Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[Ratman_tf]

I find it surprising to see so many people saying Dev's should ignore forums.   Maybe if they wanted to make the kind of game some people enjoy that would be a good idea.  I consider a big part of WoW's success to be from them listening to the forums though.   Just thinking of the original rest system which they seemed so intent on ramming through makes me shudder.  The only reason that got repealed is the forums.  Looking at how they did it I'd say the only important thing is for a company to learn who to ignore.   Their were a ton of whiny bitches who wanted the leveling to be harder but they got completely ignored as was proper.   Blizzard forums are probably home to the worst gutter trash the net has but they still obviously get useful info out of them.

I do not know, but I suspect tracking player activities (where do they hunt, what classes do they play, which quests are abandoned...) would/will give much more useful feedback than actually listening to the players.

[UnSub]

I personally prefer that there are no official forums. IF there are official forums, everyone gravitates to them... no real community is built outside the game. Since all posts are under the control of the MMO as soon as there's anger in the community about a particular subject they start censoring posts... it's all bad. Leave the forums outside the companies control so they aren't tempted to quell public opinion.

If it's outside their control, they also don't have to read it. Players can get as angry as they want while being completely cut off from the devs.

Also:

1) The aim of a CM is to build community inside of the game, not outside of it, to keep that revenue coming in.

2) Games that attract players build multiple communities - games with official forums still see fansite communities develop.

3) If it's a loud enough public opinion, it can't be quelled, official boards or no official boards. In fact, if the devs / CMs can deal with an issue on the official boards first (and quickly), they may not have to worry about the larger MMO-playing public hearing about it.

4) A dumb CM will delete all posts containing criticism; a smart CM will answer (or seek answers) for valid criticism and let the players know that their concerns have been heard, if not addressed.

[geldonyetich2]

For a lot of people, Tabula Rasa is the "move over WoW" game.  It's not that bad (beta impressions not withstanding) and if you're sick of WoW (as many people are after 2 years of playing it) Tabula Rasa finally emerges as a fairly decent diversion.  Different tastes will apply, of course.

[UnSub]

I find it surprising to see so many people saying Dev's should ignore forums.   Maybe if they wanted to make the kind of game some people enjoy that would be a good idea.  I consider a big part of WoW's success to be from them listening to the forums though.   Just thinking of the original rest system which they seemed so intent on ramming through makes me shudder.  The only reason that got repealed is the forums.  Looking at how they did it I'd say the only important thing is for a company to learn who to ignore.   Their were a ton of whiny bitches who wanted the leveling to be harder but they got completely ignored as was proper.   Blizzard forums are probably home to the worst gutter trash the net has but they still obviously get useful info out of them.

I do not know, but I suspect tracking player activities (where do they hunt, what classes do they play, which quests are abandoned...) would/will give much more useful feedback than actually listening to the players.

Both sources are useful. Datamining gives volumes of quantitive data while reading the forums can provide the in-depth qualitative context.

I know that it's popular on f13 to view all other MMO players as home-schooled social retards. However, the fact remains that about a week after launch players as a group will know more about the game than the devs do. Communication between the group that knows the problems and the group that can do something about them is very important. If the forums are full of nothing but noise, it is the fault of the CMs who should be weeding out useless posters with the gentile tap of the banstick.

[geldonyetich2]

However, the fact remains that about a week after launch players as a group will know more about the game than the devs do.

That was my first impression, but these days I figure the story is something more sinister yet.  The majority of the time, knowledge exists within the body of devs that the problem exists long before the players know it, but they haven't been able to adequately prioritize getting around to fixing it by the time it becomes a problem.  Once in awhile you might surprise them with something they overlooked, but it's a minority situation. 

In other words, beta bug reports aren't ignored or overlooked so much as deemed acceptable flaws by release.  Not that the developers would admit this.

[Ratman_tf]

However, the fact remains that about a week after launch players as a group will know more about the game than the devs do.

That was my first impression, but these days I figure the story is something more sinister yet.  The majority of the time, knowledge exists within the body of devs that the problem exists long before the players know it, but they haven't been able to adequately prioritize getting around to fixing it by the time it becomes a problem.  Once in awhile you might surprise them with something they overlooked, but it's a minority situation. 

In other words, beta bug reports aren't ignored or overlooked so much as deemed acceptable flaws by release.  Not that the developers would admit this.

I would tend to agree with this.

[UnSub]

However, the fact remains that about a week after launch players as a group will know more about the game than the devs do.

That was my first impression, but these days I figure the story is something more sinister yet.  The majority of the time, knowledge exists within the body of devs that the problem exists long before the players know it, but they haven't been able to adequately prioritize getting around to fixing it by the time it becomes a problem.  Once in awhile you might surprise them with something they overlooked, but it's a minority situation. 

