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Topic:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? [Locked] |
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
Yukishiro1 posted:
GrilledCheez posted:
Yukishiro1 posted:
I think making your classes deliberately unbalanced probably helps retain subscribers.
that's why i asked if they were smart or dum.
Oh, smart. In an evil way. Kinda like you. Or an advertising executive.
They are aware that how frustrated their players are doesn't matter a bit. What matters if that they keep paying the 15 bucks a month. Having two frustrated people coughing up the 15 bucks a month is twice as good as having one happy subscriber.
About as ridiculous as a kid on a forum claiming the devs purposely make class X more powerful because that is the class they play. 
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Yukishiro1  Posts: 3,243
Registered: 2002-9-20 23:52:57
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
Corky, you are a perfect example of the kind of person they rely on fooling. 
One of the most common examples of MMO developers deliberately unbalancing classes is expansions.
Blizzard deliberately made death knights overpowered in order to sell WOTLK expansions. EQ2 deliberately made beastmasters overpowered to sell AoD expansions. Daoc had a long history of doing this too.
You cannot look at the list of examples and come to the conclusion it wasn't deliberate. The pattern is too clear. Expansions almost NEVER release gimp classes. They are always overpowered. That isn't a coincidence. |
Cawlin Posts: 1,759
Registered: 2005-2-22 07:58:42
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
Corky_Aloof posted:
Yukishiro1 posted:
GrilledCheez posted:
that's why i asked if they were smart or dum.
Oh, smart. In an evil way. Kinda like you. Or an advertising executive.
They are aware that how frustrated their players are doesn't matter a bit. What matters if that they keep paying the 15 bucks a month. Having two frustrated people coughing up the 15 bucks a month is twice as good as having one happy subscriber.
About as ridiculous as a kid on a forum claiming the devs purposely make class X more powerful because that is the class they play.
There are MMO developers who have gone on record in interviews saying basically exactly that.
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If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.
Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
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Cawlin Posts: 1,759
Registered: 2005-2-22 07:58:42
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
GrilledCheez posted:
Lyndrek posted:
I think the best MMO class systems I saw were Horizons and Rift.
In Horizons you could switch to any class, each class had a set number of abilities, and you could carry over some of the abilities over. But if you switched classes you would only carry over the abilities that where half your level in that other class.
so a ranger 10 who switched to another class would retain the abilities of a ranger 5. I think Lyndrek the Saris was a ranger/druid/warlock/something else.
it allowed for a lot of customization.
I also enjoyed RIFT's class system where they have 4 basic classes but 13 specs, and you could switch between 4-5 sets of 3 specs. I hear now that it's now more cookie cutter since people figured out the "best" combinations but I enjoyed their system while I played. Lyndrek the mage was a Chloromancer/Elementalist/warlock, or Stormcaller/Elementalist/Chloromancer/ or something (always a chloromancer though I loved healing as a mage.) depending on the Role I chose for the time being.
If you are going to have a class system make it seem like less of a class system as possible.
I wish more MMO's did skill systems though, no classes just skills, level up what you use.
your rift example is perfect for why this is some kind of strange torture technique by devs.
It's not new at all. We talked about it in EQ. If you want to play the hardest content you have to have the best skill set by the player and the class.
Sure you could run without an enchanter, but you had to do things that you wouldn't have to do with an enchanter. Meaning if they made the dungeon as hard as they could, you could only do it with an enchanter. it also meant that people wanted dungeons that played medium and looked very hard. The problem with that is that if your dungeon plays medium it will be super easy for an awesome group.
I think the only way it could really be solved would be to only have a few classes and for them to all have the same abilities that they would have to know how to use in different situations.
but this type of game likely wouldn't be as financially lucrative. So like most things we are forced to do something less than ideal because it is more profitable.
And the logical question then is "Why is it more profitable to do things this way?
The answer is of course that most people who play MMOs don't actually want to play a a game like that.
Gamers are notoriously shortsighted about this and think that agreement between a few posters on a backwater forum implies some sort of ubiquitous desire by the entirety of the games target audience and customer base for the same thing that they want.
You want to know what most gamers want? They want WoW. You only need to look at the success of the game to understand this.
I don't particularly enjoy a lot of it, WoW is far from a "perfect" game in my opinion, but until or unless those niche gamers pony up to build a game for themselves and their 9 other friends on the backwater message board that want whatever niche game concept they believe is the be-all end-all, you're stuck with what will actually BE profitable.
