Here is my own little virtual billboard for a Monday morning: Watch this space.   As I am sure my readers (both of you) have noticed lately I have been timing my column so it comes out Sunday afternoon for Monday morning. I originally tried Fridays but life always seemed to get in the way of reality - virtual reality. 

Once again life seems to have gotten in the way of virtual reality once again; but I didn’t want you all to think I had forgotten about you.  So later on today, before noon cst if I have anything to say about it, watch this space for my weekly column entitled “Vicious circle or circle of friends”. 

Vicious Circle, or Circle of Friends - part one

Here it is friends, as promised.  An exploration into how game developers keep customers coming back for more. This is part one - part two will be posted later today.

 Read on…for the morning update

 “With our book updates we want to add so much more, there is just a constant pressure to do more.” – Cardell Kerr, Creative Director, Lord of the Rings Online (Lotro), Gamers with Jobs, episode 75

Glass half empty gamers…

When it comes to content of the games we play, gamers on the whole tend to be the “glass is half empty” sort of crowd.  Anyone who has ever played an MMO will have heard the constant hue and cry of some poor sap who, having rushed through the 10 levels of a games expansion, looks around for something to do and invariably finds it. The sad thing is, what they usually find to do is spam the “official” forums with complaints – so much so that EA/Mythic who is in the process of developing the game Warhammer Online has decided not to have official forums.  I applaud this decision; it will leave lone forum trolls with no place to put petty grievances but in the toilet where they belong. This isn’t to say that there isn’t a need for a company to keep in touch with the community.  There are other ways to keep in touch with your player base to find out what the needs and desires of your clients are. Turbine recently implemented one of them; when you open the log in screen you are presented with a survey to fill out. In that survey, Turbine asked their clients (I am one of them) many things about Lotro, not the least among which what their clients thought they should work on next. And that brings me to the next subject.

I can’t get no satisfaction…

The line from the Rolling Stones song could be the theme song for many gamers.  As quote by Cardell Kerr, above tells us, there is a constant pressure on game developers to add more and more content. Unlike a company that brings us a game for consoles, with MMOs there is not finite end - at least so long as the servers are up and the company has its doors open. Any developer that has ever published an MMO is eventually faced with how to keep gamers paying subscriptions or buying micro transactions. If I were to hazard a guess, it seems that it would probably be easier to get someone to buy just one more micro transaction. Let’s face it, the virtual worlds we play in will always be filled with gamers ready to outdo another gamer, whether it is in the PvP arena or just looking better sitting around at the bank. The question remains, until Western Gamers are used to “free to play” games supported by micro transactions, how does a developer keep gamers coming back for more?

Vicious Circle…

…with emphasis on the “vicious” part – World of Warcraft (WoW) is famous for this one.  The key here is to artificially extend the shelf life of the content.  Any who has ever played WoW knows not to expect to just walk in to an end game instance, and anyone who does expect that is just kidding themselves.  Most end game instances in WoW are rife with quest lines that must be completed before you can even set foot in the door. EQ2 players don’t know how good they have it sometimes. The average WoW attunement quest makes Sherman’s March through Georgia look like a tip to through the tulips. True this has changed a bit of late, but if you skip the first end game attunement quest in The Burning Crusade and move on to the next instance, in the words of Jeff Kaplan (lead designer, WoW) “have fun storming the castle.”

So where does the “circle” part come in?

Whether a gamer spends their end game raiding of fighting other players, ask them why they continue to do it and the average response will be “for better gear”.  Ask them why they need the better gear and the response will be “to be better at raiding or pvp.”  This, then, is the vicious circle.  This seems to be a game standard across the board for MMOs to greater or lesser degrees.  WoW places such emphasis on this game mechanic that it engendered the comment by Richard Garriott (Tabula Rasa, Ultima Online) where he called WoW a system of “inventory management.” – how right he was.

Breaking the cycle…

But you can only string players along for so long before eventually any developer will be forced to answer the hue and cry for more game content. While those who play Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) games are treated to expansions on a regular basis, they are not so fortunate as those who play Lotro made by Turbine.  When Turbine issues a new update, called a new book, they have in some cases been giving away for free that which SOE bundled together and charged players $40.00.

So how then do you break the vicious cycle? What do you do? Try and hand out new content faster then gamers can play through it? That, as we have all seen, is near to an impossibility. Is there an answer? Yes there is, and the answer may be closer than you think. But for the answer, you will have to come back later today for part 2  of Vicious circle or circle of friends.

See you – later today,

Julie Whitefeather