as long as housing is being discussed, i really loved the DAOC trophy system. that gave a sense of accomplishment that was shared by guilds and individuals alike. in daoc, trophies were obtainable after killing some rare spawns, and some raid bosses. You'd use an embalming solution of sorts and had a mountable item for your house. quick example...
guild pride in collecting these was big back in my daoc days. the most valuable "tangible" thing i felt i ever gave my guild was a water strider tropy that had been eluding us for over a six months before i got it (bad luck? other trophy hunters? i'll never know).
One thing I'd like to see in a raiding MMO is efficient logging of raids. It could simply be a log starting when you trigger the logging for the raid, start off by listing everyone in the raid at that point, and then give a running order of events with timestamps until you end the log and finish with a list of all those present when the log ended. Things like people joining and leaving, mobs dying, loot recieved, and suchlike would be the sort of things I'd imagine it would capture. Then allow the player to export it in plain text or xml and do whatever they need to do with it.
THAT would make DKP a hell of a lot easier for everyone regardless of the exact kind of system you used, and if you used a sane format it could allow the use of third party parsers to automate everything for the user.
I definately agree with the alts idea for any game that allows it. Personally I would prefer that it would be a more global system enabling (or forcing, for accountability) a player to link all their characters with their "main" so people know who you are. "Oh we didn't know you were online" or "I couldn't remember your alt's name" are both annoying things to hear when you miss some event because you were on an alt. Or even do away with the need for alts (maybe by being able to switch classes/skills with your one character). But if it's just in the guild then that's fine too. Often the only reason you play an alt is to experience another class, but then you run into problems with not being able to see guild chat or people not knowing who you are when you talk, etc, etc.
If games are going to require certain things of players, an ingame system for listing such things for the guild would be great. Things like keys and attunements are very important things for the guild to know should the game have them, and as such the knowledge should be accessible without having to ask the player and write it down somewhere. Other things like resists or even the gear they have or the stats they have would also be great but might be unnecessary clutter. I definately think "more is better" in the case of information for guilds, so long as you manage to avoid cluttering the interface with useless information.
I'd kill for EQ2's guild functionality. Heck, I'd argue that EQ2 is a better pure Diku experience than WoW in some ways but it has alot of screwups. But the guild stuff? Sony nailed it. People had a reason to help everyone in their guilds no matter the level difference. A great ranking and banking system. If you're talking purely about guild functionality then a damn fine system is already out there and not next gen.
I actually agree here, I had a fairly decent guild in EQ2 before coming back to WoW, the guild level from achieving quests and also the equivelent of legendaries (just rather hard quests rather that required raiding quite a big rather than raiding a zone 200 times waiting on a peice to drop) in wow would gain the guild reputation/rank wich would unlock bits and peices for the guild itself.
This in itself was a damn cracking idea, you actually had to raid zones to get the quests done to gain your 'nice' items and earn guild prestige.
1. guild bank set by the guild leader who can acces (with draw) who can put stuff in (deposit).
2. Actually sort the guild rank system out, if you have ever tried to add/remove ranks from the guild system and try assign people to it ... they will know it's a knightmare :/.
1) .. allowing for serving forums for guilds and maybe even options like TeamSpeak / Ventrilo
While you are at it, why not ask them to host your guild website and make your guild webpage?
I would much rather prefer an MMORPG developer focus on making a kick-ass game, instead of trying to re-invent wheels. Theres a reason why vBulletin, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, etc are such popular peices of software. Because they are very good at what they do. For example, technically speaking the WoW forums are crap compared to Vbulletin and other forum softwares... the Search feature is still unusable after 2 years. This is what you get when you try to develop unscalable in-house software (no matter how simple).
Bottom line: Let MMO creators worry about making a GOOD stable game. Dont ask them to make something they arent passionate about
I never asked them to make the software - such things can be licensed and used off the shelf really, they just need to setup the hosting. VT / TS would probably cost some money for the license and phpBB is free. And I am asking them to host my guild website, every guild needs a dkp site and a forum. We can't do without, it's the perfect example of something they might as well incorporate into their subscription package.
Originally Posted by Revenj
2)I'd like a system, much like Allakhazam, but instead something that is run and developed by the developers of the game.
This will never work out in reality. Besides, this is a detrimental business move on part of the developers. Sites like thottbot, allakhazam, Vault, etc are breeding grounds for community interest. You want to encourage people to make fansites for your game.
That's a cheap argument. Please present some arguments for why it wouldn't work out in reality. Why wouldn't this site be a breeding ground for community interest? And how would it stop encouraging people from making fansites for the game? What you're saying amounts to the same as saying that just because we can write our own userinterface to the game the developers shouldn't worry about doing that. A lot of mods that has been developed by users have been incorporated, more or less, into the existing userinterface because they were simply good ideas. Some of these fansites provide services and things that the original developers didn't, something they thought were missing ... now would you say that something should be missing on purpose? Talent Calculators, fansite result ... now on the WoW site. They're assimilating the good ideas into their own package. What I'm proposing is that they do the same with Allakhazam, VT/TS, forums and dkp sites.
Originally Posted by Revenj
3) A per-person incurred repaircost is tracked and after a raid is finished you can choose to refund a % of that and the system will automatically reimburse all raiders %
This is not a feature that a developer of a "next-gen" MMO should concern themselves with. This kind of suggestion belongs in the "Little features you would like to have in the next WoW patch". heck, with a lot of hacking a round, maybe even a mod writer could write this - maybe.
