Curse

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce · Jun 01, 2005, 10:32 AM // 10:32

So after trying GW, while still playing another MMO, I've noticed a trend in MMO games;

The genre (industry if you wish to call it that, I do) is seriously broken.

I thought about it alot, I wondered "do we the fans/players want to much for our buck?" "Do we burn through the given content too quickly than the developers can make it?" "Are the developers even listening or do they care at all?"

And I was surprised at how I answered some of these questions.

- We as players, seem to just churn right through content quicker than lemonade will run right through you (southerners will understand this analogy ;p ). This is true for just about any MMO, especially GW. Take WoW, players hit the level cap (60) and then had nothing to do. Sure they could grind better items and more money, but the end game features were delayed and delayed and delayed. Take GW for example, I've personally run the PvE game twice, do every mission and quest I could find, even the real crappy ones that give a 100 xp reward and crap items I'd never use to save my life. And just about any MMO offers some PvP content. But even then that can only sustain the life of the game so long.

I stop to wonder if this is a problem that developers created, or we as players create. Granted it may not be the healthiest or most socially accepted to play 20+ hours of an MMO a week, it also really hurts MMO's in the end, you just burn through the content, whether it's fun all the time or your bored to tears doing it, most people go through it all at some point. By the time you've bought the game, broken it in for a few months, the average player is ready to move on to something else. This leads me to think this is why developers release expansions within 6 months of release (see Half Life 2, game out late November, and theres an expansion already more than 50% complete). So I never know which to think is really "at fault" here.

- Games themselves, just don't deliver the content. How many medievil, fantasy style MMO's can you name off the top of your head?: Everquest, Everquest 2, Asherons Call, Guild Wars, Lineage, Lineage 2, Ultima Online, Dark Age of Camelot, D&D Online (yet to be released), Middle Earth Online (yet to be released), Shadowbane, Saga of Ryzoom, Runescape, Risk Your Life and World of Warcraft. Do you think that particular subgenre of MMO's is a tad, oversaturated? How many sci fi MMO's can you name off the top of your head?; Planetside, Neocron, Starwars Galaxies, Matrix Online. (and two of those are actually classified as cyber punk not sci fi but they are technically sci fi as well). See a pattern? Most MMO's cater to just the fantasy genre. Theres just too many.

The main reason WoW did so well, was it A, it was made by a top company (Blizzard) whom are well known for their success (and lost the current staff of ArenaNet..), B the whole Warcraft theme, and C cause they seemed to meld alot of features in various MMO's, into one single MMO. While Everquest 1 was the king for a long, long time, look at its sequel. It's release was pretty lackluster, and very quiet. There was more hype and roar for the release of Matrix Online... Point? While games do deliver content, it's the same content rehashed. All the fantasy MMO's are just cookie cutters of each other, with new models and the such. Developers don't try new stuff. Hardly, ever.

- The developers, while they may "listen" they don't "hear" players. If you've ever played Neocron, or a similar MMO that has a super, super, buggy game engine, you know what I mean. The company (developers included) get day to day emails, forum posts, ingame GM requests etc for critical, and I do mean critical bugs. Bugs that range anywhere from completely dropping you to your desktop every 5 minutes, to you logging in with no items at all on any character...And not to really spotlight Guild Wars, there is one particular issue; it's been how many weeks since the retail release?

Let's say 6, for the sake of saying. In that 6 weeks, there have been over 20+ threads on all the various fansite forums (since hey they don't offer official forums..) about the ignore feature and how it is unacceptable. What's the point of Ignoring someone ingame when you could say, still hear them in Local, or Trade? What are your options? Turn all channels off? The developers, have known this issue but yet to include a fix or option for it. Take that for what it's worth. Point? Even little things such as my GW example, show that while developers may know of an issue, they let it slip by. (Yes, I'm sure they are working on something far more important, something as simple as my example, can be dealt with quickly and easily)

- The prices of MMO's keeps going up. Remember when it was a flat $9.99 a month for most MMO's? That's almost doubled since then. Now most times that's acceptable, considering you are playing a game where typically the world is changing on a monthly basis. Either with new content, new items or ingame things to do. However, many developers counter act this. Take WoW (I hate to keep going back to them and GW but their the easiest to use as an example), how many months after most people hit the end game level cap did it take Blizzard to implement the battlegrounds feature? For your $15 a month, (in WoW), you don't seem to be getting alot of new content, fixes and whatnot for your moneys worth. And plenty of other MMO's are like this. And it just gets worse.

