Fits in with some of my complaints about AC at times

[MaddyFF]

Simplicity is simply not appreciated (http://www.psychochild.org/?p=242)

A little from the article:

Don Norman, the author of the often recommended book The Design of Everyday Things, writes that simple isn't really better to most people. In fact, most people actually prefer something more complicated because it means they are getting their money worth. If you pay more, then you want more options.

I think this can carry over into games as well.

[Sledge]

I guess I look at it from another perspective.

When AC started, it was HARD.

There was:

1. Spells that had to be learned.
2. Low quality armor so death came easy.
3. No /corpse so if you died in the middle of nowhere, good luck on recovering or even finding your corpse.
4. Burden, lots of burden.
5. Fletch arrows 10 at a time.
6. Low XP and slow advancement.

I could most lilkely come up with several times more points in the beginning that put AC into the HARD category.

I felt that having it HARD was very enjoyable.

BUT,,,,,,,,,,

Due to it being HARD, the populations never approached the numbers that the game should have had. Too many people want EASY.

In order to try to appease these EASY players, the developers installed an EASY Button. They did away with all of the cumbersome points and made playing the game a whole lot easier.

Even other players got into the act and created Decal and the assorted plug-ins that made the game even easier. Heck, now a player doesn't even have to spend their time in the game. They can fire up their macro and go play WOW.

This is not only seen in AC. Almost every game that has come out recently and is in the final stages is so much easier. I have heard that Vanguard is supposed to be HARD, but I am still not clear on what kind of HARD it is.

I truly believe that there are players that want a HARD MMO. Unfortunately, I do not believe that there are enough of them. Making a game these days require that the heart of the game points towards the group of players that the company can draw the largest number of players into and keep them there. This requires EASY with fast level advancement, little, if any, death penalty, and a quick march towards the 'End Game'. Then they can complain that there is nothing to do.

I would truly love to spend some time in a game that actually challenges your character and their advancement and gives you many things to do, not only through content, but through crafting and exploring. I am not sure that there are companies that can afford the development time to create such a game. There is one that I cannot mention that appears to be doing a good job at that at the present time. Only time will tell.

[Thadda Al-Munik]

You should have stopped at but. The game was damn awesome when it was hard and I am so tired nowadays of being able to smite anything coming towards me.

[MaddyFF]

Due to it being HARD, the populations never approached the numbers that the game should have had. Too many people want EASY.

Then we should have higher population levels then we do now, but we don't.

[Sledge]

Then we should have higher population levels then we do now, but we don't.

Unfortunately, AC became one of the victims of EQ. Since they hit the market at about the same time, EQ got the large share of players.

For whatever reasons, many new MMO players went that direction and got into the EQ mindset.

MMO players are a fickle lot. They may give an MMO a chance, but if they do not buy into it and leave, chances are that they will never return.

AC also suffered from the bad rep of being a cheater and macroer heaven and that did so much to hurt the game.

Look at what FFXI did this week. 7800 players permabanned for TPA and exploits. AC and MS allowed this to go on too long. Heck, they can't stop it now.

As long as the base is high enough to pay the bills, we can hope to have AC around to enjoy.

[Holt Politician]

Sledge,

Would you say that the game becoming easier is tied into the reduction of numbers?

Would a really challenging mmorpg be a major hit in the industry? Or is it just a matter of making a cookie cutter mmorpg and timing its release with the decline of other mmorpgs currently out?

Jeff Anderson seems to think that cookie cutting is the way to go, which is a direct slap in the face to his orginal playerbase. What say you.

[Garpe]

When Mythic Entertainment was beta testing its biggest expansion, Trials of Atlantis (which materially changed many of the game's fundamentals), it created these things called "artifacts". Artifacts were super-powerful items (armor, weapons, what-have-you). To get an artifact, you had to solve a quest, and often solve an encounter (or series of encounters).

Mythic made the decision early-on to make finding and suceeding at these quests very difficult. They coded very few clues, and "gave it their best shot" at making artifacts hard to obtain.

The beta testing audience went nuts and demanded change. Mythic acquiesced, and put in more and better clues to assist players in figuring out what they were supposed to do.

To Mythic's credit, even with the easier system, the expansion provided 6-12 months worth of new material for the average player. (There was a metric ton of content.) Some of us (albeit a minority) were disappointed in Mythic's decision to nerf the expansion's difficulty rating. In the end, however, Mythic pleased a high number of its players, and I conclude they made more money as a result.

*shrug*