You're contradicting yourself really. Little feature ... MMORPG's are a mass of small and big features, they all need to be developed. So in short, yes developers will have to concern themselves with it. The idea is also an expression of the fact that some necessities arise in the game that the developers did not take into account and they should try to facilitate it as well as they can. Same as they have done with so many other things ... the same goes for guildbanks. The necessity was there and they should have provided the facilities.
It seems to me that you're expecting the next gen MMO to be developed as a joint venture between the would be users and the paid developers of the company. What I would expect from a next gen MMO is that when I pay my subscription to the company that develops my game, that they will as much as foreseeable have incorporated everything I need to do at all levels of the game into the package I'm buying from them. I don't think it's "okay" that you have to setup all these things by yourself so you can play the game at the proper level, just because it's the industry standard not to provide these things. Saying anything else is a lack of vision.
If some people want to have their custom forums and whatever else they may want, there's nothing stopping them from doing it the old fashioned way.
As far as professions go I'd like to see more item oriented professions, blacksmithing, leatherworking, tailoring, jewelcrafting, and few to none buff centric professions, enchanting and alchemy. If the item professions are buffed to an extent like we see in burning crusade, BoP raid quality items, then they become viable ways to progress your character outside of raiding. Having, I think, 3 teirs of craftable items, leveling gear, BoE semi-end game gear and BoP raid quality gear gives these professions a place to shine. By semi-end game gear I mean in a linear end-game progression new recipes would be added which increase the level of crafted BoE gear to just below the now end-game gear, tier 2.5 when tier 3 is out, for example, where as there would also be new recipes, not acquired through raiding, that is on par with teir 3. This does a couple of things. First it allows raiding guilds to gear up new recruits fast through crafting(and therefore you may see less recruit stealing as a side effect), crafters make money from people who can't raid so much, and the crafters themselves stay on level with the raiding populace.
Even though it's a nice idea it'd never work. The developer would turn the previous raid game into a craft game really. What's the purpose of all lower tier and mid tier guilds that are now progressing through AQ40 or BWL, god forbid MC, to go through all that trouble if you just had to go make yourself a crafter. All previous end-game would to some extent become obsolete. A system like that would make literally everyone that aren't on the bleeding edge of raiding choose that profession so they could equip themselves. Thus only the bleeding edge of raiding would be done, nobody would bother learning BWL if they could just craft T2.5 gear no matter what.
There's also an intrudoctory experience to later raid zones to be had in BWL and AQ40. I'm afraid such an idea would destroy big parts of the game.
Even though it's a nice idea it'd never work. The developer would turn the previous raid game into a craft game really. What's the purpose of all lower tier and mid tier guilds that are now progressing through AQ40 or BWL, god forbid MC, to go through all that trouble if you just had to go make yourself a crafter. All previous end-game would to some extent become obsolete. A system like that would make literally everyone that aren't on the bleeding edge of raiding choose that profession so they could equip themselves. Thus only the bleeding edge of raiding would be done, nobody would bother learning BWL if they could just craft T2.5 gear no matter what.
Originally Posted by Maynard
Currently casuals can farm herbs that can support raiders. Yet, conversely, raiders can provide very little for the casuals (paying copius amounts of gold for farm-status loot doesn't count). Why not have bosses drop items that help casuals make exceptionally powerful craftables? This is at the absolute most simple level. Even more extreme, a guild could have "tiers" of players, with casuals at the bottom level joining large guilds and farming mats to support that guild (Imagine: Soulbound - Guild). Of course, "farming mats" neednt be a chore, we could be talking about drops that they just pick up along the way in 5-mans or even PvP-earned tokens. Non-raiders could even form guilds centered entirely around the generation of income, that provide materials to the raiding community, who in turn could offer raid-only materials used to craft very high-end BoE epics.
I'm not a crafter, I hate crafting, but I think it should be a valid part of the game. As valid as PvE and PvP. And, I disagree that it hurts low-mid teir guilds. If recipes are added which drop in BWL which are of equal value to MC loot, and those recipes are BoE, eventually it helps the low to mid teir players. They gear up faster which allows them to tackle harder instances more quickly. Who wants to be stuck killing Golemagg while Naxx is out? No one. MC, today, is just a stepping stone. Being able to advance more quickly past the earlier dungeons helps and hurts. Anything past MC isn't all about gear, it's mostly about coordination. If a guild can gear up to AQ level without actually going to AQ, will they be able to do naxx? No, they haven't learned the coordination required for it. But at least they now have a shot at it.
And, whats wrong with having every guild on a server on the bleeding edge of raiding? It makes farming harder, yes, but it allows for more stability in guilds, and more progression at the same time.
It helps casuals because crafting allows them to advance their own characters both by funding large raiding guilds who need to gear up new members and making the items for themselves. It gives another avenue to progress besides PvP and PvE.
The main thing is the more ways you have to enchance your character, generally, the better.
1) .. allowing for serving forums for guilds and maybe even options like TeamSpeak / Ventrilo
While you are at it, why not ask them to host your guild website and make your guild webpage?
I would much rather prefer an MMORPG developer focus on making a kick-ass game, instead of trying to re-invent wheels. Theres a reason why vBulletin, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, etc are such popular peices of software. Because they are very good at what they do. For example, technically speaking the WoW forums are crap compared to Vbulletin and other forum softwares... the Search feature is still unusable after 2 years. This is what you get when you try to develop unscalable in-house software (no matter how simple).
