http://www.pcgamer.com/how-team-fortress-2-has-survived-494-patches/
A very interesting article and some useful lessons in here.
The main gist was the way they use stories to promote their changes - something this game could learn a lot from at a broader level. (And no, I am not talking about new PvE content).
I remember a loooong time ago IceIX posted a patch note written with an in-universe style of explanation. It was pretty cool but seemed to be abandoned shortly after.
TF2 is a great lesson in why a development team should stick to their vision, not sway in order to appease the playerbase. That vision might lead to demise, or lead to success, but that’s what determines if games rise or fall. I was in TF2 when the very first change happened. They added an alternate weapon. The first the game had ever seen. They took the useless Pyro and gave him the uber power of the backburner, and added the overpowered airblast to the stock weapon. Players revolted. Hells were raised. Tantrums were thrown. Babies were rescued. But in the end, their vision for diversified classes and weapons, a system for cosmetics, and becoming the first big F2P game, turned the gaming world on its heads.
I always been a proponent that, yes, MPQ should take players’ ideas into consideration, but that doesn’t mean they should implement everything suggested, if the most desired ideas. Sometimes they fit with the bigger vision, and sometimes they don’t. Organizational truth: Don’t let your critics be your coaches. You can’t be swayed by every voice, other wise you just end up as a lot of noise.
Answer: hats.
In many respects I agree with this.
The concern I have is, that this game has no overarching vision. There is no long term story and no way the software presents such a thing. There is fiddling at the edges, endless new characters, never enough roster slots, occasional nerfs and boosts, but no story, no connection between one thing and another.
There is no emotional reason to stay connected to the game - nothing makes you want to follow along with the journey or be curious about what comes next.
There are just random variations of two game modes where you endlessly grind against the computer or a computer with a player name, roster slots, you get so many covers you don’t need, etc. etc. There are so many underlying fundamentals that could be redone but this dev team is never going to give it to us - just going to be another character and another workaround of handling covers and another random patch. All this is totally ok (it’s their game and they can do with it what they want), but the issues are far deeper.
I think there are a lot of (often legitimate) player concerns but they more so exist because of the poor underlying nature of how the game is presented and the (often) so-so way information is presented.
There are many variations of fictional characters, so with 10 minutes of thought and stealing a few other ideas from other things I’ve done, here is a story:
"The Infinity Gems have been destroyed. The Marvel Universe is in chaos.
It is up to you to put right, what has been wronged.
The Gems are shattered and scattered across the planet and it’s up to you to gather and use their abilities.
Fight alone or with others and make the universe whole again".
6 colours in game (representing the gems):
“Power Gem (red) – Increased strength and durability, enhances virtually any known superhuman ability, energy manipulation.
Time Gem (orange) – Time travel; stop, slow down or speed up flow of time; accelerate or slow down aging; see into past/future.
Space Gem (purple) – Travel through space, mostly through teleportation. Able to interfere with the motion of other objects.
Soul Gem (green) – Observe, attack or even steal a being’s soul or spirit. Also used to revert individuals to their natural state.
Reality Gem (yellow) – Alters all of reality; similar to the effects of a Cosmic Cube, but much, much higher.
Mind Gem (blue) – Near-limitless psionic/psychic abilities including empathy, telepathy and telekinesis.”
(or whatever colours if orange and yellow clash too much).
Each character gets a tiny (repeatable) PvE “tutorial” mission, through a central rostering model. Characters may have changes in abilities and colours on a rotational basis to keep things fresh (again, presented through any number of possible stories) - here is a concept I did a while ago. Then you can have whatever game modes you want, but they link back to the MPQ variation of the Marvel Universe.
Once again… stories - it’s fiction, made up, you can do what you want within a clear, understandable and unique take on the framework. You take the people with you on the journey.
Oh, and hats (or in this case, base characters with skins / variants).
I’m sure internally there’s a long term vision. Just because the players don’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Now whether it’s a good vision and whether they’re acting on that vision are completely different matters. The game will die with no vision. It’ll die with bad vision. It’ll die with good vision that doesn’t get followed through on. And this is true of almost all organizations. As consumers, we just all want the product we like to do well.
I am sure there is a business model, but that is hardly an outwards facing thing.
If players aren’t seeing it AND it’s something that players should be seeing (in the broadest sense of the term), then the company should be doing a better (or different) job of getting their message across.
Correct. ICEIX used to do this all the time. However, many players were confused by the format. Therefore, MPQ stopped doing it.
Here is how they used to do it.
the one lesson MPQ should learn from TF2 is paid hats so they can focus on PVE story/content
Yeah, like when the critical tiles multiplied damage way too much he was saying something like the might of the heroes had to be reigned in as they were causing too much destruction…then go on to say what he meant.
Back when we were Agents, too.
How many hero points would people drop on an Unusual Burning Bag-Man Mask?