If devs waited for bug free games, we'd never have a release, there would be nothing to play and devs could not remain employed for lack of revenue.
The vast majority of bugs and suggestions have already been caught and submitted by internal QA.
Way before external players get their hands on the game..
Not even close. You might be on the forums for the wrong game, Sherlock. We're talking about a game called "Neverwinter" here, which has a history entirely different from what you outlined above.
I did play everquest at beginning, I did not encounter so many bugs. I did play classes which were disliked in group like rogue or necromancer yet I could find groups by negociating (how do you negociate in neverwinter : you're just kicked out) and I could totally play the game without having to see any bug.
GM were way easier to contact and they did answer in minutes to your complains : whatsoever. Gm were polite, asking you if they were not disturbing you and proposed nicely to help you.
Neverwinter is at light years far from everquest when it was just released. Not to mention everquest was an open world with open PvP servers, and no class were as rushed as is the GWF in neverwinter.
Nethertheless they were many more races and classes than in neverwinter...
Consumers have been criticizing and evaluating products since the beginning of time. If you were a blacksmith in medieval times and made a ****ty sword, you don't think the person you sold it to would tell their friends "hey this sword sucks <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> I can't PvP with this"? You honestly don't think the consumer has the right to inform his friends on the satisfaction level of his purchase?
Now see if your brain can grasp this concept. If that same ****ty smith went back to the bronze age and sold his crappy iron swords, what would the satisfaction level be? Same sword, but I'm sure people would be amazed and satisfied with his work, based on the competition in the market.
Same applies to Neverwinter, if you went back to 2001 and released this game with Everquest / UO / DAoC, I'm sure it would be getting much more positive feedback. Unfortunately for Cryptic, they are a decade late, and they are now competing with the juggernaut that is WoW (which is actually nearing the end of it's lifecycle), and new games coming out such as Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy 14, etc.
Being critical of a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> product is nothing new to this world, sorry something you had such high hopes for turned out to be a Cleveland Steamer.
If the developers and programmers at Cryptic / PWE cannot put out a quality product maybe they should fold as a company and go find different jobs...if they had graduated top of their class they would be working for Google, Blizzard, Microsoft or Apple. Being an adult in this free market is not easy, taking a job at a company such as Cryptic is high risk, and I don't feel sorry for behaving as any consumer should in a capitalist society...hopefully when they get laid off they find new jobs with a better marketing department / content designers.
ageia417Member, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 9Arc User
edited June 2013
I guess I'm a relic of times past. A game company that gives you the brunt of their content for free and makes you only pay for the specialty and fluff items seems like it should garner some support and loyalty. At least, that's how I see it. Maybe I'm just thinking about the past when we paid for the base game (40-80 bucks) then every single expansion (another 40-80 bucks) then paid them 15 dollars a month. Like the OP says, there was a certain amount of loyalty back then when they were in our pocketbooks, but now that we are playing mostly for free (except for the extras we choose to buy) there are so many complaints and no loyalty at all.
Is this what is meant by the old saying, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile"?
I guess I'm a relic of times past. A game company that gives you the brunt of their content for free and makes you only pay for the specialty and fluff items seems like it should garner some support and loyalty. At least, that's how I see it. Maybe I'm just thinking about the past when we paid for the base game (40-80 bucks) then every single expansion (another 40-80 bucks) then paid them 15 dollars a month. Like the OP says, there was a certain amount of loyalty back then when they were in our pocketbooks, but now that we are playing mostly for free (except for the extras we choose to buy) there are so many complaints and no loyalty at all.
Is this what is meant by the old saying, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile"?
Garbage logic, please try to comprehend the knowledge that is about to be dropped on you.
Microtransactions are proving to be more profitable than the 40-50 buck 1 time purchase combined with a monthly subscription. As I have posted before, every consumer values every good / service at a different price. If you charged $400 for this game, most people would not buy it. You gain revenue from the consumer who values the game at $400 and buys it, but lose revenue from everyone who chooses to not buy the game at all, and does not purchase it. While $40 is a more reasonable price, the same principles apply.
When switching to a microtransaction model, you are essentially including every consumer, from those that will pay $1 to those that would pay $400, and losing much less revenue.
1) This is why most future games are likely to be "free to play".
2) This is NOT an excuse to release a crappy product
3) The foundation of making money is still the player base, more players, more money
4) Better game, more players
5) You aren't from a better generation or a relic of past times, people that did not value Everquest at $40 per expansion or $15 per month did not purchase it, and if they felt cheated or misused by an expansion they complained about it.
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sh4dowrunn3rMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 17Arc User
edited June 2013
Thing is when you pay for something you feel obligated to use it and like it, it's subconscious and most will deny it/convince themselves that they love it.
And in f2p games I'm always cynical... since it's always so obvious all they want is money and they never care about quality.
Also in first post when you said how games had million exploits and bugs and you LIED to your friends on how great they are and that they should play - would be nice if you were loyal to friends and not a game.
Thing is when you pay for something you feel obligated to use it and like it, it's subconscious and most will deny it/convince themselves that they love it.
And in f2p games I'm always cynical... since it's always so obvious all they want is money and they never care about quality.
Also in first post when you said how games had million exploits and bugs and you LIED to your friends on how great they are and that they should play - would be nice if you were loyal to friends and not a game.