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If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.
Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
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GrilledCheez Title: The Lord's Balls
Posts: 1,060
Registered: 2006-3-22 11:06:32
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
The answer isn't that most people don't want to play a game like that. the answer has to do with marketing, longevity, risk, revenue and a whole host of other things. Boiling that down to "GAMERS DEMAND IT!" Is Paulesque level faith based thinking in markets.
And it is demonstrably false. How many times has pepsi beaten coke in taste tests?
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Another word for expensive is successful.
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Cawlin Posts: 1,759
Registered: 2005-2-22 07:58:42
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
GrilledCheez posted:
The answer isn't that most people don't want to play a game like that. the answer has to do with marketing, longevity, risk, revenue and a whole host of other things. Boiling that down to "GAMERS DEMAND IT!" Is Paulesque level faith based thinking in markets.
And it is demonstrably false. How many times has pepsi beaten coke in taste tests?
I have no idea what pepsi and coke have to do with this.
How many subscriptions does WoW have compared to any other North American MMO?
-----signature-----
If ignorance were painful, half the posters here would be on morphine drips.
Everyone playing WoW knows everything about playing two classes: 1) their own and 2) Hunters
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Sin_of_Onin Posts: 1,307
Registered: 2005-6-29 08:21:12
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
It is very common to see people say they want something in a game but then they point to a game they don't play or is not played by many others in some part due to the thing they want.
I don't think it is that surprising that the Sith Warrior is relatively gimp. It is the one class I think most people would think to play. The other classes need some advantage to compete.
Not to mention it is a pretty straight forward concept.
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F is for Fake-believe
"We apologise for the inconvenience" --God
"What Jesus fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem"--Reg
Run, Forrest! Run!
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
Yukishiro1 posted:
Corky, you are a perfect example of the kind of person they rely on fooling.
One of the most common examples of MMO developers deliberately unbalancing classes is expansions.
Blizzard deliberately made death knights overpowered in order to sell WOTLK expansions. EQ2 deliberately made beastmasters overpowered to sell AoD expansions. Daoc had a long history of doing this too.
You cannot look at the list of examples and come to the conclusion it wasn't deliberate. The pattern is too clear. Expansions almost NEVER release gimp classes. They are always overpowered. That isn't a coincidence.
I wasnt talking about expansions. Expansions are entirely different. A main selling point for them are new loot and more powerful abilities. When new classes are introduced, they are commonly made on the over side of balanced, but will be brought in line eventually. This is accepted marketing. What I do not agree with is the idea that devs intentionally and commonly break class balance as a sinister plot to increase sales. That is dumb, especially considering how many MMO's sink due to player outcries of unbalanced classes.
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Yukishiro1 Posts: 3,243
Registered: 2002-9-20 23:52:57
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
Corky_Aloof posted:
I wasnt talking about expansions. Expansions are entirely different. A main selling point for them are new loot and more powerful abilities. When new classes are introduced, they are commonly made on the over side of balanced, but will be brought in line eventually. This is accepted marketing. What I do not agree with is the idea that devs intentionally and commonly break class balance as a sinister plot to increase sales. That is dumb, especially considering how many MMO's sink due to player outcries of unbalanced classes.
It must be nice to be able to contradict yourself and not even realize it.
We have established that MMO designers regularly deliberately create OP classes to increase sales. But then you say they would never do just that. 
Also, I don't know any MMO that has failed because of bad class balance. I can't think of even one. It is something people bitch about but practically no one actually cancels over it.
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Sin_of_Onin Posts: 1,307
Registered: 2005-6-29 08:21:12
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Date Posted:
1/1/00 12:00am
Subject:
Are MMO developers smart or dumb? |
It is a big stretch to connect expansion imbalance with imbalancing classes to boost sales around launch.
It just doesn't make sense that sales will be better at launch with imbalanced classes. Overpowered sure, imbalanced? I don't know.
Expansion classes are also often imbalanced because the player still has to level them. WOW introduced DKs at a high level which was far more impactful than any balance issues but was made with some of the same considerations.
-----signature-----
"Okay... I'm with you fellas" --Delmar
F is for Fake-believe
"We apologise for the inconvenience" --God
"What Jesus fails to appreciate is that it's the meek who are the problem"--Reg
Run, Forrest! Run!
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