Let’s say the game is an MMO and has the following features:

• two factions
• 8 classes, 1 of which restricted to each faction
• pure DPS roles
• significant lack of class balance
• hard set race/class combinations
• single talent trees, need to visit the city to respec and pay a fee
• questing accounts for 25% of the experience gain, rest is dungeons/grinding
• no PvP zones – need to play on a PvP server to PvP
• 1 to 2 hour dungeon runs
• no raids
• item sets with no bonuses
• basic mounts at mid-game, high end mounts require weeks of cash making to afford
• no fast travel, need to manually move around the map
• crafted items, no real use other than potions and enchanting your items
• faction grinds
• auction houses are city based and not shared across the faction

I ask this because this is the feature set that World of Warcraft launched with in 2004.  I should know, I played at the time and I still thought it was amazing.  Why you aks?  Because my alternatives were Ultima Online (1997), Everquest (1999), Asheron’s Call (1999) and Dark Age of Camelot (2001).   That’s right, there was a 3 year gap between the last game and WoW in terms of AAA MMOs.  When WoW came out it polished all the bad stuff in the other games, made it look good (really good for a 3d game at the time) and added some features.

That being said, if you were to compare that feature set then to today’s gamespace, you couldn’t get 100 people to buy it.  The same goes for all the other games that came before it.  If they were to relaunch now, with the feature set they had when WoW launched, they would fail.  They still exist for one reason, people have grown with the games.  Find me someone who started playing UO in 2009 and I have some canned steam to sell you.

Massively’s last Soapbox covers this topic from another direction.  The claim that an MMO can only succeed if it does X, and only X, is ridiculous.  There are literally dozens of successful MMOs on the planet, some are P2P, others F2P and others are even hybrids.  There are multiple paths for each game to try and the goal at the end of the day is to make money.  When there is no more money to be made, the game shuts down.  Looking at UO, you would think it would have shut down after 15 (!!!) years, even with people claiming the game died years ago.  Yet here we are, still looking at it going fairly strong.  If you spend your time complaining that a game 5+ years ago did it best and aren’t playing that game now, it really comes off as hypocritical.

Now from the other side of the same coin, perhaps you don’t like a game because of feature X.  In the past, if you didn’t like it you had to suck it up since there weren’t any real options.  Today if you don’t like a game there are plenty others that are willing to take you in.  This does mean that people are moving around more, trying new games and old ones, to find that combination of features that pleases their palette.  There is no “perfect” game for the masses.  If there was, we wouldn’t have so many working at the same time.

Syp has a good MMO timeline that shows what game launched when and which ones are no longer with us.

I’ve already posted what I think about how BioWare and EA are handling the Mass Effect 3 launch.  The cherry on the sundae is IGN though.  I mean really.

The entire review screams “I bought this review”.  I really couldn’t care less how good the game is when the entire screen is plastered with ads for the game being reviewed.  We’re at a point in the industry where the big guys throw money at the wall and hope something sticks and the small guys take a brilliant idea and perfect it.  2011 was an amazing year for gamers, specifically the fall period.  This year though, other than ME3, what is there to look forward for on consoles?  Assassin’s Creed 3 and maybe Bioshock Infinite? PC players will get Diablo 3 (maybe) and a dozen other smaller games.

It’s an interesting time to be a gamer – even more so for a console gamer.  It just seems like if you’re not an FPS player, there just isn’t a really good reason to own a console anymore.  PCs (and laptops in particular) are just making such a strong push with their distribution models and plain ol’ variety that my boxes are collecting dust in the basement.

Anyways, here’s hoping BW can hit one out of the park this time.  DA2 and SWTOR were such huge disappointments that this is really the last kick at the can I can give them without future blind purchases.  Right now, Naughty Dog, Rocksteady and Blizzard are the only other ones sharing that list.

IGN has a decent post (wow) about how gamers are turned off by trash talkers.  This gist is that 1/3 of all people stop playing games because of other people.

This is the #1 reason I don’t enjoy competitive FPS games and abhor most PvP in MMOs.  There are players of all calibers and I can accept that.  Some people cannot and the stuff that comes out of their mouths is insane. I guess they have such low self esteem that they need to put other people down to feel better about themselves.  I can’t see any other reason for it.  Helping a player improve rewards both you and them.  Degrading them makes them worse (they quit) and doesn’t provide you with any in-game benefit.

