The Ignorance Of Crowds: Why Open Development Is Crap

One benefit is that they get 27,000 free playtesters/bug spotters along with crowd sourced art, music, stories and more. The downside is potentially listening too much to the crowd and ignoring ones own vision (aka LB's vision).

The play testing is especially critical for a game like this because of the difficulty balancing the multiplayer elements of the game (e.g. economy) - without this mass 'alpha' testing it would be difficult to have a good final product.

So far I think they've done well picking and choosing good ideas from the crowd that don't deviate (e.g. adding jumping) and sticking to their guns despite loud protests from vocal members (e.g. the combat system).

 

I think the SotA devs are doing a very good job of sorting the wheat from the chaff, so in this case it is working. But I'm still bummed we don't get sentient cows.

 

You are the one who side barred the discussion by saying marketing is greedy.

That implies you dont want P to do any marketing nor is capab,e of being creative at the same time.

I am here to help make a game. That was a large promise by P.

In the end I get to play it, sure, but if it was just to get a game, I wouldnt waste my time here until it was done.

 

The purpose of marketing is to ensure that the product is most useful for the most people. Marketing defines "who" it's going to target as customers, resellers, partners, etc. as well as "why" based on their needs.

The purpose of engineering is to ensure that marketing delivers on it's promise. Engineering defines the details of "what" is being built and "how" it's accomplished.

Both deliver value. Greed is wanting something for nothing.

 

And the real problem is that Devs can't just honestly sit down and say, using the same language as you, "You're full of crap". They're hobbled by public relations and a desire not to start Twitter-storm drama into trying to pretend that all customers have a valid opinion, because to do otherwise risks agitating the online obsessives; the ones who'll turn the forums into a hellish place to post if they aren't treated with way, way more concern than the average user. You personally have made a veiled threat in your first post on this thread in fact, but it will be ignored for the wider health of the overall game. Just like this kind of post is why the forums here are expected to be held to an extremely high standard of conduct; Richard Garriot et all have learnt very, very well from their trailblazing with Ultima Online...

And their latest game, despite your incredible delusions, is never going to be a free for all game. Those games no longer exist in the MMO world, and it's because of behaviour like this too. Go ahead and try and name one; EvE Online? Recently in the news for the largest mass battle in it's history, and famous for being supposedly the hardest of the hard core. But is it really free for all? Only in specified zones. This is what actually happens in 1.0 space; there's me in the starter ship, I'd just found a container in space and opened it, and discovered I was now flagged; observe the emergent gameplay!



It obviously was me he meant, because he'd sat circling me for a while, but he didn't dare shoot as there'd be no worthwhile loot, and the AI Caldari would pod him instantly I later discovered. I blanked the names there, but the "who?" and "It's a mystery!" are two other people quaking in sheer terror at the death and destruction about to unleash itself... or maybe not. And that's EvE, unless you sign up for a war corp, or go to 0.0 space. Even those who do have a second account running automated, unattended mining most of the time to fund those huge battles that destroy $300k of ships...

People like Mr Assassin here are living in a complete fantasy world, where they're still the l33t d3wdz of the early Ultima Online, and the 16 years of game development experience that followed from that simply didn't happen... but Dev's in general dare not tell them that, and probably couldn't productively reach them even if they tried...

What we're seeing here in Shroud is what is current best practice; engaging the positive voices, simply ignoring the negative. There's a further layer in that, sadly, they did put direct Dev Forum access as a Kickstarter bonus. I didn't donate to that level so I don't know what talk is like in there, and it does generate a sense of buying your way to prominence rather than the best ideas floating to the top... but Kickstarter itself is a new experience and maybe in the future this will be avoided if Shroud and others can prove some public input led to a healthier final result. And the software industry in general has a long, long way to go as both I and Jdrasin mentions, because of the unique situation it finds itself in (people queuing up to be abused both as employees and purchasers); our constructive, "********" engagement here may help change that.

What won't, and you'd think the lesson would have been learned by now, is posting


"This is the last and only warning.
So do with it what you like."

 

Portalarium needs to stick to this and they'll be fine. Luckily it's pretty easy to spot the trolls who have their own interests more in mind than what's best for the game.