In other words, beta bug reports aren't ignored or overlooked so much as deemed acceptable flaws by release.  Not that the developers would admit this.

The quoted statement isn't true in 100% of cases, of course, but neither is the "the devs love to lie about their game and its bugs" angle. Sometimes things work differently on the Test server from the main one, or just the sheer weight of numbers will find a bug / game mechanic that wasn't intentionally added by the devs nor willingly overlooked.

Some bugs do get passed as acceptable damage, sure, but hopefully they are the small ones. Having a forum where the devs / CMs can converse with players about a bug that has been discovered does hugely positive things for the community (assuming 1) the dev looks into and tries to fix the bug and 2) the players don't OMGWTFBBQ when something isn't fixed immediately).

I can go back on forward on these kind of things forever, but my belief is that MMOs need official, controlled forums to promote a mostly open dialogue with players and to create a community. Yeah yeah, this is an ideal set in a magic world where forums are sprinkled with fairy dust and magical unicorns point threads in the right directions with their horns, but it's what I think should be. Not having an official forum stirs up a whole other set of hornets to deal with.

[Nija]

With official forums you get too many brown-nosing F-wads. I've never participated in any official forum in any way, just because I can't stand that stuff.

HMMMM maybe that's an actual argument FOR having official forums. Keeping me away.

[Venkman]

Like everything else in the industry, this is not a black and white issue. Players will find stuff the devs never saw. The devs will know about stuff they can't fix because there's only so many hours in the day. Throwing dozens of more people at a project does not make it faster. And yes, the Devs often do hide stuff, but mostly because they don't want to reveal things too early for fear they can't do it, or because their business managers are giving them the PR/marketing schedule that controls the flow of information through specific means and channels (which is mostly how it happens).

[geldonyetich2]

That's pretty much what I was trying to get at with all my "majority of the time" and "minority situation" prose.  It's not black and white, there will be exceptions.  However, market pressures will tend to push devs to release their MMORPG before it's ready.  It's not a good thing when it happens, but I'm sure for many investors it seems like MMORPGs are such massive undertakings that they either push the developers to shove it out the door or it never gets released. 

Blizzard got four years to develop World of Warcraft, and all they were doing is streamlining EverQuest while applying Warcraft trimmings and the typical Blizzard gameplay enhancements.  Most development teams aren't as lucky and have higher aspirations.

[Venkman]

You're implying market pressures are forcing devs to pull in a launch date months before they originally planned. Normally though, launch dates are pre-determined, months and sometimes a year or more in advance. Mostly because of Retailers and their shelf-stocking methods. There's some wiggle room there, but it's the choice publishers that generate good foot traffic that have the most options there. But even then, we're not talking months of wiggle room.

What has mostly been happening over the last few years is either unrealistic goals or improper project management. Very very few games are launched "early", and even then (as in the case of VG) that was determined by the Publisher themself. If a game launches "early" it's because the production was running late and/or they didn't realize just how long their testing/QA cycle should have been (the results of which are usually what defines what's "rushed" about the game).

[Hoax]

Also I'd like to point out that fixed player factions and/or a class system automagikcally means official forum feedback is 99.999% useless.

I will use every official class board EVER as my evidence.  Feel free to go read some of them and tell me those people (if they even deserve such a title) are doing anything beyond advocating for their own special interest group.

[UnSub]

Also I'd like to point out that fixed player factions and/or a class system automagikcally means official forum feedback is 99.999% useless.

I will use every official class board EVER as my evidence.  Feel free to go read some of them and tell me those people (if they even deserve such a title) are doing anything beyond advocating for their own special interest group.

That's the same for any post - you are pushing your point of view forward and that viewpoint is unlikely to disadvantage you.

If there's no official forums and the devs are left reading fansites, I can be the fansites (especially those run by guilds) are going to be pushing their own particular wagons, be it PvP, RP, GvG, PvE or whatever other acronym they see as important.

As such, knowing that 99% of said posts are going to be asking for unreasonable buffs, the devs can go in with their eyes open.

[geldonyetich2]

Normally though, launch dates are pre-determined, months and sometimes a year or more in advance.

It is really reasonable to able to predict when you'll be done with a MMORPG years in advance?  You can call this "pre-determined" but I'm going to stick with "unreasonable publisher demands."

[Venkman]

I didn't see "years", I said "sometimes a year or more". It depends on, well, everything from the developer to the publisher to the market.

