George Moros
WarRavens
League of Infamy
44
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Posted - 2013.08.11 11:18:00 -
[1] - Quote
It's really interesting to see how different people have different criteria about seemingly very common and universal concepts.
What makes a game successful? Just look at EVE. It has subscription numbers counting at a couple 100K. Many MMO titles aspiring to be successful would look at those numbers as utter failure. Yet EVE lives for a decade. It has probably the most loyal and fanatical fanbase in the gaming industry and a slow, but steady and constant growth in subscribers each year. So, is EVE a succesful game or not? I think yes, but I know that many people think different.
EVE has some pretty unique concepts and models that stand it apart from virtually any game today. Incredibly complex, steep learning cliff (naming it curve is not adequate), permanent loss of ingame stuff, completely player driven economy, even most of the content (you know, stuff that happens in game) is also player driven - a true sandbox. You won't find most of that stuff in any other established MMO today (at least, not in the extent that EVE has).
Now, the problem in trying to be unique, original and attempting to go off the beaten path is that, by necessity, not everyone will actually like what you offer. I think nobody is more aware of that in the gaming industry than CCP. Not everyone likes a game in which you can lose, in an instant, something you worked for months to get, Not everyone likes a game which doesn't deliver you content on the platter, but merely gives you the tools to create it yourself. That's simply the fact of the matter.
So, what's with DUST? Did the game deliver what was promised/expected? In short - no. IMHO, the problem is two-fold.
Firstly, DUST currently lacks most of the complexity/tools EVE has that would make it truly stand apart from other shooters. There's no player driven economy, no castles to build/destroy, and no people to scam for billions of ISK. But this is the part where you simply must cut CCP some slack. There is no doable way to integrate two gaming worlds into one over night. Especially not when one of them is up and running for a decade, and other is just starting to develop. Expecting this from day one is simply unrealistic.
Secondly, (and this is where CCP actually did screw up) - the core game is not up to snuff. There are numerous issues plaguing the game, from the lack of basic stuff like all racial dropsuit variants, to numerous bugs and imbalances. I believe CCP expected those issues to arise, but not in the extent they did, and now they are in somewhat ungrateful position of postponing addition of new content (PvE, EVE-DUST link) in order to fix all that.
Finally, does all that mean CCP should just scrap DUST and move on? Not by a long shot. This game deserves to become what it's supposed to be - a truly unique and exceptional online shooter integrated into EVE universe. But (and this is kind of a point to this whole essay), even then, DUST will not be the game that everyone will want to play. If DUST follows some basic concepts that EVE has, and that make EVE such a unique game, then DUST will never be a game for the "mainstream" gamer, and therefore, not played by millions of people.
o/ |