This is a question that I raised in the blog section on Bright Hub, but I’ll ask it here as well.
What do you think? Has Cataclysm been an overall improvement to WoW or not? Please explain why!
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1) People will be relatively bored/done with Cataclysm in about half as much time as WotLK. It seems to me that WotLK was the big pro-casual innovation, and this expansion really did not add much. I also think the gear grind gameplay and the daily quest grind that feels like clocking in at the coal mine will continue to wear thing with people. 2) Warhammer Online will finally close up shop or at a bare minimum go F2P. It has been hanging on by a thread for quite a while, mainly because EA did not really have another big MMO to fill their coffers. Once they have SW:TOR out, there will be no reason to keep WAR going. Caveat: If for some reason SW:TOR does not launch in 2011, or launches super late, then delay this prediction to ~6 months after SW:TOR’s release in 2011. 3) Someone will finally announce the development of an adult oriented MMO. I mean something more than just Age of Conan’s topless women. I mean emotes and other game functionality to cater to people who want a little more action in their cybersex. This announcement will generate a ton of publicity for the MMO industry that bloggers will decry as negative. They will forget the quote often attributed to P.T. Barnum: “I don’t care what they say about me as long as they spell my name right.” 4) Champions Online will reverse their brain dead decision to shut out F2P players from the full power customization feature that is the primary USP of their game. F2P players will no longer be forced to play “classes” and will instead be able to pick and choose powers like everyone else. This will be too little too late as the game will continue to have embarassingly low usage. 5) Neverwinter, the next game from Cryptic will slip from its 2011 release date. If it doesn’t, then it will be another abject failure for Cryptic. 6) Blizzard will continue to piss in the face of their customers by not releasing player housing. That’s it for me. Let me know what you think of my predictions, and lets hear some of your own! A number of major MMOs switched from subscription to free to play in 2010. Inspired by the game saving transition made by Dungeons and Dragons Online, and watching free-to-play games get all the users (aside from WoW of course), a number of major companies decided to change gears and give it a shot. Do you think it was the right move? Do you think they did it right? Lord of the Rings Online: I think it was a wise move to do it before it seemed desperate. All available information pointed to LOTRO doing pretty well with subs, but Turbine must have been inspired by the success they had with their own game, DDO, and went for it. Doing it before it smells desperate is smart. I don’t know much about the implementation, but would love to hear from LOTRO fans if they feel the implementation was good. Everquest 2: I will defer to one of my writers here. Everquest II Extended Review: Is This Free-to-Play MMO Worth Playing? It seems to me that with EQ’s legacy as a pioneer of the subscription MMO, this was not as smart of a move. It just felt more desperate and that’s never good for an MMO’s population. Champions Online: I agree with the move, since the game was bleeding users at such a rapid rate. But their implementation was absolutely moronic. They basically followed the failed Hellgate model where you create a caste system between haves and have-nots. The paid subscribers get to play the real game. The free players do not even get to use the core mechanic of the game – open character customization. Instead, they are forced into ham handedly designed “classes” that were never designed to be part of the game. It is quite possibly the worst F2P implementation I have ever heard of. This is a typical Cryptic Studios decision that bears a striking resemblance to the failure that was the Champions Online C-Store. So what do you think? Right move? Right time? Right implementation? And do you have any predictions for MMOs that might switch to F2P in 2011?
I averted a minor disaster last night. I was adding some code to Primordiax’s ability daemon that would allow every damage ability in the game to have a main stat, and then apply that stat to the damage formula. I tested it and was about to consider it done, when I gave the code a quick look over. I noticed that one of the variables I was querying might not return a result for some abilities. That would be no big deal at first glance, because it simply meant that ability didn’t have a main stat, and thus no bonus would be applied to the damage. But 50 or so lines later in the code, the stat value gets divided by the sizeof() the returned stat array. Well, if that stat array was empty, the sizeof() would be 0. And dividing by…. yeah… you got it. I would have had division by 0 at runtime! The universe would have been destroyed as we know it. I put a condition in the code to prevent that from happening, and as a result life continues. You’re welcome. Any stories you want to share?
Christina Hendricks wants to play wonder woman. I find it very hard to object to that. She seems a worthy successor to Linda Carter. FCC approves Comcast-Universal merger. But only if “With that in mind, the proposed conditions on FCC approval include requirements that would attempt to prevent Comcast from favoring its own content versus that of its rivals, both on its systems and in online operations, agency officials said. There will also likely be conditions that would make it difficult for Comcast to withhold its own content from rival distributors and platforms.” Oh wow, great. I’m sure that will NEVER happen. Why are we allowing these mergers? They do nothing good for the consumer or the economy. Taryn Manning likely off Hawaii Five-0. Thank god. Her character was a complete disaster on an otherwise great show. Theater owners are fighting a movie studio plan to release movies in the home sooner. Basically, theater owners want their terrible product to be artificially propped up. They don’t want to set prices at a reasonable level, or improve the experience to attract movie goers, so instead they want the movie studios to artificially preserve their broken business model. What is also funny is that the movie studios think people will pay $30 to watch the movie at home. LOL. This is how these morons create such a huge pirate market.
