Everybody seems to be missing my italicised statement. WHEN THEY SEE IT. Gamers can easily say they like it/hate it when they see a feature fully implemented and polished in a game. Most are clueless if you ask them about an abstract concept or show them a mockup of how a feature would work.
To the OP:
Your first mistake is that you went to a forum to figure out whether players know what they want or not, which is a major misstep. In fact, it's a horrendous one (no offence). Forums are actually a rather useless medium of analysing players (unless you're using it purely to see what a majority of people don't like - which typically boils to the top and can then be figured out quasi-statistically):
First of all I don't want to come off as a dick
Anyway I'm not really sure what you mean as a whole because your points aren't exactly all relative to my post. Are you saying that I shouldn't assume that players don't know what they want just because of what I read in the game forums? Well I was thinking that long before I even read the forums, that was just an example. Players wanted AAs, bloom and a progressive ranking system in Reach, and I'm pretty sure that all of those things contribute to Reach's low level of success (compared to halo 3).
Reach's low level of success (compared to halo 3).
According to the official stats (http://www.bungie.net/stats/reach/online.aspx), 263 million Halo Reach matchmaking games are played a month, compared to 221 million for Halo 3 + ODST combined.
[quote name='J03_b' timestamp='1334465369' post='4931345']Reach's low level of success (compared to halo 3).
According to the official stats (http://www.bungie.ne...ach/online.aspx), 263 million Halo Reach matchmaking games are played a month, compared to 221 million for Halo 3 + ODST combined.
[/quote]
I have noticed something which could be attributed to players not knowing what they want, although in this case I think it may be players not really understanding the nature of said game/genre. The most recent example of which was the comments made about a news post on the subject of the MMORPG TERA. The discussion went something like this:
Player 1: "Played it for a couple of hours, its awful."
Player 2: "You have to play it to 20 (about 8+ hours in) before it gets good."
Player 1: "The game should always be fun, I'm paying for it."
Now in most other cases, say a 8 hour FPS, that would be a perfectly valid argument. Against an MMORPG I can't help but feel it isn't. Yes it's a weakness of the genre as a whole, but in a game that you can easily put in several hundred hours of play into there will inevitably be a portion of that which will be nothing more than a slogfest. The point is the rest of the game makes up for this. To level this accusation against the game makes me think that those commenting just don't understand the genre, let alone the game, and by extension don't honestly know what they want (or the consequences of wanting it at least).
Why do I think this occurs? In this case I think there are two broad reasons:
The player has never played/liked the genre and attempts to apply expectations developed for one genre to a completely different one.
or
The player has put in a large amount of time into another game of that genre and now expects to enter a new one at the same "level of play", while forgetting the initial (often much longer) grind they had to undertake to get to that position.
[The latter worries me slightly as these would also be the most obvious players to target when releasing a new MMORPG, but to attract and retain these players a game would need to provide almost instantaneous gratification from the offset. In a game that could potentially span years, I can only think this approach would be to its detriment later on.
Additionally this isn't to say that TERA (although it there are excuses for it doing what it does at the pace it does), or in fact any MMORPG, could not pace the game better (and defiantly not require players to put up with an 8hour grind at the start), but that "the boring grind" is part and parcel of the genre. There are two cases, Age of Conan and Star Wars: The Old Republic, which manage to avoid this syndrome in the first few hours of play, but in bother cases they eventually suffer from it later on in the level process.]
[quote name='Legendre' timestamp='1334480348' post='4931385']
[quote name='J03_b' timestamp='1334465369' post='4931345']Reach's low level of success (compared to halo 3).
According to the official stats (http://www.bungie.ne...ach/online.aspx), 263 million Halo Reach matchmaking games are played a month, compared to 221 million for Halo 3 + ODST combined.
[/quote]
lol, halo 3 is a 5 year old game, reach is only 2
[/quote]
So how can I determine that Reach as a "low level of success" when compared to Halo 3?
Edit: I think 263 million games played a month is a really high level of success for any fps game.
Now in most other cases, say a 8 hour FPS, that would be a perfectly valid argument.
What about FPSs that players spent hundreds of hours playing online with other people? Like Counterstrike or Quake?
in a game that you can easily put in several hundred hours of play into there will inevitably be a portion of that which will be nothing more than a slogfest.
I spent hundreds of hours playing Starcraft and Counterstrike, but haven't encountered a portion that is nothing more than a slogfest.
The point is the rest of the game makes up for this.
Why not just let players play the rest of the game from the start?
but that "the boring grind" is part and parcel of the genre. There are two cases, Age of Conan and Star Wars: The Old Republic, which manage to avoid this syndrome in the first few hours of play, but in bother cases they eventually suffer from it later on in the level process.]
What about Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, which are famous for their "no grind" system? Also, World of Warcraft can be soloed to max level in around 7 days of play time (7 x 24 hours), and it is the most popular MMORPG of all time.
Player 1: "Played it for a couple of hours, its awful."
Player 2: "You have to play it to 20 (about 8+ hours in) before it gets good."
Player 1: "The game should always be fun, I'm paying for it."
Now in most other cases, say a 8 hour FPS, that would be a perfectly valid argument. Against an MMORPG I can't help but feel it isn't. Yes it's a weakness of the genre as a whole, but in a game that you can easily put in several hundred hours of play into there will inevitably be a portion of that which will be nothing more than a slogfest. The point is the rest of the game makes up for this. To level this accusation against the game makes me think that those commenting just don't understand the genre, let alone the game, and by extension don't honestly know what they want (or the consequences of wanting it at least).
I used to just accept the fact that you have to grind and quest to level up in mmo's but lately I've been thinking why does that have to be a part of all games? Why don't they make it so you can level up and progress by doing whatever you feel like doing at the time. Wouldn't it be sweet if there were games like that? Balancing and other issues aside, it would be awesome if you could get good experience for stuff like battlegrounds, arenas, world pvp, raids, and maybe even stuff like crafting or exploring. Anyone know of a game like that?
So how can I determine that Reach as a "low level of success" when compared to Halo 3?
Edit: I think 263 million games played a month is a really high level of success for any fps game.
Among many reasons, including personal experience (neither I or my friends have fun playing Reach anymore), I think the fact that there are almost as many people playing a much older game pretty much speaks for itself. And I can garuntee you that 3 years from now there won't be nearly as many people playing Reach as there are playing Halo 3 now, unless 343 really blows it or halo 3 is taken offline like halo 2
