"Overdevelopment?"

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Robby, Jun 2, 2014.

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  1. Robby

    Robby Avatar

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    Ok, this is quite a thread starter, so bear with me please!
    Now, im thinking there ought to be a term for MMO's and their developers who continually add new content for the game for a whole decade. Overdevelopment is the only thing that comes to mind. And im sure many people have noticed the phenomena.
    We loved UO when it first came out, just like we loved Ultima(insert number of game in series you liked) when it came out. I loved final fantasy 7 when it first came out on the playstation it was amazing I thought. Every few years I play through it again. Brings back memories of when I was 10, brings the whole era, and all the feelings it stirred up.
    But ultima and final fantasy 7 were single player games. So the idea for developers here is to make a game with a great storyline, sell it, and then profit. You can go back and play it again whenever you want and it is STILL the exact same game. Though, in a way this is depressing, you might feel a tear come to your eye as you approach the end of the game. These games were made before downloadable content and MODs were all over the place and available to any layperson. And I feel that these days we are trying to sooth these tears by demanding that developers continue development!
    I think we need to suck it up and accept it when its over. UO could still be the same exact game it was in '97 though the population of players in it would be quite low. Even the shard emulators have to tweak the game a bit to be presentable to the audience of today. Look at FF7 for Ps1. It IS the same game. UO of '97 is completely lost. So now you can't really even go back to it like you can go back to a movie you loved as a child that was made a long long time ago. Part of the reason is because this movie or game is special to YOU and a majority of the population is not going to want to reminisce with you and go back 15-30 years in the past for something YOU like. This is why UO of '97 is dead, because its just like willy wonka and the chocolate factory. May have been amazing when you watched it when you were 7, but now that your 30 or 40, your going to have a tough time finding enough people who are as enthusiastic about watching the movie again as you are after you go 10 years without watching it.
    Now, can you imagine if FF7 had DLC? And each year another part of the story was released(no update in graphics or game or anything). Cloud would be kinda old by now.... unless you kept him the same age(I guess cartman, kyle, stan, kenny, and butters are still in 4th grade). Maybe it would be fun, maybe it would be upsetting. Cloud and tifa could get married, maybe barrett would die, who knows. Point im trying to make is, there is a certain level of comfort to having an "end". Willy wonka and the chocolate factor never "ended" wonka gave the factory to charlie, and his family. What if there was a sequel? Grandpa would die, charlie would grow up. It would be a bit sad. Maybe its better to see the movie "end" with wonka, charlie, and his grandpa floating around in the wonkavator. The problem with this is people bond with characters in these fictional shows and games and you don't want them lost.
    Now.. back to the original thought.. Maybe SotA should be the first online game where developers have a clear and definite "END". If you dont like it this way, im sure there will be plenty of "shard emulations" 20 years down the road. I feel that there is nothing wrong with a clear and definite end to a project. Its sad, much like death of a loved one is sad(ok not quite as intense, but its somewhat similar). I like the "5 episode" deal going on, but im hoping that by this, they mean they WILL indeed stop after the fifth episode.
    I want this to be the first online game I can go back and revisit, and take comfort in knowing that it is still the exact same game it was when it was born. And it won't matter if im an old old man and no one wants to play it with me, because it will work single player offline!
    Just like chess or checkers, or any card game you can think of. The game is the same exact game, you don't need any modifications. Imagine bringing an expansion to chess like adding a peice... maybe a squire or something and it can move in certain ways. Sounds fun? Maybe for a bit, but we will always love the same old chess or checker game thats just the way it was when it was released and a FINISHED product. If chess is boring, play a different game. If UO dont have what you want, take a break play something else. Same with SotA, if it gets boring, play UO for a bit, then come back when SotA seems interesting again.

    Lets avoid "OVERDEVELOPMENT"! Maybe ill end up starting a new term.
     
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  2. enderandrew

    enderandrew Legend of the Hearth

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    Part of the reason I think @DarkStarr has pushed against stretch goals is to avoid feature creep. It is far better to have 5 really well designed systems than 50 poorly designed systems.
     
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  3. Joviex

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    Nothing new.

    Its called "Feature Creep".

    It is a well known problem in all design and production (not just code).

    This is WHY you have publishers and/or a real authority on pushing projects forward. If you let designers run with things (like this project!!!) you will never get to the end.
     
  4. selbie

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    In some cases I would argue that feature creep is a direct result of publisher intervention.
     
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  5. Joviex

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    Publishers? Or producers?

    20+ years of doing SW development, producers, yeah, all the time.

    I consider them the "wouldn't it be cool" crowd.

    My publishers and/or executives, never. Get it done, get it done sooner, get it done cheaper, don't care if you have to CHOP features.

    Producers though..... And absolutely designers, artists and coders.

    Give them any room to change or add, and it is entirely eaten up in no time flat.
     
  6. Lebowski

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    so many words....
     
  7. Sunsanvil

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    The mid 90s may not be so far removed: separate speech packs for Roberts' games and things like Forge of Virtue and Silver Seed....in a way Origin birthed what we now call DLC. :)
     
  8. Joviex

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    have to go with Atari on that one. used to be that you could use the 2600 with a modem to download content from GameLine.

    If you want to be technical, Cavedog with total annihilation was first when they offereda new unit every month.

    The things you mentioned were more addons as they were physicals that you had shipped. definitely not first.

    Board games all the way back to the 70s did that, and the first video games were prolly from Dragon Slayer in the 80's

    I don't diminish his older, great designs, but people tend to attribute him more than he should actually be credited.
     
