[City of Villains] Many former City of Heroes/Villains players were invited back for a free weekend of play, not that Issue 7 is out. My verdict from the test server: “Once all the major bugs are worked out, this will be exciting.”
Having had several days to play with it, my new verdict: “Once all the major bugs are worked out, this will be exciting.”
Fix the major bugs that are found. Test for both bugs and balance. I suppose these both could be filed under “listen to your testers.” It is fine to release live with some known minor bugs; there is a trade-off between delaying content and making a more perfect union. We know that we will need to fix some things after the patch.
I know that changing something by 20% is just a minor tweak to the code, but it makes a pretty big difference if you do so after the new content has been out for several weeks, and it looks bad when players were pointing the problem out on your test boards since the day it hit the test server.
Developers have learned that it is easier to loosen up than to tighten up. If you implement something too good or strong and then weaken it, players will cry “NERF!” forever. Therefore, developers implement things a bit weak or with rewards a bit low then dial it up. That way, you get thanks for new content followed by accolades for giving the players a gift, as opposed to complaints about how the FOTM is too overpowered followed by complaints about how they nerf everything.
We all know why you play online games: you want to get laid. No pickup line works quite the way “my Shaman has his epic mount” does. I sometimes lie and claim to have a level 60 Priest so I can meet women in bars. It’s true: everyone is looking for high level Priests.
: Zubon
To me, the question of people spending real life money on in-game things has been this: why are people paying not to play your game? What is your wrong with your game such that people would rather spend time at work than put in the hours in-game to accomplish whatever they are buying?
Pause for a moment and consider what an indict of a game RMT is: someone will pay hundreds of real life dollars to skip large chunks of your content. If this were just an eccentric few with odd tastes, that would be one thing, but there are thousands and thousands of accounts involved.
Epicurus teaches us that desire is suffering. The nature of any desire is a sort of pain that we seek to resolve. We are conscious of lacking something, whether that be air, food, or a level-capped character. In filling that need, we receive pleasure. We can also achieve pleasure by contemplating past pleasures, notably being pleased about the desires that are fulfilled.
When you buy a new game/level-treadmill, you are buying both a new desire and a way to fulfill it. Before you started playing, you had no need of a level 60 Shaman. Once you started playing, you felt the need to level. Now you have a level-capped character with perfect raiding gear, and you can contemplate how leet you are. When that contemplation loses its satisfaction, you can always create a new level 1, a new source of desire to level, a new pool to fill.
Please forgive a somewhat stream of consciousness philosophical discussion.
Over at my book blog, I have posted a review of Permutation City, a book that seems to be out of print. I will assume you haven’t read it, and I will avoid spoilers in case you want to find a copy. For what it’s worth, I rated it “3: worth reading once (check it out from a library).”
The main focus of the book is on uploads, or “Copies” as they are called there. You upload a scanned copy of your brain onto a computer, thereby having a backup in case you die. When you fire up your Copy, there is a version of you that exists on a computer. I want to focus on a single thing, the character of Peer and how he goes about being happy, since it applies to what we talk about here. Peer joyously instantiates the purest form of the grind.
[City of Villains] Issue 7 seems to have some of the best CoX content to date, judging by comments from the test server. All the comments I have made about Striga Isle and thematically flavorful contacts are borne out in spades.
The new contacts include your signature archvillains with their brands of infamy, a mad scientist to improve on Doc Buzzsaw, a personal sort of evil in the mold of Peter Themari, a strike force against the Freedom Phalanx and Vindicators, and a mission with a hand-designed team of hero bosses. (Sorry if those names are unfamiliar to folks who have not played CoV.)
MMO community managers have an ugly job. Public relations is never the cakewalk that it seems from the outside, but dealing with the teeming internet hordes is not always as pleasant as eating bees.
I have never had the job, but let us pause a moment to consider some of the things we put our poor community managers, board mods, and developers through. Anyone can feel free to add horrors that I have missed in the comments (or via e-mail). (If this is your job, we understand if you feel the need to use a pseudonym and censor specifics, but we will not be releasing IP addresses and we understand that any example does not relate to specific people, but rather is a statement of general tendencies or extreme cases, probably exaggerated for effect. Or maybe you want to make an example of someone.)
[EVE Online] After defeating my enemies, I looted 10 units of Exotic Dancers. I am officially back in EVE.
: Zubon