A dirty little secret I have is that I am a really poor public speaker. It’s hard sometimes for me to justify free tickets to trade shows when my speaking style usually consists of muttering softly at a table. I’m trying to get better, but one benefit (for you anyway) is that I actually script out pretty closely what I’m going to say to keep myself on topic.
So, then, this is the talk (with a few improvisations) I gave this afternoon. I’m told it was somewhat popular.
Huh, so now I get to rant about MMOs, hm? This is so against my personality type, so bear with me.
My rant today is on I call “Service after the Sale” – the work of an MMO provider after the game has shipped. Traditionally this has been an afterthought, which is strange, considering that monthly fees are where MMOs make their profit. Many of my examples here will use World of Warcraft, because, honestly, it’s the game most of you are playing, and I have to marshal my limited energy for reminding clueless mass media reporters that other MMOs exist.
The first component in successful service is a good GM staff. Customer service reps, the thin blue line. Your game’s technical support staff, police force, early warning system, and on call psychologists. All rolled into one. Also usually the lowest paid people at your company, assuming you haven’t just completely given up and farmed the whole problem off to an outsourcing company in India. World of Warcraft scores high marks here through hiring an absolutely astounding number of GMs. They were recently quoted as having 1,300 CSRs… a 1/5000 CSR to customer ratio. You’re never going to hear anyone in WoW complaining “Gosh, it took 12 hours to get to my ticket.” Unless it’s patch day.
Which leads us into patches. Content released after the game has shipped. You absolutely have to introduce regular content as part of the game’s monthly subscription fee. It’s part of why you get to charge a monthly subscription fee. And if you don’t, you WILL regret it. Players\’e2\’80\’a6 sorry, customers are like ravenous locusts. Without enough to eat, they will do whatever angry locusts do. My guess: very angry MySpace pages with MP3s of loud buzzing.
However, all the patching in the world won’t help if you can’t download them. WoW just had a patch a few weeks ago, and as usual their patch distribution system failed. This may be because their patch distribution system is best described as “let’s make something so frustrating people will just host the patches for us.” This is unacceptable. In fact it amazes me that WoW’s peer-to-peer patch distribution system has become accepted practice. Part of our core business as an MMO provider is providing the MMO. Patches are a part of this. In essentially abdicating this responsibility, Blizzard has created a dangerous precedent. The fact is, this speaks to the strength of WoW’s game design, that people will go to great lengths to work past this horrendous level of service. I personally have a fileplanet subscription, solely so I can reliably download WoW patches for my family and friends. This speaks for itself, both in WoW’s failure to deliver this core component, and in my sad, sad addiction as a player. The primary task of an MMO provider is, again, to provide the MMO.
Another part of “providing the MMO” is just being there, if your server is available to accept connections, if I can play without waiting in line, or being locked in place while trying to pick up loot bags. This is as core a competency as you can get. If you can’t keep a server up, perhaps you should consider another vocation, such as bowling or politics. There are many things customers will put up with, but not being able to play is fairly important. Plus it makes you look like an idiot to your customers. Believe me, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to look like an idiot in front of your customers. You don’t need to build in that feature.
The last part of MMO service is quite simple: respect. Respect for your customers. This is communicated in many ways; by the tone your community relations people set when trying to put out the latest fire set by your designer who thought posting on the official boards would be cool and keep up his street cred. By the CSRs that manage to convince the customer that they’re not just punching keyboard macros instead of talking to them. And by the management when they manage not to mine the customers for every dollar they can through “special services” or “unique servers” or “item sales” or “premade characters” or my favorite, sticking in-game advertising in the game the customers are already paying YOU for. Because, you know, I’m not sure what soda I drink, so I had better see a reminder when I log into my favorite MMO.
So the worst example of this I’ve seen is from an announcement earlier this week from Dave Perry and Acclaim. They’ve recently announced that they’re going to change the MMO business model through this key, great concept: (pause) tiny classified ads. Or the Web 2.0 equivalent: ad banners on screen all the time, that you can turn off, except then you gain experience at half speed. This is so brilliant, Dave Perry has patented it. Really. Because irritating ad banners are something the market’s just going to be all over.. but he beat you to them first! But wait! That’s not all! Perry also stated that if you buy an item online – because games are just all over gold farmers in their games, you know – they’ll check to see if Coca Cola will buy it for you! Then you can get a magic sword made by Coca Cola! Won’t that be cool! Won’t that be totally immersive and not break with the story you’ve created at all! Let’s not stop there! Let’s just make it so every time you loot a kobold, you can loot Skittles! And then you can follow them to a rainbow of fruit flavor enjoyment for all, and the dragons of JetBlue will fly you there! It’s a magical wonderland of consumerism!
