That’s what the game does, and each update is focused on making that aspect better rather than ‘expanding’ the game in random directions (PvP, unrelated mini-games, side-show mobile-like stuff). This again is important because it not only filters out everyone not interested in being part of a PvE themepark, but it also retains those who do want that, which is just as important. Having a solid core of veteran players is critical for an MMO, and you can’t achieve that core if your MMO only lasts for a month or two per content cycle.

In addition to those two, there are a large number of smaller but also important design decisions to keep the game worldly and active. In FFXIV you don’t progress through zones as much as in other games; you often have a lot of reasons to return to a zone, which in turn means lots of zones feel ‘alive’ with activity, rather than being consumed by a locust swarm of players before being abandoned and forgotten.

Having one character that can switch quickly into an ‘alt’ class is huge as well for all of this, in addition to keeping you online with your one identifiable character that draws you into more social opportunities. That both crafting and gathering is done as a class with its own level and gear, rather than just a skill bar that goes up, further drives this design angle home.

FFXIV being a massive success is also great news for the genre, because the game is yet another example that if you make a quality MMO that has a focus and sticks to that focus, you can attract and retain a large audience. You don’t need to dumb down or make things ‘accessibly’ to draw in millions, and if you continue to deliver quality updates, you continue to justify charging a sub for that content. In many ways, FFXIV is a reminder of how the genre works when you are able to make a quality product, rather than an average-or-worst product that then relies on its business model to separate fools from their money for as long as the smoke show can be maintained.

Posted in Combat Systems, Final Fantasy XIV, MMO design | 2 Comments

Games Workshop hates money, and me

Posted on February 18, 2015 by SynCaine

I recently tried the Warhammer conversion mod Warsword for Mount and Blade, and it was a pretty wild 24 hours in my brain. Right after installing it I got that amazing rush of “omg this is going to be awesome” that not only Warband provides (btw, I think Warband has crept up into ‘best game ever’ territory for me), but here I had Warband AND the Warhammer IP (which IMO is the greatest fantasy IP out, miles ahead of LotR or Game of Thrones).

Some high points: The major races are represented and actually look decent. Lizardmen look like Lizardmen, Orcs are bigger greener humans, ogres are huge, and goblins/dwarves are actually small. I didn’t think that was possible in Warband. Races also have race-specific gear, so you can’t put undead armor on a human, or have a non-goblin ride a wolf mount. That’s a cool touch. It’s especially cool because the various companions you can recruit are from all the different races, so you need to travel around, fight different races, and visit different racial cities to gear them up.

The stuff the mod does clearly pushes the aged engine to its limits, from the size of the map to the units and armor skins. And as I got further into it, the rough state of the mod (in forever beta) hit me again and again. Script errors were common, and I have a strange and game-breaking bug where the factions eventually all declare peace with each other and never go to war. That, along with other issues, is why I can’t recommend the mod, and why the situation drives me nuts.

Games Workshop, the owners of the Warhammer IP, must hate money. They must be allergic to it. Because how in the holy hell do we not have a Warband-like game using the Warhammer IP? Everything, literally everything, about the IP is perfect for a game of that style, and the amount of DLC you could sell (factions, unique heroes, item packs, unit skins) would be insane. And assuming the game was Warband-like in quality, I’d buy it all up. Every $5 unit skin, every $5 item back, every faction for $20. All of it. If you told me tomorrow someone was releasing a fully working, cleaned up, bug-free version of that mod for $200, I’d drive the money over personally.

I understand why GamesWorkshop won’t release a turn-based, straight up copy of the tabletop game in digital form ala Bloodbowl; even if the game was sold for $50, that’s the cost of one larger figuring, so you don’t want to cut into those sales (Bloodbowl is discontinued in figurine form). I get it. It blows, but I get it. But would a more real-time game like a Warband hurt figurine sales? Because that’s the only reason I can think of why this hasn’t happened already. That or again, a pure hatred for making money.

Need to stop typing now because thinking more and more about this is really getting under my skin.