This is meh.
Maybe some people feel a subconscious obligation to be satisfied with something they paid for. I tend to feel resentment and bitterness when I pay for a product I am not satisfied with. The monetary policies of the company have little to do with loyalty, I feel it is deeply rooted in the quality of the product, or lack of quality in this case.
The idea of being loyal to a game (or a design studio or whatever) has always struck me as a weird thing. I'm a consumer; if I like the game, I play it. If I don't, I don't, even if it's free.
Granted, there are such things as expectation, anticipation, patience, trust, etc., but I'd be hard pressed to call any of that "loyalty." Rather, those things have more to do with one's experience with a franchise or studio than anything else. If a franchise or studio has earned my "loyalty," that means they've released enough enjoyable things that I have fairly solid reasons to look forward to their next title or expansion... however, I'd still reserve the right to scream bloody murder if that next thing turns out to be <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
Make no mistake, I'll give almost anyone a second chance. However, Cryptic has had four, and they've royally muxxed it up three times (IMO). In addition, they've demonstrated their willingness to engage in practices that I consider sleazy, underhanded, and manipulative. It's remarkable that their first MMO has earned enough of my "loyalty" that I still follow the studio, but that's a double-edged sword, isn't it?
5) You aren't from a better generation or a relic of past times, people that did not value Everquest at $40 per expansion or $15 per month did not purchase it, and if they felt cheated or misused by an expansion they complained about it.
I contend that there is indeed a difference in milieu here.
Subscription era games felt a pressure to release competitively with other games who were also trying to release well. That means they were aiming for a smooth running, polished and well rounded product from the gate. That is not to say that launches were flawless or bug storms didn’t occur because they did so in all cases. But the goal was clearly to release a product that could stand on its own as a complete package. Witness the release of Final Fantasy, WoW, CoH and Everquest 2, plagued with minor troubles but acceptable as final products with support staff and development.
But these were the brief dreadnaughts of their age eclipsed now by the smaller and more agile “soft launch” frigates. The industry is being reset by the whole cash shop mentality. It is starting over. The philosophy is to release it too early and broken and just fix as you go, understaffed and underfunded while soaking the consumer with every dirty trick in the book until you either turn the game into a self supporting entity or fold it and move on to the next “free to play” player farm.
It is the customers who will ultimately decide the rate and volume of change required to make money in this bronze age of gaming. The companies will make their money regardless, though, especially while they can convince people to drop 200 dollars on a product that isn’t even out. But slowly gamers will once again grow up and start demanding more from their past times and the games will have to adapt.
It breaks my heart that some people think that the treatment they get in this game is “fine” and the value of the product is anything greater than “free”. It is as if the industry has also reset the player base to a younger model impressed by anything and with no sense of proportion. But as more games adopt this greed-is-good philosophy there will be an organic movement toward that games that provide actual entertainment.
But the bar is currently very low. There is a long way to go before you can again expect the sort of quality and development attention that many of us have seen in our lifetimes. Don’t accept minimum effort for maximum profit. Make them earn your money. Require decent development. Don’t pay for a shoddy product.
There was a time when the players were loyal to their game.
Anyone here ever play EverQuest? Ultima Online? Dark Age of Camelot? Those names were nightmares. Horrifying, torturous, backbreaking nightmares of bugs, tedium, and grief, and yet somehow, they thrived. The attitude of the player was different in those days. Instead of hitting Facebook and Twitter and everywhere else on the Internet warning people away from the games, people were out there, singing its praises and trying to get their friends to play it with them. Instead of condemning their game for its bugs, they glossed over them, or apologized for them, instead focusing on what was good about their game of choice, which in those days was not very much. There was a real sense of community, of hanging together through adversity.
People seem to have lost their grip on a very basic piece of knowledge: New players are the air that your MMO breathes. Your MMO, not just this one but *any* MMO you enjoy, cannot live without new players, just like you cannot live without air.
When you go out and bash and scream and cry and kick and whine and complain and basically make all the black noise you can everywhere you go, you turn new people away from your MMO. You deprive it of air. You choke it. If that happens for long enough, it dies.
So I guess my question is, when did it become cool among the gaming community to try to kill its own games? I'm not talking about complaining about bugs and balance issues and so-forth, I'm talking about the outright attempts to make sure nobody you know comes through the door. The willful choking off of the game's air supply. When did that become okay?
Not only that, but you're also willing damage upon real people when you behave this way. The Neverwinter team includes a pretty good number of programmers, artists, marketing people, sound guys, managers, producers, and support staff. I'm sure they have people in the accounts payable and the accounts receivable cubicle. If they had custodial staff that came in and cleaned the office every night I wouldn't be surprised.
Were the game to die, all of those people would be out on the street. We're talking unemployment, loss of house and property, possible divorce and child custody, the whole bit.
I'm not saying people shouldn't complain when there's a problem, I'm just saying that maybe they shouldn't complain in such a way as to threaten the livelihoods of hard working people, just because there was a bug in the auction house or some other piddly thing.
Show some loyalty. Back your team. They work hard for you.
<Be civil and leave the name calling and political rants out of this....>
Back in the days of Everquest it was one of the only MMO's out worth playing. Now there is plenty, a bar has been set and people expect companies to deliver regardless of budget or how long the game has been live, they expect perfection because they can always go play another successful MMO that has had years of work put into it rather than trying to help a company improve their game. Sad, but true.