My wife and I have played LoL off and on for the last year and enjoyed it. But as much as we enjoy it, there are aspects of the game and especially the community that often drive us away for months at a time. While there are of course some really nice people who play, the majority of players are absolute dicks. They will talk shit while winning, losing, before, during, after, it doesn’t matter. They will use all manner of racial slurs, profanities, and just grossly immature gutter talk for no good reason. If anyone on their team makes a mistake, they will flame the person horribly. Oftentimes, the person being flamed didn’t even make a mistake. Sometimes its as simple as they didn’t do exactly what the flamer wanted them to do, and this necessitates a disruptive verbal assault. If things go badly, they are likely to just quit the game entirely ruining it for everyone else. When they do this early, it means everyone is screwed for up to 25 minutes since that’s the minimum time before you are allowed to surrender. We have also noticed that very, very few women play LoL. We have met a grand total of ** 2 ** people in the game who even claim to be female in RL. That’s shocking. I can’t help but think this fact is connected to how loathsome the community is. Despite everything I’ve just said, the game itself is fun. That’s why this community issue is such a shame. From what I have been told, both DotA and HoN are even worse than LoL in this respect. What is it about this type of game that lends itself to such despicable behavior from its members? Is it the genre itself or something about the current games in the genre that attracts and cultivates such horrendous behavior from its members?
In this case, the issue is DVR users and the fact that they may actually be more likely to watch commercials that non-DVR users. For the last few years, network execs have been saying all sorts of negative things about DVR watchers. They seem to want people to be chained to their stupid, manipulative, broken system of time slots, lead-ins, attempts to ruin competitor shows by putting one’s best hits up against them, swapping around time slots, putting shows on hiatus to give another show the time slot for a while, and other annoyances. A few of the main points to take from the story:
After the jump, I will include the entire story because its from the NYTimes web site and they stupidly require an annoying registration to read it for free. If anyone at the NY Times objects to me doing this, please respond to this thread and I’ll remove the text immediately. Ironically, that is another example of a business treating their customers with hostility. Requiring an annoying sign up for email spam just to read a free story is just lame. Continue Reading » Nielsen Study: DVR Users Are MORE Likely to Watch Commercials This little bit of news really makes me angry. OnLive awarded important patent on streaming gaming content. The incredibly broad scope of this patent is an absolute joke.
That’s incredibly obvious and completely undeserving of a patent. So obvious that there are other companies doing it already, like David Perry’s Gaikai. I attended Perry’s talk at GDC Online, and his company has been doing this sort of thing at the same time. And just in case there was any doubt that OnLive intends to abuse the broad scope of this joke patent:
Freakin’ disgusting. Intellectual property law in our country is absolutely broken in nearly every way.
But why just 3.3 million? I mean, if you play WoW, is it really an option whether or not you will buy the expansion? It really isn’t. What this tells us is that WoW’s “real” subscriber number is far closer to the 4 million number that I often hear behind closed doors and that I’ve often estimated myself. Now, 4 million subscribers is still awesome and crushes every other western MMO. But that doesn’t justify the 12 million+ lie that is based on grossly overestimating and overcounting their Asian/Chinese customers. This also fits with the data from one analyst, who estimated that Asia accounts for only 6% of WoW’s revenue. I wish more people in the gaming media would call Blizzard out for this absurd tripling of their numbers. I imagine this is part of WoW’s PR campaign to make it far harder for any new MMO (e.g. SWOTOR) to make a splash. Blizzard/WoW already has enough advantages in the marketplace. Gaming journalists should stop giving them a pass on this one.
I think a lot of the problem here stems from too much listening to ranged players who want to do as much damage as melee, also do it from range, AND have tons of escape mechanisms. People who love ranged don’t seem to think it should come with any balancing disadvantages or weaknesses. My general opinion on ranged vs. melee balance, when it applies to DPS/damage classes at least, is this:
Why should melee have the advantage in all three of those areas? Because range is an EXTREMELY powerful advantage. Why do you think we use guns instead of swords nowadays? It isn’t because a gun is inherently more damaging. Up close and personal, you are more likely to survive a gunshot wound than a sword slice. There’s pretty much no way you are going to survive someone hacking your body with a sword. But you might actually survive a gunshot. Guns are used because range is a godlike advantage. Melee characters can be kited, avoided, and shot at from advantageous terrain. Melee characters have to run through AoEs, get stuck on terrain, deal with more lag/rubber banding/”you are not in range” issues. Melees can be hit with all manner of CC effects while trying to reach their target. Snares and roots are effectively holds/stuns on melee since they shut down their ability to attack as well. A snare or a root on a ranged character often has no effect as they just keep shooting/casting. Anyway, that’s my opinion on ranged vs. melee. Developers need to just man up and tell the ranged whiners to shut up and accept the fact that range is already a HUGE advantage. Until that happens, melee will continue to sit at the little kids table.
