Curse

LifeInfusion · Dec 20, 2006, 01:28 AM // 01:28

If you pay attention to the industry, there has been a shift from marketing to the adolescent/childhood range to older people in the 50s and 60s.

Brain Age is a perfect example (for the Nintendo DS). According to them, the best way to maintain brain health is by performing simple calculations and reading aloud.

We can't really read aloud in GW but we do simple calculations in addition to logic based problems.
================================================== =========
Nevertheless, there ought to be more logic-oriented quests. Missions typically involve logic but quests often involve annihilating the mobs one way or another. There ought to be more things like Tihark Orchard where you imitate the guy that does emotes. That has more immersive value and also it helps broaden player base.

If I am not mistaken, some things like the multiplication for the code for the stands or the quiz that the djinn give you about the five gods of tyria would be nice.

Not that Guild Wars is bad, but there is always room for improvement.

LicensedLuny · Dec 20, 2006, 01:59 AM // 01:59

I'd like to see more puzzle and lore history oriented content in the game to balance out the smash-em' content. I was really excited to come across so many things like that on my way through NF. Smash-em is great, don't get me wrong, but the puzzles are nice little changes of pace.

I want this for me, but if it helps expand the player base to include people with other interests, fantastic!

/signed

Oh, and I'm living proof that we can read aloud while playing GW.

We can argue with the NPC's out loud, too (You should hear me talking to NPC's in Factions ... wait, nvm, no, you shouldn't)

Antheus · Dec 20, 2006, 02:03 AM // 02:03

I hate to bring it to you, but the market shift is going extremly heavy towards the console gamers. This is the future market. Yes, there's talks about senior population, but they simply don't spend enough. Large population that invests into one game over period of 2 years vs. much larger population that invests into 5 games a year? In case you're wondering, the 5 times a year crowd is the teeny generation. You need to consider the global markets, not just US. Games are still for kids. Especially, since post-teen generation has much less time to play, even 40 hours of content can be enough for 6 months. That's less than one day of gameplay for a typical teen gamer.

For the future of online games, expect the following:
- No reading
- 10-30 minute playtime
- No thinking (waypoints, failsafe decisions, 100% repeatable challenges that can be described into detail in walkthroughs, ...)
- 50% of content is noob quests
- No penalty of any kind (you can't fail a mission, you can't lose, you can't be penalized for anything)
- Guaranteed progression (possibly complete removal of experience, but completely linear progression that is guaranteed proportionally with time invested)

WoW may not seem like that, but that's the very secret of it's mass adoption (I won't say success). It's a failsafe game, just keep playing, and you'll beat it. You cannot fail, you cannot sidetrack, you don't need to improve, game does it all for you.

God of war (??) has an "I win" easy mode. Fail a task 5 times, and it offers to lower difficulty.

Look at SOEs offers and how they change them towards that market, increasingly so with PS3 launch.

Look at complete failures of the "next" generation of MMOs that just can't seem to break it with these supposedly "complex" models.

GW is niche enough, and offers enough of alternate aproaches. Already it's having hard time balancing the difficulty vs. general population. Mission diversity would be welcome, but missions are still a one-time deal. The apeal GW will need to find in the future is in replayable content.

GW fails to apeal to elder generation for several reasons. It's completely twitch and action based. It has no persistent world, no higher goals, it's just a linear storyline with pvp matches. It offers no reward for dedication, everything is geared towards instant satisfaction. FoW armor and the likes don't count towards long-term, since they are simply a matter of grind.

Unfortunately, GW simply isn't the game to apeal to that demographic. It never was meant to be.

Angel Netherborn · Dec 20, 2006, 02:25 AM // 02:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Antheus

GW fails to apeal to elder generation for several reasons. It's completely twitch and action based. It has no persistent world, no higher goals, it's just a linear storyline with pvp matches. It offers no reward for dedication, everything is geared towards instant satisfaction. FoW armor and the likes don't count towards long-term, since they are simply a matter of grind.