I try to look at the bugs and short comings of this game as a minor flaw, I understand it hasn't been long out of Beta and things can only get better. People nowadays complain over the slightest thing, I hate to think of what the internet is going to be like in a few more years when all these spoilt, moaning youngsters grow up.
I hear what you're saying. As someone who played UO when it was NEW, I do remember that. The thing is, times have changed. Back then, games were subscription based, and you felt a very real investment, and because the income was all based on monthly payments, the companies needed you to keep coming back or you'd simply stop paying. More importantly, there weren't that many MMORPGs around, not major ones anyway, because the barrier to entry (in terms of cost of hardware, bandwidth and development) was very high.
That's all changed. The barrier to entry is WAY lower now across the board and every other company, and a few besides have an MMO sitting around somewhere. The "Free to Play" model means rather than having to court a long term player base, companies instead need to appeal to the short-term, short attention span crowd who will drop $50 here or $30 there every so often when they come out with a new shiny object to buy. They don't need to invest in loyalty, they need to invest in quantity because the more players they can get in, the more $50 whim buys they'll get. So what if that player never comes back, they can still advertise millions of players and likely attract more.
I don't say all this to harp on Cryptic. Cryptic didn't make this model up, and they're in this for the money like any other company, and there is WAY more money in Free-To-Play than there is in traditional subscriptions, so it's no surprise. My point is, you cannot expect loyalty anymore, that is gone, as sad as it is. It's the downside to this sort of payment model. It's also why, apparently, company pay far less attention to their player base than they used to -- because 99% of what their player base says is garbage where as before, only 80% of it was, but they paid attention to the people they knew were worth listening too. Now, with most company, Cryptic included, while they say things like "you spoke we listened" it seems pretty clear they do not, and as I've already said, it comes as no surprise. It's not because they suck, it's because, by and large WE do (at least from their point of view), because far too few people have anything constructive to say.
What's the solution? In your small way, you're a part of it already -- encourage friends/guildmates/posters to focus on solutions rather than problems, and rather than just flaming or complaining, suggest alternatives. And don't be discouraged if it doesn't make any difference. Most of the time, any given suggestion is flat out ignored anyway. That's how these things go.
But, more importantly, it's not about Loyalty (I don't think it ever was) it's about not being a *******, and unfortunately, that's an uphill fight...
All I can say is "Wow" I mean, I will say that I spent a few grand (I think around 3 grand) on an MMO I played for a few years, but that was in small increments and I also paid for my wife to play as well.
I am staggered by the wealth you can move around, and I wish it was moving in my direction
Garbage logic, please try to comprehend the knowledge that is about to be dropped on you.
Microtransactions are proving to be more profitable than the 40-50 buck 1 time purchase combined with a monthly subscription. As I have posted before, every consumer values every good / service at a different price. If you charged $400 for this game, most people would not buy it. You gain revenue from the consumer who values the game at $400 and buys it, but lose revenue from everyone who chooses to not buy the game at all, and does not purchase it. While $40 is a more reasonable price, the same principles apply.
When switching to a microtransaction model, you are essentially including every consumer, from those that will pay $1 to those that would pay $400, and losing much less revenue.
1) This is why most future games are likely to be "free to play".
2) This is NOT an excuse to release a crappy product
3) The foundation of making money is still the player base, more players, more money
4) Better game, more players
5) You aren't from a better generation or a relic of past times, people that did not value Everquest at $40 per expansion or $15 per month did not purchase it, and if they felt cheated or misused by an expansion they complained about it.
Hmm. Never claimed to be from a better generation. Never claimed that the company makes less either. My statement was that maybe I'm too old to understand why someone wouldn't appreciate not HAVING to spend all that money. If you spend it, its because you wanted to spend it while playing. (This is assuming you like the game enough to play.) Yeah, its free so more people will play it. Do you really think every player pays for Zen? The issue, unless I miss understand, isn't is the company making more/less money for worse/better content... it was, for me, why do people expect everything for nothing.
Times have changed and the pool of MMO players has vastly increased since back then. As many others have stated, there were fewer options for players then, purchase price for game and ongoing subscription cost so we tended to stick with one game longer.
Another important factor to consider was in games like EQ people were far more invested in their characters due to the amount of time it took to level them up (hell levels anyone?) and make a reputation for themselves on their server.
With the advent of things like Twitter and other social media players have a louder voice and gaming companies, much like any company, must either "adapt or die".
Just a side note: EQ was originally $9.99/mo then hiked to $12.99/mo and finally hiked again to the current industry standard of $14.99/mo
I contend that there is indeed a difference in milieu here.
Subscription era games felt a pressure to release competitively with other games who were also trying to release well. That means they were aiming for a smooth running, polished and well rounded product from the gate. That is not to say that launches were flawless or bug storms didn’t occur because they did so in all cases. But the goal was clearly to release a product that could stand on its own as a complete package. Witness the release of Final Fantasy, WoW, CoH and Everquest 2, plagued with minor troubles but acceptable as final products with support staff and development.