 

I too have already seen things that wasn't in r1 we ask for, by r2 was addressed and put into the game.They keep asking for our input on the forums. If in fact , they had already had it slated to be implemented, and just made it seem we {Kickstarters] had a small part of what the game was going to become , that's okay too.
Just think, just maybe the devels. team had not yet thought of one of our ideas, and say wow that would make it more fun , let do that. So its okay, i for one can live with the thought we count in some small way to the game we all eagerly await.

 

One of the key points about Open Development as it has grown up like this is that the community feels a sense of ownership or stewardship over the game. You can never ever make everyone happy, of course, but if you reach out to the community, use some of their ideas, artwork, story and whatnot this engenders a good relationship with the community. That in turn fosters more input from the community to give diverse points of view and discuss features, upcoming or existing because there is no longer a feeling of "the devs aren't going to listen anyway..." Or "They'll only listen to hardcore players..."

The biggest mistakes of some early Open Development games is that they only took suggestions from high profile clans from other games or only listened to those who were angry or had the loudest voice. Open Development has matured over the years as developers realize that unless they want to make a niche game they need to listen. Gamers do know what they want and what they like and oftentimes have different or unique approaches to common features which are innovative and can set aspects of a game apart. While developers are certainly not required to put any suggestion into the game, the fact that they do put in community based features and content makes the community more active, more excited, more involved and more willing to spend money on the game.

 

No need to ask me, ask Chris - as his R2 recap noted, "we're doing it wrong"!

 

Also, I'm not going to call out anyone in particular, but using the word "casuals" as a descriptor for players bothers me.

I have been playing role playing games since I was 12 years old. I'm somewhat older now. I remember D&D in the original 3 book box (heck, I even remember Chainmail). My father subscribed to the Dragon, and to the Tactical Studies Rules newsletter before that (and if we had kept those, I could have retired off of selling them on eBay). It is safe to say I have a pretty firm grounding in game systems design.

I have been working in game development for over ten years, and was a member of the launch team for a very popular MMO, worked on programming/support for many games since (some of which you may have heard of, such as Aion and City of Heroes), have been the lead designer on two MMOs that sadly did not make it out the door, and am currently very happy to work on moving the genre forward with Shroud of the Avatar and work with people who I learn from on a daily basis even with all that experience.

I am also a very busy adult, who leads a full life both virtual and real, and play as many games as I can for the experience and what fun I can derive.

I am a casual.

Please stop insinuating I am ruining games.

Thank you.

 

Amen Lum!

 

I think it's funny you believe there is nothing possible between UO (and of course, only the original, FFA, pre-Trammel UO) and WoW.

 

In terms of immersion and emergent gameplay, there isn't.
You either make a game with full loot and open pvp, or a PvE simulator.
There are no examples of anything "between".
You never played Ultima, I assume. You were never immersed in the living, breathing world that Sosaria once was. You wouldn't know. You probably just want to shoot dragons, and then shoot some more in the expansion.
It's OK, but it's not what the Ultimate RPG stands for.

 

You're wrong about my not playing UO and you're wrong about what the "Ultimate RPG" stands for, according to my reading of Richard Garriott's treatise on it, anyway.

 

I helped work on one. It was pretty popular!

 

Labeling people is the easy way out, a lazy way of shoving people into an "us" vs "them" scenario because they may not agree with you on something or hold a different view. Eventually you keep doing it and they're no longer people, just "them" and they are all wrong and you stop listening simply because people are in the "them" camp. Does that seem like a good way to foster discussion and keep the community healthy? Does it seem like a good way to get your points across without de-valuing whatever it is you are saying? If you have legitimate concerns why not talk it out and try to settle differences civilly without resorting to methods that casually brand people unfairly and make you look a little silly?

By the way, contrary to popular belief- people DO have different opinions that are not your own which doesn't necessarily mean they are wrong or right.



*Ps. ******** isn't even an accurate term either, a ******** is a creature that promotes friendship and love and togetherness which isn't at all what most non-pvp'ers do. They usually just wanna be left alone or play the game without being interrupted by other players.

 

This. So very this.