When you totally disrespect your customers like that, I can assure you of one thing: your project will fail. And deservedly so. And that’s my rant.
#1 by Yoshimaru on September 6th, 2006
Have you ever actually submitted a ticket in WoW? My server forums were full of threads about the long ticket que lines. The best thing I can say about the GM service is that your ticket does not go away when you log out.
#2 by Blake on September 7th, 2006
Advertising works in cases like AO, where you play for free and the ads are targeted to fit in the theme/flavor of the game. You can always pay to play (and have access to all the expansions) and have no ads, so it’s your choice.
The Perry model sucks, and I hope his game burns in flames and is mocked endlessly. That way this stupid model of his won’t propagate and we’ll be free from it.
#3 by Soliae on September 7th, 2006
I’ve submitted a ticket once in WoW, and had a response within 2 hours. While this may sound bad to the average person, as an MMO veteran, I was pleased.
Silly GM tickets also get a response from GM’s within two hours, but I’m not sure this is efficient. No, this isn’t from my guild, but it’s from my server, and I found it amusing: http://www.last-bastion.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=2131
#4 by ubvman on September 7th, 2006
Actually I think there is a market (or will be) for an MMOG thats “Buy2Win”. I mean, we have people spending billions of $$$$ into sports gear and stuff to do better in their chosen sport. Nobody accuses people who do this as cheaters (well okay some). I am thinking overpriced golf gear, tennis rackets, deluxe running shoes with super comfort absorbers etc.
I think this Dave Perry may be on to something IMHO. Part from your pathological disdain for it, “Buy2Win” could just as well be a legitimate way to design a game as “play2crush” or “catass2victory!”. While we’re at it, is it disrespect to the playerbase if the players willingly submit themselves to a “Buy2Win” model (we’re not talking about changing a game like EQ1 to a buy2win model – just a brand new game).
I dunno, I personally think that this “Buy2Win” MMOG thing might work. I mean some Asian online chatroom/community weird thingy stuff, people actually pay RMT $$$$ to give each other virtual toys/enhancements to their avatars.
Don’t be too fast to dismiss it (I am saying in an open minded manner). If he pulls it off, he will be crying all the way to the bank notwithstanding your rant.
#5 by Stephen W. on September 7th, 2006
Unfortunately, I think consumerism in video games is inevitable. As long as the analysts see a positive ROI, we’re going to be seeing more and more advertising. It’s a shame to degrade the genre like that, but it won’t stop them. I personally hope they see a huge dip in all advertising ROI as the consumers become so banner blind that they couldn’t see the advertisements even if they wanted to.
#6 by Andrew Crystall on September 7th, 2006
*looks at his three-week old reimbursement petition in Eve*
I really wish there was a good alternative sometimes, but then I rememebr that everyone seems hell-bent on making the same mistakes.
Can I add another one? If you have volunteer forum mods, you want people with previous moderation experience. It REALLY helps.
#7 by Michael Neel on September 7th, 2006
That bad product placement, but there is good too.
If Coke came to WoW and worked up an in game version together, it would be totally different. Say they add an npc gnome mixing a new batch of his fizzy drink – Koke Ale. He has to put the drink in tubes so the bubbles stay in, and there is a quest you can run to deliver some of the tubes to different cities. The vendors in that city have a dispenser on the counter with the name Koke on it – red and white, but in a font for Wow. It’s served in mugs, just like any other ale.
Now, in the real world, Coke actually makes “Koke Ale” mugs for sale, and maybe even makes a special bottle / can for the game. This would be cool, and I’ve love to buy at least one.
For the record, I had a friend in korea buy me the coke linage 2 cans.
#8 by =j on September 7th, 2006
play without waiting in line
This will be my primary requirement for any future MMO. I can handle fairly high levels of frustration and wonky game design. But if I cannot actually play the f*cking game… well… I can find other, less expensive, ways to waste my time.