But these were the brief dreadnaughts of their age eclipsed now by the smaller and more agile “soft launch” frigates. The industry is being reset by the whole cash shop mentality. It is starting over. The philosophy is to release it too early and broken and just fix as you go, understaffed and underfunded while soaking the consumer with every dirty trick in the book until you either turn the game into a self supporting entity or fold it and move on to the next “free to play” player farm.
It is the customers who will ultimately decide the rate and volume of change required to make money in this bronze age of gaming. The companies will make their money regardless, though, especially while they can convince people to drop 200 dollars on a product that isn’t even out. But slowly gamers will once again grow up and start demanding more from their past times and the games will have to adapt.
It breaks my heart that some people think that the treatment they get in this game is “fine” and the value of the product is anything greater than “free”. It is as if the industry has also reset the player base to a younger model impressed by anything and with no sense of proportion. But as more games adopt this greed-is-good philosophy there will be an organic movement toward that games that provide actual entertainment.
But the bar is currently very low. There is a long way to go before you can again expect the sort of quality and development attention that many of us have seen in our lifetimes. Don’t accept minimum effort for maximum profit. Make them earn your money. Require decent development. Don’t pay for a shoddy product.
You don’t owe them anything.
There are a lot of salient points here.
The "problem" is that (as others have said in this thread) loyalty *should* be a two-way mechanism where the game should engender loyalty of its playerbase and the players should desire loyalty to the game for their investment in the game, whether it is play time or monetary or some combination of both. (This goes for sub based games, or pay as you go/ftp models. Time equating to money; you could and should choose to spend your free time and word of mouth/drawing friends into a game wisely since you only get the one opportunity to spend any given moment.)
It isn't. Players have rightly become a combination of fickle and more savvy, mature. Technology has evolved, the user experience has evolved, we know what we want, we have seen bits and pieces of what we could have, it's been hinted at or delivered across multiple games but no single game (in my opinion) has delivered a total successful platform. I joke with friends I could easily provide software and delivery specs on a game I'd play for life independent of content/theme.
On the corporate end, companies are driven to deliver faster, more agile-ly, rapidly deploying to stay ahead of market trends, while lowering costs. ANYONE can tell you that there are only a few ways to lower costs. Reduce person hours and reduce features. The playerbase wants feature-creep. So you tend to drop hints that lead to an appearance of overpromising, a more idealistic rainbowy future. Or as with this game, you even code things in and don't implement them right away. They'll be there some day. Then you match the delivery curve to when the profit is needed. If profit slacks off, you roll out functionality.
Budget tends to be fixed or shrinking. Game does well does not equate to budget growing to enable game to do more. Budget tends to shrink, period. The mantra of the present is always do more with less. You're doing well with what you have? Great. Fire someone, or do more with overseas resources.
Players meanwhile think that if they offer loyalty they may get something out of it. Whether or not anything is delivered is rarely determined by how much the players actually spend. The notion of being a staunch supporter of a product or company holding any sway in the world seems to have vanished compared to years ago. Company haz profits. Company happy. Player spent time or money, player needs to learn concept of sunk costs.
One of the thing I happen to miss about older gaming platforms (really really old) is player contribution. Foundry is nice, but it's not the same as picking into the source code and redesigning portions of the game around player wants. Or a subsection of the game. Or adding functionality or softcode. Such isn't likely to happen in a place where money is actually changing hands.
The treatment isn't fine. Real time customer support is something that should be a part of an online gaming experience. Certain corners shouldn't be cut. I -am- loyal to the games I play. I play one game at a time; I invest time and often money, and I give the game and company a fair opportunity to act in good faith. But at the same time, even having been a part of the dastardly process myself and knowing what is going on behind closed doors and how decisions truly get made, I *will* leave and abandon a company and take my time, my word of mouth advertising and my money elsewhere when the company violates trust beyond a certain point. I do not *have* to be playing a game at any given point in time. I don't mind rapid development iterative process, I mind bad customer service. I mind lack of vision. I mind a non-reciprocating relationship. I don't mind capitalism, but I mind non-user centered design processes that end up with suboptimized product even given budget constraints.
Hmm. Never claimed to be from a better generation. Never claimed that the company makes less either. My statement was that maybe I'm too old to understand why someone wouldn't appreciate not HAVING to spend all that money. If you spend it, its because you wanted to spend it while playing. (This is assuming you like the game enough to play.) Yeah, its free so more people will play it. Do you really think every player pays for Zen? The issue, unless I miss understand, isn't is the company making more/less money for worse/better content... it was, for me, why do people expect everything for nothing.
And I wonder why people seem so intent of paying for nothing. Worse than that really, they are paying for the opportunity to pay more.
Had I seen this on paper I would have said these people are being scammed, that there is some confidence artistry at work here. But this shell game isn’t even using shells and people are still putting money on the table.
I might also point out that no one on this thread forced Cryptic to make their game “Free”. They made that wish on their own and clearly did so as a lure, as bait. Everything else thus far has been the switch.
Everything for nothing? I would contend that Cryptic is looking for exactly that. How did they think they would get away with it? I haven’t a clue, but you could ask everyone who paid $200 for two capital letters and an ampersand.
Next will be things like a Pepsi sign in the tavern..:D
Hahaha! We laugh now, but it has already happened elsewhere. Anyone remember the failed advertising campaigns inside of Second Life? I never played it, but I remember the news and jokes about it.
Forums are nothing new. Complaining on forums is nothing new.