Bottom line: Let MMO creators worry about making a GOOD stable game. Dont ask them to make something they arent passionate about
I never asked them to make the software - such things can be licensed and used off the shelf really, they just need to setup the hosting. VT / TS would probably cost some money for the license and phpBB is free. And I am asking them to host my guild website, every guild needs a dkp site and a forum. We can't do without, it's the perfect example of something they might as well incorporate into their subscription package.
While having a developer of the next gen mmo incorporate Ventrilo, Webpage hosting, and forums at a level accesible to guild leaders/members may seem like a reasonable evolution of the genre it really is not very feasible. There are added costs for all of this. Assuming the lisence Ventrilo, that lisence cost has to be incoporated in to the cost of each box of WoW. Forums and Webpages are a nightmare from their prospective. Apart from the added monthly cost incurred (and distributed to all subscribers, regardless of their activity as raiders/casuals) there is the liability issue. How useful can you make free webpages and forums to anyone who can get 10gold together if you are going to be liable for anything they post or link to?
Aside from all that, leaving those responsibilities with guilds and their guild leaders serves as a way to weed out people who are serious about commiting resources and time to a successful guild and those who just want to be guild leader so they can gkick people who roll against them.
Originally Posted by Whitemane
Originally Posted by Revenj
2)I'd like a system, much like Allakhazam, but instead something that is run and developed by the developers of the game.
This will never work out in reality. Besides, this is a detrimental business move on part of the developers. Sites like thottbot, allakhazam, Vault, etc are breeding grounds for community interest. You want to encourage people to make fansites for your game.
That's a cheap argument. Please present some arguments for why it wouldn't work out in reality. Why wouldn't this site be a breeding ground for community interest? And how would it stop encouraging people from making fansites for the game? What you're saying amounts to the same as saying that just because we can write our own userinterface to the game the developers shouldn't worry about doing that. A lot of mods that has been developed by users have been incorporated, more or less, into the existing userinterface because they were simply good ideas. Some of these fansites provide services and things that the original developers didn't, something they thought were missing ... now would you say that something should be missing on purpose? Talent Calculators, fansite result ... now on the WoW site. They're assimilating the good ideas into their own package. What I'm proposing is that they do the same with Allakhazam, VT/TS, forums and dkp sites.
I suppose blizzard could produce a site like allakhazam or thottbot, but there is little incentive for them to do that. Does it really enhance their product? Maybe... but if they did do this they would have to choose carefully how much information they put in to the site since they have ALL the information. They could do this too accurately/efficiently and completely diminish any immersive quality the game holds for players.
Originally Posted by Whitemane
Originally Posted by Revenj
3) A per-person incurred repaircost is tracked and after a raid is finished you can choose to refund a % of that and the system will automatically reimburse all raiders %
This is not a feature that a developer of a "next-gen" MMO should concern themselves with. This kind of suggestion belongs in the "Little features you would like to have in the next WoW patch". heck, with a lot of hacking a round, maybe even a mod writer could write this - maybe.
You're contradicting yourself really. Little feature ... MMORPG's are a mass of small and big features, they all need to be developed. So in short, yes developers will have to concern themselves with it. The idea is also an expression of the fact that some necessities arise in the game that the developers did not take into account and they should try to facilitate it as well as they can. Same as they have done with so many other things ... the same goes for guildbanks. The necessity was there and they should have provided the facilities.
Sorry, this really is a worthless feature to concern anyone with. If you're maintank complains about repair costs as much as our ex-MT used to then I understand why you might think of it... but really, this is very inconsequential. Maybe WoW could have a slightly better way to manage gold drops and repair costs... such as not splitting it up among all raid members, but hording it all, paying for all repairs, and then splitting the remainder. But that would quickly be abused so what's the point.
Originally Posted by Whitemane
It seems to me that you're expecting the next gen MMO to be developed as a joint venture between the would be users and the paid developers of the company. What I would expect from a next gen MMO is that when I pay my subscription to the company that develops my game, that they will as much as foreseeable have incorporated everything I need to do at all levels of the game into the package I'm buying from them. I don't think it's "okay" that you have to setup all these things by yourself so you can play the game at the proper level, just because it's the industry standard not to provide these things. Saying anything else is a lack of vision.
If some people want to have their custom forums and whatever else they may want, there's nothing stopping them from doing it the old fashioned way.
Buying a copy of WoW does not provide you with a high-bandwidth internet connection, a computer capable of rending Lagforge at 99 FPS@1600x1200, or a keyboard, or a desk and chair. Obviously there are something you're expecting to do on your own. Consoles come closer, but still not there.
Blizzard can't reasonably provide you with everything you might need to play WoW at the highest levels but that hasn't stopped anyone who really wanted to play at those levels from incurring additional costs to create webpages and host forums and ventrilo servers.
Maybe what you need is a third party company who will provide those services to you at a reasonable cost. Such a company probably already exists, and can service similar needs for gamers in all MMOs, FPS, RTS, and etc. There a lot of things closely game related that blizzard can and should work better to incorporate but somethings aren't really imporant enough or generally desired by enough people to be worth implementing. Thats where third party companies and independants like fansites come in to play to provide additional features for people who want them.
I don't *want* Blizzard to provide forums, Ventrilo, itemdbs, etc.