Also, I think the Perry model will lead to epic levels of client-side hacking. Instead of cheating to “win”, players would be cheating to “play the game without irritating pop-ups”. It could be a new mini-game Dungeons & AdBlocks. And after the thin wedge of advertising removal has established itself, it is a short and inevitable step to radar and speed hacks. After all, everyone else is doing it.
#9 by Hellfire on September 7th, 2006
“If Coke came to WoW and worked up an in game version together, it would be totally different.”
While I agree in that you’ve illustrated a way for product placement to fit into the game world I have to question the need. Or, more specifically, what’s in it for me?
Sticking with the WoW model – what do I get as a player? Blizzard is already forcing ME to pay for patch distribution and the rights to play the game. Will I see a reduction in costs to offset this? Blizzard will get a nice check from Coke and probably take a dozen meetings from other vendors and the players will pay them for the privilege.
Now if Blizzard said that the next expansion following TBC would feature 25% “consumerism driven” content and in exchange for playing a game with these references/items/etc in them it would be available as a free download to all paid subscribers at the time of release. I would not have a problem with that so long as the content was not horrifically de-mersive.
#10 by naum on September 7th, 2006
I’ve never had a problem DLing a WoW patch… …that is, unless, you don’t count subsequent “login server” issues shortly thereafter “patch day”…
#11 by Kohs on September 7th, 2006
“You absolutely have to introduce regular content as part of the game\’e2\’80\’99s monthly subscription fee. It\’e2\’80\’99s part of why you get to charge a monthly subscription fee.”
i’ve gotta disagree with that notion.
#12 by Jason Ballew on September 7th, 2006
Oh?
If you don’t introduce regular content as part of the monthly subscription fee, then what you have is a normal game that happens to also be online that you pay a monthly fee for.
So, at that point, how is Can’tUpdateThis MMO any different from…Neverwinter Nights? Battlefield 2? Civilization 4? Any OTHER game with multiplayer modes?
After all, not /all/ of that $13-15-20-30 a month (yeah, I’m looking at you, Archlord) goes to server costs, electricity, et al. Some of it has got to go towards paying the developers to come up with the latest wacky idea that’ll get implemented poorly and be destroyed by TEH UBARGUILD_001 five minutes after being patched into the game.
#13 by Kohs on September 7th, 2006
Online games are never the same as “normal” games. they’re inherently different.
it’s different because it’s designed completely different.
it’s not a single-player game with multi-player support.
it’s a freakin’ MMO. a virtual World.
you get to charge for access to the World you’ve created.
hiring developers to endlessly create content which will be ravenously devoured before you can say “more content plzkthxbye” is not cost-effective.
#14 by Dren on September 7th, 2006
“…hiring developers to endlessly create content which will be ravenously devoured before you can say \’e2\’80\’9cmore content plzkthxbye\’e2\’80\’9d is not cost-effective”
Neither is loss of subscriptions due to stale content or due to constantly charging your customer to add content.
Are you pointing to WoW and saying they are losing money then? While they may be slow to release content (I don’t feel this way, but some do,) they have released quite a bit of “free with subscription” patches.
GuildWars has a model that might satisfy your idea of a MMOG done right, but it certainly is not appealing to the public like the standard model.
You can cut costs all you want, but there is a line you cross. The players will let you know when you are there.
#15 by xzzy on September 7th, 2006
you get to charge for access to the World you\’e2\’80\’99ve created.
Isn’t that charge covered when you lay down $50 for a box of discs and a authorization key?
His point still stands, monthly additions are perfectly justifiable things to expect as only a fraction of the monthly fee is going to be paying for servers and bandwidth. If Oblivion’s maker can charge people two bucks for horse armor, I should at least be getting that much per month out of my MMO subscription.
Hopefully more, because two bucks for horse armor is a pretty raw deal.
#16 by Jarnis on September 7th, 2006
Blizzard may be bit slow in putting out content. However, the content generally does not suck. Yes, there are small bugs and server stability issues, but generally blizz stuff has tons of polish.
