I highly recommend this playlist for anyone interested in being a better product manager, especially when it comes to MMOs and other games.

I definitely see areas of SWTOR where the team has and still does an excellent job of avoiding these sins, but they are some areas that stood out to me as glaring, particularly in Pride, which 4.0 was full of.

Interesting series. Some tenets I disagree with, such with sticking with the core game mechanics in the Gluttony section, well some people like hanging out in their stronghold, playing barbie and interior decorator all day, or RP'ing, none of which contribute or support the game's main loop (story progression / character progression).

But overall well thought out.

well some people like hanging out in their stronghold, playing barbie and interior decorator all day, or RP'ing,.

Yea this is a really interesting point; it's popular in SWTOR and if you look at the current big hitter MMO, FFXIV, this part of the game is absolutely massive. In my opinion this speaks to areas of the game that provide player agency, something that is usually associated with sandbox MMO games. I think that there is something to be considered, even in a theme park MMO, to have more player agency which allow for emergent gameplay, with game systems in place that still allow for the gating elements devs need to put in place to keep us on our progression tracks

The core point in the first video (Lust // Gender locking) suffered greatly because he took ten minutes to present about a minute's worth of actual point, but the point he made was sound.

Because of the catastrophically low information/time density, I didn't bother with the rest.

The core point in the first video (Lust // Gender locking) suffered greatly because he took ten minutes to present about a minute's worth of actual point, but the point he made was sound.

 

Because of the catastrophically low information/time density, I didn't bother with the rest.

Well I haven't played all MMOs so I could be wrong but from my experience it tends to be the Asian MMOs that have gender locking and the western ones not so much.

1) You cannot be all things to all players

2) Change for change's sake is never a good idea

3) Removing content is a bad idea

4) Locking content behind arbitrary, non-play mechanics is a bad idea

5) Travel is not content

6) Lore drives story, story drives quests, quests drive dungeons / flashpoints, D/ FP drive raids

7) While all paths may not have an equal outcome, openly favoring one style of game play over another reduces your audience, and alienates players

8) You can add to, but not take away from.

9) The playerbase is smarter than you. They are certainly smarter than your in-house testing group

10) Nerfing A does not necessarily make B stronger. Often this leads to a race to the bottom

1) You cannot be all things to all players

 

2) Change for change's sake is never a good idea

 

3) Removing content is a bad idea

 

4) Locking content behind arbitrary, non-play mechanics is a bad idea

 

5) Travel is not content

 

6) Lore drives story, story drives quests, quests drive dungeons / flashpoints, D/ FP drive raids

 

7) While all paths may not have an equal outcome, openly favoring one style of game play over another reduces your audience, and alienates players

 

8) You can add to, but not take away from.

 

9) The playerbase is smarter than you. They are certainly smarter than your in-house testing group

 

10) Nerfing A does not necessarily make B stronger. Often this leads to a race to the bottom

So have me moved now from the 7 deadly sins of MMO design to the 10 commandments of MMO design?

Well I haven't played all MMOs so I could be wrong but from my experience it tends to be the Asian MMOs that have gender locking and the western ones not so much.

That's more or less my experience of things, given that "Asian" excludes Russian MMORPGS like Allods Online.

Gender locking for appearance-related stuff (Slave Girl outfit, I'm looking at you!) and occasionally story-linked stuff(1) happens all over, but gender locks on classes, abilities, craft/gather skills, etc. seem to be rare for games developed in the West.

(1) SWTOR romances, the Bear Club For Men(2) (men only) and Bear Club for Women (women only) quests in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, that sort of stuff.

(2) Yes, it's a cultural reference, to the "Hair Club For Men" brand of men's hair care products. Guild Wars 1 and 2, especially 1, are heavily loaded with Earthly cultiural references, frequently in a humourous way.

That's more or less my experience of things, given that "Asian" excludes Russian MMORPGS like Allods Online.

Yeah Russia is special in the sense that it is part of two continents, Europe and Asia. West Russia is part of Europe and I would think that that's where most business is done.

1) Yup. Gender locking is always bad. Let people have the look they want.

Have to say though, I've always thought every MMO should make it so it can be RPable. That's a big market to have come in that will spend money on the MMO to also just dress up and make the community look even bigger.

I felt that was part of WildStar's downfall from the beginning.

I don't know how any can actually like FFIVX, I couldn't even take a day of it. On the other hand, I am enjoying WOW.

15 years leaves a lot to do. And BTW unlike SWTOR, WOW celebrates Talk Like a Pirate Day tomorrow.. In fact a lot of in game festivals coming up, not just Halloween, thanksgiving and Christmas, but several based on other holidays,

"If you’re easily offended, you’re easily manipulated"

How about race-locking, especially of professions/classes?

Race locking is what hurts my WOW experience.

How about race-locking, especially of professions/classes?

Race-locking (species locking) is a thing in Everquest 1 & 2. Iksar (lizards) and frogloks (frogs) can breathe underwater, other races cannot. Fae (winged fairies) in Everquest 2 can fly without a mount after a certain quest at the appropriate level. Some species can see in the dark, others can see soundwaves (sonic vision), some travel faster than others, the list goes on. If I create a character of a class that can cast an underwater breathing ability, I'll use whatever species, otherwise I make Iksar and Froglok toons because I abhor the breathing underwater timer and I'm too lazy these days to do the rather lengthy multi-part quest to get an underwater breathing bauble and too cheap to continuously buy underwater breathing totems. You'd think the vampire species, being undead, wouldn't drown, but they do (but on the plus side just for game mechanic's sake they travel in daylight) and for that reason they're described as being more like the cousins of true vampires rather than purely undead.

Eq 1 & 2 also use species locking for alignment. You cannot, right from the start, create a good-aligned Iksar and start in a good-aligned starting location (like the city of Qeynos), you're limited to the evil-aligned starting locations (there is a betrayal quest that lets you flip factions, and you can always create a good-aligned toon on one species and use a species-flipping token to get around the block).

The problem is that SWtOR had the biggest sin of all. Having a bad start. This game is great but it was a mess at start and drove away ton of player who never looked back.

Very few game recovered from a bad start, actualy I can only think of 2. FF online and ESO.

The first one had to delete the game and start it from scratch and the second, had to spend ton of money on advertising to attrack people back after they have made big change to there game.

Bioware did neither and it has the OK success we have now. its fine but tis far from what it could be.

You cannot, right from the start, create a good-aligned Iksar and start in a good-aligned starting location (like the city of Qeynos), .

Qeynos is the good aligned city cuz its EQ Sony spelled back word.

Qeynos is the good aligned city cuz its EQ Sony spelled back word.

And Felwithe = white elf. They've many anagrams in the game.