by Reuben Waters on Sep 30, 2009
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Finding the key to the player
retention lock is the Holy Grail for most MMOG developers, yet it can
be difficult to pinpoint the exact motivations that drive us to log
into our favorite game month after month. The task becomes all the more
challenging once you see a critical mass of players lumped at the level
cap further along in the lifespan of a given title.
Filling in for Ethec as he makes his way to Iceland for this
year’s EVE Fanfest, Reuben “Sardu” Waters
dons his + 10 Cap of Loading… and shares his thoughts on
what keeps players hooked on an MMOG long after the shiny newness wears
off. That, plus a pair of WoW editorials, an exclusive Global Agenda
interview on the Recon class and more await you in Loading…
Characters, Classes and Carrots.
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's
today's top 5 Pulse results:
Biggest
movers this past week:
size="-1">Important
Dates
For all the bullet point features that get listed on the back of MMOG
boxes boasting the biggest innovations the industry has witnessed since
the birth of virtual sliced bread, one of the key components of player
retention remains firmly rooted in the realm of social interaction. For
some it may be a large, active guild that’s heavily into end
game raiding, while others opt to traverse the vast expanse between
online microcosms to check out the newest title to hit store shelves
with a small circle of close friends. Or maybe it’s a more
basic desire to beat the living snot out of other avatars in PvP that
keeps you coming back to your current MMOG.
Assuming any personal socialization requirements are fulfilled in your
online gaming life, what is it about a given game that keeps you hooked
over a longer period? Don’t get me wrong, social bonds can be
a powerful force indeed, but even the closest of friends will often
have a difference of opinion when it comes down to what makes a given
experience fun enough to pursue over a longer period of time.
Based on my highly scientific research into the matter (which included
a lengthy discussion with one of my cats earlier this morning)
I’ve found that most players fall into one of three main
camps in terms of what keeps them playing a given MMOG once the shiny
newness wears off; the character driven, the class patriots and carrot
chasers.
Character driven players are those people whose primary aim in an MMOG
is to build up the best single character possible with the specific
class or role they fulfill simply being a means to an end for achieving
that goal. As a result, many of these players will toil away for hours
in character creation, as it can be an endless source of frustration to
get to level 20 only to realize that there’s something about
your character’s eyebrows that bugs you. Once that look is
locked down tighter than a banshee’s mouth stuffed with super
glue, however, the gloves come off. Or more accurately, the gloves are
exchanged for the best pair with the highest stats their character can
obtain at any given level. A perfect example of this type of player
would be the rising tide of
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/74979/" target="_blank">gear
score obsessed WoW players who
tend to measure a player’s value to a raid not by their
personal skill or even their personality, but by an arbitrary number
based on which items they have equipped.
The second group is the class patriots. I’m sure
we’ve all witnessed the defensive posturing and chest beating
that occurs on the forums the moment you either offer up an opinion as
to why you prefer X class more, or worse still, they discover that
their precious class of choice is about to be altered in some minuscule
way with an upcoming patch. While these players may occasionally create
other characters, they always drift back to their class of choice and
will boldly declare it to be the best of the bunch to anyone who cares
to listen. Class patriots can even be found in
“classless” MMOGs such Champions Online or Fallen
Earth. So long as players are given the tools to build up a character
that can fulfill a specific role that classes typically account for,
these players will find a way to shape their characters to fit that
mold.
The third, and most common group, would be the carrot chasers. I say
most common because, apart from the given of a social environment
inherent to MMO gameplay, potentially achievable goals are at the core
of just about every gameplay mechanic in current titles. The most
pronounced example of carrot chasers would of course be the hardcore
end game raider. Even when they claim
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75010" target="_blank">there
are other factors that keep them
logging in for the next raid night week after week, ultimately
it’s the desire to obtain something new that
keeps them hooked on the process.
How about you? Do you see yourself as fitting into any of these very
scientifically defined categories? Or are there other aspects of MMOGs
beyond social interaction that keep you logging into your favorite
game?
Your thoughts welcome in the
target="_blank"
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46725">Loading...
forum.
From our
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=546">SWTOR
General Discussion forum
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46693">Broken
SWTOR site/forums
Yesterday, we talked about what
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46129">fully
operational
might mean in reference to Star Wars: The Old Republic. Today, we
learned that it likely referred to BioWare opening up applications for
the
href="http://tentonhammer.com/node/74916">SWTOR beta.
And
if you heard about the advent of beta today, you're not
alone--apparently thousands if not hundreds of thousands of eager
gamers and Star Wars nerds slammed the SWTOR site so hard that it was
closed for maintenance for most of the day.
While the site
maintenance issues may be over by the time this epic thread goes to
press, there's still plenty to talk about in today's epic thread. What
does the hammered SWTOR site say about the game's popularity? Can the
game possibly live up to the hype it's generating?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=46693">Have
your say!
==============================
Awesome
Quotes from the
Epic Thread
"
Well, from what I recall PC's with top specs usually get the early
invites. What are top specs nowadays anyway? "
- SirRobin
==============================
Have you spotted an Epic Thread on our forums?
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=32559">Tell
us!
Today's New MMO Coverage and Features
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/75007">RunesHottest
Content:
-
Jeff "Ethec" Woleslagle and
the Ten Ton Hammer team