[MUD-Dev] Instancing (was: MMORPG Cancellations...)

[Douglas Goodall]

Zach Collins (Siege) wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Jul 2004, Douglas Goodall wrote:

>> But maybe it was the right thing to do from a financial
>> perspective. Based on subscription numbers, most players want a
>> rude and juvenile community.

> I would suggest that it was the release of a new addition to the
> game, with a lot of "All New" marketable features, which drew
> these extra players in.  Once in, having found something to like,
> they invited friends to join them.

> After all those bugfixes, the company had to have something to
> attract people back to the game which "had potential but too many
> bugs".

Actually, I don't know if AO has more subscriptions now than
pre-Shadowlands.  I suspect they've gained about 5k based on how
full prime time areas are (though current subscriptions may be much
higher due to 6-month accounts, etc). Alot of new players, yes, but
alot of old players left.

I was referring to the much higher subscriptions of EQ, SWG, DAoC,
etc. Or as Raph Koster said in another response, "We may not like
it, but all empirical evidence at the moment seems to show that
requiring cooperative team play for success causes greater
retention." This is not true for me. Timesinks, an intolerable
grind, and forced cooperation are what drove me from other online
games to AO (even though I prefer "honest" fantasy to fantasy
disguised as SF), and, if present trends continue, will probably
drive me to CoH (even though I have a low opinion of comics).

Requiring team play, especially when teams are competing for scarce
resources (non-instanced mobs), seems to have a detrimental effect
on the community. The games that require teaming (and other forced
cooperation/competition) are much less friendly, but they have more
subscribers. Some of this is attributable to success itself--a
larger community is less friendly. But all EQ servers are smaller
than Atlantean, and yet only Firiona Vie players were helpful (and
not very). Some of it could be a longer grind--you can't get XP as
fast if you have to wait for a team then wait for a camp. I suspect
it's mostly player preference. Either players are immature (at least
while on-line) and seeking a game that rewards poor behavior, or
they're masochists.

Or to put it another way, "I don't like it, no one I know likes it,
so where do the subscribers come from?"

I don't think Funcom's strategy was, "see what we're like now that
the bugs are gone!" AO still has more bugs than the competition. I
suspect it was more like, "see how much more like EQ we are now!" I
think it has partially worked. Just from in-game conversations,
there seems to be an EQ->AO/DAoC->CoH trend.
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