Blasting every social media outlet with negativity is new. Hopping on Facebook and telling your entire 600+ friends list to "omg stay away from neverwinter it sux" is new. That's what I take issue with.
I'm totally with you in what you're saying, but I think what you state here is really the key thing. Our world is evolving. Brand loyalty for anything in today's world is becoming a very fickle thing because of how easy it is for people to share negative experiences. I think humans are just wired to want to share bad experiences, and also to listen to bad experiences. "Watch out, there are bears nearby!" With such an easy spread of information now due to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I think we're entering into a very complex time for products of all sorts as far as attracting and keeping loyal customers.
It's unfortunate because what you say about games needing new players is completely true, and that it gets harder and harder for games to get new players when negativity is so easy to spread. However I also think that there are more and more new gamers out there all with differing tastes. So it's possible huge amounts of negativity will just keep away less dedicated players leading to more unified player bases which then leads to less negativity which leads to more new players.
Or massive negativity will kill products making companies realize they need to produce better products to avoid such negativity. Or companies will realize it costs too much to make products and we all suffer. Or crowd-funding will become a bigger and bigger source of products that aren't pushed into retail before they're ready due to people in fancy offices, wearing expensive suits, telling developers to finish what they're doing now, or else.
Either way we're in a new age and products are going to have to learn to deal with the ease of spreading negativity.
i am loyal till i am bored and no more content is added, i support the game i spend some cash 15-20 monthly and try to love everything in a game till i am no longer able to do any new stuff, i do not think is worth it in this game for example to do more characters (toons), the reaosn is that at the end is same mechanics in all quest for all players, i always go for melee ones so here as GF, GWF and TR yourm echanics are basicallythe same kill fast and move on, there is no mistery the prize for finish a quest is just Exp and that is since items are ridiculous, howevr i think they are fun and i have done all solo quest with my GF, i skipped some skirmished but try to do them at least once (would love to have epic version with good prizes for all) i just started to do Dungeons and i love them from start to finish i don;t care of the loot i love just to play them even if they take some time to complete, however my fear now is that after completing all dungeons once or twice (cause i really do not like to play the same content to much times) there is not to much of an incentive to continue finish them and once again i feel that there is to little end game content, however as long as i continue to play till i am bored i will continue to support the team, hope there is some more content each month to keep me playing and they will continue to recieve my support, i'm slowly building my enchants and earning some AD to finish my build maybe not pefect but probably sufficient enough to be really good in PvE and well at least not completely laugh in pvp in any case as i can see as not an old player i consider that there is to little end game content, cryptic could include some challenging end game contect for solo players as well like long quest with good prizes and not necesary it should be equip it can be rank 6 or 7 enchants or well keys at least, or some fashion items i think they should follow old games quest like Ragnarok Online there are still million of players in that game since 1998 and the reason i think is for the amount of time you need to complete all content and they are always including more content more fashion items more classes just check their quest page http://irowiki.org/wiki/Quests
PD sorry my english i am not anative speaker
Everything works out in the end . If it hasn't worked out yet, it isn't the end...
Negativity is hard to spread when it the things people have to be negative about are few and minute. Game breaking bugs making it from closed beta all the way into "live" are neither few or minute. Beyond horrible customer support and communication from development certainly isn't minute.
I'm totally with you in what you're saying, but I think what you state here is really the key thing. Our world is evolving. Brand loyalty for anything in today's world is becoming a very fickle thing because of how easy it is for people to share negative experiences. I think humans are just wired to want to share bad experiences, and also to listen to bad experiences. "Watch out, there are bears nearby!" With such an easy spread of information now due to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I think we're entering into a very complex time for products of all sorts as far as attracting and keeping loyal customers.
This is not really true. We as people share both negative and positive about what we enjoy in life. For example, if I go to a restaurant and have a great time, I get good food at a good price, the people there are friendly and it's an enjoyable event for me, I am going to tell my friends, my family, and everyone I know what a great time I had there.
Equally so, if I go to a restaurant and it is a horrible time, it's over priced cheap food, the waitstaff is nasty and it's slow to deliver, I am going to tell my friends, family and everyone I know that they should avoid such places.
This is a very old and very powerful ad system called "Word of Mouth", iirc, it is one of the MOST influential means of advertisement that a company can use, and many companies and starting business built their mega corps from.
In fact I do my friends and the people I know a disservice if I don't warn of places and products I know are not good. So yes, we should announce on FB, or anywhere else the games we think are bad and good, to let our friends know that this is a game to pass up, or this is a must play game.
That is human nature to pass on what we have learned to help and provide for our fellow friends, family, and people we know. If we did not pass on what we know, we never would have advanced as a culture, so from astrophysics to a good place to get some chow, people share what they know to anyone who wants to learn from them.
Were the game to die, all of those people would be out on the street. We're talking unemployment, loss of house and property, possible divorce and child custody, the whole bit.
Quoted for hilarity
Edit: People complain in the vain hopes that a game will improve.
