[MUD-Dev] Total Annilation of Downtime

[Amanda Walker]

On 12/9/02 6:07 PM, Koster, Raph <rkoster at soe.sony.com> wrote:
> From: amanda at alfar.com

>> The game [AC2] has some rocky bits, but over all I think it's
>> definitely a success on the "fun" scale.  So is E&B, but that's
>> another essay and I've just been told dinner is ready.  More in a
>> bit.
 
> And yet neither seems to be finding an audience (which I find very
> distressing).

Hmm.  I've been playing both pretty consistently since each's
rollout, and there seem to be plenty of players in the game, at
least in the evenings eastern time.  They don't have the accumulated
audience of EQ or AC1, but neither did those games at rollout (and
they've both had much smoother and less acrimonious rollouts than,
say, AO, which is nonetheless still rolling along).

> Why is that, if they are so fun? If anything, the MMORPG with the
> most buzz among players right now is Neocron, a come-from-nowhere
> German game with a very rocky launch.

Neocron is interesting.  However, watching the AC2 beta and the
Neocron beta has led me to a somewhat cynical conclusion: games get
buzz right up until people have to pay for them.  There has
developed a community of "habitual beta testers" who will play and
talk up any game as long as they aren't getting billed for it.  AC2
was the hottest thing since rubber tires on wheels while it was in
beta.  Now that billing has commenced, it's "booooring", and Neocron
is "hot".

I realize that the "open beta" is a useful way for game companies to
build buzz and do some scalability testing before release (both of
which I think are quite valid motivations), but it means it's now
possible to get your gaming fixes for free as long as you're willing
to hop from beta to beta as games get released.  This is,
understandably, quite popular with the college-age and
twentysomething crowd, who have more free time and fewer dollars to
spend than the 30+ crowd who seem to make up the bulk of paying
customers.  Certainly since release, AC2 has had fewer d00ds and
more adults playing, as far as I've been able to tell...

Amanda Walker


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