[MUD-Dev] Total Annilation of Downtime

[Chris Holko]

<EdNote: Attribution fixed>

[Raph Koster]:

> And yet neither seems to be finding an audience (which I find very
> distressing). 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.

I think AC2 has multiple problems.

  1. It did not appeal to the previous established player base (AC1
  players, of which I am one)

  2. It had a very very bad open beta, especially around the early
  days of September.  Worse, the end of beta event initially came
  across as forced PK for best rewards.

  3. They reward PvP, even on so called "mostly peace" servers
  certain areas of high reward are PvP.  (heck they launched with 3
  PvP servers!)

  4. AC1 has a bad reputation for cheating and macroing (unattended
  combat macroing is FINALLY being dealt with - including permanent
  bans)

  5. Its not standard fantasy, as much as I don't care to admit
  there is a big appeal to many people for elves and dwarves.

  6. Its a step backword, when players are maturing and wanting more
  complex games AC2 comes along and dumbs it all down.  (If anyone
  could take the UO system first person, remove the PvP to where its
  totally voluntary, they would have a major hit)

  7. They did not hire a community person until the last minute
  after it was obvious a great deal of player frustration existed.

  8. Everyone knew most of the bugs and problems reported since July
  were never being addressed.  Almost all work was on keeping it
  stable, to hell with game system playability.

  9. Word got out that the beautiful towns are just for show, you
  cannot enter the buildings.  That left a stale taste in many
  people's mouths.

  10. Crafting, a majorly hyped feature, is seriously screwed up in
  ROI

  11. A very very clunky UI.

I still think its funny how so many developers think they will get
PvP right.  Yet go to most of these games and dedicated servers
never have more than 15% of the total population, if that.




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