Posted in Mount and Blade: Warband, Rant, Warhammer Online | 20 Comments

Great interview about indie gaming

Posted on February 18, 2015 by SynCaine

VentureBeat has an excellent interview with Jeff Vogel, the creator of Avernum and other indie RPG games. Very much worth your time.

H/t to Armagon for the link

Posted in Mass Media, Random | Comments Off on Great interview about indie gaming

Quick thought about the next Fallout game

Posted on February 16, 2015 by SynCaine

The next Fallout game from Bethesda will hopefully be a two-to-five hour, linear, on-rails ‘aim for you’ shooter with a bit of story, but most of the story will be comic relief rather than a more series take on a post-apocalyptic world.

Wait Blizzard isn’t making the next Fallout? It’s still Bethesda so I don’t have to massively lower my expectation and will still likely get a game that reflects previous quality deliveries from the studio? Sweet.

Posted in Fallout 3, Random, Rant | 6 Comments

CoC: Supreme Cream vs Mexico 2.0 2/13/2015

Posted on February 14, 2015 by SynCaine

(Stats and writeup by Delpez)

Supreme Cream! vs. Mexico 2.0

Continue reading →

Posted in Clash of Clans | 5 Comments

As has been said and proven countless times, niche MMOs work

Posted on February 14, 2015 by SynCaine

I’ve bagged a lot on Mortal Online in the past, mostly because at launch it was a trainwreck. Amazingly this was sometime just after the release of Darkfall 1. Since that time DF1 closed to make room for DF:UW, and then Aventurine decided having a slowly increasing population was bad and removed classes and tanked DF:UW, all while Mortal Online has kept on going and improving/expanding.

I somewhat recently played the game a bit, and while still not my cup of tea, its a solid MMO that knows what it’s focus is (clan-based open-world PvP, crafting-focused economy) and doesn’t try to do too much. Per MassivelyOP, the CEO recently posted that the game has ‘a few thousand’ subs, that the total is slowly increasing, and that a bigger increase is expected when the next free expansion hits.

All of that is good stuff, both for MO players and for everyone else tired of ‘AAA’ MMOs that end up being FFF MMOs when it comes to the stuff that should really matter in the genre (community, long-term engagement, a greater sense of purpose and world). And like a few other titles, MO is another nice example that you can be successful without having to change what you do, even if ‘what you do’ is only for a few thousand players at a time. MO is also a good example of a game with a rough start, that must have been seriously hurting in terms of population, but where the devs stuck with it and eventually dug themselves out.

The MMO genre can both be extremely harsh and also extremely forgiving. If you deliver something that doesn’t have legs, no amount of polish or sizzle will save you. If you appeal to an under-appreciated group and don’t sell them out, all while improving and fixing your mistakes, you will be rewarded eventually. It’s kinda nice that things work like that sometimes, although unfortunately not often enough just yet.

 

Posted in Random | 8 Comments

CoC: Pre-war stats vs Mexico 2.0

Posted on February 12, 2015 by SynCaine

(Stats and writeup by Delpez)

Mexico 2.0 Pre-War

My first thought was that the matchmaker had lost its marbles. After working the numbers I know this to be true! Just by looking at TH and experience levels, this is the biggest mismatch I’ve ever calculated. However, there are some positives. Firstly, these guys are not nearly as strong on offence as Fire Guardians (our previous loss). During that war all their TH9’s, and more than half their TH8’s had access to level 4 hogs, and used them extensively to score 3-stars against our tougher bases. For this war most of their TH8 attacks will be dragons (even some TH9’s), which we are better equipped to deal with. Secondly, we learn a lot from these tough wars as opposed to smashing derpy clans. Tough wars force us to be more exact in our attacks, and to execute and refine our general strategy.

Continue reading →

Posted in Clash of Clans | 9 Comments

Speaking of must-buys

Posted on February 12, 2015 by SynCaine

Pillars of Eternity looks ok I guess…

:mind blown:

If only 1 out of 10 Kickstarters produces a game, but that game is PoE-level, then Kickstarter is worth every single dollar spent/donated.

Posted in Kickstarter | 10 Comments

Hearthstone is Blizzard’s first non-hit, that’s important

Posted on February 11, 2015 by SynCaine

Let’s keep talking about Hearthstone, if only because talking about it is way, way more fun than playing the game, and because HS is IMO a perfect example of New Blizzard in a nutshell and perhaps a good indicator of things to come.

