Discussion: Gamasutra interviews Matt Miller and Nate Birkholz

Aura_Familia · 06-20-2011 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville

That's a limitation of the incremental release model of MMOs, and I addressed it in my response to Techbot Alpha. It might have been better to release the incarnate system only when there was a critical mass of incarnate-dedicated content for it, but then you'd be waiting for a year or more for it. Some players say sure, if it doesn't have enough content to satisfy then, then make everyone wait. But other players say no, release what you can when you can, and if people don't want to play it when it doesn't have enough content then *they* can wait until that content exists. Usually, these two player philosophies do not come into direct conflict because rarely are players aware of delays: they can't miss what they don't know they are missing. But these two philosophies went head to head without resolution in I18 when the delay became visible, when the devs announced their intention to pull back the Alpha slot.

Even though Alpha would have *no* content associated with it, and *no* way to do anything but grind kills or standard task forces to unlock and slot it, many players preferred to have it anyway: people who didn't like grinding could simply wait for other content to arrive. Other players felt releasing it that way would give Alpha a bad name by directly connecting it with kill-grinding if there was literally no new content associated with it. I was actually one of those players.

The problem in my opinion was releasing two trials and four slots. I don't know who decided to do that, but that was very, very wrong. In fact, Alpha was released in two parts: tier 1/2 first, and tier 3/4 second. The highest cost Alpha component wasn't dangled in front of the players initially, although everyone knew they were coming. That's another reason Alpha didn't cause instant sticker shock like the other slots did.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to compound one mistake with another and try to fix the lack of incarnate content by shoving the standard content into the incarnate reward system. That would be trying to fix a stupid hole by digging deeper with a stupid shovel.

Addressing the bolded part. Another reason Alpha didn't cause sticker shock was cause the tier 3/4s weren't beholden to only two missions. The Notice of the Well mission changes EVERY week. Not so for the rest of the slots.

Blazara Aura LVL 50 Fire/Psi Dom (with 125% recharge)
Flameboxer Aura LVL 50 SS/Fire Brute
Ice 'Em Aura LVL 50 Ice Tank
Darq Widow Fortune LVL 50 Fortunata (200% rech/Night Widow 192.5% rech)--thanks issue 19!

Dante · 06-22-2011 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Silver Gale

I think the Devs messed up the balance of Quality vs. Quantity a little. The Quality is great (technology-wise, at least, the issues with the writing are well-documented), but the Quantity is somewhat lacking. Look at the RWZ: a whole zone with a four-part storyarc (can be done solo or in a group, over many days at one's leisure), repeatable missions (easy but slow source of shinies), a Task Force (suitably epic, following on the storyarc but not required) and a Raid (best source of shinies, easy to put together, feeling chaotic and action-packed). That, I think, would be a good model for Incarnate content.

Absolutely this.

Watching the ongoing disaster that is the Incarnate system from the sidelines, I have taken to looking back over previous issues and have concluded that the i10 model would have been far superior in terms of introducing the new content. Issue 10 worked so well because it covered every base for PvE content. There was something for soloers, small teams, large teams, League sized teams. And there was a new currency that was well managed and distributed depending on how large a team you wanted to work with. Got to get all the VMerits now? Raid the mothership until your heart bursts. Prefer to take a more casual path? Theres the story arcs and repeatable contact. It was, in my honest opinion, a work of genius.

If what Aracanaville says is true about not including old content in the Incarnate system (and I have no reason to doubt that it is) then it actually makes me more concerned for future. As it makes me wonder if the Devs have a grip on what their playerbase likes and what makes their game successful. The fact that they seem taken aback at people crying for solo content and that, from what we can glean from various sources, it never seemed to be on the design table, makes me wonder if they have forgotten the very things that has kept this game going so long. Casual, alt-focused and varied content is one of the best things about CoX and what makes it stand apart from other MMOs. To purely focus on the part of the playerbase that likes to speed run ITFs over and over again seems like a woeful misjudgement.

If the Devs manage to play catch up and institute more ways to access Incarnate abilities through a number of different playstyles, I think a lot of that concern will fall away (poor, shoehorned in storylines aside). And, from what we seem to have heard about solo paths being considered, that may well be true. And, although I do take the point about staggering content, despite the quality of the trials, I feel that releasing just those two and only those two is too little content to be able to point at them and say Yay, we have an endgame. As it stands, two (soon to be three) trials is far too little and will inevitably lead to excessive grinding and resentment by some players. It seems to me to be terribly short-sighted.

@Dante EU - Union Roleplayer and Altisis Victim
The Militia: Union RP Supergroup - www.themilitia.org.uk