I have no idea if Blizzard set out to spend four years, but I do know somewhere well before that November they knew they'd be on shelf in that November. You can't just show up to thousands of retail channels with hundreds of thousands of boxes and say "ok guys, go stock shelves". And again, there's no better time to sell entertainment goods. So back out that on-shelf date by X time to cover replication and distribution, back that out by Y for "good enough" CD/DVD-ROM installer stuff (itself requiring testing) and your server setups, and then back the rest out to some prior point you feel comfortable calling "Beta" (not consumer "beta", the real one) and you've got a lot more inputs than just some ogre sitting in their ivory tower dictating terms.

[DarkSign]

Why is it that videogame software engineers dont have to predict when they're releasing correctly out of all the businesses in the world?
There are much more delicate, unpredictable, chaotic things that are done with more precision.

The answer? Because the customers are children. Literally. Children dont have a way to punish game makers for not coming in on time (let's skip market forces for the time being). Children dont have a voice in the videogame industry. And so the adults in the process seem to have taken advantage of that.

Yes, there are complete re-writes of software that has to be done in some circumstances, but it's ridiculous to think that software devs of any kind cant be held responsible. That includes MMO devs. Especially since we are 10 years out from the first graphical mmos and things are getting much more standardized.

[geldonyetich2]

In any survey results I've seen, the median age for videogame players is the high 20s.  They're not children.

Personally, I think the reason why games often can't hit the target dates with finished products is because games are a lot less conventional than other kinds of software.  You don't set out to design a video game with a definitive function in mind.  You might have a plan as to how to realize this function, but your ultimate goal is to make something fun.  You can't quantify that, and by the time you finish the implementation (easily the hardest part of video game design) you may come to realize that what looked great in your head isn't as fun as you hope.

[Trippy]

Why is it that videogame software engineers dont have to predict when they're releasing correctly out of all the businesses in the world?
There are much more delicate, unpredictable, chaotic things that are done with more precision.

That's software in general, not just videogames.

[ajax34i]

You may see "children" on the various game forums, but I think we're getting to the point where we're definitely behaving like adults when it comes to buying decisions (buggy vs. polished, etc).

As far as software being designed with the goal of "fun"...  take cars for example, are "appeal", "utility", "performance" any different from this "fun" you're talking about?  I'll give you that there are minimum standards of safety that must be met, but what sells a car over any other is just as difficult to quantify as "fun" is.

The industry needs to mature a little, and I'm guessing it'll do that fast, now.

[Venkman]

Define "children". Tweens make purchase decisions, as do teens, but don't call either group "children" to their face  And below that age, it's the adults buying the stuff at the request of the children. And yes, the actual most amount of money spent is by adults for adults.

But it's not their lack of voice that lets software developers skirt some scheduling issues. It's the continued belief that more time equals more quality. Game players would rather have a good game than one they can play right now. But it's the retailers that define for publishers the distribution windows because a lot of game purchasers, particularly at the holidays, are not informed gamers, being more gift-givers than anything else.

Backing out from a launch window, competent developers can predict how long it'll take to do something. But that's contingent on there being less experimentation and more cloning modelling around a proven success. Looking at the number of titles that launch each year, we know how much of the latter goes on.

Edit: grammarified

[geldonyetich2]

As far as software being designed with the goal of "fun"...  take cars for example, are "appeal", "utility", "performance" any different from this "fun" you're talking about?  I'll give you that there are minimum standards of safety that must be met, but what sells a car over any other is just as difficult to quantify as "fun" is.

I'd have to disagree here.  I can qualify things like "comfort", "utility", and "performance".  There's no doubt scientific documentation about what makes a human body comfortable when in a car.  They've probably volumes on the kind of utility people want out of a car.  Performance can easily be measured.

"Appeal" is pretty close to "fun" except, in a car's case, the "appeal" is going to be a mixture of many more utilitarian things in addition to the far more nebulous aspect of aesthetics.  A game, on the other hand, is nebulous from start to finish.  Even if you know you're making (for example) an MMORPG, you can't really be sure that this alone is going to have any impact on the desired result of fun.

[Margalis]

Personally, I think the reason why games often can't hit the target dates with finished products is because games are a lot less conventional than other kinds of software. 

Software in general nearly always misses target dates, so your entire premise is invalid.

As far as software being designed with the goal of "fun"...  take cars for example, are "appeal", "utility", "performance" any different from this "fun" you're talking about?  I'll give you that there are minimum standards of safety that must be met, but what sells a car over any other is just as difficult to quantify as "fun" is.

You forgot to mention the actual function of cars: to cart you around. Cars have a common baseline functionality, games don't. Cars differ only in the details, the basic concept is the same for all of them. Video games are much more diverse and have no baseline functionality whatsoever. Cares are easy to compare because they differ only in minor and set ways.