People complaining does not mean those involved in making the game will lose their house/partner and or children, that so dramatic
Back when I played Everquest 1, it wasn't 'loyalty' to either Verant Interactive or later Sony that kept me playing. The game sucked but I played it for years because my friends played it AND there wasn't any other real good alternatives. It was either 'Play a c r a p MMO' or 'don't play any MMOs' really. The devs hated their player base and only fixed bugs when thousands started leaving. New expansions to the game were horrible, bug-ridden atrocities that would barely load because the devs didn't play test them at all. They let us play test their broken <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
Comments
Not even close. You might be on the forums for the wrong game, Sherlock. We're talking about a game called "Neverwinter" here, which has a history entirely different from what you outlined above.
GM were way easier to contact and they did answer in minutes to your complains : whatsoever. Gm were polite, asking you if they were not disturbing you and proposed nicely to help you.
Neverwinter is at light years far from everquest when it was just released. Not to mention everquest was an open world with open PvP servers, and no class were as rushed as is the GWF in neverwinter.
Nethertheless they were many more races and classes than in neverwinter...
Consumers have been criticizing and evaluating products since the beginning of time. If you were a blacksmith in medieval times and made a ****ty sword, you don't think the person you sold it to would tell their friends "hey this sword sucks <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> I can't PvP with this"? You honestly don't think the consumer has the right to inform his friends on the satisfaction level of his purchase?
Now see if your brain can grasp this concept. If that same ****ty smith went back to the bronze age and sold his crappy iron swords, what would the satisfaction level be? Same sword, but I'm sure people would be amazed and satisfied with his work, based on the competition in the market.
Same applies to Neverwinter, if you went back to 2001 and released this game with Everquest / UO / DAoC, I'm sure it would be getting much more positive feedback. Unfortunately for Cryptic, they are a decade late, and they are now competing with the juggernaut that is WoW (which is actually nearing the end of it's lifecycle), and new games coming out such as Elder Scrolls Online, Final Fantasy 14, etc.
Being critical of a <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> product is nothing new to this world, sorry something you had such high hopes for turned out to be a Cleveland Steamer.
If the developers and programmers at Cryptic / PWE cannot put out a quality product maybe they should fold as a company and go find different jobs...if they had graduated top of their class they would be working for Google, Blizzard, Microsoft or Apple. Being an adult in this free market is not easy, taking a job at a company such as Cryptic is high risk, and I don't feel sorry for behaving as any consumer should in a capitalist society...hopefully when they get laid off they find new jobs with a better marketing department / content designers.
Is this what is meant by the old saying, "Give them an inch and they'll take a mile"?
Garbage logic, please try to comprehend the knowledge that is about to be dropped on you.
Microtransactions are proving to be more profitable than the 40-50 buck 1 time purchase combined with a monthly subscription. As I have posted before, every consumer values every good / service at a different price. If you charged $400 for this game, most people would not buy it. You gain revenue from the consumer who values the game at $400 and buys it, but lose revenue from everyone who chooses to not buy the game at all, and does not purchase it. While $40 is a more reasonable price, the same principles apply.
When switching to a microtransaction model, you are essentially including every consumer, from those that will pay $1 to those that would pay $400, and losing much less revenue.
1) This is why most future games are likely to be "free to play".
2) This is NOT an excuse to release a crappy product
3) The foundation of making money is still the player base, more players, more money
4) Better game, more players
5) You aren't from a better generation or a relic of past times, people that did not value Everquest at $40 per expansion or $15 per month did not purchase it, and if they felt cheated or misused by an expansion they complained about it.
And in f2p games I'm always cynical... since it's always so obvious all they want is money and they never care about quality.
Also in first post when you said how games had million exploits and bugs and you LIED to your friends on how great they are and that they should play - would be nice if you were loyal to friends and not a game.
This is meh.
Maybe some people feel a subconscious obligation to be satisfied with something they paid for. I tend to feel resentment and bitterness when I pay for a product I am not satisfied with. The monetary policies of the company have little to do with loyalty, I feel it is deeply rooted in the quality of the product, or lack of quality in this case.
Granted, there are such things as expectation, anticipation, patience, trust, etc., but I'd be hard pressed to call any of that "loyalty." Rather, those things have more to do with one's experience with a franchise or studio than anything else. If a franchise or studio has earned my "loyalty," that means they've released enough enjoyable things that I have fairly solid reasons to look forward to their next title or expansion... however, I'd still reserve the right to scream bloody murder if that next thing turns out to be <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>.
Make no mistake, I'll give almost anyone a second chance. However, Cryptic has had four, and they've royally muxxed it up three times (IMO). In addition, they've demonstrated their willingness to engage in practices that I consider sleazy, underhanded, and manipulative. It's remarkable that their first MMO has earned enough of my "loyalty" that I still follow the studio, but that's a double-edged sword, isn't it?
The gorilla formerly known as Kolikos
I contend that there is indeed a difference in milieu here.
Subscription era games felt a pressure to release competitively with other games who were also trying to release well. That means they were aiming for a smooth running, polished and well rounded product from the gate. That is not to say that launches were flawless or bug storms didn’t occur because they did so in all cases. But the goal was clearly to release a product that could stand on its own as a complete package. Witness the release of Final Fantasy, WoW, CoH and Everquest 2, plagued with minor troubles but acceptable as final products with support staff and development.
But these were the brief dreadnaughts of their age eclipsed now by the smaller and more agile “soft launch” frigates. The industry is being reset by the whole cash shop mentality. It is starting over. The philosophy is to release it too early and broken and just fix as you go, understaffed and underfunded while soaking the consumer with every dirty trick in the book until you either turn the game into a self supporting entity or fold it and move on to the next “free to play” player farm.