Are you implying that the older generation actually prefers games that are geared towards long-term satisfaction and not instant satisfaction? On what basis?

Antheus · Dec 20, 2006, 03:23 AM // 03:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Angel Netherborn

Are you implying that the older generation actually prefers games that are geared towards long-term satisfaction and not instant satisfaction? On what basis?

These older younger generation classifications are somewhat annoying since it involves age. Age distinctions aren't really best, since they aren't definitive.

The distinction shows in general play style. The hip crowd just between games, identifies itself with latest greatest item, but cares little about anything.

The mature gamer will strive towards personal goals. It doesn't matter if the rewards are simple or for beginners. Mature player will likely value personal or group acomplishment over some symbolic token as defined by game itself. FoW is defined as "best" by game. As such, for the hip crowd it becomes a must have item. A mature gamer will choose the armor they prefer aestethically.

There is no guaranteed correlation between age and "maturity", but there is a relation.

Studies with regard to that were performed to limited extent in existing MMOs, most of it was done in WoW. They included not only the grind related aspects, but also whole gameplay experience, including the interface, personal and social aspects of players, and overall in-game acomplishments. The most notable ones are the number and level of characters vs. age and gender, preference of 1st perspective vs. 3rd perspective, as well as guild allegiance, and choice of activities.

The general bias between both age and gender has been shown to be vague in certain aspects, but very distinct in others.

Best conclusion that could be made for general case, is that younger players prefer to treat games much more directly as a game (1st person perspective, characters are purely functional characters - twinks). With age, these preferences go to completely other scale (3rd perspective, a single, distinguishing character that serves as their representation with much less regard to character's in-game functionality).

This is obviously related to one's perception of the world. With age, the immersion into the game changes. Most notably, younger player is more likely to treat the game as it is, or compared to other games in terms of features, options and presentation. With age, this perception becomes less relevant, and is superceded by more indirect goals, which may be meaningless withing game terms, but have very high personal value.

Note that all of that was performed for existing MMORPGs (not even all online games, and only on very small sample sizes for other types, like MUDs).

* the above is from a two statistics sites which did extensive studies and also longterm data samples, but I'm unable to find the link right now. Not all of the data there is considered conclusive

The rest can be extrapolated from other genres, especially the content length, and turnaround. As it stands right now, most volume is still generated by younger players, with middle-aged group mostly making purchases for their children.

There is currently no content geared towards senior generation, especially due to large rift between cultures (most notably, US vs. eastern Asia), since each of them has completely different perspectives. Japan has especially different perspective with regards to senior population, coupled with high technological advancement.

So right now, the western markets have either decided to target the proven models for younger players, or continue to develop their brands, by completely disregarding market demographics, and focus on staying true to their genres.

There is currently no long-term proven design that would aim specifically towards older gamers. As such, it's simply impossible to say what works, or what should be provided, since all the data that is available, is based on existing markets, showing only what the desires within current offerings are.

Perhaps the greatest developments were made in China and Korea, with completely casual games like Habbo Hotel, or Audition (DDR online of sorts), which attracted subscriptions of millions and even tens of millions.

Making a distinction based on age has yet to prosper, the only pattern that seems to work reliably, is by making games that are "simple", involve real-world paradigms (none of that killing orcs with +5 axe - "killing", "orc" and "+5 axe" are all completely fictional terms) or use completely abstract concepts. From global perspective, anything that involves various acts of killing, stats and modifiers, or even fictional worlds is already considered hardcore.

Even online, games that have longest reach are simply "games". Not chess, but more like 4-in-a-row.

The MMO market seems to be continuing this direction, with hardcore games becoming overspecialized again, returning to their roots, and alternate games taking a complete break from all those gameplay concepts, and going a completely different direction.

And as such, the classifications between ages withing the scope of current games seems almost redundant. Current games simply cannot be expanded into other markets by any notable margin, but they simply cannot expand beyond the gamer market as it is today - which doesn't include much of senior generation. This market will need to prosper within an entirely different concept of games.