Smuggler Archive

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SpinningCloud wrote:

Ignoring the playerbase is actually really really good as a policy. However, it must be done only if you're competent enough to design and develop the game without their "help" and stick to your (presumably good in the first place) design goals.

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I hate to disagree...well, no I don't as I do it all the time.

However ignoring your customer's needs and desires is NEVER a good idea when producing ANY product. Since an on-line game is a product with continual updates and 'improvements' it is vital to consider the changing requirements of the customer. Anyone that produces a product without the ongoing considerations of the customers is looking for eventual failure.

I don't believe for a second that he knows what players want better than the players do. All my observations tells me he designs games to satisfy his own experiments and not to produce a product that will satisfy the customers. SOE sure seems to be following this same philosophy.

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So... if more than 50% of people in SWG want to "pwn" the other less-than-50% with their lightsabers regardless of the game setting, balance, and the integrity of the SW universe, it somehow makes it a good idea that should be listened to?

Most of the random-MMORPG-players "customer base" has a very vague idea of what they want, and it usually consists of being better than someone else in some way. It is very important to ignore such desires if it is for the overall good of the game - in most cases, the game designers should "know what players want better than the players do". People will play a quality game. "Whiners" will adapt.

Perhaps you were thinking of the more mature portion of the customers - those with valid ideas and complaints, but in the MMORPG market (now even in SWG, although this wasn't really the case when I started the game, so I have a feeling that it was even better before), such customers are a minority.

Well...yes. When I say "listen to your customers" I mean, by implication, the coherent intelligent ones. I think we all know the differences between the two types.

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SpinningCloud wrote:
Well...yes. When I say "listen to your customers" I mean, by implication, the coherent intelligent ones. I think we all know the differences between the two types.

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But do the developers know? If they do, they must have some reference or an ideal to compare the customer "ideas" to, which would mean that they are good game designers and they know what's good for the game. And that leads to the conclusion that they wouldn't need the customer feedback anyway.

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Rushyo wrote:
Wow, what an ass. I'm a games developer, hell I even development online games, online multiplayer games, MMOs even! My first port of the call is the players. If the players want something, I work out how it will affect the other players and if it's ok I give it to them. My games thrive on player input. I ask them to design sections for me. I make my own version of a concept and then throw it to them to look over, rip apart and hand back as gold. That's how MMO development SHOULD be done, not based on research into how you can manipulate the brain into liking a game.

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so what games do you develop and where can i sign up?

Wow, what an ass. I'm a games developer, hell I even development online games, online multiplayer games, MMOs even! My first port of the call is the players. If the players want something, I work out how it will affect the other players and if it's ok I give it to them. My games thrive on player input. I ask them to design sections for me. I make my own version of a concept and then throw it to them to look over, rip apart and hand back as gold. That's how MMO development SHOULD be done, not based on research into how you can manipulate the brain into liking a game.

I would just like to add a few quotes this guys wrote in "the laws of Online Game Design"

Message Edited by Vupos on 07-14-2005 03:54 PM