The Cost of Convenience
I don’t really want to get into another argument with Keen again, but when the nature of Allods Online’s cash shop came up within one of his post threads, I couldn’t help but give my $0.02.
Let me start by saying I think Allods Online is a fine game. It’s very polished and delivers on a lot of features other MMOs have failed on. Although it’s way too much cute-on-cute for me, I can see the appeal. I hope it does well.
One of the reasons I won’t be playing however, is because I’m expecting some serious burns down the road with the cash shop.
It’s cool to sell convenience items on your cash shop. It’s not cool to directly inconvenience your players to send them to the cash shop.
Allods Online has introduced a “Fear of Death” debuff, reducing stats by 25% after leaving Purgatory (already a delay on your death). You can remove the debuff via gold or via a cash shop item (perfume). The perfume can also be obtained in-game via a daily quest. The debuff isn’t much different than the sort you may find in any MMORPG, except for one key difference: It’s really long (scales by level, 45 minutes at lvl 40). Stacking it is exceptionally nasty.
In WoW the death debuff is a decision pivot: “Do I go back to my body, or do I take the debuff and go somewhere else?” If you decide to accept the debuff, it will likely dissipate during your travel time, since it’s only 10 minutes. Players suffer with the death debuff in WoW. In Allods Online, it’s an imperative to remove if you reasonably wish to keep playing (at least at the higher levels).
It’s a clear push of inconvenience to get you into the cash shop and not a good indication for this game down the road. Players can decide if it’s a big deal to them or not. I generally agree with Keen’s summation that a death penalty is a good thing, but clearly this is a case of business model directing the gameplay.
That’s the idea of microtransactions isn’t it? To make the cash choice seem small and then add more later. A little bit here, a little bit there. Already players are calculating that only ~$22 would keep you lush in perfume per month, which makes me do a double-take, because there’s no coincidence that’s just slightly higher than a normal subscription fee.
That’s my $0.02. Or maybe that $0.02 is getting paid to gPotato?
. . .
If you’re curious to try Allods Online for yourself, they’ve opened up closed beta for a few extra days to everyone that signs up. See allods.gPotato.com. Just do me a favour and don’t send me screenshots of your gerbils, okay?
The Escalation of Convenience
Blizzard has changed initial mount prices to a mere 5 gold and dropped the level requirements down to lvl 20.
That fits in with their continual changes to reduce the curve for new players & alts. but I don’t think the timing on the change is pure coincidence: Champions Online is launching soon with travel powers available at level 5, which in overall level scale is comparable to WoW’s lvl 20.
Each new MMORPG seems to pick at least one feature where they add convenience and wave it about like a flag. It’s a short-term boost at most, it’s so easy for the grandfather games to follow suit. WoW started the trend when they launched WoW with no exp loss / debt. WAR tried with the “bears, bears, bears” concept but kill collectors mostly missed the mark (pretty much sums up that game IMHO). Next convenience on the horizon? Instant travel.
I’m not so convinced this is a good thing. Yeah, it’s easy to pick on a grind element or two, but in games where grind is a lot of the game: They will either end up removing all of the game’s hurdles, or more likely, just add more. It’s a neverending arms race.
As usual, it’s more fun to read about this on Penny Arcade. =)
Convenience Trumps All
There are essentially five driving forces for MMORPG players. These games, by their very nature have numerous (or at least multiple) activities and each player is motivated by the following:
- Progression – Experience to level, or obtaining gear at Endgame.
- Rewards – Gear, currency, notoriety or any other status-symbol or in-game possession.
- Fun Factors – Is the activity just plain fun to do, or awe-inspiring in some way?
- Competition – Many players are keen to compete and compare their performance with other players / groups / guilds / factions.
- Social Interaction – At the core of any multiplayer RPG is the basic social satisfaction from hanging out with your friends & guildmates, teaming up in a cooperative way and meeting / interacting with new people. Human desire to be accepted as part of a group should not be overlooked.
Each of these can motivate players in different directions. For instance, an activity could be fun, but the players may feel discouraged if it doesn’t provide experience. It’s great to be social, but if solo’ing is the fastest way to level, players will shun teaming up.
The first two motivations can be considered incentives in their purest form, in a way they are both rewards although it’s important to separate them because one will motivate a certain type of player whereas the other may not.
In an interview with Ten Ton Hammer, Mark Jacobs repeated an established adage in MMORPGs:
[quote=Mark Jacobs]
Players are always going to look for the quickest way to level. That’s true for any MMO. Any developer that doesn’t see that hasn’t been paying enough attention.
[/quote]
I’d call this more truthiness than truism, because it’s missing an important element–
Add Convenience
Convenience is the sixth motivator and it’s the trump card. You can take any combination of the above and mix in convenience and whatever the activity is, it will go over in a big way. One example is if quests are trackable on a map, most players will naturally complete the quests that are closest rather than any sort of story-progression.
Players will always find the shortcuts.
For Warhammer, Scenarios match multiple categories, they’re certainly competitive and fun and if the queues are short the experience is good. But above all, they’re super-convenient.
Mythic may try to nerf Scenarios, or more likely boost the incentives for other activities, but the fact of the matter is that they need to boost all of the motivators, not just exp and rewards if they hope to make their game more well rounded and get players deeper into RvR and Public Quests.