Why would I? They wouldn't offer me the same flexibility I have now in choosing a voice comms provider (how many users do I need? Well, right now, a 70 person server is good, but an xpac guild might only need 40-50. Where do I want it hosted? Depends on my players; yes, if I can pick a hosting location that'll cut 30-40 ms of ping to the voice comms off it's worth doing.) They wouldn't let me choose the webpage/forum package I want, and given that they'd be responsible for whatever's hosted inasmuch as any common carrier is, they'd have to police it to some extent. I don't want them responsible for what's posted. I don't want them to be able to be responsible for it, either. Imagine if EJ's forums had been hosted by Blizzard. You really think our long discussions of leaked beta info would have been allowed? Hell no.
And I'd much, much rather have an external datamined itemdb than a corporate hosted one, because Blizzard really has no interest in exposing things like ilvls, specific modifier names and amounts, mob spells, hidden passives, etc. These are *useful* things to players, but no one in their right mind should believe they'd be deliberately exposed by a corporate-hosted site.
My last concern would be single point of failure. Right now, guild forums are down? Well, there's IRC, there's in-game. In-game is down? IRC, guild forums. If all of this is being hosted by Blizzard, if they have network issues, we lost any way to communicate.
I played a game which tried to do all of that. Tribes 2. Ingame IRC. Ingame email. Ingame guild pages. Ingame forums. Ingame voice comms. And you know what?
No one used them. I'd rather my game designer spend money and time on designing a *game*, not on replicating easily available services.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
1) .. allowing for serving forums for guilds and maybe even options like TeamSpeak / Ventrilo
While you are at it, why not ask them to host your guild website and make your guild webpage?
I would much rather prefer an MMORPG developer focus on making a kick-ass game, instead of trying to re-invent wheels. Theres a reason why vBulletin, Ventrilo, TeamSpeak, etc are such popular peices of software. Because they are very good at what they do. For example, technically speaking the WoW forums are crap compared to Vbulletin and other forum softwares... the Search feature is still unusable after 2 years. This is what you get when you try to develop unscalable in-house software (no matter how simple).
Bottom line: Let MMO creators worry about making a GOOD stable game. Dont ask them to make something they arent passionate about
I never asked them to make the software - such things can be licensed and used off the shelf really, they just need to setup the hosting. VT / TS would probably cost some money for the license and phpBB is free. And I am asking them to host my guild website, every guild needs a dkp site and a forum. We can't do without, it's the perfect example of something they might as well incorporate into their subscription package.
While having a developer of the next gen mmo incorporate Ventrilo, Webpage hosting, and forums at a level accesible to guild leaders/members may seem like a reasonable evolution of the genre it really is not very feasible. There are added costs for all of this. Assuming the lisence Ventrilo, that lisence cost has to be incoporated in to the cost of each box of WoW. Forums and Webpages are a nightmare from their prospective. Apart from the added monthly cost incurred (and distributed to all subscribers, regardless of their activity as raiders/casuals) there is the liability issue. How useful can you make free webpages and forums to anyone who can get 10gold together if you are going to be liable for anything they post or link to?
Aside from all that, leaving those responsibilities with guilds and their guild leaders serves as a way to weed out people who are serious about commiting resources and time to a successful guild and those who just want to be guild leader so they can gkick people who roll against them.
Of course there's costs, duh? Why would the VT/TS license have to be included in the cost of each box? It doesn't come with the box, they're paying a license to HOST VT/TS and that's it. The client side of the product is, at least for TS, free. Seeing how big MMO's are it would be easy to get a deal setup to pay a X$ per user license and then add the hosting Y$ and split the costs among the members of the guild.
Why would forums and webpages be a nightmare? What you're saying is unrealistic, you're saying that Blizzard would be responsible for what me or any of my guild members post? Why? They're just hosting the forums for me, I'm buying hosting from THEM. It's not their forums, it's my forums and they're just hosting it. If I rent some webspace and start posting mp3/warez links on it, does my hoster get sued or do I get sued? That's right, I get sued and not my hoster. Why would this be any different? I don't get the 10g comment.
Why would any business want to weed out anyone that is willing to pay for their services? Blizzard is a company that is out to make money, not different from anyone else. I know my hosting company didn't have that many questions to try and weed me out at all. If you can pay for a WoW subscription you can pay for hosting. We're talking simple business here, it's another way of making money ... more money. Any businessman would see the possibilities here.
I've seen some hosting companies that seem to have gotten onto this idea, which is great. It still doesn't fix the problem about splitting the costs. It's a step in the right direction and one day that company might end up being bought by Blizzard for WoW 2.0?
Originally Posted by Trashe
Originally Posted by Whitemane
Originally Posted by Revenj
2)I'd like a system, much like Allakhazam, but instead something that is run and developed by the developers of the game.
This will never work out in reality. Besides, this is a detrimental business move on part of the developers. Sites like thottbot, allakhazam, Vault, etc are breeding grounds for community interest. You want to encourage people to make fansites for your game.
That's a cheap argument. Please present some arguments for why it wouldn't work out in reality. Why wouldn't this site be a breeding ground for community interest? And how would it stop encouraging people from making fansites for the game? What you're saying amounts to the same as saying that just because we can write our own userinterface to the game the developers shouldn't worry about doing that. A lot of mods that has been developed by users have been incorporated, more or less, into the existing userinterface because they were simply good ideas. Some of these fansites provide services and things that the original developers didn't, something they thought were missing ... now would you say that something should be missing on purpose? Talent Calculators, fansite result ... now on the WoW site. They're assimilating the good ideas into their own package. What I'm proposing is that they do the same with Allakhazam, VT/TS, forums and dkp sites.