Each company that charges one price, another MMO is going to think "well if Company X can get away with $15 maybe we can get away with $17 or $18 a month" and the cycle keeps going. Consider the fact yer dropping $50+ on release week (even at discount stores like Walmart, and much higher at normal retail outlets) and the prices keep going up. For what it costs to play a large MMO now half a year or so (counting initial cost) you can put a nice downpayment on a new car. No $hit.

- Most MMO's don't offer some sort of trial. I can tell you right now, if I could try say, WoW, or another large MMO without needing to purchase the game itself for $40-50, probably I'd be hooked onto one. Everquest 2 (before the Isle trial), WoW, SWG, etc Sure, some do have say a free trial if you are a subscriber to a file hosting service like Fileplanet, or Fileshack, etc You still end up paying to try the game. Whatever happened to a demo? Hell even if I could only create a character, and play within the confines of the first city/area for 24 hours, it'd be enough personally, for me to judge if I want to continue playing. And yes, some MMO's do offer trials, for free, for anyone. The catch, most of them require you to still enter a credit card.

Here's an idea; Make an MMO, make a server specifically for trial clients, that do not interact with normal clients in the normal servers. To register to try the game on this server, for a limited time (say 3 days) you must register with a valid email, one that is not from a free email provider like yahoo.com or hotmail.com (this would cut down some on the spam registration). For the price of a small trial server and web interface for setting up the trial account, you expose your MMO to a whole new audience that may go on to buy and pay monthly for your game. Sadly, most companies, will not do this.

- MMO's are the least budget friendly game, in terms of not enjoying them. Say I buy Doom 3, or Half Life 2, or any non MMO game. And I hate it, I utterly despise it. 99% of most retailers won't accept an open PC software or game back, even if you do wish to just exchange it for something else. So while I may hate Doom 3, for example, I can turn around and sell that game to a buddy of mine for say, the same price I bought it as. And he can use it fully. With an MMO, if I hate it, sure I can use up my free month (if you get one, some don't offer them), or I can attempt to sell it to a buddy. That is, if the buddy knows it's a pay to play game, and has to pay for it monthly. He may purchase it at what you ask, most won't. Unless you give them a really reduced price, most would rather go to the store, pay the same price they'd pay you and get the full complete time free they'd normally get, plus a brand new cd, manual, box etc.

And to better illustrate this example, take trading the games in for store credit, such as EB Games or Babbages. Now I can't speak for national or international EB Games, but locally here in my town, the few EB's we have will not take an MMO game in as a trade for store credit. It's been opened and the CD key used to register an account already, most likely. This falls in with the buddy buying analogy, as to they'll take in a used copy of a non MMO alot more often (or at all) than they would a MMO.

Now you ask "wes how is this the MMO' genre/industries fault?" simple, the whole cd key thing is pointless. Look at it this way, most times the cd key is to help prevent software stealing right? If you have to sign up with a credit card (or some form of payment) for an MMO monthly, the only real point of the CD Key then is to cash in on the 30 free days. Now, stick with me on this; if you're buying an MMO, and know it's an MMO that has montly fees, you know you're more than likely going to sign up at some point (be it before or after your trial month) right? Require sign up at the start. Use this as verification of the free time period. Don't charge ANYTHING to the user until they run out of trial time. This way once an account is set up, the server could say "hey this is a potential customer, give this user X amount of free time then begin charging".

