I can't figure out where I should be posting this, so it goes here.
One, who am I to be handing out advice? Well, basically, a college student attending one of the few universities specializing in the design and implementation of video games. I have spoken with many people who have been developing games for the last four to thirty years, and have a fairly good grasp of game design theories and practices. I have played EverQuest, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, and of course Anarchy Online. Devs, no, I'm not in your league of experience, but I believe I have perspectives that you lack. And as for the players who might want to argue about this, keep in mind that I'm probably speaking from the position of knowing more than you do.
Now, the first major issue I will address here is the lack of communication and "PR" that FunCom has with its players. This is, remarkably, understandable if you realize that, to most developers, the game goes to a publisher who handles all that "marketing" stuff. Games are developed in a vacuum. That's the way this business is run.
Except when you're developing an MMORPG.
Let's face it: How many customers does AO have? I will hazard a guess of 50,000. This is based on no external knowledge, just a simple shot in the dark. Now, assume one tenth of these people browse the boards, and that one tenth of those post thoughts on every issue. That means that FC has constant and continual feedback from 500 people. My guess would be that you need one PR rep to 50 posters to keep track of this. FunCom employs (to my knowledge) two. On patch day, assume that half of those who browse the boards will post. This means that there are TWO THOUSAND, FIVE HUNDRED people who WILL make at least one post in this environment, and you will thus need 50 people employed to sort through the traffic on these days. Funcom employs....two. No wonder Customer Relations with Funcom is percieved to be so bad, they are chronically understaffed.
Solution: More people must be hired.
Now, you're saying that this is impossible when you're developing an expansion. Well, let's take a look at that, then.
I've just gotten in from the thread about level requirements. Essentially, what the dev team has said is that, because of new items in the expansion, there is a need for level requirements to be in place until this comes out, so that all nano-programs will work "as intended" based on those rules. Now, this is bad design. It commits several sins, not the least of which is punishing the player. Similiarly, numerically the skill requirements simply make no sense and cannot be currentlybe achieved by a player under any circumstances in some cases. In a normal game, this might not be noticed for a long time, and even if it is cheating can always be used to acquire the "forbidden" item and use it. In AO, this cannot be allowed, so the item is, in effect, worthless.
Another thing about the expansion that I've read is that, when in Expansion territory, nanoprograms will either not work as they did originally or will simply fail to work at all. This is bad design because it punishes the player for learning how to play the game. I can guarantee you that when someone walks into the Shadowlands for the first time and finds out their nukes do half damage there because they don't have the special "Shadowlands" nukes, they will get disgusted, log off, quit, and either return their copy of Shadowlands or shove it into the nearest furnace.
The individuals responsible for this decision should be sacked. And viola, with the rates designers are paid you can probably afford to hire more CS personnel to handle these boards and provide feedback. Furthermore, since Shadowlands will likely be irrepreably broken with these "enhancements" removed, as should be done post-haste, you can probably save on development costs and release the new zones much more quickly, probably attracting new customers to the game. Focus on Shadowlands CONTENT, not the game-tweaking, and you will have a good expansion. Do otherwise, and I think you will doom Anarchy Online to the ignominity of being the first MMORPG to shut the doors forever.
Re: A future Game Dev's take on the state of AO and Shadowlands
would much rather be playing AO, bugs and poor customer communication included.