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  9. Robby

    Robby Avatar

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    So its called "feature creep" huh?
    Never knew that. Basically im just hoping that in the future dev's will make plans on preventing feature creep from dirtying up their online worlds. Like how UO eventually got playable purple or pink elves as a race or WoW got panda bear race.
     
  10. TimeLord Smith

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    CAN I SAY JIMINY CHRISTMAS!!??!?!?!? This is too many words all scrunched and compacted together.
    [​IMG]
     
  11. Lord Andernut

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    I read the OP completely different than you guys. Feature creep imo would delay launch or have a buggier launch due to rushing to get too many features tacked on by the publish date.

    I read the OP to say that he just wants the game to come out and to have it be more like a single-player game that you can come back to with no changes and static world rather than a game with expanding content.

    In response to the OP - I prefer a game that does expand and change but done carefully to minimize power-creep (which is inevitable). A static MMO without changes/new areas/new challenges/new events will bleed players, you seem to say "let them go." If most of the players leave when a game bores them then you have an idea that appeals to very few players with your static universe. If most of the players stay because of new content and a changing world then you have appealed to most of the playerbase.

    I should think the goal of a game is to appeal to most of it's playerbase. I do not mean a game should be all things to all people, this game is a niche game that will hopefully pull all the people in it's niche. I think many of those people will want a game that has some changes between the day it is launched and the beginning of the next episode, and the developers have already marketed it as such (ie. hexes that change, overworld map that changes, for events).
     
  12. Robby

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    A certain amount of development after the initial release is probably inevitable. I still want to avoid coming back to the MMO 5 years later after ive declared myself "done" and see panda bears running around in it.
     
  13. Robby

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    A certain amount of development after the initial release is probably inevitable. I still want to avoid coming back to the MMO 5 years later after ive declared myself "done" and see panda bears running around in it.
     
  14. Lord Andernut

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    One can continue to develop a game without adding Panda's!
     
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  15. Robby

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    Thats true, UO hasn't added pandas. Instead they have cheesy 3d graphics that are totally not the UO I "fell in love with". And they got a cheesy rip off of the D2 paladin and necromancer because D2 was doing so well at the time(as far as I know). And they got samurais and ninjas, I mean seriously? Samurais and ninjas are cool, but they do NOT work in an ultima setting. The skills for these ninjas, samurais, and necromancer/paladin classes were goofy and complicated the game up rather than making it funner. And then they added blue and pink elves with hairstyles that look like punk rockers(nothing against this stuff, again, its just not good for the midevil britannia setting).
    Its just like what you hear about sci-fi series shows like star trek. I always hear from people who grew up in that generation how its good for like the first few years, then later they start doing silly stuff. Basically what I hear is things like "star trek was very fun and intersting to come home and cut loose to after work, I loved it till one day captain kirk got possessed and starting acting like a donkey the whole show". I had a similar experience with a sci fi series called stargate SG-1 it was cool, but then they started just doing weird stuff like had these aliens invade that looked like something out of the old late 80's early 90s power ranger shows.

    My main point is if you keep developing the game, eventually the game you HAD is gone! What would happen if we kept adding new rules and new peices to the basic game of chess, then we kept adding new features, maybe even cards, stats, and etc. Eventually you would get some complex mess. I guess most people just love the game and stay with it even with all the changes. But me, after too much new junk is thrown into the game I was playing I quit because its a different game now, and more than likely if you keep throwing different games at me every day im going to not like one of them. And this is basically what your doing to me when you slowly add features over and over again, eventually you give me a NEW and DIFFERENT game that I dont like.

    Which is why I think future online games need to get players some promise that they won't be fundamentally changing the entire game. It sounds like the 5 episode deal they promise us is just that. They will cease development after episode 5, forget about it, and see how long it lasts. I hope thats what they mean anyway.
     
  16. Robby

    Robby Avatar

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    Thats true, UO hasn't added pandas. Instead they have cheesy 3d graphics that are totally not the UO I "fell in love with". And they got a cheesy rip off of the D2 paladin and necromancer because D2 was doing so well at the time(as far as I know). And they got samurais and ninjas, I mean seriously? Samurais and ninjas are cool, but they do NOT work in an ultima setting. The skills for these ninjas, samurais, and necromancer/paladin classes were goofy and complicated the game up rather than making it funner. And then they added blue and pink elves with hairstyles that look like punk rockers(nothing against this stuff, again, its just not good for the midevil britannia setting).
    Its just like what you hear about sci-fi series shows like star trek. I always hear from people who grew up in that generation how its good for like the first few years, then later they start doing silly stuff. Basically what I hear is things like "star trek was very fun and intersting to come home and cut loose to after work, I loved it till one day captain kirk got possessed and starting acting like a donkey the whole show". I had a similar experience with a sci fi series called stargate SG-1 it was cool, but then they started just doing weird stuff like had these aliens invade that looked like something out of the old late 80's early 90s power ranger shows.

    My main point is if you keep developing the game, eventually the game you HAD is gone! What would happen if we kept adding new rules and new peices to the basic game of chess, then we kept adding new features, maybe even cards, stats, and etc. Eventually you would get some complex mess. I guess most people just love the game and stay with it even with all the changes. But me, after too much new junk is thrown into the game I was playing I quit because its a different game now, and more than likely if you keep throwing different games at me every day im going to not like one of them. And this is basically what your doing to me when you slowly add features over and over again, eventually you give me a NEW and DIFFERENT game that I dont like.

    Which is why I think future online games need to get players some promise that they won't be fundamentally changing the entire game. It sounds like the 5 episode deal they promise us is just that. They will cease development after episode 5, forget about it, and see how long it lasts. I hope thats what they mean anyway.
     
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