To top it off you couldn't free trial spam registration cause they could just keep track of your credit card. And even if you use multiple cards, you're gonna run out sooner or later, and even THEN they could match names on the cards (which must match, you can be Jim Joe and have your card read Susan Swakahi).

See the point of this issue? If there was no cd key required, you could trade in that game, or sell it easier to a buddy, aka it'd be easier to at least to some point cash back in some value that you spent on it, which you can do with normal games very easily. Again it'd just take a tad more effort and time on the companies end to set up the system for it.

- No MMO (that I know of) has taken to step to allow anything in chat, character names, clan/guild/team names etc. I mean seriously, I'm purely honest on this one. It's 2005 right? Does it really, matter if Little Timmy hears some profanity in a game? I mean it's sad in some MMO's that don't have a language filter (hell thats sad itself some have one) where you have to watch what you say, in fear of someone screen shotting and reporting you. I'm paying a monthly fee (in most cases). If Little Timmy is paying, then most likely he's gotten his parents to use their credit card, to pay for him. I know alot of parents let TV, music or the computer babysit their kids for them and god I hate it's like that most times, but honestly if I was paying $15 for my 10 year old to play an online game, I'd kinda clue in that online content is changing and he's playing with potentially hundreds of thousands of people across the world that can say anything... Am I childish for thinking "omg i wish i could swear ingame or be racist", maybe so. Maybe so. But while you have your say as a monthly customer in these games, so do I.

You also ask "how does THIS hurt the MMO industry?" it doesn't nesscarily hurt it, but I'll be damned if it doesn't hinder it some. Hell look at it from a roleplaying perspective. Take Starwars Galaxies, you can become a Jedi in that game right? I'm going to assume you can also become a Sith, since you can play as the Imperials. Sith, in Star Wars lore, are the most evil, scum, dark mofos in the galaxy. They'd rape and pillage your family if given the chance. Yet in that game, if I chose to roleplay that character, I am limited in what I can and cannot say or do. It's called hypocrisy folks, and just about every MMO company is guilty of it in some form or other.

- Speaking of hypocrisy, another issue that plagues MMO's is Faulty Advertising. Normally MMO companies were real tangable companies you could walk into off the street, in most states in America you could sue them for Faulty Advertisement. And already you are asking "this hurts the MMO industry?" I say it damn, sure, does. Hell I'll toss out the most obviously examples; WoW. For the longest time WoW's website, game box and game manual "promised" monthly updates, monthly new content and monthly patches. How long did it take for the community to clue in that this was bull$hit? Yea. And before someone goes and quotes me on their long list of problems they worked long hard hours on and the huge player base they had to satisfy, let ME point out they advertised this, blatantly. And did not live up to it.

Look at Everquest, and this more so falls under my hypocrisy example than it does Faulty Advertisement, but still. How many years did Sony attempt to stop players from selling items, gold, character and full accounts on eBay and other auction sites? Quite a while. What did Sony just recently announce? The Auction Station feature of their online games, where you can legally purchase ingame items, characters, currency and accounts. Even when their Terms of Service and EULA's STILL say it's not legal to do that within the game....Again it's more so hypocrisy but hey, if the shoe fits ya know?

In the grand scale, alot of MMO's have advertised something faulty. My personal favorite is Neocron's magazine advertisements of "play online with THOUSANDS of players". The game during peak times, at peak days (weekends), barely comes close to a 1000 players online, spread across the entire 4 servers the game offers. (It's closer to about 750 people total playing but hey I rounded up). Now personally when I hear "THOUSANDS" I think at least 2000+. You'd think the magazine ads were out of date, or old. They are current, in circulation, in alot of magazines (mainly in Europe, the games target demographic).

