I think the article makes its point very well. It describes very well
the players whom publishers will cater to and possibly must cater to.
And this is unfortunate.

I believe WoW is open beta now. A few of the guys here at work still
play it. They are also the ones that never played a MMOG before. Most
of us familiar with the genre have dropped it. The problem with WoW is
that it was a much better game in alpha. Even with missing races it was
more fun and more complete than any other MMORPG I ever played. None of
us could believe we were playing an alpha. Then right before the
transition to beta Blizzard let in a slew of players many of whom had
never played an RPG ever. The message boards became overwhelmed with
screaming, whining and complaining. The game was massively altered to
resemble the familiar they whined about and accomodations were made that
totally altered gameplay and made it less fun,

Actually, if I ever get the chance to create another RPG I would make
permanent death an integral part of it.(It needn't be as horrible as you
think. ) Sorry to hear about Ryzom, I was a little curious about it.


Dan

Piringer, Frank wrote:

>I think the short answer is, companies need to stop releasing MMOs that
>are still in beta. Not stop beta tests -- stop selling the game as if
>it's a complete world. Like most games, MMOs rely on hype and the 1st
>month sales to get them into the red. Unfortunately, MMOs also require
>a monthly commitment to stay afloat, to pay for things like electricity
>to run the world servers. The problem is, a poorly released MMO will
>not keep the excited fan base if there is nothing to intrest them, or if
>the interface is buggy or if the client crashes frequently. I think
>this kept decent MMOs such as Planetside and Anarchy Online from ever
>really catching on, and will always be a problem regardless of newbies
>or not.
>
>Personally, while trying to force myself through the Saga of Ryzom demo,
>I was crying in frustration as I tried to learn the complex and poorly
>designed interface. I will never know what the advanced features of the
>game were, because I immediately uninstalled the game and have become
>disillusioned with it. Unless I were to really see some glowing reviews
>over a new and updated interface, the rest of the game and all it's
>features can rot for all I care.
>
>On the other hand, FFXI was an amazingly simple game to get into. It
>was clean, had a short learning curve, and a ton of things to do and
>explore. Perhaps it was because it was already released in Japan for a
>while, but I think it was more than that: I think that by keeping things
>simple at first, then making the game more complex as you advance
>(instead of dumping everything on you at once) Square was able to keep
>the players who were testing the water and turn them into fans.
>Blizzard will be taking a very similar tactic towards World of Warcraft,
>so I hear -- the game will be designed from the bottom up to be as
>user-friendly as possible. This is not to say that there won't be
>unpopular features or the dreaded "Blizzard Nerf" patch around the
>corner to piss everyone off. But by having a clear design philosophy up
>front and not throwing the newbies to the wolves (THE biggest reason
>Lineage will never become mainstream) it stands a chance to survive.
>
>It's really a damn shame about Earth: Above and Beyond -- the demo I
>tried out seemed really cool, but I guess they learned an important
>lesson: players don't like exploring empty space and repetitive fetch
>quests. Give us some scenery and something interesting to do, and we'll
>forgive the occasional unpopular decision.
>
>Just keep away from the "Permanent Death" idea. In a persistent world,
>the worst thing that could happen is to lose a carefully constructed and
>much cared for avatar. I didn't spend 1000 hours and a hundred bucks to
>watch my guy go down in flames because I entered the wrong area at too
>low a level.
>
>--Frank
>
>