General Discussion

It's something that really strikes me as an oddity in MMOs. You know, one of the most fundamental problems I have with MMOs is how totally narrow minded and inflexible the MMO developers are. There are two different situations I guess we all have seen.

1) Some parts of the game design were bad ideas right away:

Thats the situation you have when a game is new. Now ok, no matter how clever you are, no matter how thoughtful you plan as a dev, when a game gets live some of your wonderful plans wont function as planned. Thats normal, and I dont expect a MMO to launch and everything works as intended. Thats just not possible. Now the surprising thing is not that some things work different in reality, the surprising thing is, that devs dont adapt. Its like those cannonball decisions: one shot you dont alter the course. I dont know, is it pride or arrogance or what is it?

Take WAR. The concepts we read about and seen in the video podcasts sounded well enough, but in reality we all learned, some didnt work as intended, or some did have side effects. Or, as often is the case, two good ideas put together created some dynamics which resulted in something bad for whatever reason. Now the strange thing is, among the players the things not working become apparent relatively quick. But often it takes ages for the devs to admit and to really work on it. Sometimes it takes a year or more as in the case of Vanguard.
 

2) The game/playerbase changes but devs dont adapt the game

This is less often seen and discussed about. Examples are: both in LOTRO and WAR in some areas there are incredibly high respawn rates. Now those rates were ok, when in these zones the population was high. But for many reason some zones are not as much played, espcially with addons, content updates and the like. I just had the same experience with uber respawn rates in a LOTRO zone. Once it was quite crowded, and the high respawn rate was necessary. Now with usually 2 or 3 ppl in the zone, its quite a nuisance.

Or the LOTRO Books 9-15. Once they were the endgame replacement. All those book quests are long and large and for the former level cap 50. When the level cap still was 50 it was easy to get people for those demanding quests. Some are really tough and need a full group. Now with Moria and levelcap 60 its almost impossible to get enough people for some of the quests, since the situation is entirely different since the expansion came. I am sure you know plenty similar experiences with MMOs who would need to adapt to the changed situation, but for some reason the devs dont.

It really strikes me as a big oddity and mystery why MMO devs seem to be totally resilient to apply any changes everyone else seems to see? It's like, once we designed the game in this way its like set in stone. Why this amount of inflexibiliy?

There are a couple of reasons for this.

One is development time / resources - it might be a lot easier to change something before launch than after it due to certain other systems not being fixed / linked by that point.

Secondly is that there are always some players who like something that you don't, so what you call a "bad idea" is awesome to them. They post on the forums too.

Thirdly is that the devs are more likely to create new content than review old content, because creating new content is more exciting for them and also for players.

Fourthly it might be that the devs have no idea about how to easily fix one problematic system so that it works. They may want more data or time for evaluation before making a decision. And, even then, there is no guarantee that the fix will work as intended.

Fifthly players appear to be a lot more hysterical about any changes, so it could be easier to keep a system with a few known problems than implement a fix that create a whole raft of new problems.

Finally, change takes time. It could be that a change is planned for a certain system but it takes a few months to get developed, tested and launched. However, players complain that something isn't being looked at, or is taking too long if they know it is.

i have another explanation, and it is:

This people are not real developers. They are producers, that means they don't really know how to make the game. They just toss and idea and then real game designers make it work, and sometime don't.

I won't talk about LOTRO since the problems you mentioned are kinda new because of the expansion. But in war, is easy to see how Jacobs can't design a good system. This is basis PnP RPG numeric system, every GM with half a brain that has played PnP can design a numeric system, even more, can translate a piece of lore intro that system.

As an example, it is quite common for old school PnP fans to watch a movie and start describing (within a specific system like D20) what are the atributes of a certain character.

Well anyways, that explains why things don't get better in beta, and the post above explains why don't get better after launch. Though i wanted to add, if a game suffers from issues implementing new stuff after launch thats because the game is probably hardcoded, and that kinda silly comming from an MMO developer, someone who know he will be adding new content endlessly.

Just look at LOTRO and EVE, they can update they game quite more easily than other games like CoH.

"As an example, it is quite common for old school PnP fans to watch a movie and start describing (within a specific system like D20) what are the atributes of a certain character."

No comment...

There is only ONE reason.

The man with the money won't give you money if you can't prove your game will be successful.

The only proof is games that have already been successful, which means copying most of what they do. Until the man with the money is also an ideas man, you won't see a huge amount of change in how things are done.

Originally posted by UnSub

There are a couple of reasons for this.

One is development time / resources - it might be a lot easier to change something before launch than after it due to certain other systems not being fixed / linked by that point.

Secondly is that there are always some players who like something that you don't, so what you call a "bad idea" is awesome to them. They post on the forums too.

Thirdly is that the devs are more likely to create new content than review old content, because creating new content is more exciting for them and also for players.

Fourthly it might be that the devs have no idea about how to easily fix one problematic system so that it works. They may want more data or time for evaluation before making a decision. And, even then, there is no guarantee that the fix will work as intended.

Fifthly players appear to be a lot more hysterical about any changes, so it could be easier to keep a system with a few known problems than implement a fix that create a whole raft of new problems.

Finally, change takes time. It could be that a change is planned for a certain system but it takes a few months to get developed, tested and launched. However, players complain that something isn't being looked at, or is taking too long if they know it is.

 Amen.

PS: I'd add that oftentimes changes made to one thing systematically effect unwanted changes elsewhere. Everythings connected in programming, and many times its in the most insidious ways.

Quoted by bluesession: "This people are not real developers."

And.....  You know this---? How? Your expertise level is---?

Originally posted by UnSub

There are a couple of reasons for this.

One is development time / resources - it might be a lot easier to change something before launch than after it due to certain other systems not being fixed / linked by that point.

Secondly is that there are always some players who like something that you don't, so what you call a "bad idea" is awesome to them. They post on the forums too.

Thirdly is that the devs are more likely to create new content than review old content, because creating new content is more exciting for them and also for players.

Fourthly it might be that the devs have no idea about how to easily fix one problematic system so that it works. They may want more data or time for evaluation before making a decision. And, even then, there is no guarantee that the fix will work as intended.

Fifthly players appear to be a lot more hysterical about any changes, so it could be easier to keep a system with a few known problems than implement a fix that create a whole raft of new problems.

Finally, change takes time. It could be that a change is planned for a certain system but it takes a few months to get developed, tested and launched. However, players complain that something isn't being looked at, or is taking too long if they know it is.

This may be so, but it would be a very sad reality, if so. :(