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Where's the loyalty?
lordoffiling
Member Posts: 5 Arc User
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.
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.
Post edited by lordoffiling on
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Comments
There was also a time when Game Companies were loyal to their player-base.
Might I suggest that the problem is not a lack of either one of those two chains of loyalty, but that the chain is a "two way" link, and when game companies break faith with their players that it is only natural for players to break faith with the game.
All The Best
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You mentioned Everquest and UO. People lit up the forums with complaints in both of those games anytime something they didn't like was added. If you were happy with them, you probably didn't even notice the complaints. Just like many Neverwinter players don't see the hate currently being spread around on the forums now.
I'm not saying its a good thing. Just pointing out that its nothing new.
You might, but I would contend that the game companies are still loyal to their player base and always were.
The reason I know this is because of all of the reasons I cited in my original post. These guys have a vested interest in making sure their players remain happy with the game they are playing. They'll leave if they aren't. If they do they'll be out of a frikking *job*.
Does anyone here seriously think these guys are there in their office, leaning back in their chair in a smoking jacket, twirling their curly black moustache, giggling maniacally to themselves, saying, "Muahaha! They will *never* survive with that Block bug in place!"
It seems a lot more likely, having worked with software developers in the past, that they're working insane hours for no overtime trying to fix the issues as fast as possible before everybody runs away. If I'm right about that--and, you know, I am--then this group of people deserves support, not contempt.
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.
Because the first MMORPG I ever played was Star Wars Galaxies, and there was A LOT of fanboy wars in between SWG and other MMOs, like EVE Online! OMG especially EVE Online! I dunno why EVE Fanboys kept bashing SWG, because I tried EVE and I was bored outta my mind. You could never land on a planet and run around killing stuff with a humanoid character! You were always in space. Not my kinda MMO. :P
Then WoW was released and it was a whole new war again. It was always WoW VS everyone else! But so what? WoW didn't start the fanboy war! So please don't make it sound like today's generation of forum and social network fanboy wars is a big deal. Don't write "There was a time when the players were loyal to their game." because there was no such thing as "a time". How could EQ1 VS UO be the only era where there was some kinda respect between fanboys? I don't buy it. I wish I did play EQ1 and UO during their prime to actually see it for myself, but judging from all the other games I've played, I'm 100% to 101% certain there was no difference. :P
TL;DR
I agree with whatever you said. We are the same.
I probably love this game and company and will do and pay whatever they say.
It is sad that people are entitlement babies that want everything and are not wise with the wisdom of other cultures. I just can not stand to see people bash a good game with good money systems that plays good.
What is worse is some people will leave the game and still come to the forums to troll and pretend to be fanbois, to help destroy the game.
Do not listen to haters cryptic because YOU ROCK!
Neverwinter be around 100 years!!!
That's just it though. Its more public now is all. When an issue pops up its suddenly on a multigame fansite. Where people who don't even play the game read bout it. So in addition to upset players you have people that never even played a game posting messages about how terrible something is.
As for people posting. As they say 'haters gonna hate'. If someone is upset and raging enough they will vent through every format they can reach. Unfortunately you (or anyone else) taking issue with it won't stop them.
nothing is good as back then lol
Well, the whole "blasting every social media outlet" isn't something that was really around back then, either. Go back 15 years, and many fewer people were online, the social networks weren't established, you couldn't "tweet" something to the smartphones that didn't exist & no-one had, etc, etc, etc. Gaming was still a niche, much less mainstream, too.
I'm not going to say it didn't happen at all. But I never saw it. I played both and can't recall anyone in EQ1 talking about UO in chat. Or UO in EQ1 chat. Can't play any MMO these days without reading about WoW in chat. I don't really think that was what the OP was talking about though.
Some normal servers like Quellious also took this attitude and disruptive players were shunned off the server.
Like it or hate it,the unforgiving approach works in unforgiving games and servers get the community best suited to that particular server.
Problem today is,most if not all new MMOs are not unforgiving in gameplay and as such disgruntled players hang around and disrupt others,most MMOs do not require a credit card and are free to play for all and sundry.