Starcraft II and (reportedly) Diablo III dumped LAN play which is absolutely crushing to me. I’d say 99% (or more) of my Diablo II playing time was on open battlenet or LAN. Mods were what really kept that game alive beyond a single playthrough. Why is it that gaming companies are so prone to skipping out on LAN support? It has to be simple to incorporate from a technical standpoint, no? LAN gaming used to be huge. LAN Cafes were all over the place. What happened? Are LAN cafes still doing ok? Do people care about LAN gaming any more? Or am I just an outlier?
How are they used well? How are they used poorly? I have my own thoughts, and they are strong ones, but I’d like to hear your thoughts first.
Are you all seeing the same thing? If not, what blogs do you read on MMOs, game development, etc? Maybe I should pick up the slack and start posting a lot more often.
Things are heating up between Google and Facebook: Google points finger at Facebook hypocrisy, blocks Gmail import
I can’t find the quote, but in another article there was a comment about the fact that every message sent through Facebook rather than email (or specifically gmail) represents a hit to Google’s business. This got me thinking: what makes someone send a Facebook message instead of an email? Primarily, I do this because I don’t have to figure out what someone’s email address currently is, when it changed last, which one to send to, or even which of my own email addresses to use. There are a number of reasons why people often have so many email addresses, but what is one of the biggest? SPAM. Email was once considered the killer ap of the internet, but to what extent is that true any more? How many people still love email? Do you love it as much as you did 5 or 10 years ago? I’m actually starting to dislike email and the reason is simple: spam. Dealing with all the spam filters, false positives, false negatives, training software that barely works, is such a pain. If Google wants to really have a chance at preventing Facebook mail from becoming a primary method of asynchronous communication between people, they need to take serious steps towards stomping out spam. And I don’t just mean for gmail users. While most people I know have a gmail account, they certainly don’t use it as their primary email and have no intention of every doing so. Thoughts? UPDATE: I found the other article. Google bars data from Facebook as rivalry heats up.
Mudding Communities Are Alive and Well in Alter Aeon
This article talks about free, text games in general a bit, and also goes into some detail about how they appeal to blind gamers. In addition, it discusses Alter Aeon, a long standing text mud with a solid reputation. Check it out. These text games are still going strong and they played a vital role in the evolution of the MMO.
About a year ago I wrote a very detailed article on Why Warhammer Failed. I basically tried to outline Where Warhammer Went Wrong in as much detail as possible. The only thing I lacked was inside information from a developer who was willing to go on record (though I did have inside information that I promised not to quote or cite). Now we have some inside information, and it ain’t pretty. A new blog has popped up from someone calling himself EA Louse, and he gives quite a lot of scuttlebutt regarding the internal operations of the game. It focuses heavily on the people involved, generally labeling the people at the top as lazy, clueless, and inexperienced. Marc Jacobs seems to be spared, and is made to sound like an innocent victim/martyr of backstabbers:
Wow. EA Louse also shares some shocking opinions on Star Wars: The Old Republic:
I have absolutely no idea if any of the above is true, but I sincerely hope not. I know some people working on SW:ToR and they are extremely hard working, passionate, and talented people. I have a very hard time believing that Bioware is going to let SW:ToR be anything less than spectacular when it releases. The last part says pretty much what I always suspected about Warhammer’s subscription history:
So what do you think? Do you believe this guy? Is he legit? And if he is, what does it say about Warhammer, EA, and potentially, SW:ToR?
In one fell swoop Penny Arcade (possibly not deliberately) took a swipe at both dumbed down MMOs and the excessive amount of quests and quest grinding in the modern MMO.
The Emasculation of MMOs: Part 1 – How Convenience Replaced Risk The Emasculation of MMOs: Part 2 – Fun is for Children, Adventure is for Adults Reading those posts, and the ones he links to from Keen’s blog, really made me miss some of my favorite features of MMOs that seem to be gone these days.
How about you all? What features do you miss from older MMOs compared to the newer, spoon fed style? |
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Feel free to share your predictions for 2011′s MMO industy. I will start with a few of mine.
This isn’t my usual type of blog post, but it is relevant because of a topic I am hoping to post on soon in great detail. That topic is the phenomenon of businesses treating their customers with hostility, and how that is almost always extremely unwise and counterproductive.
Congrats to Blizzard. They set a new sales record by selling 
I don’t have a lot of room to talk, but over the last few weeks (perhaps months) I’ve noticed that most of the gaming and game developer blogs I have bookmarked are being updated FAR less often.
I realize I am burying the lead a bit here, but give me a little lattitude…
Wolfshead has two blog posts that really delve into this issue in great detail:
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