I suppose blizzard could produce a site like allakhazam or thottbot, but there is little incentive for them to do that. Does it really enhance their product? Maybe... but if they did do this they would have to choose carefully how much information they put in to the site since they have ALL the information. They could do this too accurately/efficiently and completely diminish any immersive quality the game holds for players.
I'd say it definitely does enhance their product. They don't really have to do this, as we have seen plenty of evidence that the community will do it for them. I'll agree to that. There's no question though as to how important it is for some people in enjoying the game. When you levelled up, how often did you consult Thottbot to complete a quest? How many did you see asking for questions and being directed to Thottbot?
They don't have to be careful at all on what they put on such a site. What does Thottbot and Allakhazam post? The information that is readily available from the game. If they don't do it, their website will be useless because someone else will extract that information and make a site to rival it and in the end beat it because it has more information available on it. If they want to do it, they will post what information the users themselves can extract. If they post anything more then that, that's their choice and nothing anyone would ever expect.
Originally Posted by Trashe
Originally Posted by Whitemane
Originally Posted by Revenj
3) A per-person incurred repaircost is tracked and after a raid is finished you can choose to refund a % of that and the system will automatically reimburse all raiders %
This is not a feature that a developer of a "next-gen" MMO should concern themselves with. This kind of suggestion belongs in the "Little features you would like to have in the next WoW patch". heck, with a lot of hacking a round, maybe even a mod writer could write this - maybe.
You're contradicting yourself really. Little feature ... MMORPG's are a mass of small and big features, they all need to be developed. So in short, yes developers will have to concern themselves with it. The idea is also an expression of the fact that some necessities arise in the game that the developers did not take into account and they should try to facilitate it as well as they can. Same as they have done with so many other things ... the same goes for guildbanks. The necessity was there and they should have provided the facilities.
Sorry, this really is a worthless feature to concern anyone with. If you're maintank complains about repair costs as much as our ex-MT used to then I understand why you might think of it... but really, this is very inconsequential. Maybe WoW could have a slightly better way to manage gold drops and repair costs... such as not splitting it up among all raid members, but hording it all, paying for all repairs, and then splitting the remainder. But that would quickly be abused so what's the point.
It's not a worthless feature to me, that's why I brought it up. I'm not sure how many people have these concerns, maybe not that many but we just happen to have 30k+ in our guildbank and do feel that it'd be jolly fine to ease the financial trouble of our raiders because of the raiding we do. I understand that it's not something that happens to everyone, but for some it do. While I can accept this single idea is not the best and may not really make it into a game ever, like I mentioned and something you seem to disregard completely, is that that it's an expression of necessities that arise in the game that the developers are not quick enough to catch unto. How long didn't it take for them to implement the raid interface and many other features? They construct a game and leave parts of the game to be developed by the users. The enormous mod-scene that is present in WoW is largely due to the many faults there is with the basic user interface. I have so many mods that perform, to me, essential functions and I have a hard reason to see why they haven't been put into the main UI in the first place.
Originally Posted by Trashe
Originally Posted by Whitemane
It seems to me that you're expecting the next gen MMO to be developed as a joint venture between the would be users and the paid developers of the company. What I would expect from a next gen MMO is that when I pay my subscription to the company that develops my game, that they will as much as foreseeable have incorporated everything I need to do at all levels of the game into the package I'm buying from them. I don't think it's "okay" that you have to setup all these things by yourself so you can play the game at the proper level, just because it's the industry standard not to provide these things. Saying anything else is a lack of vision.
If some people want to have their custom forums and whatever else they may want, there's nothing stopping them from doing it the old fashioned way.
Buying a copy of WoW does not provide you with a high-bandwidth internet connection, a computer capable of rending Lagforge at 99 FPS@1600x1200, or a keyboard, or a desk and chair. Obviously there are something you're expecting to do on your own. Consoles come closer, but still not there.
Blizzard can't reasonably provide you with everything you might need to play WoW at the highest levels but that hasn't stopped anyone who really wanted to play at those levels from incurring additional costs to create webpages and host forums and ventrilo servers.
Maybe what you need is a third party company who will provide those services to you at a reasonable cost. Such a company probably already exists, and can service similar needs for gamers in all MMOs, FPS, RTS, and etc. There a lot of things closely game related that blizzard can and should work better to incorporate but somethings aren't really imporant enough or generally desired by enough people to be worth implementing. Thats where third party companies and independants like fansites come in to play to provide additional features for people who want them.
I'm saying that when I buy a car I want it to come with wheels on, what you're saying is that when I buy wheels it should also have a car attached to them. That's nonsense. I do think that Blizzard can reasonably supply me with webpages, forums and VT servers. They just need to have the visions to make it happen. It might be a bit out of their traditional field, but I'm sure in the end after the headaches of making it happen, that their profits would increase quite well. If they bothered they could even hook up with a third party company to do it for them! Great business for both.
You're saying "provide additional features for people who want them". So lets take a look at that, if you're making a guild that has the intention of raiding at a high level. Would you say you "need" or just "want" a forum? A dkp site? A VT/TS server? I can agree with your sentiment if it has anything to do with want, but not "need". Forums and dkp sites are definitely needed at this point, like people suggested DKP sites can be integrated into the game. VT/TS are questionable, although after having used them I'd personally say the advantage of having one makes it a need.
