Business And Economy Archive

It always amazes me when I read an 'I'm quitting and taking my five accounts with me!' kind of post. Personally I call it the burnout factor. Some people want to do everything at once, and once they've done it, there's nothing left to do but move on. I can't tell you how many 'I've made my first million and now I'm quitting' posts I used to see on the BE board. Those who ground everything out figure out that they weren't having fun once they got what they thought they wanted. Those who didn't grind stuck around much longer.

But this thread also brings another point to mind. SWG simply is not as social as it used to be. Everyone is a stranger. You no longer talk about your armorsmith friend who lives down the street, but instead complain about the prices on some anonymous vendor on a planet that is not your main residence.

We used to talk about play styles and what type of player everyone was. I think it was along the lines of Achiever, Social, Explorer, and Killer.

Well, medical centers, cantinas, even most cities are emtpy these days while everyone is chasing the high end content. I would have been happy to hunt near my home town, but there wasn't anything there worth my time. I ended up occupying an empty npc hut on dathomir as my hunting lodge. So, many social players, some of them the nicest people I've met in game, have left.

As far as exploration goes, there were many good starts that fell flat. Back when no one knew what was needed to become a jedi, I traveled to every city on Tatooine doing all the unique quests for named npc's. Some of these had really good stories to go with them, but the reward was never worth the time it took. This should have been an easy thing to fix and it never was. Now when I see an npc with a quest icon over its head I ignore it. Kashyyk may spice things up for a short time, but let's face it, there is content here but most of it is unbalanced in the risk vs. reward department so that it isn't really worth doing. Many explorers have also left the game to look for fresher pastures.

I don't know much about the PvP crowd but I respect it as being a part of the CGW which is supposed to be a major part of this game. In fact, if it were balanced properly I might have been more involved with it too. I remember going to a battlefield party once that was a real blast. Too bad it only happened once. Many many complaints coming from the PvP crowd. Many of them have left too.

Finally we have the achievers. These, with the obvious role playing exception above, are the ones with multiple accounts who want to kill the biggest mobs and have the largest bank accounts. They're not very social because they are always 'working.' I'm never surprised when they leave or sad to see them go. Once you've done everything, or almost everything, there isn't anything else to do but find a new game.

We've told the devs from the beginning that focusing on the achievers is not the best way to run this game. The hologrind seemed to be custom made for that group. Right now, the CU has really messed up the entertainer/social professions to the point where they might become practically extinct. I gave up my own novice entertainer skills because I just couldn't get my all-important level up and keep them. Maybe I should tell the level system to go and do something rude to itself and take those points back anyway.

I may be an old fart, but I miss the old days when I knew who my neighbors were.

OK so what. Players do not drive the game. RL money does. Enough $90 players leave and management will fire the guy's who idea drove these folks off. SONY and SOE are in this for the money not to play the game.

Changes in the game are driven by marketing that says "we" need to get the combat change out before ROW hits because we can not have the new players that come in from the tie to the movie get frustrated and leave because we change the system right after they sign up. The risk was the current base would leave, but that is considered an acceptable risk.

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Redleg13 wrote:

OK so what. Players do not drive the game. RL money does. Enough $90 players leave and management will fire the guy's who idea drove these folks off. SONY and SOE are in this for the money not to play the game.

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Frankly, I'd rather play in a game with a thousand players playing a thousand characters than a game with a hundered players playing a thousand characters. I see it as ten times the number of groupmates. Ten times the number of customers for crafted goods. Ten times the number of audience members. Ten times the quality of play. Ten times the opportunity.

If the game has degenerated that badly that the odd six or ten account gamer--or even the two and three account gamer--is that high of a demographic, then this game was lost even before the CU. Because a player who:

Does not buy armour and weapons.

Does not go to see shows at the cantina.

Does not need others to hunt or engage in GCW play.

Is a player that drives more players away than bring into the game. And when the gameplay is bad, then the game is bad. And when the game is bad, SOE doesn't have much to entice new players.

And to the argument that "multis" are loyal, I would only say that their loyalty only lasts as long as they aren't in a game with other "multis." Once the lion's share of typical players are gone, they'll get bored and leave even if the game bends over backwards to have them stay. Because its not a very interesting game to play at the point when the servers are simply filled with a handful of moguls in their own self contained islands.

Message Edited by PoetDancer on 05-02-2005 04:34 PM

I basically don't see a real problem.

A while ago they did a poll asking how many accounts people have. I think the large majority of people had 1-3 accounts. I think it was at least half the players had 2 or more accounts. But the more accounts you get the fewer people have it. It was probably 10% of people or less had 4 or more accounts. So my point is that the people with a LOT of accouts are a small minority.

A lot of people complaining / ranting / whining about the CU were claiming they have 5-50 accounts and if CU goes through that SOE will lose that revenue. I for one don't believe all those people had that many accounts. I think there was some exaggeration to try and make the impact sound worse. If SOE were listening then it would matter more to their pocket book if a customer with 10 accounts quit than if a customer with 1 account quit. Just my hunch.

So I do not believe that there are a large number of players with large numbers of accounts.

There are a large number of players that have 2-3 accounts. I think most of these people are like myself. We have an extra account or two so that we can have another character or two on our primary server and allow us to enjoy multiple aspects of the game.

I can find satisfaction in the game with 1 account if I wanted. I could play my primary architect on Kettemoor and then play a combat character on another server. However, I prefer to have the ability to play both those styles of gaming on the same server. That reason alone is enough for me to pay for an extra account. Thats why I got a second account.

Some people have extra account(s) so that they can avoid the interdependency designed in the game.e.g. buffbots. SOE purposefully made the game so there was a lot of interdependency and so you can't have multiple characters on the same server to keep people from doing everything themselves. People get around that by buying another account. Yes this happens and some rare individuals have a LOT of accounts. I don't think this is a major problem in the game. Thats just my impression.

But, lets say that there is a big problem. Lets assume that there are a lot of people with multiple accounts and it is ruining the interpendency of the game. How could SOE fix that?