The future of gaming

[high_jeeves]

they have something called "Good-will" that has a monetary value placed on it.

In my business experience, good will does have a monetary value. $0 is infact a monetary value, after all.

Its good business practice to keep people happy with your product, and with your business.

Only insofar as it affects sales. I dont think the number of people they lose to CS equates to the amount they would have to spend to improve it. Sure, lots of people say they will never play another Verant (now SOE), game... I dont really beleive it from all of them.. again, will enough never play a Verant game again to warrant the amount of money it would take to fix the problem?

I also think that more people have not had problems with CS than have. I have been playing since beta, and have had only one minor CS problem in that time. While I agree that their CS leaves something to be desired, is it bad enough, and effecting enough of the player base to really tick off that many people? And do those people quit, or do they ebay? Ebaying is not a loss of revenue for SOE..

--Jeeves

[wrongway]

Regardless of your experience Goodwill does have a monetary value. It is legally able to be put on fincancial statements, and therefore affect the price to earnings ratios of stock. Regardless if it isn't sellable, it is a real number != 0. As for the theoritical Goodwill, it isn't touchy-feely, a LOT of people honest to goodness believe that Apex produces shitty DVD player's, and will not buy another one because of that. Long term its noticeable, in the last 3 or 4 years, no not for this game in this market, because there hasn't been any other option for a lot of people.

How much money would it take I guess is the question. You seem to think it would require a LOT of money to improve the game. There are trillion little bugs with the game (exaggeration) that 1 person working 40 hours a week could figure out, over time. I'm not talking big issues like bards or stacking. I'm talking small things like the zone line in CT being in the wrong spot, or ToFS having 6 mirrors one for each floor, but they all TP you to the same location. They have already done a lot to make the begining part of the game more fun like shar vahl quests, but if it was fun all the way up, I would wager more people would find replayability in it, other than kill huge raid mobs to get phat leut as someone put it.

[high_jeeves]

There are trillion little bugs with the game (exaggeration) that 1 person working 40 hours a week could figure out, over time.

But, again, are those bugs woth fixing (financially)? Do they really improve the game, do 99% of the players even know they exist?

Also, the difference in branding between the consumer electronics market and the gaming market is huge. Sure, people see an Apex DVD player and a Sony DVD player, and they know that the Sony is going to be higher quality. Does the same hold true for gaming? I dont think so (atleast, not yet..). When you think about it, branding probably isnt as important in the gaming industry. The people who wrote EQ are totally different from those that are writing SWG.. sure, the high level management decisions are probably all made by the same set of people, but the details are totally fresh. I dont think this is the case between the 1999 and 2000 models of Apex DVD player.

I just have a hard time with the arguments about how bad their CS is.. they have 400,000+ customers, and rising... If its so bad, and so buggy, why would people be joining up and staying? If they spent time and money fixing these bugs, would that affect these numbers? I really dont think so, so why do it?

--Jeeves

[baelang]

Originally posted by wrongway
Regardless of your experience Goodwill does have a monetary value. It is legally able to be put on fincancial statements, and therefore affect the price to earnings ratios of stock. Regardless if it isn't sellable, it is a real number != 0.

That is true, but the definition of "good will" in a fincancial sence is the ammount of money overpaid for something. it has nothing at all to do with "how much people like us" or "how much we do the right thing" or the common use definition(s) of good will.

[wrongway]

It has a lot to do with how much people like us and such. Yes its what you overpaid for the company, but people overpay for the "name." Would you buy Coca-Cola, and not buy its "name" and try to market the product? No, if you were buying Coca-Cola you would pay a hell of a lot more because a lot of people think very highly of Coca-Cola. If everyone hated Coca-Cola you wouldn't pay extra for that. Yes there are cases when an unknown name is overpaid for, but I would theorize it isn't common.

the high level management decisions are probably all made by the same set of people, but the details are totally fresh.

Thats exactly what I mean. I think EQ is a great product, but mismanaged for the short-term gain of SoE, and the long term value of Verant as a game prodution company isn't being thought about. I for one have no faith in the ability of Verant to thoroughly test their own product, and work on fixing bugs that are known. But thats probably not the game designer/developers faults, its allocation of resources, which you seem to think would be misapplied in making people love Verant for their QA, problem free. If you have fewer bugs you have fewer needs for CS. I will agree to disagree here, about the monetary value of making people think you are good at fixing bugs.

I just have a hard time with the arguments about how bad their CS is.. they have 400,000+ customers, and rising... If its so bad, and so buggy, why would people be joining up and staying?

I'm not complaining about the CS, and never have, but when Chutney responded to that, he had some interesting psychological theories that you seem to have totally discarded, but perhaps they aren't valid. IDK.

[throx]

You seem to think it would require a LOT of money to improve the game. There are trillion little bugs with the game (exaggeration) that 1 person working 40 hours a week could figure out, over time. I'm not talking big issues like bards or stacking. I'm talking small things like the zone line in CT being in the wrong spot, or ToFS having 6 mirrors one for each floor, but they all TP you to the same location.

