September was such a big month for MMORPGs. We had Fallen Earth, Champions Online, Aion and Dungeons and Dragons Online went F2P. I saw a poll somewhere that asked people if they were still playing a September MMO - actually I think it was Massively. I went through the comments and I was a little bummed out to see that hardly anyone was still playing the game that they jumped on board with when it launched.
MMORPGs have never launched without a hitch, and it saddens me when an MMO isn't successful. I honestly like seeing successful MMOs out there. The sad truth is that many people are also impatient, and jump on board with an MMO from the get-go expecting to be hooked right from the start and that this is it! This is the MMO I am going to play! It's really disappointing when the MMO you had such high hopes for didn't turn out the way you wanted it to, and you wind up turning around and going back to World of Warcraft.
I was actually one of those people who jumped on board with Aion's launch because a few friends of mine were playing it and got me all pumped up for it. I knew I shouldn't have, because I was there for WoW's release. Actually no, I'm sorry, I was there a month after WoW's release and it was still a hell hole of broken servers, long and frustrating queues and bugs. A lot of people stormed the forums with craziness, shouting (caps lock, son)"We're going back to _____ if you don't straighten this crap out right now!"
Actually, know what the funny part was? I was one of them. 'Cept I didn't really have an MMO to go back to. I was playing Dark Age of Camelot with my friends at the time, and they decided that they were going to get onto the World of Warcraft bandwagon. I couldn't go back to DAoC, where I was still just a newbie, without any friends! So despite the fact that I couldn't play the game for a whole week once because of queues and brokeness, I stayed. A lot of people did. Millions of people did.
Millions of people didn't really know any better in 2004, either. We didn't exactly have much to choose from. I'm sure that a lot of people did stomp back off to DAoC, Ultima Online and Everquest. I just wasn't one of them, so I stayed on board for five years, on and off. Five years is a long time to play a single MMO, and a lot of us got really settled into Blizzard's world and every-changing landscape and patches.
The thing is though, is that those years passed with WoW holding quite the retention and not many people remember (or just weren't around for it) the fiasco they had at launch. Patience is ultimately the key when it comes to joining up with an MMO at launch. They need us to be patient for them. They need us around during the tough times so that there can be bright, happy, good times. Sure, it doesn't always work out. Look at Tabula Rasa. But in order for a community to thrive and survive on a new MMO, we need to sit tight and let the developers sort some stuff out.
Screaming and crying on the forums is nothing new, but the difference in 2009 (almost 2010, wow look at the time go!) is that many players have something to fall back on. I don't mean to be pointing the finger at WoW again, but it's true - most players can just fall back onto World of Warcraft when the MMO they had their sights set on does not deliver within the first month. An MMO will give players 30 days included with their intial purchase as a courtesy, to ensure that the player feels as though they have a chance to check out the game for a little while before they invest in a subscription.
The problem here is that when a new MMO comes barreling out of the gates like a horse without two front legs (which happens to a lot of MMOs, unfortunately), the playerbase turns up their noses and runs for the high hills. Now, there are some things that are excusable in an MMO that is just starting out, and there are some things that just aren't.
When Aion came onto the scene, it was evident that it had some clear issues. The queues were pretty bad, sure, but they were a temporary problem. The spammers and bots however, they were pretty persistent despite NCSoft's futile attempts at clearing them out. We're going on month two with Aion now, and the bots and spammers are still at large. They may not be quite as aggressive as they once were (I think this also depends on your server), but they're still there, and they are still annoying as hell and interrupting gameplay and making players uncomfortable.
Many players stuck it out with NCSoft when they addressed the community about them, and while their words were nice and pretty and made people feel snuggly warm inside, they didn't make the bots go away.
Another thing that really killed the game for many people was the client instability. Not being able to play the game is a big one, especially when it's happening to a large core of your playerbase. This is not only a problem, but it is a fatal problem at that. There are issues I think people need to just chill out about, though. One of these issues is the lack of content. At launch, many players for one reason or another, decide to hurry up and get to level cap. I'm not quite sure why people do this; it happened in World of Warcraft, too. Players would race to level cap or try to get there as quickly as possible only to find out that there's nothing there to do at the top. They quit shortly after due to lack of content.