It is the customers who will ultimately decide the rate and volume of change required to make money in this bronze age of gaming. The companies will make their money regardless, though, especially while they can convince people to drop 200 dollars on a product that isn’t even out. But slowly gamers will once again grow up and start demanding more from their past times and the games will have to adapt.
It breaks my heart that some people think that the treatment they get in this game is “fine” and the value of the product is anything greater than “free”. It is as if the industry has also reset the player base to a younger model impressed by anything and with no sense of proportion. But as more games adopt this greed-is-good philosophy there will be an organic movement toward that games that provide actual entertainment.
But the bar is currently very low. There is a long way to go before you can again expect the sort of quality and development attention that many of us have seen in our lifetimes. Don’t accept minimum effort for maximum profit. Make them earn your money. Require decent development. Don’t pay for a shoddy product.
You don’t owe them anything.
<Be civil and leave the name calling and political rants out of this....>
I try to look at the bugs and short comings of this game as a minor flaw, I understand it hasn't been long out of Beta and things can only get better. People nowadays complain over the slightest thing, I hate to think of what the internet is going to be like in a few more years when all these spoilt, moaning youngsters grow up.
That's all changed. The barrier to entry is WAY lower now across the board and every other company, and a few besides have an MMO sitting around somewhere. The "Free to Play" model means rather than having to court a long term player base, companies instead need to appeal to the short-term, short attention span crowd who will drop $50 here or $30 there every so often when they come out with a new shiny object to buy. They don't need to invest in loyalty, they need to invest in quantity because the more players they can get in, the more $50 whim buys they'll get. So what if that player never comes back, they can still advertise millions of players and likely attract more.
I don't say all this to harp on Cryptic. Cryptic didn't make this model up, and they're in this for the money like any other company, and there is WAY more money in Free-To-Play than there is in traditional subscriptions, so it's no surprise. My point is, you cannot expect loyalty anymore, that is gone, as sad as it is. It's the downside to this sort of payment model. It's also why, apparently, company pay far less attention to their player base than they used to -- because 99% of what their player base says is garbage where as before, only 80% of it was, but they paid attention to the people they knew were worth listening too. Now, with most company, Cryptic included, while they say things like "you spoke we listened" it seems pretty clear they do not, and as I've already said, it comes as no surprise. It's not because they suck, it's because, by and large WE do (at least from their point of view), because far too few people have anything constructive to say.
What's the solution? In your small way, you're a part of it already -- encourage friends/guildmates/posters to focus on solutions rather than problems, and rather than just flaming or complaining, suggest alternatives. And don't be discouraged if it doesn't make any difference. Most of the time, any given suggestion is flat out ignored anyway. That's how these things go.
But, more importantly, it's not about Loyalty (I don't think it ever was) it's about not being a *******, and unfortunately, that's an uphill fight...
Sekhmet@kvetchus_
Guilds: Greycloaks, Blackcloaks, Whitecloaks, Goldcloaks, Browncloaks, Spiritcloaks, Bluecloaks, Silvercloaks, Black Dawn
Tredecim: The Cloak Alliance
<No politically motivated or nationalistic comments, please>
All I can say is "Wow" I mean, I will say that I spent a few grand (I think around 3 grand) on an MMO I played for a few years, but that was in small increments and I also paid for my wife to play as well.
I am staggered by the wealth you can move around, and I wish it was moving in my direction
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You?
Hmm. Never claimed to be from a better generation. Never claimed that the company makes less either. My statement was that maybe I'm too old to understand why someone wouldn't appreciate not HAVING to spend all that money. If you spend it, its because you wanted to spend it while playing. (This is assuming you like the game enough to play.) Yeah, its free so more people will play it. Do you really think every player pays for Zen? The issue, unless I miss understand, isn't is the company making more/less money for worse/better content... it was, for me, why do people expect everything for nothing.
Another important factor to consider was in games like EQ people were far more invested in their characters due to the amount of time it took to level them up (hell levels anyone?) and make a reputation for themselves on their server.
With the advent of things like Twitter and other social media players have a louder voice and gaming companies, much like any company, must either "adapt or die".
Just a side note: EQ was originally $9.99/mo then hiked to $12.99/mo and finally hiked again to the current industry standard of $14.99/mo
There are a lot of salient points here.
The "problem" is that (as others have said in this thread) loyalty *should* be a two-way mechanism where the game should engender loyalty of its playerbase and the players should desire loyalty to the game for their investment in the game, whether it is play time or monetary or some combination of both. (This goes for sub based games, or pay as you go/ftp models. Time equating to money; you could and should choose to spend your free time and word of mouth/drawing friends into a game wisely since you only get the one opportunity to spend any given moment.)
It isn't. Players have rightly become a combination of fickle and more savvy, mature. Technology has evolved, the user experience has evolved, we know what we want, we have seen bits and pieces of what we could have, it's been hinted at or delivered across multiple games but no single game (in my opinion) has delivered a total successful platform. I joke with friends I could easily provide software and delivery specs on a game I'd play for life independent of content/theme.
