You might noticed that the Diablo 3 related blogs are removed from my bloglist. It's not because of the quality of the individual sites, I simply don't consider the whole Diablo 3 topic interesting anymore, as the final endboss was already killed, proving that gathering gear (therefore playing the AH) is pointless. Diablo 3 cannot be "played", which means competitive actions in a simulated environment. Of course one can "consume" Diablo 3, the same way you consume a movie. We will surely as the world created by the developers is really nice. However - just like WoW leveling - Diablo 3 is an interactive movie and not a game.
Many things had been messed up in designing Diablo 3, much much before they coded the popup that informs the player about Error #37. Actually they messed it up on the first meeting when they decided what kind of game they want.
If you'd want to know an exact moment when WoW started to downfall, it would be when one of the devs replied to angry customers over the issue that Malygos, the endboss of the unpatched WotLK expansion was killed 3 days after launch. He said "so you say that WoW is too easy since other people who are not you have finished it?" The problem isn't the arrogance that no corporation can have towards customers they want to keep. The problem is the total ignorance of the problem of the customers. "Corporations sell solutions to the problems of customers" is a cliché repeated million times. Blizzard clearly don't understand their customers.
I wrote a post half year ago that didn't get enough attention. I believe if someone at the Blizzard leadership have read and understood it, they wouldn't lose the millions of dollars they expected to get on the RMAH cuts. Because I doubt if there will be significant trading there.
I wrote that a good game focuses on one of the skills of the players. Let them hone it, compete with other players in it and have fun being proficient, effective and productive with it. Below I list skills that can be used in games aimed at 14+, with some clear example in parenthesis.
What would FPS players say to a feature that allow opponents to "grind up" skills by shooting NPCs, making their guns much stronger? This was the gameplay in original WoW, and raiders AoE-ing randoms in Alterac Valley was considered well-deserved reward for their superior progression.
Finally imagine the reaction of poker players if you would simply stand up and punch them into the nose to distract them. Everyone would consider that not even cheating but a criminal activity, despite it's the gameplay of boxing and countless other martial arts.
When the players of WoW went to the forums outraged that Malygos is already dead, they couldn't properly tell what their problem is. Customers almost never can. It's the job of the company to find what exactly the problem is and find the solution. The perfect example is the medical industry. The patient comes in with the problem "my tooth hurts". Isn't really scientific right? They pay exactly for the knowledge of the dentist to be able to identify the exact problem and use specialized equipment to solve it. On the side of the customer the process is "I sit in the chair and don't move my head". Similarly from a player the "I'm not having fun" or "I'm not happy that they could already kill Malygos" should be enough. The developer is paid to figure out what the problem is.
They failed and attributed it to trolling or l'art pour l'art forum crying. Let me help. The correct interpretation would be "The customers who expect the game to be a hamstering game are unhappy that they were beaten by high-dexterity players and now consider further hamstering pointless. They don't want to learn dexterity-moves, they rather leave the game". The opposite also happened. When someone "whined" about "no lifers playing 20 hours a day beating him", he meant "I'm unhappy that low-dexterity players can beat me simply by grinding gear".
The problem is unsolvable in the sense of satisfying both of them. The designer must make a choice what kind of game he is making and communicate it explicitly.
In Diablo 3 it wasn't decided what kind of game it should be. It could be a Super Mario like jumping game, which can be completed in 5 minutes with perfect movement - just as a developer of Diablo 3 told in response to the customers outraged over Inferno Diablo being killed in 4 days. Super Mario wasn't a bad game and no one completed it in 5 minutes. I guess the guy who completed one run in 5 minutes must have practiced the moves for hundreds of hours, and I have no doubt that he had fun watching his dexterity improving and seeing how much more control he had over his body than other people.
It could also be a hamstering game where bossfights are gear checks and the challenge is to find the optimal way of gearing up. Those who'd progress in that game would be very happy seeing their character becoming stronger, being able to kill larger and larger monsters due to their busy and properly planned work.
From the fact that they planned the RMAH to be the permanent income source, we can assume that they wanted gear to be meaningful. "Don't stand in the fire!" is incompatible with that approach but perfectly fit to the "hamster all the gear" approach. The bosses must have been tank and spank (and unavoidable AoE) that depend only on gear, and trivial on the clicking speed.
Alternatively the bosses could be "dancy" and every level the appropriate gear is provided by vendors and merely a cosmetic signal of ones progress which solely depend on fast reactions, jumping away from boss attacks.
Since the current Diablo (and WoW) mixes skills, it's unfit for competitive, "serious" playing, so there is no point talking about it. Consume the content and move on!
On the same basis we can see why EVE is holding its customers. It's a thinking game where the outcome depends on calculated decisions. Shall I fit this or that? Due to the long module cycles, reaction times have little effect and one can gank away what you mindlessly farmed for days. Mining is the odd-one-out activity as it's grinding, so everyone avoid it as much as he can. It should be fixed to be similar to PI where you set it up and let it run. Mining ships should be able to automatically fill cans and Orcas, and switch to the next targeted asteroid if the old one is done. By running AFK, mining would be a decision-making thinking game "how to fit my ships, what ships shall I use, jetcan or Orca, leave them totally AFK or guard them in a combat ship" and so on. Strategical decisions with no known optimal solution (I mean if no one comes, guarding was waste of time, but if pirates come it saved you a billion).
EVE Business report: Tuesday morning 25.7B, (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on carrier/titan alt)
Don't forget to join the goblinworks channel to discuss business ideas with 60-80 fellow traders.