Earlier MMOs mostly had a more mature player base that shunned bad behavior and was quite happy to pay to play.Yes there was still some bad apples,but in general they didn't hang around long in game or forums before being ignored into obscurity.
I'm not sure the 2-way communication is all it is cracked up to be either. I can't remember any dev taking time to come and chat with the Lineage community, yet Lineage and L2 between them owned 50% of the total MMO subscription market. Numbers EQ, UO, EQ2 and DAOC could only dream of.
Good customer service on the other hand can be worth its weight in gold. Incidentally, Lineage had great CS, as too have some free-to-play games I've been and remain 'loyal' to.
Many of us have been playing D&D since before MMOs were invented, before computers were even commonplace, and you want to lecture us on "loyalty" to the game we love?! PWE and cryptic have other games out, by the way. This one is treated as nothing more than another cash cow for them, at least in my eyes as a loyal D&D fan. If this bombs, they'll find another franchise to milk and repeat the cycle, as they've been doing.
Granted, I'm sure they've put in hundreds of hours making the game, but if you're going to play with fire (huge IPs with huge fanbases), you better make sure you know what you're doing or you're going to get burned. Not just by the MMO gaming community, either.
The expectations also works both ways though, we've seen the way in which games are publicised changed radically - with trailers, youtube viral videos, facebook, twitter etc. with almost all of the newer games suggesting they are the 'next big thing' (TM).
I think if we, as a playerbase, were a little more patient and developers were a little more honest then we may all just get along. But please don't tell me that my new car is going to be the best one ever only for me to find that the AC button doesn't work, nor do the electric windows (but I can use the handles). Oh, and that brakes are 'coming soon'.
It wasn't. Though, it does bring up an interesting point.
I do recall, quite often, the various populations of the old games going to war against each other. It was actually a lot of fun to play EverQuest and see the players hating on Ultima Online or Dark Age of Camelot or whatever was coming out. But this whole thing of the populations going to war against their *developers* feels more recent.
I don't mean complaining to the developers, that's always been around.
I mean going into a state of active warfare against the developers of your own game. That's fairly new. Someone mentioned The Old Republic in another thread, and while it's true that that game had its own bucket of issues and had a combat system ripped wholesale from World of Warcraft, it didn't deserve anywhere *near* the amount of fan negativity that it got.
It had issues, of course it did! Some of them were pretty glaring. But, the almost complete dissolution of the playerbase in under three months? The game wasn't THAT bad. So what happened?
I firmly believe it was because the playerbase waged an unintentional campaign of social terror against it. Inside the game, outside the game, facebook, twitter, every website, every review, every comments section. It became popular to bash on the game. It created a kind of tidal wave, a kind of critical mass was reached, and suddenly every gamer, even gamers who had NEVER PLAYED IT (I caught more than one), were ripping The Old Republic up one side and down the other, and for no other real reason than that was what everybody else was doing.
That's what I'm railing against. That's what I would give anything to see stop happening.
TLDR
News sites tend to use forums and social media for their news rather than actually playing the games themselves these days.
I have to agree, the original reason I stopped playing TOR was because I couldn't afford a sub, I was going to go back when it went F2P until I saw the original F2P matrix and the restrictions on free players.
Then they are doing a very bad job of showing it.
Game breaking bugs/exploits go unresolved for week, months at a time.
When something does go wrong there is no communication.
The entire "customer relations" model they have is so appalling as to be a joke.
If they want players to be happy and to stay they need to start listening to players, not accountants.
All The Best
Looking For Reviews For Your Foundry Quest?
Drop By Scribe's Enclave & Meet Up With Volunteer Reviewers.
As for loyalty, this is a product, and it is either good or it isn't. When I am enjoying a game, I will overlook faults because I can have fun despite them. However, when I am not enjoying a game but I feel it has potential, I will pick apart all the reasons why I am not enjoying it, and then let the devs and the rest of the world know in order to do what is in my limited power to try to affect changes, at least for as long as I continue to care and hope that the game might improve.