- MMO developers are affraid of change. They are affraid of innovation and trying something new. Remember my list of fantasy MMO's that keeps going and going and going? When's the last time you saw something original like City of Heros (now a year+ old) or Planetside? Console gamers can knod in agreement of the innovation and originality of the game Katamari Damacey (however it's spelt, I can't remember). A very original game, which ironically debuted with a reduced price. And it's an awesome game. The developer too k a chance, and they scored. The game got rave reviews, a strong fan base, and plans of a sequel. Whens the last time you can say the same for a well known company? What's the last game Epic Games (not under the Atari Label) made? Another First Person Shooter clone.

Same for MMO's. What's coming out this year? Look at the E3 lineup of MMO's. More fantasy MMO's. Awesome! D&D Online, nice. I pen and papered D&D ten years ago. And have played just about any fantasy game you can think of since, in video/computer game form. Do we need another fantasy clone, even if it is the grandfather of all fantasy rpgs? Middle Earth Online, great lets cash in on a franchise name. Look how well that did for Matrix Online?... Let's have something new for a change. Give me some futuristic MMO, like a Johnny Mnemoic style grim dark sci fi mmo. Give me an MMO that has true FPS combat system instead of point click or turn based (yes Neocron and Faces of Mankind did this, but too buggy in doing it). Give me a MMO that's not based on a franchise, that isn't something that's already on the market in some form. Auto Assault, there's an original idea. Sure Motor Cross Online was out for a while and die hard fans stuck with it, but it wasn't in a Mad Max style world. Hell even the cheesy All Points Bulletin MMO that looks like a rip off of GTA, is original. Take a chance!

- Speaking of franchies, they are KILLING some MMO's. Starwars Galaxies, I'm looking at you here. Some say this game is awesome, and loved it. Others say it was a farce of what a Starwars game should have been. I remember before it was released, people cheered owning a building, or flying a ship. Only to find out that stuff would come in later expansions, or patches. I rememeber people wanting to be Jedi's then finding out it took (at least originally it did) a HUGE amount of time grinding to obtain the ability to be a Jedi. Now some say this was a good thing since everyone and their mother running around as Jedi would have sucked, me personally if I bought a Starwars MMO I'd expect to easily become a jedi.

I know, SWG is a bad example as my main reasoning for this one, but seriously, alot of games are becoming MMO's off a franchise. Come on, All Points Bulletin? Origninal, I gave it that. Needed? Just have Rockstar Games, give us a PC version of one of their GTA games with a good multiplayer option in a MMO setting, done. This one was more a case of someone else trying to cash in on an idea, but it fits. Hell, looking at the E3 lineup, Disney is making a Pirates of the Carribean to coincide the the release of the sequel. Come on! I personally enjoyed the first movie, and I'm sure theres some fan base that'd enjoy a pirate themed MMO, but to specially tailor an MMO to go with a movie? It's a cash cow, possibly. But if it bombs, it just makes the thing it was based off, look bad. Again I look at SWG...

- What helps kill an MMO quicker than anything? Poor Support. How many times have you done something in an MMO, be it a mission, a quest, out hunting for some really rare item, and some critical flaw or bug hits you. One where say you get stuck, you suddenly get a corrupt character model, etc Your options? Almost all allow you to email their helpdesk, which usually results in help 24+ hours later, not acceptable. And some, alot, have an ingame feature or option to summon a GM/DM to help you. In a fairly popular MMO, won't say the name, I've been in situations where I've been stuck, with no way to get unstuck even after relogging my character, and starting the MMO client, for 4+ hours. Summoning a GM in that game, got me an answer. 12 hours later, in the form of an ingame email message (the game has an ingame email system for characters). Emailing the games helpdesk, out of game, got me an answer. 2 days later.

You're asking "this does kill an MMO, but at the current time?" I say yes. I for one, am tired of this. I know some MMO's, again not saying specific names, have alot of players, and cannot have a huge team of GM's online, at all times, to assist players. To these companies I say "hire more". An MMO is a world that is online 24/7.