But again, the "fun" aspect of game development schedules is mostly a red herring.

Backing out from a launch window, competent developers can predict how long it'll take to do something.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by competent and whether your definition is entirely self-referential but I would submit to you that most developers, even competent ones, can *not* predict how long it will take to do anything non-trivial with any accuracy.

[DarkSign]

Anyone who starts producing software with no specific goal in mind is doomed to be out of the business. Videogames are software. And software development isnt done with blinders on.

Seems a lot of people have jumped on the "children" word in my post. I stand by that word, but would expand the explanation to include the videogame industry. Meaning - somehow because videogames arent serious (as say defense security encryption or medical diagnostic software) the devs dont have to produce a product like adults.  Furthermore, while the actual demographics may have changed, that doesnt mean the mindsets of the producers have. They're still rationalizing to themselves that they can produce on whatever timeline they want and not have their feet held to the fire.
 

[Venkman]

On TR for a sec: Respecs are coming[/url (by way of [url=http://www.massively.com/2007/11/28/tr-devs-further-clarify-respec/]Massively).

They're still rationalizing to themselves that they can produce on whatever timeline they want and not have their feet held to the fire.

I agree with this, so see it happening less and less. Too much money is being spent to leave things to "eh, we'll give it a try", in much the same way devs can no longer rely on just designing games they themselves would want to play (and don't end up anyway because they're busy on the next title). There's a lot of "video game industry" out there beyond the titles that get all the PR, and the stuff not under the daily microscope is usually the more responsibly-developed stuff.

I suppose it depends on what you mean by competent and whether your definition is entirely self-referential but I would submit to you that most developers, even competent ones, can *not* predict how long it will take to do anything non-trivial with any accuracy.

I agree, but it depends on what "non-trivial" is. Are they creating a brand new graphics engine with a brand new physics engine to co-launch with a brand-new console with entirely new hardware and development methodology that will continue to be defined until launch? Yea, good luck predicting that That's not the general rule though.

But I use that example because they were working towards a fairly solid launch date. Launching a game means getting it to where it needs to be and concurrently driving Marketing activities (in many, but not all, cases). And doing that means being governed by the dynamics of retail sales, some of the rules for which actually overlap between brick & mortar and online. Getting all that lined up means common milestones to hit. The impact of missing those milestones, particularly launch, depends on the size of the opportunity and the number of moving parts involved in getting it there.

Like everything though, this isn't "everyone does it" or "nobody does it".

[Miasma]

I'm not happy about that rage nerf.  The game was in beta for-fucking-ever and only now do they decide the core talent for half the class hierarchy is twice as strong as it should be?  It's going to make a lot of people angry, people who don't have a lot of incentive to stick around as it is.

[geldonyetich2]

Software in general nearly always misses target dates, so your entire premise is invalid.

 

Re: The Respec

I suspect that in time they'll probably rig up regular respecs.  Probably have it cost a clone credit or something.

[Kageru]

Of course having official forums are also good when you want to explain to your userbase why you're nerfing things, or why entire mechanics are missing (eg. bleed through, neatly invalidating the medic class).

As for the "rage nerf" it amazes me that wasn't fixed before launch. One skill point adding +105% damage?

The more I play it the more the game feels like CoH. The fun mechanic is shooting guns at a mass of foes, many of which have powers causing combat to feel quite varied... especially since in some cases the mobs take the initiative. On the downside class powers are finalised at level 25, the end game is grindy and there's no real reason to get to 50. At the same time it doesn't have anything close to CoH's variety of character types to promote alts. There's really only two classes, "Has rage" and "uses tools".

[Miasma]

There's really only two classes, "Has rage" and "uses tools".

Well, only one come patch day, tools.  I'll admit that rage was overpowered but it's too damn late to change it now, it should have been done before launch.  Now it's going to feel like I'm weak and feeble compared to before, not being powerful in a game takes away quite a bit of fun.  And there is precious little I would rather spend points on, the skills aren't very good.  With other games the problem usually is not having enough points to do all the awesome things I would like, in Tabula Rasa I have a bunch of unspent skills because nothing is worth taking.

My guild is already talking about moving to another game which is a shame because I would have really liked to see all the instances and zones.  It's like being in a bizarro universe of most bad MMOs, the content is great but all the supporting systems like loot/skills/attributes/tradeskills are garbage.

[DarkSign]

Software in general nearly always misses target dates, so your entire premise is invalid.

That assertion is entirely invalid. Could you back that up with something more than just typing? Of course this is tha InTrawebz and anyone can make up anything, but I believe we're all fairly trustworthy around these parts (though Im new so you might all be lying sacks of nuclear waste).