I also think that the gaming medium has a huge impact.  Starcraft is a perfect example of where players are competitive yet respectful.  You’ll see a “GG” every game.  Swap to a Call of Duty game though and you’d be lucky to find a single person say that in a week.

I wonder when the game companies will instill an ignore system where the matches no longer include people who are on each other’s lists.  The main issue here is that most ignore lists are too small.  I know in WoW mine was at the cap after the first month.  If I were to ignore 5 or more people in an FPS, it wouldn’t take long for me to hit the 1000 mark.  Maybe devs could put a temporary ban on people who hit certain milestones?  Let’s say 500 people report you, no matter the cause, that’s one heck of a red flag and you get a temp ban.  Hit the 5000 mark and you’re just done.  Then again, CoD has 4 million players, piles of bungholes and rakes in cash.  It’s hard to say that they would up their subscriber base if they magically banned 10% or more of their existing base.

So game companies have a problem.  They have 2 revenue streams and one of them doesn’t work very well on consoles and the other doesn’t work well on PC.  First, is the box sale in the store.  This is great for consoles as it doesn’t take up much shelf space but a month or two after launch, good luck finding the copy if the game isn’t a blockbuster.  They have a relatively small window in which to sell their game and make a profit (after the reseller takes a 15% cut).  The second option is the online store, which is great for PC players.  You can find a game whenever you want, sales are easy to access and there are infinite copies.  Resellers make a cut as well but since every game is a new game, it works well for the developers.

The issue is in resales.  You won’t find too many resales of PC games (maybe a lot of pirating though honestly, Steam is much easier than pirating) but you will find hundreds of resales of console games.  A resale goes 100% to the reseller.  Let’s take Assassin’s Creed as an example.  The game is good but the multiplayer sucks so people play it and sell it back to the reseller to finance their next purchase.  Player 2 buys the used copy 2 months after release for 1/4 the price and the developer doesn’t see a penny.  These are 2 distinct sales yet only one counts.

Compare that to movies with multiple revenue streams.  The cinema, rentals, tv distribution, netflix and hard copy purchases are all available before the used market.  Pirating is a larger issue for them then used movie resales and good luck trying to find a new movie for more than 25$.  Games start at 60$.

So, game companies sell an overpriced (judged by the consumer) piece of software that drops in value the instant it’s purchased and can be acquired in 2-3 months for half or less of the initial cost.  Developers then said, “hey, let’s make money long term”.  DLC came out where you could by expansion packs (like on the PC) for a nominal fee and extend the life of the game.  League of Legends is wholely based on this with DLC packs for skins.  Cool.

Next they said “maybe we can make new game purchases better”.  They added codes to new boxes that enabled multiplayer or gave free DLC.  If you had a used game you could buy them from the developers for a small cost.  Nothing too big and I understand it though the cost of this type of DLC/code is up for debate.  In many cases it’s next to impossible to get a new version of a game in the first place and others, it’s a much better deal to buy the game at 15$ and pay the 10$ fee to get the new game items.  Heck, sometimes it’s not worth it at all.

Finally we get the nexus of the two – the collector’s edition.  There was a time when this meant you had maps, books, music and a bunch of non-game stuff. That was awesome.  EA started pushing a change with in-game bonuses (pets, equipment, quests) in their games and simply saying “free day 1 DLC for new games”.  Day 1 DLC means it is part of the game and they split it off.  If you are not getting the DLC, then you are not getting the game.  I can’t remember the game off the top of my head but they had this in a MMO FPS game a few years ago and people went crazy over the imbalance.

Now we have Mass Effect 3 where the day 1 DLC includes a Prothean as a playable character (as well as guns and skins).  Protheans are the central people in the Mass Effect universe and if you don’t have the collector’s edition you can buy this DLC for 10$.  The collector’s edition costs 20$ more and comes with: 70 page digital art, lithograph, pet, skins and this DLC package.  In past games, just buying a new game normally would get you normal content (which this DLC is).  Now they are breaking up games to sell them to you in chunks to be sure to make as much money as possible.