On the corporate end, companies are driven to deliver faster, more agile-ly, rapidly deploying to stay ahead of market trends, while lowering costs. ANYONE can tell you that there are only a few ways to lower costs. Reduce person hours and reduce features. The playerbase wants feature-creep. So you tend to drop hints that lead to an appearance of overpromising, a more idealistic rainbowy future. Or as with this game, you even code things in and don't implement them right away. They'll be there some day. Then you match the delivery curve to when the profit is needed. If profit slacks off, you roll out functionality.
Budget tends to be fixed or shrinking. Game does well does not equate to budget growing to enable game to do more. Budget tends to shrink, period. The mantra of the present is always do more with less. You're doing well with what you have? Great. Fire someone, or do more with overseas resources.
Players meanwhile think that if they offer loyalty they may get something out of it. Whether or not anything is delivered is rarely determined by how much the players actually spend. The notion of being a staunch supporter of a product or company holding any sway in the world seems to have vanished compared to years ago. Company haz profits. Company happy. Player spent time or money, player needs to learn concept of sunk costs.
One of the thing I happen to miss about older gaming platforms (really really old) is player contribution. Foundry is nice, but it's not the same as picking into the source code and redesigning portions of the game around player wants. Or a subsection of the game. Or adding functionality or softcode. Such isn't likely to happen in a place where money is actually changing hands.
The treatment isn't fine. Real time customer support is something that should be a part of an online gaming experience. Certain corners shouldn't be cut. I -am- loyal to the games I play. I play one game at a time; I invest time and often money, and I give the game and company a fair opportunity to act in good faith. But at the same time, even having been a part of the dastardly process myself and knowing what is going on behind closed doors and how decisions truly get made, I *will* leave and abandon a company and take my time, my word of mouth advertising and my money elsewhere when the company violates trust beyond a certain point. I do not *have* to be playing a game at any given point in time. I don't mind rapid development iterative process, I mind bad customer service. I mind lack of vision. I mind a non-reciprocating relationship. I don't mind capitalism, but I mind non-user centered design processes that end up with suboptimized product even given budget constraints.
And I wonder why people seem so intent of paying for nothing. Worse than that really, they are paying for the opportunity to pay more.
Had I seen this on paper I would have said these people are being scammed, that there is some confidence artistry at work here. But this shell game isn’t even using shells and people are still putting money on the table.
I might also point out that no one on this thread forced Cryptic to make their game “Free”. They made that wish on their own and clearly did so as a lure, as bait. Everything else thus far has been the switch.
Everything for nothing? I would contend that Cryptic is looking for exactly that. How did they think they would get away with it? I haven’t a clue, but you could ask everyone who paid $200 for two capital letters and an ampersand.
Hahaha! We laugh now, but it has already happened elsewhere. Anyone remember the failed advertising campaigns inside of Second Life? I never played it, but I remember the news and jokes about it.
Hammerfist Clan. Jump into the Night: NW-DMXWRYTAD
I'm totally with you in what you're saying, but I think what you state here is really the key thing. Our world is evolving. Brand loyalty for anything in today's world is becoming a very fickle thing because of how easy it is for people to share negative experiences. I think humans are just wired to want to share bad experiences, and also to listen to bad experiences. "Watch out, there are bears nearby!" With such an easy spread of information now due to Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, etc. I think we're entering into a very complex time for products of all sorts as far as attracting and keeping loyal customers.
It's unfortunate because what you say about games needing new players is completely true, and that it gets harder and harder for games to get new players when negativity is so easy to spread. However I also think that there are more and more new gamers out there all with differing tastes. So it's possible huge amounts of negativity will just keep away less dedicated players leading to more unified player bases which then leads to less negativity which leads to more new players.
Or massive negativity will kill products making companies realize they need to produce better products to avoid such negativity. Or companies will realize it costs too much to make products and we all suffer. Or crowd-funding will become a bigger and bigger source of products that aren't pushed into retail before they're ready due to people in fancy offices, wearing expensive suits, telling developers to finish what they're doing now, or else.
Either way we're in a new age and products are going to have to learn to deal with the ease of spreading negativity.
PD sorry my english i am not anative speaker
This is not really true. We as people share both negative and positive about what we enjoy in life. For example, if I go to a restaurant and have a great time, I get good food at a good price, the people there are friendly and it's an enjoyable event for me, I am going to tell my friends, my family, and everyone I know what a great time I had there.
Equally so, if I go to a restaurant and it is a horrible time, it's over priced cheap food, the waitstaff is nasty and it's slow to deliver, I am going to tell my friends, family and everyone I know that they should avoid such places.
This is a very old and very powerful ad system called "Word of Mouth", iirc, it is one of the MOST influential means of advertisement that a company can use, and many companies and starting business built their mega corps from.
In fact I do my friends and the people I know a disservice if I don't warn of places and products I know are not good. So yes, we should announce on FB, or anywhere else the games we think are bad and good, to let our friends know that this is a game to pass up, or this is a must play game.
That is human nature to pass on what we have learned to help and provide for our fellow friends, family, and people we know. If we did not pass on what we know, we never would have advanced as a culture, so from astrophysics to a good place to get some chow, people share what they know to anyone who wants to learn from them.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You?
Quoted for hilarity
Edit: People complain in the vain hopes that a game will improve.
People complaining does not mean those involved in making the game will lose their house/partner and or children, that so dramatic
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