Comments on: MMO Development Lesson #27

By: JP Lapointe

JP Lapointe — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 14:51:35 +0000

On the flip side, an example of how to do it right (and it only smarts more because of who it is…):

When I shut my WoW account for the first time (my friends had stopped playing, and as a solo experience, it stinks), I changed my password and turned off my subscription. After about a year I hooked up with some friends of mine from university, who were playing. So I said, “hey I didn’t stop playing because I didn’t like the game, I stopped playing because I didn’t like playing by myself”. So I went to turn back on my account, after one of my friends sent me a “resurrection scroll” – which would theoretically allow me ten days free with my old toons.

Except I forgot the password. Clever me.

And the I realized that I had never bothered to keep my contact email address up to date. Meaning I couldn’t just send myself an automated password recovery. So I called customer support.

I waited longer in the queue than it took the CSR to fix my account so I could play. And the queue was remarkably short for a game with millions of subscribers. I think that might be what you want.

By: Yeebo

Yeebo — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:18:53 +0000

I just went lifer in LoTRO after playing since open beta. Was skeptical that it would have any real staying power when it launched. But they have been adding new content at just about the right pace for me. Still logging every weekend and having fun. And hey, I still saved 30 dollars over a non pre-order lifer. And I get to keep the mediocre free horse at 25 for all of my alts . . . .yeah, OK I’m insane.

More on topic, that post was spot on. Especially with respect to deleting toons. FFXI is one of the most horrific grinds you can find among mainstream MMOs. Having them set your characters on fire if you are gone for too long has probably kept a lot of players that would have bopped back on to check things out every year or so away.

By: sumdumguy

sumdumguy — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:57:13 +0000

Jumping on the bandwagon here – I’m glad I didn’t buy the lifetime subscription for LotRO. 3 months was all I needed to decide that it didn’t have the staying power to keep me playing.

By: Tagrun

Tagrun — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 01:35:16 +0000

Such a great point. If I am going to be offered a life time of something…I really do want a life time of that something. *goes off mumbling something else…*

By: Zubon

Zubon — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:28:29 +0000

In defense of City of Heroes, they only delete character names below level 6 and after 90 days, and then only if someone else seeks the same name. Level 6 is a few hours of play, so I don’t know how committed anyone is to such a character. But yes, I’ll agree that losing a name sucks.

City of Heroes does have the wise bit of bribing you to invite your friends back. Now they need to let you invite more than four people at a time.

I concur on The Lord of the Rings Online™: Shadows of Angmar™. I probably will never subscribe because I did not get the $200 lifetime offer for pre-orders. We have this great deal if you will buy the game on faith. If you want us to prove that the game is worth paying for, it will cost you extra.

By: Genda

Genda — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:08:36 +0000

Hmmmm.. I was thinking.. Dare I bring up player housing and their contents? EQ2 is a great example of the “DO” in that regard. I came back after being gone over a year, and all I had to do was pay some back rent. No hassle, no running around. All of my silly stuff was still in there. That’s how it should work.

By: The Grouchy Gamer » Is Copernicus (38 Studios) On The Right Track? I Think So.

The Grouchy Gamer » Is Copernicus (38 Studios) On The Right Track? I Think So. — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:55:33 +0000

[...] the positive helps me believe they are on the right track. On top of that, Shwayder’s “MMO Development Lesson” series really resonates with me and the mentality of many of the games I know. To me, that [...]

By: Skrymir

Skrymir — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 21:32:52 +0000

I had the same experience with LotRO as Genda. I like doing back to games every now and then to see the changes they’ve made, I rather not be punished for that. LotRO does have a $9.99/mo running now, if you’re interested. But I think you have to sign up for 3 months at a time.

Now if you remember the US release of FFXI, there are some great lessons to be learned there. At release you couldn’t pick which server to create your character on. Their balancing system would choose your server for you. I was blown away that a MMO wouldn’t let me play with my friends. I remember recreating my character over and over hoping to get on the same server as my normal play group.

FFXI is the only MMO that I can think of that deleted you characters? Were there any others?

-Skry

By: Ryan Shwayder

Ryan Shwayder — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 13:35:56 +0000

Great point, Genda. I had forgotten about that policy even though I noticed it when I decided I wanted to try the game out again. I did actually resub because I wanted to see how they did their player housing, but I immediately canceled after I got a grasp of how it worked. Had I not been resubscribing for the sake of design, the increased cost would have driven me away. I’m adding a comment about that in the main post. Thanks!

By: Genda

Genda — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 12:47:42 +0000

While we are calling people out, let me call out Turbine for one of their policies for LOTRO. I was a founder (pre-ordered) and so I got the $9.99 for life deal for my subscription. I got to a point where I wasn’t going to be able to play for a while, and so i canceled. When I went back, they wouldn’t let me have the $9.99 rate any longer. I’m sure they looked at it like it was incentive for me to not cancel, but I looked at it as punishment for canceling. Needless to say, when it came to that point, I decided not to resub. So instead of getting $9.99 a month from me they got $0.00.