Ten Ton Hammer - Taking MMO Gamers to the Next Level!

Holiday events have carved a special niche into the MMOG world. Be it Christmas, Halloween (the most popular), Valentine’s Day, or Pocket Lint Happy Dance Day, holiday themed events have increasingly become the norm throughout the industry. Just like the sight of rose petals during Valentine’s Day in WoW, you’ll be unable to escape them. The dilemma of holiday events is the question of whether the time spent on the event would be better served building new content that won’t fade away when the event passes? The question becomes increasingly important for a new game such as Champions Online.

An established game has very little problems when it comes to spending developer time working on holiday themed events. Those games already have a good deal of content, have had a lot of bugs and flaws worked out, and (hopefully) a solid subscriber base. A new game, such as Champions Online, is still working out those problems, especially content and tweaking for balance. They need to address their problems quickly so as to keep their subscriber base happy. Sadly, the developers have their backs against the wall usually as that most MMOGs are released in an incomplete state due to the high costs of making an MMOG. However, these games are normally playable at launch. It’s just that so many people race to the level cap to play the end game content. What is assumed would take a player a solid few months to achieve, these power gamers hit within a week, which leads them to complain about a “lack of content.” The developers, who had been planning on rolling out new content in subsequent patches, are then labeled as putting out an incomplete game. Which leads us back to our central question: should developers of a new game, such as Champions Online, spend time and resources on a holiday event or to channel said energy into new, permanent content?

First, let’s take the side of holiday events. Put simply, holiday themed events are fun. The changes that occur in our fantasy world make a nice break from the ordinary questing that takes place. Who doesn’t look forward to the Blood Moon event in CO, fighting Takofanes, the undying lord, and his horde of undead? In addition, there’s the added bonus of getting special holiday themed gear, such as costume unlocks, weapons, or severed heads to mail back to their rightful owners (WAR has the best Valentine’s Day event!). Fighting new monsters is darn cool. Plus, it makes a nice surprise when you go into an area you’ve been in a thousand times and notice that there are new decorations and things going on. It makes the boringly familiar area seem new and interesting. All of these things add up to make a memorable event that shakes the ol’ dust off of a game and makes gamers want to play. It also gives us something to look forward to in the future.

On the flip side, creating new, permanent content is extremely important, especially in a new game. Since a new game normally has gaps in the leveling process, it is vital to plug those gaps as soon as possible. If those gaps aren’t filled and players have to grind their way through a number of levels, anger and resentment will set in. As a hero, you want to be fulfilling missions and beating up some arch-villain to attain glory, not killing every irradiated mutant that is crawling across the desert. New missions, new instances, and new zones need to be created as quickly as possible, whilst also tweaking the game to keep things balanced. Players would be better served if a couple of new bases, along with a dozen or so missions, and an instance or two were created that would last forever instead of having a Christmas themed event that would only exist for a month. Creating a holiday themed event takes time and resources away from creating new content.

Which is better? Holiday events or new regular content? To be honest, there is no perfect answer to the question. As gamers, we need to look in the mirror and realize the fact that we are greedy. Gamers want holiday events and new regular content. While a new game like Champions Online would be better served by working on new content, we gamers demand seasonal events, as that they’ve become the norm in other games. If a newer game decides not to do a holiday themed event, then the criticism would be, “all these other MMOGs have them, why doesn’t this one?” We feel cheated if a holiday isn’t celebrated in the game.

Overall, I believe that holiday events and new regular content can co-exist. I personally think that if gamer expectations can be lowered (I know that I’m practically asking for a lot), smaller amounts of new content can be provided on a regular basis, as opposed to some grand huge updates once in a blue moon. A good example is Turbine, who puts out small updates (a new instance with a few quests) every month or so for their games, with a huge update every year or two. With the pressure off to create hordes of new content, the developers can have time to work on holiday events. Thus, we gamers get the best of both worlds. We get new regular content and fun holiday events. The above solution does, sadly, rely upon the faint hope that gamers would be willing to be logical and see the big picture. More likely, developers will be bombarded on the forums with, “why haven’t you created two more zones yet along with the Arbor Day event? It’s been two weeks since the last update and I’ve already maxed out that content in a few days!” It’s hard to be a dev.