Global Chat: Of developer decisions and player perception
Welcome to this week's Global Chat! We love hearing what you have to say at Massively, and we love it even more when we can share the best comments with all of our readers. Massively staffers will be contributing some of their favorite comments every week, so keep an eye out every Sunday for more Global Chat!
This week's Massively reader discussion covered all sorts of topics, but game developer drama and sandbox-style games were high on the list. As usual, we've chosen a few of our favorite comments from our reader base to share with you, so follow along after the jump to see what our readers had to say on this week's Global Chat.
Beau's latest Free-For-All column focused on one of the hottest topics in the MMO world lately: EVE Online. Everyone's got something to say about it, including Massively reader Transientmind. He takes a pretty relaxed approach to the whole thing:
I've been through this before, with games making changes that offended me or diminished my trust in the developer and enjoyment of the game. Instead of just bitching and whining about it, I did something about it. Every time. Just unsubscribe already. Put your money where your mouth is, raise two fingers of Jamesons -- neat -- in salute to the good times, and get on with your lives.
If the devs care about your unsub, they'll change to what you enjoy. If they don't pay attention to your protest, then suck it up chuck and accept that you weren't the target demographic. I unsubbed around the RealID fiasco. Feedback was very fast on that one, because unlike this storm in a teacup, people actually followed through on their threats to pack up and go home.
I still get emails and surveys from WoW asking what would bring me back. They didn't ask for my opinion until I did (though that could be coincidence). Actually, just a couple months back I got a survey from EVE asking the same thing. Unsub and maybe they'll ask you. The leaked letter said it. Judge the players by what they do, not what they say. The still-subscribed whiners are just proving him right.
The most recent Massively Speaking episode included some discussion of sandboxes and our brand-new Some Assembly Required column here on Massively, and ArcherAvatar had thoughts on both:
Really enjoyed the interview at the end, and the "Some Assembly Required" sounds like something worth checking out... It's kind of a shame that "sandbox" basically equates to "gankfest," but that's how they are designed, and that's definitely how they are played.
Eventually, some lucky developer studio is going to realize the tremendous financial potential of a sandbox game with a setting and atmosphere that is entirely focused on cooperative play style rather than griefing and ganking. There are so many creative type players who want to immerse themselves in virtual building projects without all of the immaturity and ugliness that goes along with all of the previous sandbox titles I can think of. You would think that the success of "Minecraft" would give them a clue but, so far, not yet.
Now it's your turn, so hit the comment button and let us know what you think! Want to contribute to Global Chat? If you see a comment from a reader that you think would be of interest to the Massively crowd at large, feel free to send it in to rubi@massively.com. Just cut and paste the comment and let us know what Massively article it was from and we'll add it to next week's Global Chat!