I take rare piles of good content over constant push of half-finished crap that is eating up the development time that should be going into fixing the previous pile of half-finished crap that was released untested last month (as presented by .. umm… almost every other MMO)
#17 by GregC on September 7th, 2006
You are right. Joe Player pays for the right to play the game on a monthly basis. But Joe won’t stay for long if he has nothing new or interesting to do.
Thus…
“\’e2\’80\’9cmore content plzkthxbye\’e2\’80\’9d is not cost-effective.”"
is…
Incorrect!
Sticky-ness…retention is what keeps your revenue flowing in. So…”hiring developers to endlessly create content which will be ravenously devoured before you can say \’e2\’80\’9cmore content plzkthxbye\’e2\’80\’9d” IS cost effective if your player base is large enough.
If it takes 10 designers at say 50K a year (500,000$/year) to make one dungeon a month that will keep your 1 Million person player base still paying 10 dollars a month playing for just one more month (10 Million $) means you just paid for 20 years of those 5 designers salaries.
If that is not cost effective…then what the hell is?
#18 by GregC on September 7th, 2006
Bah. I meant “20 years of those 10 (not 5) designers” numbers – Bad!
#19 by Ghiest on September 7th, 2006
As a guild leader of a semi-successfull WoW guild ALL my encounters with Support and GM support has ended in complete and utter frustration.
Copy/paste replys are the single most agrivating way to deal with customers. Down to the fact that one GM will tell you some thing and then another GM will totally Deny it.
But as for regular content and patches, I am fairly satisfied with it … as we are still ripping through content that is 3 months old (temple of ahn Qiraji) and not on the bleeding edge, but still it’s ok for the majority of players i think.
#20 by Kohs on September 7th, 2006
hehe.
i find it funny that whenever i bring up an unorthodox idea regarding MMOs, people suggest MMOs i might like.
i’m not pointing at WoW and saying they’re losing money. they’re obviously not.
but that won’t last forever.
why do you assume that when i talk about not hiring developers to create new content, that my MMO would just become stale and waste away?
maybe that would happen to a game like WoW, if they fired all their content-creating devs. but WoW is not the be-all and end-all of MMOs.
where is it written that hired developers are the only source of content?
#21 by Bob on September 7th, 2006
Pardigm shifts are hard for industries to weather – and WoW is a paradigm shift that isn’t healthy for many bad companies, but is great in the long term for the industry.
Patches: So here’s a thought: release the patch a week early for users to download at their leisure with a bit of Nag wear. Have redundant server farms at the time of rollout. Configure system for 0% downtime. Downtime for servers (any reason) is stupid and dumb and not necessary – this is not 1988 anymore.
GMs: WoW is better than some in my experience.
Regarding Advertising: I would have LOVED a Pandaren Express noodle delivery. It could’ve been IN GAME design, great fun as long as the quality of food could be met. However, a Pizza Hut Sheild or a Frito-lay Gmomish Bombs…. well, that is just cheesy.
Overcrowding: Blizzard, imho, would be better in saying “NO” to it’s customers. Have a set service level agreement (queue length to play = 1 minute, etc.) and then stick to that agreement. The biggest problem with the WoW paradigm is that “low hanging fruit venture capitalists” will cut corners to compete with them , and accept less, rather than risk more.
I’m going to argue that Starcraft, Warcraft, WoW and Diablo have all be genre archetype games (possibly Diablo’s “character levelling” system.) None of them have been new or original in thought, but they all have been pinnacle examples of their genre in quality. Alien Hominid is another example of this.
It doesn’t matter what you do, it matters that you do it WELL.
#22 by Amber on September 7th, 2006
In-game advertising may be the huge, inevitable juggernaut that ventually pervades all MMOs. But I think not. WoW (to use a tired example) doesn’t advertise in-game, and 7 million players can’t be all wrong. (Well ok, 4-5 million of them are pretty wrong on many, many levels, but that’s another post.) I think blatant advertising in MMOs is a fad, and once the industry comes back to their senses and realizes the best way to make money is to make good games, we’ll all be happier for it. Which is not to say that advertising won’t always have a footprint somewhere, but I don’t think players are going to let it take over.
#23 by Sweetmeat on September 7th, 2006
Wow. I’ve been playing CoH and the three times we’ve had to contact a GM we got responses in less than 5 minutes, and resolutions in less than 10 minutes. That was all three times. This may have changed recently, since I heard a while back that NCSoft fired a large portion of their customer service people. Anyway a 2 hour wait on a ticket seems way too long.