It all comes back to the players attitudes changing. In 1999, People didn't pee and moan about what a colossal waste of time a 45 minute dungeon delve is. People didn't call 15 runs to get an item an eye bleeding grind, or come to the forums demanding a nerf when they didn't beat a raid on the first attempt. People also did not pay for unfinished games.
Trying to compare this era to that era is comparing tank cavalry to horse cavalry.
I think your prespective on the subject is a bit narrow and is missing quite a few factors here and there.
Ill start off by saying that back in 90s gaming let alone MMOs were as popular as they are now.
There were still technological limits for every developer out there so it took more than just picking some of the best solutions on the market putting them together and adding some sparks to make good game. Less choice of an online games meant that players sticked around for long and loyal to their franchise.
Since gaming audiences were a lot of smaller Developers had much more reason to keep their fanbase glued to the their game than they do now. Today industry is BIG and theres a lot of money to be earned today Publishers play major roles in how games are actually designed while all they do is care about maximizing their profits as any other buisness company.
Why do you think Indie games and programs like kickstarter got so much popular over the course of last few years? Its mainly because of publishers they hold too much power over development teams as they bring the money so their expectatiosn have to be met regardless the vision of developers. Im not surprised lot of studios went for kickstarter to create something they really always wanted but were unable to due to publishers ingerence in their projects.
IMO most creativity is now in Indie industry those people have no chance for even competition against BIG studios so they have to exceed somewhere else to be succesful.
Why gamers have become more toxic over the past years...isnt that a bit obvious. Ask youreself how many times you or somebody you know got burned by some "game" that turned out to be nothing but pure money grab or simply terrible product that was adverstised as something else. Thats why theres so much negativity around cause nowadays you cant even trust revievers/press because more than often they dont have youre best interest in mind. Youtubers right now seem to have more credibility when it comes to "revieving" games than companies who have been in this industry for years.
Ive never understood how we got to the point where criteria for a good game is result of whole - time spent playing vs amount of money paid - thing. Its imho the biggest joke gaming related that ive come across.
If i got half a dollar for every hour i spent playing Baldurs Gate or Heroes of MM 3 i could probably buy 30 extra games today lol.
Bugs will be always there now that games are much more complex you can just expect to see more of them its just common sense. However this whole soft release "beta" that has been going on is just nothing else in most cases than unfinished products released to the public so the money comes flowing on. BETA has become a perfect label used for protection from critique and bad press.
Hate to see grear franchises to be torn apart and wrecked in pursue of money - look what happend to Diablo for instance.
As sad as it is right now MMO market is so satured that playing game X doesnt really hold much weight - its like watching an american action movie - get that 90 min adrenaline rush and move on to the next title.
Companies exist to make money. The only owe loyalty to one thing: cold hard cash. Anyone that thinks differently is kidding themselves on. However, companies know that to get that cold hard cash they have to supply a product that consumers want, even if that demand has to be artificially stimulated with marketing. The goal then becomes to make as much money as possible while appearing as reasonable as possible, even if at times that means being unreasonable e.g. ekeing out the content.
For the record, people did HAMSTER and moan back then just as much - there were just fewer people playing the games back then and cockups wouldn't get so much media attention. DAoC Europe (hi GOA!) wouldn't even run their own forums. It was not in any way a nirvana of players fluffybunnycuddling the MMO providers.
We gave the devs hell when they botched things up. And quite right too. Gotta keep them on their toes
I think the term 'loyalty' in the MMO-company/player relationship is a bit misleading. Its a relationship which exists only so long as each gets what they want out of it. It was not and never has been about loyalty. The provider of a good game with good value for money might get a lot of *credibility* but that is a very ephemeral thing. Always has been.
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I just spent 100 hours of my time working on something that isnt real and then to top it off, it isnt working or is some how bugged, or I got banned for no reason (none of which has happened to me however I sense that this is common in NEverwinter) and no one will help or gives a HAMSTER.
Today there are literally 100s of aspiring 'f2p' model clone games out there.
"loyalty" is a great commodity amongst a playerbase, but playing a game that is just some glorified pachinko, created specifically to leech $ as opposed to creating the complete product is not deserving of "loyalty".