On the subject of Alakhazam sites I'd like to see the need for a quest database to go the way of the dodo for everyone but the terminally stupid. Here's the most infamous quest of all:
"We battled in a small tauren camp when we were separated--she held three of the Bristlebacks off by herself. But the odds began to overwhelm us. I led some away only to see her overwhelmed by newcomers. In my rage, I turned to face my enemies, but they brought me down easily with their vast numbers.
I awoke to a tauren druid tending my wounds--he had come across me on the Gold Road as I fell.
Please, <class>, find some sign of my wife."
Yes you are to find Mankrik's wife. In a vast, open plains of The Barrens. Somewhere.
...
What the hell kind of quest is that? You know what kind of quest that is? A Morrowind quest. But instead of cryptic directions that may or may not lead you to the right cave on the other side of the world by going south and then east at some point in time you will psychically know because you're gifted like that, or finding a magical item that is in the (vast) mountains to the north, you will be able to locate his wife without even a rough compass point to guide you.
Designers need to learn that in real life you can ask people questions for more information, perhaps even busting out your nifty map and getting them to point to the random place they're talking about in a vague manner. You might even be able to ask the locals for the whereabouts of the "fire totem guy" (the worst thing about being a shaman is being asked where the "fire totem guy" is, over and over, soon to be followed by "where is the fire shrine?") when you get to the general area. You can't typically do these things in a videogame, what the quest gives you is exactly what you have to work with, and often it just isn't enough unless you like stumbling about not knowing WTF to do. I don't. When I get a quest I want clear directions on exactly what I'm supposed to do, and I want a point on my map showing exactly where my objective is. I'm not playing Where's Waldo, I'm playing <insert MMOG inevitably about killing things here>, and looking for things just gets in the way of the killing.
All of the things you're advocating are more or less required for raiders.
They are *not* required for the mass casual market, which is what Blizzard at least pays lip service to wanting to serve.
You don't add features to a product that only 20% of your market is really going to use.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
I don't *want* Blizzard to provide forums, Ventrilo, itemdbs, etc.
Why would I? They wouldn't offer me the same flexibility I have now in choosing a voice comms provider (how many users do I need? Well, right now, a 70 person server is good, but an xpac guild might only need 40-50. Where do I want it hosted? Depends on my players; yes, if I can pick a hosting location that'll cut 30-40 ms of ping to the voice comms off it's worth doing.) They wouldn't let me choose the webpage/forum package I want, and given that they'd be responsible for whatever's hosted inasmuch as any common carrier is, they'd have to police it to some extent. I don't want them responsible for what's posted. I don't want them to be able to be responsible for it, either. Imagine if EJ's forums had been hosted by Blizzard. You really think our long discussions of leaked beta info would have been allowed? Hell no.
And I'd much, much rather have an external datamined itemdb than a corporate hosted one, because Blizzard really has no interest in exposing things like ilvls, specific modifier names and amounts, mob spells, hidden passives, etc. These are *useful* things to players, but no one in their right mind should believe they'd be deliberately exposed by a corporate-hosted site.
My last concern would be single point of failure. Right now, guild forums are down? Well, there's IRC, there's in-game. In-game is down? IRC, guild forums. If all of this is being hosted by Blizzard, if they have network issues, we lost any way to communicate.
I played a game which tried to do all of that. Tribes 2. Ingame IRC. Ingame email. Ingame guild pages. Ingame forums. Ingame voice comms. And you know what?
No one used them. I'd rather my game designer spend money and time on designing a *game*, not on replicating easily available services.
So you're saying that since Blizzard is hosting these services they will by default provide the worst hosting possible with no flexibility at all? Generally their one goal with setting up the service will be to make it so miserable that no one wants to use it? No offense, but it seems you're just destroying the idea based on something that would go against all sensible ways of doing business.
I can agree on picking where to host your voice comms, that's a good point and nothing I can see will solve that given the geographical spread of the playerbase. A dutch guild will prefer dutch hosted voice comms and so on, Blizzard will have a hard time satisfying that criterium.
I don't really know for a fact how much my carrier is policing my forums, but I do know that there are plenty of sections they can't access. Maybe they screen the database instead? I don't know, but so what if Blizzard had to do this ... it doesn't exceed the usual expenditures a normal hosting company would have and that kind of makes it pointless to bring up.
About Blizzard policing the forums, well, why would they care so much more than what is going on on the forums? I haven't gotten any e-mails from Blizzard about the leaked beta information discussions on our boards, why would that change? I'm sure they'd police hotspots like this, no doubt about it, but then just move one forum away from them and keep it going there. That doesn't mean it should stop the idea from working for thousands of others.
As to the externally datamined db - I'd agree that there could easily be made questions about the validity of their "corporate" datamining. They might hide things from the user. I don't see why they would, that site will be business as much as any other part of their product. If they get busted and hard enough, a fan-driven site will popup and one they will have no control over and they will have achieved nothing but spend money on a failed project. I'm fairly sure anyone embarking on such a project would be aware of this and avoid it. Also your assumption that:
"These are *useful* things to players, but no one in their right mind should believe they'd be deliberately exposed by a corporate-hosted site."
Why not? The information is merely restructured but not exposed, so why wouldn't it be? The point of making that site would be to make it properly, not make it half-assed in which case a fansite similar to Thottbot will appear and crush them making the entire effort pointless. Either they do it half-assed and get a huge userbase or they make it half-assed and get nothing. There's nothing in between. The reason why they should make it is simply to do it properly. I'm sure a businessman could figure out how to make a profit out of it. It's merely an idea.