As far as advertising in games go, bring on your ads Mr. Greedyass Designer, you will NEVER see a dime of my money cause I’m not playing your stupid game. I agree with Scott 100% on this one. Treating your player base like sheep to be fleeced when there are other games out there that aren’t is going to drive off players. With Tevo, shows on DVD, satelite radio, and other emerging ways for people to avoid advertising in other forms of entertainment I don’t see people being real warm on the idea of advertising breaking immersion in thier games.
#24 by Lophat on September 7th, 2006
I liked Gordon Walton’s rant the best.
Man, Lum, I wonder how you can stand the pressure of everyone’s expectations. You have held forth with pretty strong opinions to date, and folks are gonna expect you to live up to the bar you set. And we don’t really even know what you’re working on yet. When that gets out… whoo.
#25 by Kohs on September 7th, 2006
you think adding one dungeon a month would keep 1 million players satisfied?
i somehow doubt that.
players tear through new content like there’s no tomorrow.
besides, your MMO took 3 years to complete. you think a dungeon which took only one month to complete will stand up nicely to the rest of your game?
i some how doubt that as well.
not necessarily.
that might hold true for some MMOs.
but not all. and i sure hope not for future MMOs.
it all depends on how your MMO is designed.
#26 by Jason Ballew on September 7th, 2006
Yeah. No shit.
That thing gets announced, we’re ALL OVER IT.
Until then, we’ll play…whatever it is we play (which, for me, is currently nothing, due to studying for the MCSA. Was actually EQ before that, tho.)
#27 by Mist on September 7th, 2006
I’ve never not been able to DL a WoW patch within 20 minutes, even for the huge 200+ mb contect patches. Blame Windows Firewall and fucking McAfee, not Blizzard. Norton and/or McAfee are the bane of an MMO players existance because they cause so many more problems than they fix. Everyone in my guild has to disable them or face huge lag problems when raiding.
#28 by Andrew Crystall on September 7th, 2006
Kohs, the trick is to build the tools.
If the system is robust (and to a large extend visual-scripting based), then certainly you can have a *pipeline* which when set in motion will let teams make dungeons over say a total 3 month cycle for each individual dungeon, with a set of new dungeons every month.
#29 by Andrew Crystall on September 7th, 2006
On another level, that’s not the trick at all. A world, and prcedural tools, let you build something which will provide entertainment on its own, or rather through the interaction of players.
That takes the larger investment into building a Virtual World as opposed to just a Game World for your MUD, though, or you end up with a grind (aka WoW’s “endgame”).
#30 by IanB on September 7th, 2006
“Blame Windows Firewall and fucking McAfee, not Blizzard.”
Sounds like you aren’t patching multiple machines behind a typical home Netgear or Linksys device. Requiring port forwarding for any kind of decent speed completely fucks over anyone who has more than 2 machines to patch. I’m not going to go in and add/change port forwarding every time I need to patch both my machine and my wife’s machine.
Blizzard’s torrent solution is completely shitty. I don’t have these problems with other vendors.
(Although Lum, your rant did remind me of those DAOC patches back in the day where you’d get 90% of the way through, the download would die, and you’d have to start all over from the beginning. That was a different generation of game, though.)
#31 by xaldin on September 7th, 2006
Goes beyond windows firewall.
Any firewall that does not allow any outbound port will cause the Blizzard patcher to die. For example my netscreen 5gt.
Configured properly I open a limited number of ports going to a limited number of locations (for example I set up blizzard’s server farm over the ports required for the game to run but those same ports cannot go anywhere else). To let the patcher work I’d have to open a set of ports to EVERY possible address in the world. Totally absurd from a security standpoint.
No the windows firewall, McAffee, Symantec etc are doing exactly what they are supposed to. They are not the bane of anything except patheticly incompetant coders.
#32 by GregC on September 7th, 2006
“you think adding one dungeon a month would keep 1 million players satisfied?
i somehow doubt that.
players tear through new content like there\’e2\’80\’99s no tomorrow.”