Sufficed to say I have a family member who has a small firm that privately contracts to produce software for the U.S. government. We have the "how come gaming software devs cant meet their dates" conversations about once a year. He always laughs and says that if software in general were done like the gaming industry they'd all be out of a job (read as: there's no reason why they cant produce on time).

The kicker for me is that movies are just as "fun-oriented" and experimental (writing something good isn't always easy) as games are. And often trickier to get out the door. Yet Hollywood has it's act together and can produce on time. The gaming industry should be capable of the same thing. But there's no unified voice to say "you're pissing us off so we wont buy your games."

[amiable]

Yeah now that I am getting to higher levels it is getting a bit grindy, they really need to either alter the XP curve or add a boat load of quests at level 35+.

The rage nerf in't that bad (at pump 5 pre and post nerf you effectively lose 25% of your DPS, which for most soldier classes was completely absurd anyway and you are not going to notice a difference).

It sitll shocks me how angry folks get about nerfs.  They are pretty much a staple of MMORPGs, if you discover and start exploiting an OP mechanic (and I think most folks would agree that practically one-shotting every mob in the game is a bit OP) expect that mechanic to take a beating.  Every time any skill is nerfed in any game there is a chorus of angry folk screaming that they are going to quit.  What gives with that?

[LK]

The kicker for me is that movies are just as "fun-oriented" and experimental (writing something good isn't always easy) as games are. And often trickier to get out the door. Yet Hollywood has it's act together and can produce on time. The gaming industry should be capable of the same thing. But there's no unified voice to say "you're pissing us off so we wont buy your games."

I imagine film is less trickier and prone to bugs than code.

[DarkSign]

The kicker for me is that movies are just as "fun-oriented" and experimental (writing something good isn't always easy) as games are. And often trickier to get out the door. Yet Hollywood has it's act together and can produce on time. The gaming industry should be capable of the same thing. But there's no unified voice to say "you're pissing us off so we wont buy your games."

I imagine film is less trickier and prone to bugs than code.

Doubt it. Wrangling humans is even more tricky than code. Add in contract negotiations, writers's strikes, location problems, government red-tape, cgi sequences, and all the other non-digital problems that arise.

[Miasma]

It's widely known and accepted by people that work in software that the vast majority of projects get screwed up and are either delivered late or cancelled outright.  If your friend is a contractor doing all the work himself or with a very small team and it is something straightforward then yes it's entirely possible to make deadlines but as soon as you need a dozen people and the project calls for something which no one has done before you are in trouble.  I'm not going to go into detail on why, there are lots of whole books written on that, but one of the problems is that we don't have well defined and set methods to estimate how much work needs to be done because virtually every situation is unique.  I could give a fairly accurate date for how long a run of the mill "shopping cart" web site would take but as soon as that customer wants me to tie into their current legacy system all bets are off.

[Surlyboi]

Report from the front lines from f13's apparent "biggest fanboi" for TR. At level 36, I'm still digging it. I've actually wanted to play enough that I catassed that far in a couple of weeks. (Ok, the missus was also out of town with her family for Thanksgiving, so I had time.) I'm casual at best after the jedi grind broke me in SWG, but I actually find myself reading the mission briefs and shit before running out to storm the castle. I haven't done that in ages. I know fuckall about the Lore of CoX and the stuff in EQ2 is mostly from stuff I gleaned from glossing over quest briefs and shit I remember from EQ. Bottom line, I actually kinda care about my toon and the worlds he inhabits. Plus, it's fucking cool to rush into a room full of alien hostiles and wax the bitches with an assortment of shit including shotguns and swords.

That said, there's shit that sucks about the game. Broken missions, obviously being right up there. The coming Rage nerf and the hue and cry it's caused among the players and the admitted grindiness of the later levels. (The last I can kinda claim as lack of high-end content, which I kinda expected. But then, like I said, I've never been one of the first to get to those places in an MMO before, so it's new to me anyway.) Will I continue to play it with the fervor I have for the past month? Who knows, but it is, for the most part, fun right now.

Lastly, on the whole lack of official forums, BFD. Though they may keep some asshats from spamming general chat with their "this game sucks, WoW was a much more solid launch", I kinda enjoy making fools of them and doing it there is so much more immediate.

[Miasma]

On the lighter side there is a known bug in one of the zones that causes crippling lag if you have the profanity filter enabled.  If you want in the zone you have to turn it off and risk your soul for hearing dirty words.  Reminds me of everquest in that zone with the cockatrices where their own names where censored.

And that filter is absurdly harsh, it turns "screwed" into "*******".