Another problem that surrounds a couple MMOs is the fact that leveling isn't actually all that fun to begin with. Since I'm very familiar with Aion, I'm going to use it as an example again. Players just weren't having a good time leveling their characters. Of course this is a generalization, because "fun" is different for everybody. Most players did not enjoy picking a spot and grinding on the same monster over and over again, though. When the content itself from day 1 isn't enjoyable, you have a serious issue on your hands.
So what could an MMO possibly do to ensure that its players are happy during their first month? That first month is so crucial, especially when it's an MMO just starting out.
1. Flaunt what ya' got. There needs to be a reason for players to stop and sniff the roses and enjoy themselves as a reasonable pace as they play the game. You're always going to have those players that want to race to the top (this in itself is a game for them) but if you make the content fun right out of the box, you have a greater chance of retaining your playerbase in the months ahead while you gain your footing.
2. Communicate like nobody's business. Nobody likes eerie silence. It makes new players uncomfortable about what they are getting into, especially if they are coming from a game that had consistent updates from community managers. It's also important to post at least 95% of your updates through your official website and not third party sites such as facebook and twitter. While facebook and twitter are useful and people will most likely follow your game if you create an account on one of those sites, there are still many gamers who refuse to use social networking sites. Since not everyone uses social networking sites or they aren't familiar with them, it's important to make sure you put the information where it matters - on your website. It's more professional and it saves people time trying to hunt around for game updates. It's also important to frequent your own forums.
3. Have in-game support 24/7 from the get-go. One of the huge turn-offs in Aion was the lack of 24/7 support, which NCSoft assured everyone was coming "soon." That four-letter-word is something you'd expect to hear from Blizzard when talking about a release date, but it isn't something you would think to hear in regards to having support.
Honestly if a game was really fun to play, had support and communicated consistently while still addressing the day-to-day issues that plague a new game, it shouldn't be surprising to anyone if it succeeds. The fault lies on both sides, here.
Raptr - Sleek, Shiny and Possibly Annoying
I jumped onto the bandwagon today and downloaded a little program called Raptr. No, that isn't a typo, it really is called Raptr, minus the "o." What this thing is, is some sort of instant messenger/social networking device for gamers. It'll track what you're playing, so it can tell all your friends on facebook and twitter the moment it happens unless you're thoughtful enough to check off the option to only track daily games. Otherwise, you pretty much run the risk of having all your friends unfollowing you or sending you angry tweets about how you're clogging up their friends list with your hobby.
Anyway, onto the meat of the program. You can link several messengers together, such as MSN, AIM, Google Chat, even Xfire. I was surprised about the Xfire bit, since this seems a lot like their competition, but hey I guess it works. Now instead of having several different chat clients up at one time, I can have them all under Raptr and talk to my friends and family while displaying what I'm playing, as if they care how many hours of video games I am stuffing into my afternoon...right?
On the website, you can search for friends you may already have on Raptr, or find some new ones. You can write reviews about a game, and it'll even mimic netflix and start suggesting some games for you to play. Right now it's recommending Halo 3 to me, which just goes to show that Raptr doesn't know me at all because I already own Halo 3 and I hated it.
Been there, done that, Raptr. If we're going to be friends, you should start paying attention to my tastes, geez.
That's another thing: Raptr is in beta, so things aren't going to go as smoothly as one would hope. Upon installing Raptr, it asked me to select my "top 8 gaming friends." I clicked on the "next" button and I had a feeling this was going to happen - it spammed all those friends with a message telling them that I added them to my top 8 and that they should get Raptr so they can do the same thing! I have a feeling this program could make me very unpopular if I make a habit of shuffling people around.
Sure enough, two seconds later a couple of my friends sent me messages going, "Uh, did you get hacked? You're spamming things at me." Face. Palm.
It'll also share your xbox live achievements, your playstation trophies, whether you dinged in WoW or something... I don't get why it's only WoW. Probably has something to do with the fact that Blizzard's behemoth is well...a behemoth. So, it's fairly intrusive and mimics facebook in the "hey pay attention to me! LOOK AT ME!" department.
If you don't like people and would rather just play your games solo, skip Raptr.
If you are addicted to social networking sites such as myspace, facebook and twitter and you're also a gamer, get Raptr. Pretty simple.