I'm not a designer, but I'm certainly a very busy adult, a father to three kids and a pretty hard worker in a high-performance, technically challenging career. I love playing games, but it has been nigh-on six years since I've been in life circumstances where sitting down for a six-hour gaming session was a viable option for me. If I'm lucky, I can steal an hour or two in an evening to play something...assuming I'm not dealing with website-related issues on one of the various sites I maintain, fielding moderation reports here, or spending time with my wife.

Playing games on my mobile that I can pop into for five to fifteen minutes and then just as easily abandon for a day has become a part of who I am as a gamer. And that's fine...there are actually a lot of very intriguing "casual" games that have some absolutely brilliant design concepts behind them. And some of them are damn fun.

Not that I don't love the bigger, harder-core, epic games I used to play all the time...and when I can, I revisit these. But the life, she moves on.

So I too am a casual.

(And no, the term is not an effective proxy for someone who enjoys PvE and avoids PvP. The proper term for that sort of gamer is..."PvE player", actually.)

 

The last time I played EVE they pretty much fixed the can-flip thingies by making large cargos for the mining ships, its pretty safe to be in 1.0 but its yet not 100% safe (not like the trammel thingy in nowdays UO), you will still get suicide bombed by pk's, invited to a party to get ganked, you will still get scammed if you are so dumb to fall into scams ofc, the game is as raw, hard and punishing as it was UO back in the day and as a plus besides the great gameplay it has some INCREDIBLE soundtrack and graphics. Below 1.0 and i'd say mostly below 0.5 and specially 0.0 /null security beeing in a corp or playing with people is a must (unless you are a pro), something you learn in EVE is that you need to trust your "friends" to a certain level (even if you are a drug dealer, a pk or just a plain pve guy) and don't trust others that you don't know, that gives you a sense of reality and that you are playing a real MMO and not a singleplayer with a pvp/multiplayer mode in it. Just like in old UO....


Another thing that gives the feel of a real world there is that almost everything is made/sold by players and that you can actually play and have fun beeing ONLY for example a miner/crafter/hauler like i was, I had some fun in null security mining with others. Just like in old UO....

The guys from CCP don't want to "fix" those things because theres nothing bad into those ITS PART OF THE GAME.

Most common/casual/new-wave mmo players hate or cry about those things like "BUAH BUAH I GOT SCAMED AND I LOST ALL MY CASH" well kid LIVE WITH IT AND LEARN FROM YOUR MISTAKES, instead of telling them that companies ban those players or just make the mechanics of the game in a way that those things can't happen, in my opinion, that makes the game a lot more boring and lame in most cases, wheres the rush of adrenaline into that?

The anger of getting killed, the happiness of getting something valuable, avenging yourself from a pk or just pking (those things left a mark in your memory whatever if it was good or bad) VS doing quests that are easy-stuff, grinding levels, going to different npcs for rewards and having a pvp arena (feeling that you are just doing the same over and over but in different locations...).

BTW when was this screen taken a long time ago or you just play on low settings? o.o

 

This is why LoL is so popular. Because people can PvP very casually with short sessions / minimal long term impact of an off day and yet there are also people who make a living playing.

I played l2 for years. It was not a game for casuals. There weren't new players. Only the bots won in the end. As fond as our memories were, it's just like looking back on any grueling experience with some bit of PTSD and Stockholm syndrome and somehow convince yourself that it was fun. A new game would never work under those rules.


And yeah Lum, I'm interested in seeing how Camelot Unchained does. PvP, crafting, and housing.

 

I also played L2 from C1 to C3 if i reckon well, it wasn't as crazy as UO but still nice that you could get pked, and it was fun to kill someone with high red karma, damn, when that guy died it was like a fountain of items poping out the falling corpse. I guess that acording to you I must have PTSD + Stockholm syndrome (Maybe a little sadomasochistic aswel? lol) because, damn I miss those times they where FUUUUUN, specially UO ones... Or loosing ALL your gear in EQ in a spot that it was IMPOSIBLE to get there without dying again... Punishing but 120% rewarding, both sides of a coin, nowdays a lot of games just have one side or one and a half lol