Well that's that then (Mark Jacobs leaves EA)

[Yegolev]

But yeah...if the end game is supposed to be where the fun is, then it makes no sense to make people slowly grind through boring lower levels.

It does if you want them to stay subscribed for a long time.

[Hindenburg]

what are you trying to do? blind me?

stopthatshit.jpg inc.

[schild]

How did you have time to do that with so much partying happening right there in your computadora?

[IainC]

It was during a well earned break from collecting blackmail material on Eve devs.

[Lantyssa]

This is stupid, but fun.

[Yegolev]

Cygwin is like cats and dogs sleeping together.

Also, I think Itto's language is fake.  Prototipo - if I can read it, it's not foreign.

[WindupAtheist]

I think I did it wrong.

[Yegolev]

I think I did it wrong.

On the contrary, you may have won.

[Hindenburg]

Man, jokes involving nobel prize winners get no respect.

[rattran]

Man, jokes involving nobel prize winners get no respect.

Jokes are supposed to be funny. It's what makes them jokes.

[Sheepherder]

[Hindenburg]

Jokes are supposed to be funny. It's what makes them jokes.

A referecence to the previous american government would be the following step. Sadly, it'd wander into full retard territory shortly after.

Guessing the next step would be binary.

[Ard]

We've just had hex, we can't stop here, this is bat country.

[Lantyssa]

Cygwin is like cats and dogs sleeping together.

X on cygwin using vi at that.

I'd do an old black and white VAX dummy terminal, but it'd be hard to get a screen cap and we threw those out years ago, which makes it even harder.

[IainC]

Pah, you're all amateurs. I wrote this message using a magnetised pin and a very steady hand directly onto the HD platter at the f13 server farm.

[Delmania]

Pah, you're all amateurs. I wrote this message using a magnetised pin and a very steady hand directly onto the HD platter at the f13 server farm.

[Arthur_Parker]

But yeah...if the end game is supposed to be where the fun is, then it makes no sense to make people slowly grind through boring lower levels.

It does if you want them to stay subscribed for a long time.

I don't think they consider the efforts they put into making the classes different.  Finding out you don't like playing a Witch Hunter at 40 after 2 months is very different to finding out after 2 weeks.  If it's about about retention (and based on box sales it is) then I wouldn't trust the players to pick the class that suites them best on their first go.  There's a reason WoW players have so many more maxed out characters than normal.

[Nebu]

I think the more obvious solution is to recognize that if your PvE sucks, then you better not make it the emphasis of the game. 

DAoC learned (eventually) that making the pve portion trivial added a lot to replay value.  WAR suffers from a double wammy: The PvE sucks making the long grind to the endgame seem even longer AND having a shitty endgame, so the grind that you endured to get there now seems like kick to the groin.  If you're going to make your players grind to get to an endgame, at least have the decency to make the endgame worth the wait. 

[Sjofn]

I'm not really convinced the grind really keeps people subbed longer than they normally would otherwise, especially if your classes are different and fun and you have a decent endgame. I don't dispute people making MMOs assume this is the case, and maybe it really is, but I do know that I quit MMOs before reaching cap or earlier than I might've otherwise because the grind sucked so bad and because I wanted to try more than one class but that was going to be too soulcrushing to actually do. I'd be pretty surprised if that attitude didn't become more and more prominent as the gamer population widens and ages.

[ghost]

One would have to assume that there is a breaking point where the grind causes more people to quit than a cool endgame would retain.  Each person is willing to put with with varying amounts of bullshit to get to the golden carrot.  The stronger the endgame, the more "grind" people will suffer through to get there.  Obviously, WAR has won the grind battle by making their endgame so stupid and futile as to make any amount of grind seem ludicrous. 

[waylander]

But yeah...if the end game is supposed to be where the fun is, then it makes no sense to make people slowly grind through boring lower levels.

It does if you want them to stay subscribed for a long time.

Why not just make the end game actually fun?

[Lantyssa]

Madness!

[Ingmar]

I hear that's really easy, as evidenced by the hundreds of games out there that are all totally fun.

[UnSub]

I hear that's really easy, as evidenced by the hundreds of games out there that are all totally fun.

Oh, it's totally the devs' fault that they can't make an endgame where you do the same thing 100 times over (after having done similar things 1 000 000 times to get there) yet remains fun for years. Everyone knows how easy it would be to fix. 

[Venkman]

One would have to assume that there is a breaking point where the grind causes more people to quit than a cool endgame would retain.  Each person is willing to put with with varying amounts of bullshit to get to the golden carrot.  

The carrot isn't the endgame at first. Not for people untrained by prior raid/RvR MMOs anyway. The grind sets in more because of the time between new unique abilities than the pure time it takes to level. The people it pisses off the most are those trained by prior games, but they either suffer through or buy a premade somehow anyway.

I would bet there's little correlation between the time it takes to reach the cap and the the length of a subscription. Rather, it's probably more about time between the feeling of "new" as linked to abilities, zones, types of encounters, etc. People who quit because they didn't reach the cap fast enough weren't lured by the endgame enough, probably because there is another game with a more polished endgame anyway.

[columba]

Since Jacobs had the ethics of an ambulance chaser (and the same profession), I hope he rots somewhere.  Killing off two good games was the least of his crimes.

[Modern Angel]

Since Jacobs had the ethics of an ambulance chaser (and the same profession), I hope he rots somewhere.  Killing off two good games was the least of his crimes.

Your three posts have been very substantive.

[Feverdream]

Since Jacobs had the ethics of an ambulance chaser (and the same profession), I hope he rots somewhere.  Killing off two good games was the least of his crimes.

Your three posts have been very substantive.

Someone referenced f13 on a Warhammer thread on VN in the last couple of days, if I remember right.  I think this is fallout.

[Lantyssa]

Dear gods, no.

[Feverdream]

Actually, I just poked around on VN, and in a thread about WAR's falling subscription numbers someone linked to f13, while another poster mentioned that developers post here and asserted that the level of discourse was intelligent.

So yeah.  Fallout.  There are a couple of really obsessive types on VN who only seem to be able to write some variation of "Mythic sucks".  They never say substantively more than that, and it gets pretty boring.  I've always hoped they wouldn't find their way over here.  I may not post much, but this place is sort of a haven for my warped little brain =P

[Xuri]

What Fallout? I see one guy.

[Arthur_Parker]

Thinking back that warhammer thread, just after Mark started posting, was more enjoyable than the game.  All the new posters discovering this place and deciding to write their first mmo novel in post form was hilarious.  We should have an archive of comedy gold threads.

[Hindenburg]

Not all. Just the absolute majority.

[Fordel]

Is that a Frog riding a tiny motorcycle?


If so I approve.

[Nevermore]

What Fallout? I see one guy.

I guess that truly goes to show how far WAR has fallen.