I'd have to agree with your concerns about single points of failure. There are solutions to that though and they are quite simple. I haven't experienced or seen the Tribes 2 system, but I can think of numerous problems already just from what you mentioned. In-game is good, if they are out-of-game as well ... if they're exclusively in-game they are bound to fail.
Also something I noticed now that two posters have had pretty much the same attitude is that you seem to expect that whatever Blizzard do they will come up with the most atrocious solution that no one will use. Has their reputation really suffered that much?
The point is, there's no advantage to me in Blizzard doing all of this. There's no advantage to *Blizzard* in doing all of this. Neither one of us wins, so why ask them to do it? Why would an MMO developer expend time replicating other people's effort, knowing that they have effectively no way to make a profit on it? I don't see the percentage for an MMO developer to integrate voice chat, forums, or a knowledge database. These are things that don't actually have anything to do with the game. They have to do with knowledge and socializing outside of the game (the db is borderline).
What would I *like* to see them do? Expose game information in a more useful fashion. XML guild rosters. XML character info, including (optionally) gear/bank info. An easy way to do raidtracking (timestamped join/leave/kill would be enough, really). Expose the information so that people can write their own tools to access it; Blizzard shouldn't be trying to provide tools, just info.
As to your question about why we expect them to come up with atrocious solutions: do you *use* the official forums at all? I trust Blizzard to make great games. That's *it*.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
All those additions like teamspeak guild sites and spoiler sites are really a waste of man power. There has to be a realization that bliz (or any other mmorpg dev team) isn't some company with an army of workers who can whip up features like that and have the workforce to upkeep it. Especially when they are all features that exist outside the game already and are done well. One of the best strategies for game devs is to make the game then let the players build on it. Example would be the endless list of mods people have made for fps games or the tons of maps people created for starcraft and wc3 that made those games better. More or less if your gona make a list of features you would like in wow or future mmorpgs dont include anything that you can already do yourself because its a waste of time that can be well spent elsewhere. The only exceptions to this would be easy additions devs could add to make things like dkp easier to track but don't ask them to put it directly into the game for you.
All of the things you're advocating are more or less required for raiders.
They are *not* required for the mass casual market, which is what Blizzard at least pays lip service to wanting to serve.
You don't add features to a product that only 20% of your market is really going to use.
Can you remind me why we have Naxxramas then? :)
Adding those features you ask for isn't going to add 20% to your playerbase.
Not implementing new content for them, on the other hand, will definitely lose you that 20%.
Melador> Incidentally, these last few pages are why people hate lawyers.
Viator> I really don't want to go all Kalman here.
Bury> Just imagine what the world would be like if you used your powers for good.
The point is, there's no advantage to me in Blizzard doing all of this. There's no advantage to *Blizzard* in doing all of this. Neither one of us wins, so why ask them to do it? Why would an MMO developer expend time replicating other people's effort, knowing that they have effectively no way to make a profit on it? I don't see the percentage for an MMO developer to integrate voice chat, forums, or a knowledge database. These are things that don't actually have anything to do with the game. They have to do with knowledge and socializing outside of the game (the db is borderline).
Profit, that's it. That would be their incentive plus the happier customers. I know these things don't have anything directly to do with the product, but you have to agreed that they are necessary for playing WoW at a raiding level. As such they're part of the gaming experience and definitely a valid product to include in your product portfolio.
Originally Posted by Kalman
What would I *like* to see them do? Expose game information in a more useful fashion. XML guild rosters. XML character info, including (optionally) gear/bank info. An easy way to do raidtracking (timestamped join/leave/kill would be enough, really). Expose the information so that people can write their own tools to access it; Blizzard shouldn't be trying to provide tools, just info.
Oh yes, just the mentioning of this makes me smile :D If that was the case I wouldn't mind if someone else wrote the tools and all, similar to why I wouldn't really mind if a third party company did the hosting stuff ... although it would still leave me with the entire bill.
Originally Posted by Kalman
As to your question about why we expect them to come up with atrocious solutions: do you *use* the official forums at all? I trust Blizzard to make great games. That's *it*.
I don't use them because it'd be similar to me going into a mall and ask random people to locate a memory leak for me. That and the hosting for the forums are woefully inadequate at times.
All of the things you're advocating are more or less required for raiders.
They are *not* required for the mass casual market, which is what Blizzard at least pays lip service to wanting to serve.
You don't add features to a product that only 20% of your market is really going to use.
Can you remind me why we have Naxxramas then? :)
Adding those features you ask for isn't going to add 20% to your playerbase.
Not implementing new content for them, on the other hand, will definitely lose you that 20%.
Good point :) 20% of 7 million subscribers would still make a decent market though and association/integration with the main product would make selling it a hell of a lot easier.
All those additions like teamspeak guild sites and spoiler sites are really a waste of man power. There has to be a realization that bliz (or any other mmorpg dev team) isn't some company with an army of workers who can whip up features like that and have the workforce to upkeep it. Especially when they are all features that exist outside the game already and are done well. One of the best strategies for game devs is to make the game then let the players build on it. Example would be the endless list of mods people have made for fps games or the tons of maps people created for starcraft and wc3 that made those games better. More or less if your gona make a list of features you would like in wow or future mmorpgs dont include anything that you can already do yourself because its a waste of time that can be well spent elsewhere. The only exceptions to this would be easy additions devs could add to make things like dkp easier to track but don't ask them to put it directly into the game for you.
