by mattlow on Oct 08, 2009
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
href="http://champions-online.com/promo/bloodmoon/bloodmoon.html"
target="_blank">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
style="font-weight: bold;">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.