Many things had been messed up in designing Diablo 3, much much before they coded the popup that informs the player about Error #37. Actually they messed it up on the first meeting when they decided what kind of game they want.
If you'd want to know an exact moment when WoW started to downfall, it would be when one of the devs replied to angry customers over the issue that Malygos, the endboss of the unpatched WotLK expansion was killed 3 days after launch. He said "so you say that WoW is too easy since other people who are not you have finished it?" The problem isn't the arrogance that no corporation can have towards customers they want to keep. The problem is the total ignorance of the problem of the customers. "Corporations sell solutions to the problems of customers" is a cliché repeated million times. Blizzard clearly don't understand their customers.
I wrote a post half year ago that didn't get enough attention. I believe if someone at the Blizzard leadership have read and understood it, they wouldn't lose the millions of dollars they expected to get on the RMAH cuts. Because I doubt if there will be significant trading there.
I wrote that a good game focuses on one of the skills of the players. Let them hone it, compete with other players in it and have fun being proficient, effective and productive with it. Below I list skills that can be used in games aimed at 14+, with some clear example in parenthesis.
- Physical strength and endurace (marathon running)
- Dexterity, reaction time, hand-eye coordination (tennis, Super Mario)
- Thinking (chess, Civ4)
- Social skills (Black Jack, Poker played at a table)
- "Work ethic", "hamstering", "completionalism" (Everquest, vanilla WoW)
What would FPS players say to a feature that allow opponents to "grind up" skills by shooting NPCs, making their guns much stronger? This was the gameplay in original WoW, and raiders AoE-ing randoms in Alterac Valley was considered well-deserved reward for their superior progression.
Finally imagine the reaction of poker players if you would simply stand up and punch them into the nose to distract them. Everyone would consider that not even cheating but a criminal activity, despite it's the gameplay of boxing and countless other martial arts.
When the players of WoW went to the forums outraged that Malygos is already dead, they couldn't properly tell what their problem is. Customers almost never can. It's the job of the company to find what exactly the problem is and find the solution. The perfect example is the medical industry. The patient comes in with the problem "my tooth hurts". Isn't really scientific right? They pay exactly for the knowledge of the dentist to be able to identify the exact problem and use specialized equipment to solve it. On the side of the customer the process is "I sit in the chair and don't move my head". Similarly from a player the "I'm not having fun" or "I'm not happy that they could already kill Malygos" should be enough. The developer is paid to figure out what the problem is.
They failed and attributed it to trolling or l'art pour l'art forum crying. Let me help. The correct interpretation would be "The customers who expect the game to be a hamstering game are unhappy that they were beaten by high-dexterity players and now consider further hamstering pointless. They don't want to learn dexterity-moves, they rather leave the game". The opposite also happened. When someone "whined" about "no lifers playing 20 hours a day beating him", he meant "I'm unhappy that low-dexterity players can beat me simply by grinding gear".
The problem is unsolvable in the sense of satisfying both of them. The designer must make a choice what kind of game he is making and communicate it explicitly.
In Diablo 3 it wasn't decided what kind of game it should be. It could be a Super Mario like jumping game, which can be completed in 5 minutes with perfect movement - just as a developer of Diablo 3 told in response to the customers outraged over Inferno Diablo being killed in 4 days. Super Mario wasn't a bad game and no one completed it in 5 minutes. I guess the guy who completed one run in 5 minutes must have practiced the moves for hundreds of hours, and I have no doubt that he had fun watching his dexterity improving and seeing how much more control he had over his body than other people.
It could also be a hamstering game where bossfights are gear checks and the challenge is to find the optimal way of gearing up. Those who'd progress in that game would be very happy seeing their character becoming stronger, being able to kill larger and larger monsters due to their busy and properly planned work.
From the fact that they planned the RMAH to be the permanent income source, we can assume that they wanted gear to be meaningful. "Don't stand in the fire!" is incompatible with that approach but perfectly fit to the "hamster all the gear" approach. The bosses must have been tank and spank (and unavoidable AoE) that depend only on gear, and trivial on the clicking speed.
Alternatively the bosses could be "dancy" and every level the appropriate gear is provided by vendors and merely a cosmetic signal of ones progress which solely depend on fast reactions, jumping away from boss attacks.
Since the current Diablo (and WoW) mixes skills, it's unfit for competitive, "serious" playing, so there is no point talking about it. Consume the content and move on!
On the same basis we can see why EVE is holding its customers. It's a thinking game where the outcome depends on calculated decisions. Shall I fit this or that? Due to the long module cycles, reaction times have little effect and one can gank away what you mindlessly farmed for days. Mining is the odd-one-out activity as it's grinding, so everyone avoid it as much as he can. It should be fixed to be similar to PI where you set it up and let it run. Mining ships should be able to automatically fill cans and Orcas, and switch to the next targeted asteroid if the old one is done. By running AFK, mining would be a decision-making thinking game "how to fit my ships, what ships shall I use, jetcan or Orca, leave them totally AFK or guard them in a combat ship" and so on. Strategical decisions with no known optimal solution (I mean if no one comes, guarding was waste of time, but if pirates come it saved you a billion).
EVE Business report: Tuesday morning 25.7B, (0 PLEX behind for second account, 1.1B spent on carrier/titan alt)
Don't forget to join the goblinworks channel to discuss business ideas with 60-80 fellow traders.
0 comments:
Post a Comment