If the servers at near 100% capacity and activity at normal peak times and 50% at off times (like 3 am in the morning) then the developers need an acceptable amount of online help, at those times, 24/7. For the price you are paying, you should not have to wait 2+ days for a response. Yes, this is killing the MMO industry now, as alot of MMO players are people who have played an MMO before, or play various ones. And as such, I personally at least, don't accept this when it happens. You know what I do when something like my example, happens? I uninstall the game. If I am paying $50 for the game upfront, $15+ (counting tax) a month, I expect at least a response to a serious issue that prevents game play, in some timely fashion. Hell I'd accept an hour, maybe two if it was a great game. 12 hours later............ Game directory -> recycle bin

--

Personally, I love MMO's. I love PvE, I enjoy PvP with friends alot (alone I'm not a fan of it). But the industry of MMO's is just, in some strange form of broken. On one hand all the issues I mention are serious ones that do hinder games. On the other hand people will pay for anything even if it is buggy, doesn't work properly or doesn't have content promised to them. We have a voice, as customers, but in most MMO cases, even a small group agreeing to quit and do so, won't affect anything. Nothing can affect the companies and developers on a mass scale other than players leaving or amasing our voicess. Unfortunately, not much is accomplished most times.

Ramus · Jun 01, 2005, 01:39 PM // 13:39

Excellent essay, I disagree with some points, but the overall theme of it stands true. If I wasn't at work I would go more into it (as reading it sucked all of my time up

) But I may discuss this later.

You have some great writing skills.

Spirit Firefly · Jun 01, 2005, 01:52 PM // 13:52

got half way then scrolled to bottom to my horror to realise how much more there was...sorry

1/2_Extreme · Jun 01, 2005, 02:06 PM // 14:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Spirit Firefly

got half way then scrolled to bottom to my horror to realise how much more there was...sorry

yea, its too early in the morning for me. Gave up at the half way point

chalt2 · Jun 01, 2005, 02:43 PM // 14:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wesley Wyndam-Pryce

me personally if I bought a Starwars MMO I'd expect to easily become a jedi.

First off great essay!

Second, your statement above IMO is the bottom line, the instant gratification syndrom is the issue, alot of people want Star Wars the game to be just like Star Wars the movie, you go from snot nosed kid (Luke) to uber Jedi Knight and save the Universe in the span of SIX hours and 3 movies. What you don't get from that is TIME, those movies span several years in the lives of Luke and company, just the time spent with Yoda was many months yet it only took up 40 minutes of film time.

I'll ask this question: For those of you that have ever played D&D, if you were going to sit down and roll up some characters and head off into a full campaign would you expect to be lvl 20 and on to Epic in one or two sessions?

Aloren · Jun 01, 2005, 02:46 PM // 14:46

There are some very valid points in this post. There are definately some problems that need to be looked at and fixed in the MMO industry.
The "cookie-cutter" is something that heppens to practically every genre out there. I guess you just can't create something unique all the time.

I have to agree with you though, Chalt. I feel that if in D&D I was level 20 and on to the epic ruleset I would nto have any fun in the game.

The point of the game is not getting to the end, or being the most powerful, it's the journey leading up to that point that's so fun.

Dreamsmith · Jun 01, 2005, 04:21 PM // 16:21

Actually, I think the most serious problems with MMORPGs are not fixable, because they're fundamental to the concept of an MMORPG. Rather than repeat by old rant here, though, I'll just refer interested readers to this thread, which explains why I hate MMORPGs. Given those problems, the ones listed above are trivial (and, BTW, for those who don't feel like reading the entire first post here, let me sum up what he said in two words: "bad support").

Pevil Lihatuh · Jun 01, 2005, 04:34 PM // 16:34

ok i read about half of that then gave up

but a lot of it has validity. However just a couple of points:

1. The whole trading-in if there was no CD-Key... a lot of stores STILL wouldn't take the game back. Our company will trade in any game except PC games and, til we stopped stocking them, DVD's. The reason? Partly coz of keys and not being able to reuse them, but the main reason is because its easy to buy the game, take it home, copy it, get a no-cd patch then take it back for an exchange or refund. Result, free game. Hooray!