Latest post from Az can be found here, where he admits that HS made $5m or so in revenue. Respect for that. Also if a game has an interface designed for one gaming platform, and said interface is constrained for other platforms, that’s a port Az. HS being as awkward with its UI on the PC is because the game was designed as a mobile app, as Blizzard continues to remind us. That it’s mostly failed as a mobile app (unless we consider a AAA developer hanging out in the 50s in revenue as success now, but more on that later) and instead somehow has a decent monkey following on PC doesn’t suddenly make the game a for-PC designed title, sorry.

“But Syn, HS is like really, really popular on twitch, with some people even getting like, a few thousand views! It must be making a truckload!”

Yes, because twitch views = money, as we can clearly see by WoW being a fraction of HS on Twitch. Guess that drop in subs must be like a 99% drop if the oracle that is twitch is to be believed. Who needs dodgy financial reports; the famewhores and their sheep can’t be wrong!

(Since calling them famewhores seems to confuse people; the term is a play on the more common term ‘instawhores’, the ‘models’ who will do basically anything for a ‘like’ or ‘follow’ on Instagram or beg for attention on other social media platforms. If you don’t know what I’m talking about with that, how new to the Internet are you? Anyway, some (not all, relax) of these streamers are little different, taking every opportunity and basically doing anything for attention, no matter how much personal respect and dignity has to be sacrificed for said ‘like’. If you are entertained by that in a non-mocking way, we likely wouldn’t be friends in RL.)

Jokes and stupidity aside, and now that we have confirmed that, while profitable, HS is a little footnote amongst such giants as WoW, Destiny, CoD, Skylanders, and… well basically everything not called HS over at Activision, let’s talk why someone like Az and others still sees this as a major victory for Blizzard.

Blizzard, at least prior to HS, wasn’t a studio known for making ‘me-too’ products. They weren’t the studio putting out flawed, poorly designed titles that were barely a blip on the gaming radar. When Blizzard made an RTS (Warcraft, StarCraft), those games defined that genre and became the standard. When Blizzard made an action-RPG (Diablo), that series become the standard, with everyone else making Diablo-clones. When Blizzard made an MMO, well we all know that to many the MMO genre is WoW.

So why, just given the above, is a Blizzard release that has failed in its intended market (mobile) basically given a pass or even seen as a great thing? Why is it crazy to say a Blizzard mobile game SHOULD be competing with other top mobile games? Let’s look at this this way; bigger barrier of entry and harder hill to climb, the MMO genre back in 2002 with EQ1 being the top title, or 2015 with CoC? It’s not even close, and remember back in 2002 everyone though the 500k subs mark was THE top a title could achieve in the ‘niche’ market that was the MMO genre, so don’t bring up how dominant and mainstream CoC is today; for all we know in 2020, 2014 CoC will look just as dominant as EQ1 did back in its prime. The point being, a major AAA developer like Blizzard not only can, but absolutely SHOULD be making a top-tier mobile game (imagine how great it would have been to get a real Blizzard-quality mobile game? I’d love to play that!), not something lost amongst the dregs of the app store.

Again, prior to HS, every other Blizzard release not only competed with the top titles in those genres, they generally dominated and set a new standard. HS is the ONLY title released by Blizzard to not only fail to live up to that standard, but not even come remotely close.

That high Blizzard standard and track record of delivery has value too, a great deal in fact. How many people bought the originally flawed Diablo 3 because it was a Blizzard game? How many people might not insta-buy the next Blizzard title after that experience? How many people played HS and had the perception of “everything Blizzard makes is awesome” shattered? So yes, HS itself is profitable (mostly based on the likely fact it cost next-to-nothing to produce and had free advertising due to being on battle.net, but hey, details), but how much brand damage has the title caused by being a below-average-at-best title?

