Loading...Let's Get Back Together

Welcome to the 819th Edition of Loading...

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Daily Column

Loading... the reason the Mars rover mission was such a success.

First, the Ten Ton Pulse, your finger on the beating heart of the MMOG industry.

If the Top 10 isn't enough, we now show the Top 20 and Top 50 lists as well, available to everyone on our homepage. (What is Pulse?)

Age of Conan - 200 BPM
World of Warcraft - 57 BPM
Lord of the Rings Online - 19 BPM
EverQuest 2 - 18 BPM
EVE Online - 13 BPM
Warhammer Online - 12 BPM
Lineage 2 - 11 BPM
Guild Wars - 10 BPM
Vanguard - 10 BPM
Tabula Rasa - 7 BPM

I can't give you a rational reason why I dislike voice chat in games. Maybe it's the vulgar language that inevitably bombards me through speakers unaccustomed to such prose. Perhaps it's hearing a squeaky voice coming from a hulking Tauren that throws me off or perhaps it's hearing a bass voice, seemingly projected through a cardboard box filled with gravel emanating from a female character that unsettles me. Whatever the case, I understand the benefits of voice chat in games. That doesn't mean that I enjoy it any more than I would enjoy having spiders in my shirt.

Text chat however, I am very fond of. I even enjoy text chat outside of games and to some extent troll our forums so much that they seem like live text conversations. It is with great joy that I am able to announce the addition of live chat to our network. Karen had this to say about that.

With big launches like Age of Conan coming up, and Warhammer Online lurking in the not-too-distant future, you have a need to talk games with other gamers and perhaps even MMOG developers. We're a little co-dependent here at Ten Ton Hammer--we just can't seem to deny you anything, especially when you look at us like that. (Enough with the puppy dog eyes, already!) We're unveiling a nifty new chat room just for our premium members.

Stop by the chat room and give a shout out to your forum buddies. (We seriously can't think of a better way to waste your time at work than talking MMOGs with other gamers.) Not a Ten Ton Hammer premium member? You can remedy that right here.

Two questions for the Loading... readership.

Do you enjoy voice chat and if so, why?
Will you use this new text chat function on our network?

When you aren't chatting in our fancy new community room you are likely being bombarded by companies that want you to come back and retry their games. I make an attempt to try everything new on the market (within reason). I didn't try Dark and Light for instance. I'll attribute that to good judgment.

Turbine is currently e-mailing previous beta players asking them to come back and try the game again. You can buy the game for $9.99 and play for $9.99 a month. Clicking on the "Try Now" button in the email takes me to a shopping cart at Turbine that asks me for $9.99 to purchase the digital download. Why would I do that? I can go here and try the game for 14 days for free. If I like it, I can buy the game for $9.99. This doesn't even touch on the fact that I already bought the game. Sure, I was a beta tester, but I was also a customer. Shouldn't my account reflect that? In fact, I was a customer X3 since my wife and son both played. I don't need to buy the game to try it out again. I've got three copies of it renting space on a shelf in my utility room. Apparently Medeor was tricked, likely by a gypsy, into trying LotRO again. He has this to say about that.

Tabula Rasa has taken a different approach to 'reintroduction'.

Six months ago richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa hit the shelves and we have already released eight free content updates! To celebrate, we invite each of you to lock and load during our Re-Enlistment Week. Al you have to do is log into to [sic] your Tabula Rasa account at anytime between Friday, May 2, 2008 at 10am CDT thorough Friday, May 9, 2008 at 4pm CDT and you can experience all the new content and changed to the game for free.

The complete reintroduction newsletter is posted here.

Reintroductions are tough. It's like meeting an old girlfriend on the street. It's awkward and not much is going to change your mind about her, the tramp. Yet, game companies need to find a way to bring you back to a game that you weren't interested in the first time. "It's not you, it's me", says the game, a twinkle in its single cybertronic eye.

So far, companies haven't done an especially good job of bringing players back to a game that they broke up with. One exception might be EVE Online, in which the 140 hour long tutorial was broken down in to more digestible pieces. I spent less time reading the complete works of Tolstoy than I did completing the original EVE Online tutorial.

Let's take a look at games that you no longer play. They all have one thing in common. You no longer play them. You discarded your relationship with them for another, more compelling partner. Presumably, this new partner does things for you that the old game, the one that you jettisoned, did not. See how that works?

In my uneducated, simple-minded opinion, just asking people to come back and try your game is an idea that was probably formed by the same guy who decided that our clothes needed metal, interlocking teeth right near our most sensitive parts. If I didn't enjoy a game and you changed it without driving away the people who liked the original version then what are the chances that it has changed enough to seem like fun to me?

If you want players to come back to your game you can't ask them individually. Most people play MMOGs for the social interaction. Ask yourself these questions,

Will I leave my current group of friends to play a game with people that I don't already know?
Will I leave the investment in my current character to start a new character?
Will I leave my current forum or out-of-game community to join a new one?
Will I pay to retry a game that I didn't enjoy the first time?

What if, you could try out new games with your current guild at no cost? Would that be enough to take the leap? For me, a player who doesn't join guilds because I wouldn't be part of a group that would have a member like me, it seems reasonable that this would be enough. Why haven't companies invited guilds to retry their game?

What's your take? How many games have you gone back to? How many did you stick with? Would you move if your guild moved?

I rambled, now it's your turn. The The Loading... forums await you. Do you feel the need to contact me personally with naughty pictures or derogatory comments? Here's my E-mail.

14 new MMOG hand-crafted articles today! 267 in April! 1019 in 2008!

New MMOG Articles At Ten Ton Hammer Today

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