J03_b, on 06 April 2012 - 05:18 PM, said:
So that's why I suggest that if you want a game that's more about queuing for short sessions with other players, then why play something with miles and miles of landscape that you never use or even see? Do you just have to play something called an MMORPG?

Because I like playing MMORPGs, the fun parts, without all the time wasting.

If the landscape is fun to travel into, I would play it (of course). The traveling facility is (or should be) a choice: if I want to enter the dungeon on the other side of the world, it's good to avoid wasting time traveling (because it doesn't matter if the landscape is so fun: I'm not interested into it because what I want is the dungeon).
The worst situation is when you MUST travel for tens of minutes to get where you need to go to have fun. There's no fun in moving and moving and moving, even with the most beautiful digital landscapes: after the tenth time you do it you want to eat your monitor.

I guess it was a bad example to mention conveniences in WoW, because a lot of people like them. But there are better examples like armor abilities and bloom in halo. I'm sure everyone thought they were a good idea but they ended up taking away from the game. Same thing with the ranking system but (I hope) nobody asked for that, that was all the devs

But there are better examples like armor abilities and bloom in halo. I'm sure everyone thought they were a good idea but they ended up taking away from the game.

How do we judge that bloom takes away from the game? Do we refer to other player's negative comments about bloom? But then "players don't know what they want" right? So do we listen to them and conclude bloom is bad, or do we say "bloom is good, those complaining players just don't know what they want".

I think in the end, its all about your target audience. The Countstrike community will probably go nuts if you tell them you're removing "bloom" (the recoil system) from Counterstrike. On the other hand, the Halo community go nuts when bloom was introduced.

How do we judge that bloom takes away from the game? Do we refer to other player's negative comments about bloom? But then "players don't know what they want" right? So do we listen to them and conclude bloom is bad, or do we say "bloom is good, those complaining players just don't know what they want".

I think in the end, its all about your target audience. The Countstrike community will probably go nuts if you tell them you're removing "bloom" (the recoil system) from Counterstrike. On the other hand, the Halo community go nuts when bloom was introduced.

I think the consensus was that player's don't know what they want but they do know what they don't want. Considering most halo players asked for bloom then most halo players hated it

I think the consensus was that player's don't know what they want but they do know what they don't want. Considering most halo players asked for bloom then most halo players hated it

But there isn't really any difference between "want" and "don't want". When we "want" something to be changed in a game, we're are essentially saying we "don't want" the present system.

You could say that players don't want the old Halo recoil-less system, and hence the implementation of "bloom" is good.

Another example: you could say World of Warcraft players don't want inconveniences. And they know what they don't want.

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):


1) The written language:
Communicating through text is probably the least effective method of communication after symbolism. You don't hear the forumer's voice, nor do you see his body language. The only thing you can take at face value is facts presented - which we all can agree, I think, are rather absent with most forumers.


2) Players != forumers:
Forumers are most often players (of any game), but players (of that specific game) are most often not forumers. Even those who are forumers, more often do not participate actively in discussions. Long story short, you are given the impression that most players don't know what they want because most forumers who actively participate in forums, don't know what they want. You're making a classical inductive argument.


3) Internet introspection:
As a social part of the internet, forums suffer from the same problems as any other internet communications media in which people are effectively anonymous (or act as if they are). People will more often speak out from their guts rather than with reasoning, sometimes quite rigorously and randomly without any logic whatsoever - even though they may be very reasonable people otherwise. They're sooner to ridicule anyone that disagrees, than to look at the arguments and question their own logic. I'd go as far as to say that "the internet is where introspection goes to die". And you may quote me on that, haha. ;)


Anyways, I probably got more points, but I'll leave it at this. Cheers.

Also, I'd like to add one concrete thing:
Imagine a player who tells you that he hates a given feature. Well, does he know about all the various permutations of that feature to know perfectly whether he truly likes it or not? All that the player really tells you is that he essentially hates that specific permutation of that feature or group of features. But if that permutation is the only possible implementation of the feature that he knows about, then he's obviously going to say that he hates the feature and not the permutation of it.

So then the question comes up: Should you (1) remove the feature alltogether or (2) just implement it differently?

Just some food for thought. ;)

But there isn't really any difference between "want" and "don't want". When we "want" something to be changed in a game, we're are essentially saying we "don't want" the present system.

There's a huge difference. They know what they don't like when they see/play it. They often don't know what they want in abstract terms, e.g. "sure it sounds cool in theory" followed by "eww, that feature sucks!". Designers also can't foresee the consequences of all ideas, but they spend longer than many players thinking it through, and often prototype it roughly to see if it works. Many players wouldn't want to deal with a prototyped feature, they'd say it sucked because it lacked polish, not because it was a bad feature.

There's a huge difference. They know what they don't like when they see/play it.

"I don't want feature X" is essentially the same as "I want a game without feature X" or "I want the old feature back".

"I don't want feature X" is essentially the same as "I want a game without feature X" or "I want the old feature back".

Saying that I want the game to be different doesn't say anything about what specifically you want to see in the game.