Cheap but not Easy

Cheap, but not easy

“Vehicle Handling: We’re already underway on a major overhaul to vehicle handling to make cars more responsive and less slippy overall. You’ll still be able to power slide around corners in stylish fashion, but steering is more responsive overall and easier to get the hang of early on.” – All Points Bulletin just after game launch, via Killed in a Smiling Accident

“We want to assure you that the game has not become Pay-to-Play or Pay-to-Win. At the core of Allods you can still enjoy the game without ever having to worry about spending money. Yes, Holy Charms, Incense, and Scrolls of Purification are only offered through the Item Shop, but they can be purchased from other players and the auction house.” – Allods, Via Massively

My initial reaction to the second of the two quotes in defense of their last patch, by the team that developed Allods, is a large and resounding BULLHOCKEY – my mother may have raised a stupid child but it certainly isn’t me.  As our listeners have heard, and we have discussed on past shows, Allods is designed to make the end game impossible to play without using the cash shop. This response to player’s complaints is reminiscent of the time I ran away from home at the age of four, stark naked (or so my mother tells me) with the belief that if I had my eyes closed no one could see me. MESSAGE TO GALA-NET: just because you insist the turd in the punchbowl is a candy bar doesn’t make it so. It’s almost as if the publishers of Allods were intent on taking a game that had grabbed the attention of the MMO community and driving us all away with a bull whip and a ten foot cattle prod.

Well put on your solid steel undies friends because they seem to be setting a trend.

In short, I may be cheap, but that doesn’t mean I’m easy.  Mind you this doesn’t mean that I have suddenly dishonored my vows, donned a pair of stiletto heels and taken to taking a walk down easy street (and I don’t mean the financial district).  That to which I am referring is not squeezing the proverbial nickel until the buffalo defecates (a reference to a bygone era when nickels bore a depiction of a buffalo).  No, I am referring to the simple reality of having a budget – and dead last on the long list that ends somewhere near the borderline of the adjoining state are mmos. Like many other individuals in our country and around the world, I have a limited entertainment budget.  I have one or two mmos that I allow myself, and these are taken by developers from whom I always know I will get a quality product and not the short end of the stick…and everyone else needs to vie for a spot on the list.  A developer can fill their cash shop with items, but unless you deliver a quality product you won’t even catch a glimpse of my money, let alone my participation. And if you produce a product that necessitates the cash shop, instead of simply making it desirable, keep in mind that Rome may not have been built in a day – but it only took one day to destroy it.

Now it may be that at this point you (especially if the “YOU” in the case is a developer or publisher) may ask yourself “why should I care?”  No doubt this will be closely followed by “who in all the name that is Holy are you that we should give a gnats tiny behind about what does or does not please you?”

The answer, of course, is that I am no one …just like everyone else like me is no one (at least to earthly eyes).  But keep in mind what we have often discussed on these pages and on our show; and that is the sage words of one of my undergraduate profs – The arts were not done for critics. Games are not made for the staff at PC Gamer. They aren’t made for the CEO or CFO of Wal-Mart, and like movies they damn sure aren’t made for Roger Ebert. They also aren’t made for those people that some individuals in the mmo development industry seem to have somehow deceived themselves into believing really exist – some pale faced teenager, hibernating year round in their mother’s basement, parent’s credit card firmly in hand, ready to throw money at whatever sparkly little pony, $25 tiger, or curse cure that comes along.  And if you think that mythical person is representative of the average gamer my response is simply this:

What have you been smoking?

There are, of course, a smattering of such people in the world.  But like it or not the average gamer is anything but the average teenager, or average anything for that matter. In fact we come from all walks of life, and like me, we are smart enough spend our hard earned money with at least a modicum of wisdom.

The message here is what Blizzard found out with their attempt to cram Real ID down the throats of what they seemed to feel are the mindless masses – that there is a great deal of truth in the words to the old Bob Dylan song, the times they are a ‘changing.   The famed 800 pound Blizzard Gorilla attitude is a thing of the past.  The Blizzard gorilla initially ignored the public outcry and said “just don’t use the forums” – and promptly found itself kicked in the gonads.  The same attitude makes even less sense when it is espoused by developers who feel that hype that would make a side show barker green with envy, no matter how well delivered, will substitute for content.  

The lesson not learned in this case, is that what is good for the goose is not necessarily good for the gander.  Facebook is busily finding out who owns its real dollars let alone worrying about who will buy their Facebook dollars.  Publishers who see the social gaming bandwagon fading into the distance as Zynga takes its dollars to the bank are still intent on running to catch up with the cart.  Publishers see the apparent (time will tell if this is so) success at how Turbine handled conversion to free to play, including Lotro’s lifetime subscribers, and look to repeat it.  Rumor around the web is that next on the list is Cryptic studios – and let me state at the outset, that if they go free to play this soon after offering lifetime subscriptions for their last two games no one in the MMO community will ever place even a modicum of trust in the company again.

Here let me pause and offer a standing ovation for some words published over at Killed in a Smiling Accident: []

“MMO developers need to break this cycle of beta testing being the glorified equivalent of demo disks on PC Magazines; they need to drop the NDA secrecy; they need to remove the pedestals from the holier-than-thou would-be-rockstar types in the company who are more interested in bathing in the frothing adulation of the game’s ‘number one fans’ than listening to what impartial observers are telling them; they need to stop pandering to the websites that just want to release exclusive details of the game first in order to generate advertising revenue, and instead perhaps start to foster relationships with the MMO community in general” – Melmoth

At the risk of burning my proverbial bridges in front of me, let alone behind me, let me state that we have found an unfortunate trend with some of our industry guests.  Make no mistake some of them have been real sweethearts, genuinely caring about their customers.  But some few have come around interested in communicating with the mmo community only when they are up the creek without a paddle, have a hole in the boat and hear the sound of a waterfall close at hand.

So on behalf of the No Prisoners, No Mercy team let me offer another standing ovation to those developers and publishers who really do care like that prince among you R.W. Harper.  To the rest of you I offer this advice…give R.W. a call and take him out for coffee sometime, you have A LOT to learn.

See you online,

The whole No Prisoners, No Mercy Team