Welcome
to the 1,253rd
edition
of Loading...
Loading... is the premier daily
MMORPG news, coverage, and
commentary newsletter, only from Ten Ton Hammer.
Do developers give up too early when it becomes clear that
their MMOG won't be a huge commercial success? Has a mindset of "make
it, ship it, maintain it" caused growing skepticism within the gaming
community? We look at the magical ingredients developers need to foster
their game's success in today's Loading... Passion Play.
The Pulse
You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/" target="_blank">What
is The Pulse?).
Here
are today's top 5 Pulse results:
- World
of Warcraft - Star
Trek Online - EverQuest
2 -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/43">EVE
Online (UP 2)
-
Lord
of the
Rings Online
Biggest
movers today:
- Legends of Norrath (UP 38 to #19)
- Anarchy Online (UP 20 to #17)
- Allods Online (UP 17 to #14)
-
9/22
- Aion
(release date) - 10/8
- Cities
XL (release date) - 11/3
- Dragon
Age:
Origins (release date) - 11/10
- Final
Fantasy
XI Ultimate
Collection (release date) - 12/1
- LotRO:
Siege of Mirkwood (expansion) - 12/1
- EVE
Online: Dominion (expansion) -
12/2
- DOFUS
2.0 (update) - 12/15
- EverQuest:
Underfoot (expansion)
Releases
- 1/26
- href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2389">Mass
Effect 2
(release date) - 2/1
- Global
Agenda
(release date) -
2/2
size="-1">
- Star
Trek Online
(release date) - 2/16
- href="http://everquest2.station.sony.com/expansions/sentinelsfate/index.vm">EverQuest
2: Sentinel's Fate (expansion) - March
2010
- APB -
style="font-weight: bold;">Spring 2011
- Star Wars:
The Old
Republic
Loading... Daily
Once upon a time, I learned about a game called
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/vanguard">Vanguard: Saga
of Heroes. Everything I read about it, every
screenshot I saw, drew me like a magnet. I believed its
fictional world of Telon would be my MMOG heaven, and that Brad
McQuaid, one of Vanguard's principle founders, who
evangelized the game as the spiritual predecessor of his other project,
EverQuest,
was my messiah. It was through my writing about Vanguard
that I landed my position with Ten Ton Hammer, and my enthusiasm for
the game was practically limitless.
And then Vanguard sort of...fell apart. Most of us
know the sad story of its failed launch and the demise of the
development company once founded for the sole purpose of bringing the
game to life. But only a few paid much attention when Sony Online
Entertainment, who later purchased the rights to Vanguard,
recently
announced that they would be scaling back the game's
development to a bare minimum and possibly merging servers again. But I
noticed. And some once-faithful Vanguard fans in
our forums
noticed, too.
It's said that you only get one chance to make a first impression and,
of course, it's true. The way most players perceive a game during open
beta and launch is often the way they'll perceive it forever. The
criticisms we hear about a game during open beta and launch are the
ones that often determine whether we'll invest $60 to give that game a
try. And perhaps it's for this reason that some developers seem to
quickly write off their own games when they don't succeed early on. We
hear of developers stripping the team behind a failed MMOG down to a
bare minimum and, more or less, placing the game in "maintenance mode."
That certainly appears to be the case with Vanguard,
and we see it with other titles (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/88">Warhammer
Online, anyone?) as well.
To be honest, I have to wonder if some devcos and publishers, fueled by
a negative beta buzz surrounding their game, give up on their titles
before they even launch, relying on box sales to recoup their
investment. After all, throwing more money at a flop doesn't make
financial sense. It's easier to let that flop coast along until its
eventual demise. I'm certainly not saying that all developers are
guilty of throwing in the towel after a disappointing or slow launch,
but many seem to, and we gamers do not fail to register each and every
game that has its quick moment of launch fame, and then just as quickly
falls off the radar in a haze of disappointment.
The unfortunate byproduct of this this "make it, ship it, maintain it"
mindset is a growing unease and skepticism within the gaming community.
After all, if the developers themselves seem to give up on their games,
then why should we champion them? While I can
certainly give my props to those developers who are willing to admit
their mistakes, I would go the extra mile to support a developer who
says, "Yes, we made mistakes, and here's how we're going to fix them."
I would make a point to give my business to a game backed by a
developer who showed real passion for that game.
I remember talking
to Alan Crosby, at the time SOE's Director of Global
Community Relations and now
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/eq2">EverQuest II
Senior Producer, at the Online Game Developers' Conference (now known
as ION) a couple years ago. We discussed how a MMOG might win players
back. "In my opinion, its not marketing, its
word of mouth that brings players back," he told me. "You have to get
people talking.