2. Most MMO's are medieval: well yes, I would *guess* this is because most people who want to use guns in a game would rather pick up Halo, or Half Life, adn those who want to use swords would be more inclined to go for an RPG or MMO. I know some have pulled it off well (Fallout for example) but I doubt Matrix Online would be *quite* as popular if it wasn't backed by the films. No doubt it'd still be huge though

I personally am not keen on rpgs that are present/futuristic as opposed to set in the past, or in a fantasy realm, but who knows *shrugs*

3. Game content: yeah I agree here, most games don't have enough content. Ultima Online is only just seeing people complain its expansions don't add enough though, and it has been running for 7 years. But at the same time you get other games that are new out that people already find boring; so many people are leaving WoW due to boredom and certain features they don't like (the honour patch thing). and to be honest, Ultima Online only survived because you have a skill cap and it is HARD to reach. I have personally nevre played the official servers, but i have played for 2 years on a free server, and you can get every skill very easily so the game gets boring very quickly.

Like i say i have limited experience with MMO's, only the free version of UO, and thats because as you said, the budget thing. I'm not gonna pay nearly £20 a month for something I already spent £30 on plus my £25 broadband fee a month. Its generally no different to any offline game except for the fact you have faster servers, but I've met a much nicer community on Sacred, a 'normal' offline game with MP capabilities than I have anywhere else. Sure MMO's have better servers, but if I want to stop playing Sacred for a couple months, or if I go on holiday, I'm not wasting anything. For example on UO I know that if you were to go away (say into hospital for 2 months or something) so that you were not palying, you still have to pay for those 2 months or your account gets wiped. That character you spent the last 3 years on wiped because you were unavailable for 2 months.

I wanted WoW (although am now glad I didn't get it) and the only thing that swayed me towards GW rather than WoW was the no monthly fee. But having heard about the patches and systems it has, I'm very glad with my choice now

edit: oops forgot my real rant, which I'm always posting hehe

On the originaltiy thing, yep totally agree. How many rts now are simply AoE clones? The Settlers series, a very original and fun take on RTS. But look at Settlers 5: Heritage of Kings. It looks like AoE, it has upgrades like AoE and you have much simpler economics just like AoE. They ruined it. I played the demo and while its still a good game, its NOT a settlers game. And black and white 2, although my fears about this are now put to rest, at one point people were again trying to turn that game into AoE.

First person shooters are now almost guaranteed to have Bullet time in; in fact I'm getting to hate bullet time because its in EVERYTHING; Enter the Matrix, Max Payne, heck even Tony Hawks Underground 2 (yes i know its always been a common spell in D&D games but thats a different thing), Fable to a certain extent has it as a spell...

Wesley Wyndam-Pryce · Jun 02, 2005, 12:22 AM // 00:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pevil Lihatuh

1. The whole trading-in if there was no CD-Key... a lot of stores STILL wouldn't take the game back. Our company will trade in any game except PC games and, til we stopped stocking them, DVD's. The reason? Partly coz of keys and not being able to reuse them, but the main reason is because its easy to buy the game, take it home, copy it, get a no-cd patch then take it back for an exchange or refund. Result, free game. Hooray!

Oh I agree, it's very easy to just buy a normal PC game, pirate it, and then return it. Which is why most stores don't allow for returns or exchanges of opened PC software and games.

My example was towards stores like EB Games, Gamespot, GameFly etc where you can actually take any game, PC, Console, handheld, etc and trade them in for store credit to use on anything in the store. Most PC games with a CD key they'll take, as long as the CD key is provided with the game as normal. However MMO's are a different beast in this manner, as the CD key to register an account is been used, in reference to telling the server client that the user client wishes to register and obtain his/her free trial period.

It's not a huge "omg I'm not going to buy this MMO cause I can't later trade it in" deal, but in the long run it's as said, just one of the many little things that tend to add up and make you think "are these worth my actual money?"