It's only a waste of man power if your profits from them can't sustain the man power. I'm not saying you shouldn't make it possible for people to contribute, I'm just saying you shouldn't leave out essential products just because others in time will supply them.
WoW exemplified that with its inadequate user interface. There was not put enough thought into it really.
Profit, that's it. That would be their incentive plus the happier customers. I know these things don't have anything directly to do with the product, but you have to agreed that they are necessary for playing WoW at a raiding level. As such they're part of the gaming experience and definitely a valid product to include in your product portfolio.
I can confidently say none of those features would directly increase profits through increased subscription because like already mentioned not enough people would care to use them. If anything bliz would be stuck the implementation costs and upkeep costs. Also it would be very bad business to add features then try to take them away when you realize they're not being used enough to justify them because anyone who does use them will get angry.
Profit, that's it. That would be their incentive plus the happier customers. I know these things don't have anything directly to do with the product, but you have to agreed that they are necessary for playing WoW at a raiding level. As such they're part of the gaming experience and definitely a valid product to include in your product portfolio.
I can confidently say none of those features would directly increase profits through increased subscription because like already mentioned not enough people would care to use them. If anything bliz would be stuck the implementation costs and upkeep costs. Also it would be very bad business to add features then try to take them away when you realize they're not being used enough to justify them because anyone who does use them will get angry.
I think it's a hefty assumption to say that no one would use them. Done right I could see many people using it, since it'd definitely be a lot cheaper for most people.
Profit, that's it. That would be their incentive plus the happier customers. I know these things don't have anything directly to do with the product, but you have to agreed that they are necessary for playing WoW at a raiding level. As such they're part of the gaming experience and definitely a valid product to include in your product portfolio.
I can confidently say none of those features would directly increase profits through increased subscription because like already mentioned not enough people would care to use them. If anything bliz would be stuck the implementation costs and upkeep costs. Also it would be very bad business to add features then try to take them away when you realize they're not being used enough to justify them because anyone who does use them will get angry.
I think it's a hefty assumption to say that no one would use them. Done right I could see many people using it, since it'd definitely be a lot cheaper for most people.
Sure, because INSTEAD OF PEOPLE USING GENERAL CHAT CHANNEL ASKING QUESTIONS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, they could be yelling at you from your speakers if you do not promptly inform them as to the location of Mankirk's wife.
Whitemane, when you're outnumbered in a discussion 5-to-1 you might have to consider the possibility that you are wrong.
Sure, because INSTEAD OF PEOPLE USING GENERAL CHAT CHANNEL ASKING QUESTIONS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, they could be yelling at you from your speakers if you do not promptly inform them as to the location of Mankirk's wife.
Whitemane, when you're outnumbered in a discussion 5-to-1 you might have to consider the possibility that you are wrong.
Trashe, you seem like an on-the-ball sort of fellow. Could you tell me where Mankirk's wife is?
Or a raid encounter, where Rajaxx is looking for Mankirk's wife. *splat* You're not Mankirk's wife, I'm looking for Mankirk's wife.
Could you imagine Blizzard's Ventrilo/TS services, though? I mean, seriously, coming on during Tuesday maintaince to hear, "Sorry, Ven/TS are down for Tuesday maintaince" is just crazy.
But, seriously, if Blizzard provided a solution, it would never be enough, be just right, or be malleable enough. There would be too many or too few features for everyone, and we'd all be stuck on that miserable boar called "compromise", where everyone goes away equally unhappy. "Sorry, in order to support Mac users, all our Vent servers are running Speex 0.5, which sounds like we've run string between one tin can, and someone's butt." Or everyone uses EQDKP and they're slow to update, so congrats - your entire item history was lost because of the latest exploit which you KNOW targeted the sitting duck of 7 million data points on one domain. Do the examples need to go on? Okay, well, how about their EQDKP setup (which wouldn't let you modify the PHPs omgz) wouldn't let you implement this totally sweet DKP system you heard of called Suicide Kings Relational Nerfed EQGRPOSTGRESQL mark 2? Incoming flood of support tickets!
It would be nice if there were more integration with external solutions: an open/Blizz API for Vent/TS/XF to make their own overlays, an open/Blizz API for EQDKP/whoever to make their own transaction model, eccet.
But let's not go whole hog here, folks. Consumer choice is a Good Thing.
Everybody is your brother until the rent comes due.
I can confidently say none of those features would directly increase profits through increased subscription because like already mentioned not enough people would care to use them. If anything bliz would be stuck the implementation costs and upkeep costs. Also it would be very bad business to add features then try to take them away when you realize they're not being used enough to justify them because anyone who does use them will get angry.
I think it's a hefty assumption to say that no one would use them. Done right I could see many people using it, since it'd definitely be a lot cheaper for most people.
Sure, because INSTEAD OF PEOPLE USING GENERAL CHAT CHANNEL ASKING QUESTIONS IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS, they could be yelling at you from your speakers if you do not promptly inform them as to the location of Mankirk's wife.
Whitemane, when you're outnumbered in a discussion 5-to-1 you might have to consider the possibility that you are wrong.
Yes, let us just go on and assume that the implementation of said system will be the universally most stupid of all possible choices and then argue from that point that it wouldn't work. Bravo. Have I not admitted when people have brought up good points?
So if 5 people are telling me that 2+2 = 5 I should just give up and assume they're correct? Unless I'm handed the proof to that I'm not one to budge. That's roughly spoken of course, so don't take it too literally.
10/24/06, 6:19 AM
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