Nov 15 2008
Not Blocked, Just Busy
Ril asked this question in a comment: “Writer’s Block?”
That is a good question, but it is not the problem. I have been super busy with work MAKING games lately, and haven’t had time to write about them. I also haven’t played any new games since Spore, so I haven’t had reviews to post for you either. Tsk tsk on me.
I have also been hoping that if I gave Today.com a little time, they’d release a few new style setups that would make post and comment formatting a little prettier. I am going to take a look at that today and see if they added anything.
So, are any of my readers still checking here? If so, drop me a comment. Feel free to suggest a topic you’d like me to address from a game developer’s perspective.
I probably will not be able to post as many anti-WoW raiding posts, since I have no plans to buy their expansion. As a result, my knowledge of the game is going to fall way behind, and it will be very easy for the die hard supporters to rightly say “You don’t know how the game is now.” Of course, they always say such things even when the game is not fundamentally different. I mean the first expansion did not make fundamental changes, and from what I have read the second one will not either. And why should it? They have millions of customers who like the game the way it is. Fundamentally changing it would be unfair to all those customers. Let someone else make a different style of MMO and let people who want something different play that. That is why I don’t understand Blizzard’s recent habit of unleashing their PR blitzkrieg to slam any new MMO that comes out. It is good for Blizzard if customers have choice - even their customers.
Good to hear you’re busy and alive, Cam.
I stop by now and then, just in case.
Y’know, I’ve pretty much vented my spleen on WoW, so I’m moving on to more general game design considerations, especially business models. Once I exhaust that, I’ll probably start offering potential game design solutions and concepts, including retro reviews as suggested by… Kill Ten Rats, I think. Gotta be constructive and offer real solutions, after all.
read your thread in the forum and just stopped by to look
Still check once a week or so.
How about a blog on the topic of PK, since it has been such a hot topic on Thresh of late
Whew. I was worried that my harvest sacrifices to the Green Man for your health were all for naught. If you dropped, where would I get my gaming discussion fix?
I’ll help you out with a review, Cambios. WAR=DIKU
Thanks for the update, and I’m glad to hear that your working. I’m really looking forward to Primordiax!
I was thinking about writing a post about whether developers should listen to player input or not about their games. Some players think they should (obviously), but some think they shouldn’t.
If developers listened (and implemented) to whatever the playerbase/target demographic was shouting about, then I would go about forming player lobbyist and special interest groups.
“We demand player housing!”
“We demand space rockets in this game!”
you get me.
If the goal is to design a game and hope that people will play it (the Field of Dreams design ethos), then by all means, ignore the people who will be buying the game.
If, on the other hand, the goal is to get people to buy the game, some rudimentary research is the very least that should be acceptable to an intelligent business plan. It’s one thing to promise the moon to every possible patron (hey, it works for politicians), and quite another to fulfill those promises… but without understanding the people you want to siphon money from, your business will fail, whether it’s games, cars or services.
Of course that’s the obvious way to phrase it, and I don’t think that anyone is really considering designing in a vacuum (except for Mark Jacobs, perhaps). The trouble is finding a balance between listening to players and listening to the people who make the game. (You hired people because they were capable of creative thought and problem solving, not just public opinion bots, right?)
I tend to trust the professionals first and most often, but if the players spontaneously reach something of a consensus, there’s likely something to their concerns that should be addressed.
Yep, still checking this page occasionally (admittedly less frequently since the Spore post).
Regarding game admins listening to players, to me it seems very similar to the concept of ‘innovation drives’ that you see in corporations. The basic idea is that usually decisions are made at the top and roll down. Lower-level workers will have loads of ideas about how things could be better or different. Many of the ideas will range from impractical to ridiculous, but a few will be really insightful and promising.
So should game admins listen to players? Of course, maybe, sometimes ;).
Glad to know the muckbeast still has a pulse.
Count me as one of those people that believes game designers shouldn’t listen to players. The average player doesn’t know how a game “works” even if they know how to play it. I’ve seen it in house rules for D&D and M:tG. I’ve seen it in arcades where executing throws in Street Fighter 2 is “banned”. MMOs are really no different. It’s just that in the internet age, people are more able to get their uninformed opinions out there, and MMOs are obviously a child of the internet age. MMO developers take player input WAY too seriously.
That being said, devs do sometimes overlook things. My suggestion would be longer testing periods, and probably less complicated games. And most importantly NEVER try to reinvent your game after it’s released. The more changes you make, the more you will alienate the people that were pleased with what you originally gave them. Have massive changes ever really resulted in a large subscriber increase? I find it pretty doubtful, myself.
Obviously not checking in that often since I first notice this post now. But will keep checking in now and then to see if you breathe some life back into this place again some day.
On the player feedback I am sure it is a good idea to get it. But use it as inspiration and maybe some kind of guideline but never give in to pressure or give up your view on where you want things to go. The problem is that we players probably don’t know that much about what makes us play a game and what makes us stick around.
Yep, Still checking.