Glady some people enjoyed what I had to say. I didn't mean for it to be overly long, or to seem like it was an essay, I was really trying to just spark a discussion about the topic. After enjoying GW for a while, I just noticed a few similar trends that made me think back to every MMO I've tried, played or even heard of. Hell if you read enough of what I had to say you notice me quoting alot of WoW issues right? I've never played the game once. Never seen a movie of it, maybe seen a few screenshots here and there. Point of that is such a hugely played MMO can have it's news and issues reach out online to people that don't even play the game ;p

Hopefully MMO's of the future will become something different.

To make a side-branch of the discussion, what MMO's are other people looking forward too?

Personally I've got my eyes on Twilight War and Star Trek Online. Now I know, the latter is a franchise game, but unlike Star Wars which has had it's real fair share of great multiplayer games (non MMO's), Trek has had very very few games with a strong multiplayer, or MMO. So I'm hoping the game play is indepth and not just a cash cow. Twilight War is a mix of cyber punk (ala Neocron), some sci fi (ala Tabula Rasa or Planetside), and just some kick ass role playing. The other MMO's coming out don't really interest me that much.

Yojinj · Jun 02, 2005, 12:46 PM // 12:46

Star Trek Online has the potential to become something great. Being a part of a player crew on a ship just sounds tempting.

The essay is great and many if not all points more then true.

Poppinjay · Jun 02, 2005, 01:31 PM // 13:31

I think it is crap that stores won't take games back.

I have bought games before that didn't work even though I met all the requirements on the box. I raised hell for about a half an hour and they eventually took it back because it was clear I wouldn't move away from the growling line unless they actually called the police. Still, most people don't manage to return it, and if you have to go through all that trouble it isn't worth it.

Like any other product, games should be returnable if they don't live up to what it says on the box.

Further, this position just leads to more pirating of games. When people know that they will not be able to return a game if it doesn't run, that makes them feel all the more justified in downloading it from some torrent site instead so that they haven't just thrown away their money. And they are right.

Pop

Aloren · Jun 02, 2005, 05:52 PM // 17:52

But did you know, pop, that a single person over the course of a few weeks can cost a single store over a hundred thousand dollars in lost revenue from buying a game and then returning it because "it wasn't satisfactory"? These companies do it for a reason, and if the game doesn't work, then it's time to get an exchange copy. If that copy fails to work (I.e: incorrect system requirements), then you need to talk with the maufacturer.

Loviatar · Jun 02, 2005, 06:12 PM // 18:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poppinjay

I think it is crap that stores won't take games back.

every place i have been has a clear statement on what if any policy exists for returns

if it doesnt work you can do a defective return for exchange of the same item

saying that you should be able to return it if it doesnt *meet my expectations* is ..........????.......not realistic in the slightest as 80 % of the people would consider that a way to get a free game

Pevil Lihatuh · Jun 02, 2005, 06:22 PM // 18:22

thats the problem with pc games poppinjay. the company i work for, GAME in the UK tends to bend the rules a lil bit. I know our 'rivals' gamestation, trade in pc games anyway (for very small in price - another reason we dont trade pc games; their prices drop much faster than console games), but we technically are not meant to give a refund on a pc game unless it has a huge crack in it or something, and are NEVER meant to exchange them. However most of our stores will in fact exchange any pc game, simply to keep customer service.

If you think about it, it does make sense (although its very annoying). The thing is that you can say "This game needs x RAM, x Processor, x Graphics card" etc etc, but there may be one tiny piece of software on your system that clashes with the game. Now this isn't the stores fault (and nor is it yours of course) but thats a risk you take with pcs, because each one is different. At least on a console that isn't chipped, its guaranteed to work just as well on your xbox/ps2 etc as it is on anyone elses.

Of course i agree this totally sucks from a gamers point of view

And of course in the case of customers who don't know their system requirements... well what the heck are they doing buying things for it in th efirst place?