So what does this all mean?  To me it means I now have to vote with my cash.  I really want to play Mass Effect 3, I mean really want to.  I won’t though.  I’ll wait a while, see if I can get the game from another reseller than Origin and get it all on sale.  The whole Origin debate is for another time but there is no way in hell I am putting an avowed root kit software on my computer.

If devs want to make money on each game sale, then day 1 unlocks is the way to go.  Day 1 DLCs are not.  Eventually, games will be streamed to consoles/pcs and require an account link to play – just like MMOs.  A few more years though.

After reading another Q&A session from BW, it just seems like they are putting the entire kitchen sink in their next major patch.  4 pages of crafting changes?  Doesn’t that just scream “we really mucked it up the first go”?  From what they say, 1.2 will have zero content and be entirely bug/feature fixes.  And there’s still no release date.  Not even for the LFG tool, which is so badly needed.

Oh, their PvP framerate answer is great.

You should see evidence of this work as soon as Patch 1.1.5, when we will be introducing a new ‘very low’ setting to shader quality, which should drastically increase the number of mid-to-low machines the game can run well on, especially in Warzones and Operations.

People with amazing rigs (me included) have exceptional framerate issues and massive memory leaks in PvP.  The Hero engine they are using is meant for single player games and the primary reason that all content is limited to 16 players at a time (compared to 40 vs 40 in WoW for example).  It’s unfortunate that in 2012, the toolset of a multi-million dollar MMO is not much better than that used on mobile phones.

Regardless of all this, if 1.2 releases a LFG tool, fixes crafting (near re-write actually), addresses the performance issues, fixes the still outstanding PvE bugs and reduces the difficulty of hardmode flashpoints it has a chance to get back a lot of people who have already quit.  Here’s hoping!

I realize the game isn’t out yet, heck, it doesn’t have a release date either.  Still, there are certain items being tested that should transition near seamlessly into the live client.  The game mechanics aren’t terribly interesting to me but the meta mechanics do and particularly the Auction House.

Recently, Blizz said:

• Listing fee is being removed.
• Transaction fee is being increased to 1.25 Beta Bucks.
• Minimum listing price is being raised to 1.50 Beta Bucks.
• You will be limited to 10 active auctions per auction house.

This means you’re taxed about 80% if you sell at the minimum.  To me, a micro transaction is in the 1-2$ range and when the seller only makes 25c on that sale at at most, 10 sales, that’s 2.50$ potential.  Now I realize there are going to be extremely stupid people who will post at that level – I made about 20K in WoW from people posting at below vendor value – but the point remains that Blizzard is clearly taking a massive cut from players.  A transaction fee should not MORE than the value of a micro-transaction.

I understand they want to set a firm bottom on their auction house and reduce risk by limiting farmer’s ability to post but at the same time, 3rd party players will easily circumvent this tool.  It’s like Blizz hired a high school economics student to build their strategy or perhaps Bobby has some finger in here.

The more I read about D3, the more I scratch my head at what they are trying to do.  I remember when Blizzard was about making quality games and now it seems that the focus is less on that aspect and more on testing revenue generating models.    Then other times, something like the LFR tool comes out and you say “that makes sense”.  It’s really all over the map.

All online games have the same problem – at certain times there are more people who are trying to play than the servers can handle.  For the past 20 years, this has meant queues to wait or simple denial of service.  This is also directly linked to the artificial surge in servers at launch, then empty servers 2 months down the road.  People are just driving by.

Star Trek online used a dynamic environment for loading the game client but not for the login server.  Which is kind of weird actually.  There were dozens of game instances but you had to wait to have access to them.

TERA is going to try something a bit different. Queues will remain but you’ll get an experience boost based on the amount of time you waited.  This is a tricky balancing act but a neat idea.

Guild Wars 2 is trying something completely different.  If your server is overloaded you’ll be given the choice of loading an overflow server to play on.  Same thing as a normal server, just people from around the world on it.  Once your server is up, you get prompted to swap over.  This allows developers to set up extra servers at launch and take them out when the initial surge dies.  Smart move.