Moving past HS itself, what does the delivery of HS hint at for Blizzard’s next title, Heroes of the Storm, which is already not exactly blowing down doors as the next big thing? Is HotS going to be called a success by some if it has to fight tooth and nail with some random minor game for the coveted 4th or 5th spot in the MOBA genre, accomplishing a tiny fraction of the success LoL see’s, much like HS is today compared to CoC? Is that what New Blizzard is now, just another Ubisoft or any other second/third tier studio putting out something we maybe pick up for a few weeks before moving on and forgetting them entirely? If so, that’s a huge, huge drop from what Blizzard was in the past, and sooner rather than later Blizzard titles won’t automatically attract attention based on the studios previous track record.

And that, ultimately, is the real story of interest related to HS. The game itself, other than getting a chuckle at some of its sillier aspects (famewhores, world championship of dice rolls), isn’t all that important. It’s a footnote. But the low expectations for the game (at least from the outside by people like Az, as I’m not sure Blizzard is thrilled to have launched a mobile game that isn’t moving the needle in the mobile space, and is just a marginal success overall) and being the first non-hit title for Blizzard, is in my opinion a significant event and worth discussing.

Posted in iPhone, Random, RMT, World of Warcraft | 51 Comments

The little tent-pole that could, and the little blogger that couldn’t

Posted on February 10, 2015 by SynCaine

Because some people are getting a little too excited over next-to-nothing, lets actually look at everything said recently from everyone’s favorite video-game producer.

“Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare was the #1 release of the year and the franchise’s cumulative revenue is now over $11 billion. Destiny was the #3 new release of the year and attracted over 16 million registered users. Skylanders, with over 240 million toys sold life to date was, again, the #1 kids console game. World of Warcraft reached over 10 million subscribers and remains the #1 subscription-based MMORPG in the world. Diablo III is the #1 PC role-playing game of the year; and Hearthstone, which is named Game of the Year, has already attracted more than 25 million registered players.”

Quick, which one of the above numbers isn’t directly linked to generating money?

“Destiny and Blizzard’s Hearthstone. Combined, they attracted over 40 million registered players worldwide and generated more than $850 million in non-GAAP revenue”

Why are we grouping the 3rd biggest release of the year with a title that struggles to stay in the top 200 of app downloads? Why o why… (Don’t worry, we’ll get back to that 850m number later, but spoiler alert: nope)

“Blizzard generated record avenues and near-record operating income. The year was driven by Diablo III: Reaper of Souls and World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor, both of which generated significant revenues and income that will not have comparable releases this year. In addition, we expect WoW subs to decline as we have seen historically in the year following the release of a large-scale expansion.”

So wait, a title sometimes in the top 40 in app revenue wasn’t a driver of record revenue? What, we couldn’t lump it in here somehow? Why do we exclude Hearthstone when we start talking about significant revenues? (Props to Blizzard for realizing WoW subs will drop (have already?). Maybe release content that holds up to avoid that? I heard Old Blizzard was able to do that, maybe ask them how they did it during vanilla/TBC times?)

“Turning to our quarterly outlook. In 2015, we expect a lighter first half of the year as compared to last year as we don’t have a comparable launch to the high-margin Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, and we only expect modest contributions from Call of Duty Online and Heroes of the Storm, as I mentioned earlier.”

Wait a minute, but what about your new tent-pole Hearthstone? It’s still ‘growing’! And it wasn’t as big a factor in Q1 2014, so Q1 2015 should be awesome right? Right…? Hello?

Actual numbers talk below:

“(CoD)Advanced Warfare the #1 console game globally, which has delivered well over $1 billion in sell-through, and far and away the #1 title worldwide on next-gen platforms.”

“Destiny now has over 16 million registered users with a massive audience of active players still averaging over 3 hours of game play per day, a figure that has stayed remarkably stable since launch. Destiny also performed the rarely seen console gaming feat of growing active players from November to December, driven by the release of the new expansion pack, the Dark Below. And it was the #1 played game in North America on a PS4 in December.“

“On to our third tent-pole franchise, Skylanders. As of today, life-to-date retail sales for Skylanders has exceeded $3 billion. And in 2014, Skylanders outsold all action figure lines and was the #1 kid console game globally for the fourth year in a row, and as a franchise, outperformed its nearest competitor by 30%.“

One of these tent-poles is not like the other…

Strange isn’t it, that they give us numbers like player activity for Destiny, or actual sales numbers for Skylanders, or game sales rankings for CoD. Wonder why they didn’t just group them all together, or only provide how many free accounts were created. What, was the number of ‘likes’ on Facebook for each title not a number worth mentioning? Are dollar figures really that important on an earnings call?