Ok then lets say we have a great pipeline and great tools and I am willing to spend 5x the money, meaning 50 designers at 50K and I create 5 new experiences a month, I am still only spending 2.5 Million on annual salaries for a net gain of 7.5 Million in just ONE month. Hell let\’e2\’80\’99s take it to 100 designers and I am still making 5 million if I just keep my 1 million players on month more. Your argument was that it’s not “cost effective” and I just beg to differ.
“besides, your MMO took 3 years to complete. you think a dungeon which took only one month to complete will stand up nicely to the rest of your game?
i some how doubt that as well.”
Yeah, which is why you actually hire a “live” team before the game ships. You start future content before the game is even out the door and keep rolling it over so that new things are constantly being worked on – in a staggered stages. You then can spend several months creating content that is released on a monthly basis after your games is live.
In regards to actually releasing monthly updates and retention you say:
“not necessarily.
that might hold true for some MMOs.
but not all. and i sure hope not for future MMOs.
it all depends on how your MMO is designed.”
What planet are you on? I am guessing the one where the PLAYERS make all the content? I can’t think of any other line of logic that would make you NOT want new content in your game of choice being created professionally on a monthly basis. Player made content is a swell idea on paper – a lot like Communism is a real great idea on paper. Even if you can hand pick the best people from the player base to create this content it creates a whole other set of issues that you really just do not want to deal with. Trust me – I know
But that is discussion for another thread. 
#33 by Gophur on September 7th, 2006
Missed you at the geek ball last night. Was looking forward to getting blasted and chatting. I caught the rant for the first time this year and I gotta say you and Jess sole the show.
#34 by Jason on September 7th, 2006
You’ll have to forgive Kohs, he lives in a world where player created content actually works and doesn’t suck like Second Life. That’s what he means by not hiring developers.
Charging a monthly fee and providing no content additions is fine… as long as your monthly fee is low enough to justify that its only covering upkeep with a little profit. Charging $15 a month for a static world would simply be insane.
#35 by Kohs on September 7th, 2006
actually, we all live in that world.
it’s called real life
#36 by Cael on September 8th, 2006
Runescape does very nicely on it, i notice. Low monthly charge, very very occassional new content. And yes, i know it’s ugly. That doesn’t change how popular it is.
I don’t think Kohs ever tried to justify a full $15/month but very often at least some revenue stream is required to pay your bandwidth and infrastructure costs.
A monthly subscription of $1 is still a monthly subscription. With that, is the developer obligated to provide monthly content? I’d say not.
#37 by Heartless Gamer on September 8th, 2006
About WoW tickets. Never have had a ticket go unanswered and that is something I can’t say about several games (*cough* DAoC, Shadowbane, SWG *cough*). I don’t know the longest I’ve ever waited in WoW because I usually play WoW for 30 mins – 1 hour at tops. Even with that small play time SEVERAL of my tickets have been responded to before I’ve logged off. Every single ticket was resolved by the time I logged back in.
Why so many tickets from me? I hate retarded names. I hate spamming gold farmers who think /tell and in-game mail are great advertising tools. Most of all I hate the repeated use of the word “rape”.
#38 by Wanderer on September 8th, 2006
Yeah, but we can get that for free.
#39 by Jason on September 8th, 2006
Real Life is messed up. The designer never fixes anything, and we can only fix things after they’ve been proven to be broken, even then fixes are optional and people can choose not to play with them. And forget about those Play-Nice-Policies, Real Life doesn’t enforce one, so someone elses content can totally screw up yours and most times you have no recourse.
#40 by Merkwurdigliebe on September 8th, 2006
“ad banners on screen all the time, that you can turn off, except then you gain experience at half speed. “
I’m sure Dr Twister will point you to a site with a proggie to fix that client-side.
#41 by =j on September 8th, 2006
Yeah, but we can get that for free.
Yeah, but the level grind is TERRIBLE.
#42 by =j on September 8th, 2006
hrm… WordPress does not seem to like nested quotes.
Kinda screwed up my punchline. =/
#43 by Jason on September 9th, 2006
Wordpress can do nested quotes fine, some themes, however, fail to handle them well.
#44 by rant-hunter on September 11th, 2006
…there’s some ranting from Scott in this week’s VirginWorlds podcast… pretty funny stuff.
http://www.virginworlds.com/pg.php?n=3408