I do agree to an extent on the piracy thing. A lot of people have certain copy protection companies that they don't like and so won't buy any game with that protection on... often downloading it instead. But if you take away all these precautions, it just makes it even easier. I personally would rather buy a game; if its good enough then the company deserves my support, otherwise they can't make me any more great games

But some people are just too selfish to think of that.

ChristopherKee · Jun 02, 2005, 08:38 PM // 20:38

You left 1 thing out. Timesinks. I enjoy playing MMO's for 20 hours a week with friends/gf/family. I HATE being forced to wait on "random" events to move forward. So far GW is fun for this reason.

And the reason for so many "tried and true" clones is the amount of money involved in making games these days. Thank god NCSoft charges the 2.5 million Koreans $25 a month to play Lienage2. It gave them the money to take a risk with AutoAss/GW/CoH.

PrimeHealer · Jun 21, 2005, 05:02 AM // 05:02

i agree with some points, but call me wierd or call me a roleplayer but i like the "traditional" mmos better, I like being in an open world, hanging out with friends and ROLEPLAYING. Thats the key word folks, I consider myself a good roleplayer along with my friends, in Everquest we were so good at it that we had newbies thinking it was a GM event lol. We lit fireworks and had celebrations with beer and all, was quite fun and that what I like, sure I like to get my levels up but there would be times where Id go on week long stretches without even hitting the battlefield. Then Id do the opposite, hit the battlefeld for a week straight, and oh the plots for MMOs are as follows ROLEPLAY your own plots, its really quite fun. Thats what most people are lacking or dont know how to do is roleplay, Im telling you it makes the open world mmos much more enjoyable than just stressing out rushing for lvls. I miss roleplaying and in guildwars my satisfaction for that has not been met. I would have nice sword I found somewhere lets say then shout in zone for the newbies to come to me and I would make up my own quest for them to be able to win this sword sort of thing, they appreciate it much more than the quests that tell them to bring 1000 rat whiskers to get a rusty sword lol and plus I make it alot more fun. I miss all that. I dont care about updates, (unless its something technical) I dont coplain about this class has this and this class has that, when I am in the game world I act like I am really in the game world. I speak in complete sentences not like how r u 2day. Trust me that is really the point of mmos, to develop your charac and bring it to life. Check out the lord of the rings online forums, now those people know what roleplaying is all about, and to be honest that game alone will snatch up more roleplayers than anything and they will shun all "ub3r l33T" people from that game or force them to join an uber leet server. I can see some points in the post though, was very well written and everyone is entitled to their opinions so Im just giving mine, Im just a roleplayer at heart when I play these games (guildwars excluded due to the fact that there is really no roleplay opportunity here) so I love the 'traditional mmos" in fact I just found me a free one that I will be playing from now on called Rubies of Eventide, the community is excellent and very very friendly, graphics are good, 7 races, 100 classes, lots of stats to mess around with, my kind of game lol...oh and some really good ROLEPLAYING.

DarrenJasper · Jun 21, 2005, 06:42 AM // 06:42

Gah, what's with the thread necromancy Prime?

Anyway I didn't read any of this claptrap, but I just saw something about Star Trek Online. Is that for real?

Aloren · Jun 21, 2005, 09:59 PM // 21:59

Yeah, I heard it has a rough release date in 2007.

PrimeHealer · Jun 21, 2005, 11:04 PM // 23:04

hehe sorry for the necromancy of the thread, its just sometimes I get frustrated with things and I have to vent. take care *waves

Reiden Argrock · Jun 22, 2005, 12:02 AM // 00:02

hehe, I love it man, excellent post

as for an answer..Mankind is a bunch of suckers, and some people take advantage of it ie. Game company's

I don't think their will ever be a game that will actually keep a player from reaching the end, it just doesn't seem possible, thats why I enjoy games that make you start over each time, ie fps, rts, and I play mmo because I love the community aspect, being able to play with all your friends+people you don't know and get to know.

But I have little hope that their will ever be a game out there (mmo specificly) that will never dry up.