Get guilds talking. When you have a game like EQ2--which I think is the
best MMO out there right now--word gets around. We cant go
out there and say, Hey, this is the best MMO out
there, because people wont believe it, but when
you can get the players talking theyll get people
back.
I did then, and always have, admired Alan's enthusiasm for EQ2--it's
contagious. And I feel the same sort of enthusiasm emanating from other
developers, as well--CCP (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/43">EVE
Online and
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/2216">DUST
514) comes to mind. And it seems to me that
wherever you have passionate developers who believe in their game you
have a successful game--perhaps not successful on the
href="http://tentonhammer.com/wow">World of Warcraft
scale, but successful nonetheless, with a loyal fan
following.
My word of advice to developers, from a gamer's perspective, is this:
make a game you believe in. Make a game that you not only want to play
yourselves, but that you want to grow and support over a span of many
years. Help us invest in your games by showing us that you
are invested. Don't tell me I'm going to love a game, because
that's just so much marketing hype; show me that you
love that game, and let your enthusiasm win me over.
Do you have thoughts on the cycle of "make it, ship it, maintain it?"
What can MMOG developers do to win back the favor of gamers and dispel
some of the growing cynicism? Talk about it in the
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=49078">Loading...
forum.
Shayalyn's Epic Thread of
the Day
From our href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=664">STO
General Discussion forum
So
who's buying?
Ten Ton Hammer community member, Darke, asks of you've decided to buy
Star Trek Online. The results are a mixed bag so far. href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=49061">Add
your voice to the mix!
==============================
Awesome Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"They had me at miniskirt; I got the digital deluxe."
- Medeor
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums? href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
New and Exclusive Content
Today at Ten Ton Hammer
6 new Ten Ton Hammer
features today! 79 in January! 79
in 2010!
PREVIEWS
Furry Madness! A First Look at Earth Eternal
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79613
Earth
Eternal, created by Sparkplay Media, is an up and coming browser-based
free-to-play MMOG hoping to win over gamers with its unique style and
animal-themed races. How well does Earth Eternal stack up against other
MMOGs? To answer that question, Ten Ton Hammer examined various aspects
of the game such as graphics, gameplay, combat, and microtransactions.
FEATURES & GUIDES
Star Trek Online Beta Journal #5 - Open Season on Open Beta
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79623
At
the mid-point of Open Beta, its time to reflect on the changes so far
and progress of the game as we start peering at the launch date right
around the corner.
AdventureQuest Worlds Dev Blog: The Greatest Yokai War!
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79622
This
week, Artix returns with more AdventureQuest Worlds dev blog goodness
and a look at what's going on in the world as more trouble has arrived
and is facing the heroes of AQW.
Runes of Magic: Runes of Magic: Intro to Macros
http://www.tentonhammer.com/rom/guides/macros/intro
Macros
can be a very scary venture in the gaming world. When writing macros
you can do everything from the very simple to the very complex. Join
our residnet Runes player ZeroMerc as he explores the beginnings of the
vast world that is Macros.
WoW: The Blizzard Authenticator and Account Security
http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79630
Rumors
have been pounding the World of WarCraft community about Blizzard
requiring the Blizzard Authenticator just like they required the
Battle.net account merger. Even if the rumors are false, is the
authenticator a good deal? Can it really secure your account? We answer
all of these questions and more in our latest article on account
security.
WoW: Gearing up in 3.3
http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/general/gearingup3-3
WoW
Patch 3.3 introduced a lot of new options to help players gear up and
hop right into the later raids and instances. We've taken a fresh 80
and geared it up from scratch to find out what the secrets are to
getting geared as fast as possible in 3.3.
Today's
Hottest Content
- Admirals
Only -
An STO
Endgame Q&A with
Zeke Sparkes - Avoiding
the
Progress Trap - An MMOG Retrospective - Star
Trek Online Beta Journal #5 - Open Season on Open Beta - Microcosms
-
Issue #1: Shifting Paradigms -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/careers/overview">Star
Trek Online Career Guide - Specializing
Alt
Characters In EVE Online - Furry
Madness! A First Look at Earth Eternal - Carved
in Stone
or Written in Pencil: Developers'
New Year's Resolutions -
Star
Trek
Online href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/79051">
Ten
Ton Hammers Hands-On Beta Impressions -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/wow/guides/general/gearingup3-3">WoW:
Gearing up in 3.3
Thanks
for visiting the Ten Ton Hammer
network!
- Karen "Shayalyn" Hertzberg
and the Ten Ton Hammer team