“Hearthstone was released first on Windows and Mac and later on iPad and Android tablets, bringing Blizzard into the mobile space for the first time.”

And not just bringing Blizzard into the mobile space, but damn near cracking the top 200 downloads chart at that. Take that “Random shitting slot machine app” at number 201, Blizzard is here to ‘dominate’ the mobile space with its very own graphic dice simulator!

“All this activity helped drive Hearthstone’s highest monthly active players ever in December as well as our highest revenue quarter-to-date for Hearthstone”

Ah final, here come the real numbers…

“Registered players for the game have now reached over 25 million, capping off a spectacular start for Hearthstone. It’s gratifying for us to see how the global Blizzard community has responded to our first foray into a new genre as well as the free-to-play market and gaming on tablets. We’ll keep working hard to build on last year’s momentum with more content in 2015 as well as the upcoming Android phone and iPhone versions of the game.”

And…. that’s it?

Just “keep working hard”?

The big take away number is that a free process that takes maybe a couple of minutes was completed 25m times to date. That’s the only concrete number in this entire report about Hearthstone; the number of free accounts created. What, was Turbine unavailable to provide number of cards draw or something equally meaningless?

Why can’t I get Destiny-like activity numbers, or Skylander-like sales numbers? Why isn’t Blizzard telling us that Hearthstone is the #1 mobile app? The #10 mobile app? What, is stating you are maybe sometimes a top 50 revenue app not a good look for a Warcraft IP, Blizzard-backed, WoW-boosted new app? Do investors not want to hear that?

The only somewhat concrete and significant line about Hearthstone is here:

“We created 2 new tent-pole franchises with Destiny and Hearthstone that are profitable right out of the gate. Destiny and Hearthstone also have great comp and pipelines that we expect to contribute to our results every year in a significant way.”

Destiny coattails aside, Hearthstone is profitable, so it has that going for it. Who would have imagined using existing WoW art to lower the development costs of your dice simulator and cashing in on your very popular IP would result in quick, not-going-to-give-a-number profits. Really shocking. It’s almost like any low-cost turd (the game runs like a dog on the ipad, which is impressive considering there is almost nothing going on graphically OR in terms of data being sent compared to most other multiplayer apps) put out by Blizzard that had WoW behind it and cost a few bucks to make would have been a quick small success, huh?

I wonder if the tent-pole line was a little dig from Activision to Blizzard. Like one side launched Destiny, while the other launched Hearthstone, which is sorta like coming up to a new Ferrari owner and telling him how awesome your new Kia is. I can just imagine someone from Activision patted the intern doing the copy/paste work for Hearthstone on the head and handing him a celebratory lollipop. “Great work nerfing gravedigger kid, can’t wait to see what huge update you deliver next month!”

Good try, good effort?

PS: How about Brian J. Pitz just bringing the heat during the Q&A?

“Brian J. Pitz – Jefferies LLC, Research Division

Our question on Hearthstone monetization. The game is already a big hit. We continue to be impressed with the size of Twitch audiences, suggesting basically off-the-charts engagement.”

Think Brian realizes its one fame-whore on Twitch who streams 24/7 that makes up 80% of those Hearthstone views? (Which I just checked, are now 1/3rd of LoL, and yes, the one-fame whore is streaming.) Better keep that guy on the payroll Blizzard or that “off-the-charts” engagement might go down, and we just can’t have that now can we?

PPS: Dear Az, you might want to rethink that indicative reasoning math there bud. I mean sure, maybe every single dollar collected by Destiny was on the first day, and it was just zeroes after that right, but somehow I just kinda doubt it.

I believe we call that kind of next-level analysis”when Hearthstone players do math”, and it’s about as entertaining as rolling graphical dice to determine a world champion. To the unstable portal everyone!

Posted in Mass Media, Random | 22 Comments