Unless you've seen the code that is behind Everquest and the zone data file formats, you really can't say that any of these bugs would be easy or hard to fix. Like I said before, the risk of fixing any bug is the creation of 3 others and it's not something that you can just "get someone to work 40hrs a week on".

The fact is they probably get better ROI on getting someone to work 40hrs a week on the next expansion than they do having them fix trivial bugs.

Yeah - I got my math wrong before. I'm a tard.

[wiz60]

I think I understand your point - but just to clarify.

Coca-Cola has an excellent reputation. That reputation is a function of "customer satisfaction".

If you were buying Coca-Cola - you would pay more than the book-value of the company. The excess amount is normally classified as "Good Will".

Normally corporate buyers pay this premium for the future revenue stream - not so much for happy customers. You could argue that one implies the other - and I would agree.

I think that the EQ property would be highly valued despite the grumblings of its playerbase. A saavy buyer would conclude that is inevitable. This is especially true considering the wide range of ages represented in the playerbase.

I predict that EQ will ultimately stabilize and start to decline. I also think that SWG and any follow on games will go nowhere. In the end - I think EQ will be milked forever. Expansions, facelifts, etc etc all trying to preserve the cash flow.

I think they need to invest some money in administrative technology to allow them to do a better job of supporting their playerbase with the same or fewer people.

[Asbestos]

A very interesting read, even if a little off topic by now. One point that came to mind, while reading these last statements about customer service, is: Has there been a MMORPG that has had exceptional customer service? Maybe the reason people aren't as upset with the CS that Verant/Sony has provided is because they have no reason to expect any better. I feel like if any future company, or existing one for that matter, raises the bar then maybe it will make a difference in customer retention. I never played AO but heard in the beginning CS was non-existant, but since, it has improved. Is this the only thing that kept it from falling off the face of the earth? Customer Service may not play as big of a role in the future of gaming as improvements in technology/AI, but I feel any improvement over the current standard is welcome. But I agree with the above posts regarding bad CS. In the long run it will catch up with you, and adversely affect your bottom line.

[gremlinz]

Originally posted by Raistlin


See, and I see this and see an opportunity. There is absolutely no reason that mobs can't "learn" from players...there's no reason that you can't design a "world" in stead of a "zone".

I pose this. What would happen if instead of what you have now you were to setup a food chain of mobs. What would happen if instead of repoping a zone every 20 minutes you made the players figure out the balance. You want more rockhoppers to pop? What's above them on the food chain?

How about making a world instead of a zone? Take sanctus seru and katta castelium....people kill sanctus guards for katta faction, well, what the hell are those guards there for? You kill all the sanctus guards? Over run the zone with marus seru mobs, half an hour later, make marus seru a katta castellium protectorate and populate it with Katta mobs.

What's my point? Every computer gaming world to date has done the EXACT same thing. They've made us suspend our disbelief in their world by breaking it into manageable self contained, self absorbed zones. EQ does this somewhat, but every action could theoretically trigger actions across the entire world. Again, create a world, not a zone.

Another question was how could the world be created to cater to all types of gamers? Hell we had this one figured out in the MUD age. How about developing several ways to level? How about doing away with levels COMPLETELY (one of my big problems with all games) and do something more realistic more skills based. You have the socials who don't care about leveling, only doing things with friends, so give them things to do in the towns...bar fights, listening to bards play music or tell stories, allowing characters to own their own bars/inns/etc.

There are SEVERAL things that can be done to increase content and cater to ALL the different gamer types.

Right now, again, you look at EQ and say "Well, this is how games are designed, this is how they must work." I say there is no game designed at this point that even comes CLOSE to being a players game. It's a single story that everyone is involved in. The story of everquest would be titled "How <insert your name here> conquered <insert bad ass mob name here>" By and large, that's it. Everyone talks about the endgame. Can anyone point out to me where the endgame of an AD&D Campaign is? How bout Torg? BattleTech? StarWars? Can anyone out there pick up any gaming system developed for pencil and paper to date and point out to me where the "end game" is? You can't...because there isn't one.

And I leave you this last thought on this discussion. I forget who said we were not playing our game but verants, but they were absolutely correct. The MOMENT you create a goal that is as limited as kill mobs get items to kill more mobs, you rob yourself of the player's game. The largest problem of RPGs is that all your thinking has been Pre-done for you. It has already been determined what your goals should be. MMORPGs have been designed just like single player RPGs, your goals are pre-set, your tactics are pre-determined. Instead of developing a world where you have a choice in what to do, they have developed a game that says you MUST do x, y, and z before you can do A. It all comes down to choices, and everquest, just like all the other RPGs, give you very very few of them.

The death of the computer RPG has not been in technology, it's not been in lack of feeling, lack of will, or lack of want. It's simply piss poor design. The moment a manufacturer/developer thinks outside the baulders gate box is the moment you see something TRUELY spectacular.

--Raistlin

one hundread percent agree. But for end game on DND yeah there is it is called the throne of bloodstone