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Good software knows when to stop

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#291

Post by masterlee_fn »

mechanicalpulse wrote: post #196
thewebguyd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair on the Blizzard example, I think Blizzard could have also made the player base just as happy by, doing as your quote said, understanding the underlying problem. It wasn't only a "we want WoW classic bug for bug," it was "the modern game has become so unrecognizable that it's basically WoW 2.0, you ruined it with the modern systems" Blizzard could have rolled back LFR/LFG, class homogenization, brought back…

> I think Blizzard could have also made the player base just as happy by [...] understanding the underlying problem. I'm reminded of the 1995 interview in which Steve Jobs elucidated the fundamental reasons that Xerox missed its golden opportunity to own the computer industry and why former PepsiCo CEO John Sculley later ultimately failed at the helm of Apple. It's fundamentally the same issue with a number of gaming…

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#292

Post by oreally »

john_strinlai wrote: post #254
oreally wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but players actually, really, 100% truthfully, no exaggeration, wanted classic WoW. not retail WoW with some classic-feeling bits. they wanted (basically) bug-for-bug classic. You're speaking in the same manner of absolutes like most gamers tend to speak on discussion forums. It makes you unbelievable tbh. Get this: The playerbase for retail is still larger than classic. And those who advocate world PVP have their…

> Get this: The playerbase for retail is still larger than classic. get this: this is completely irrelevant to the point of my comment. > It doesn't mean the vocal minority are right for all instances. good thing i didnt say anything close to this!

> but players actually, really, 100% truthfully, no exaggeration, wanted classic WoW.

Yup.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#293

Post by masterlee_fn »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #71
lemagedurage wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't discount nostalgia. Sometimes an otherwise objectively worse product is better because it reminds people of the past.

But there are people who didn't play WoW back in the day who still love classic, so it can't just be nostalgia. Vanilla WoW really did have a different design ethos than the later expansions did, and some people prefer that experience.

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#294

Post by masterlee_fn »

thewebguyd wrote: post #81
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there are people who didn't play WoW back in the day who still love classic, so it can't just be nostalgia. Vanilla WoW really did have a different design ethos than the later expansions did, and some people prefer that experience.

> Vanilla WoW really did have a different design ethos than the later expansions did, and some people prefer that experience. Right, and that's my point. When you take away the nostalgia for the content, you reveal what players are asking for, which is a reversion to what is effectively a previous game as modern WoW lost all of what made it a good game, to those players, in the first place. So yeah, there was definit…

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#295

Post by pmoati »

The Getting Real philosophy aged remarkably well ! "Say no by default" is something I wish more open-source maintainers would internalize... Every feature you add is a feature you maintain forever and knowing where to draw the line is probably one of the hardest skill in software.

Re: Good software knows when to stop

#296

Post by masterlee_fn »

josephg wrote: post #209
thewebguyd wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Vanilla WoW really did have a different design ethos than the later expansions did, and some people prefer that experience. Right, and that's my point. When you take away the nostalgia for the content, you reveal what players are asking for, which is a reversion to what is effectively a previous game as modern WoW lost all of what made it a good game, to those players, in the first place. So yeah, there was definit…

Yes. I've watched some videos on wow by Kevin Jordan, who was on the original team. He said the original game was built on 3 pillars: 1. Advancement over time. 2. Player interaction. Hard content should be hard in order to push players into working together to overcome challenges. 3. The world is a character in the game. Even when you eventually got mounts later in the game, they made it so mobs can knock you off & d…

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#297

Post by masterlee_fn »

InitialBP wrote: post #73
lemagedurage wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We shouldn't discount nostalgia. Sometimes an otherwise objectively worse product is better because it reminds people of the past.

Another example is Old School Runescape, who reverted back to an earlier save and has now diverged as an entirely separate game running with older systems as they lost a ton of players with their "Evolution of Combat" update. While nostalgia is definitely a powerful tool, I agree with the previous commenter that the original WoW was a very different game than the modern version and it seems like that is one of the co…

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#298

Post by masterlee_fn »

hinkley wrote: post #109
thewebguyd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair on the Blizzard example, I think Blizzard could have also made the player base just as happy by, doing as your quote said, understanding the underlying problem. It wasn't only a "we want WoW classic bug for bug," it was "the modern game has become so unrecognizable that it's basically WoW 2.0, you ruined it with the modern systems" Blizzard could have rolled back LFR/LFG, class homogenization, brought back…

I spent some formative years helping people run MUDs and applying my pattern matching brain to the problem of how to make a multiplayer game succeed. I played WoW precisely because they dodged the first bullet, which is inflationary or deflationary economies caused by each content creator trying to leave their mark by making better gear for their quests than are already available. The whole thing with used equipment…

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#299

Post by masterlee_fn »

adampunk wrote: post #50
thewebguyd wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair on the Blizzard example, I think Blizzard could have also made the player base just as happy by, doing as your quote said, understanding the underlying problem. It wasn't only a "we want WoW classic bug for bug," it was "the modern game has become so unrecognizable that it's basically WoW 2.0, you ruined it with the modern systems" Blizzard could have rolled back LFR/LFG, class homogenization, brought back…

They knew exactly what they wanted and they knew exactly how to ask for it. That’s the point. engineers love announcing that nobody but engineers knows what’s important in software; that’s complete and total bollocks. wow classic is a perfect example because it is exactly the sort of thing that the business unit and the engineers and the designers would not want to do. We don’t need to assume that because we have hun…

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Re: Good software knows when to stop

#300

Post by masterlee_fn »

AberrantJ wrote: post #19
john_strinlai wrote: post #12

> Ignore feature requests — don't build what users ask for; understand the underlying problem instead not quite in the same area, but this advice reminds me of blizzard and world of warcraft. for years and years, people requested a "classic" WoW (for non-players, the classic version is an almost bug-for-bug copy of the original 2004-2005 version of the game). for years and years, the reply from blizzard was "you thin…

That's also a good case of the difference between a "Yeah, it'd be cool if you added this feature for free" type of feature request vs "I'm actively paying a company making a hack version of what I'd like from you - would you please let me pay you instead - for the love of god, please please please take my money?"

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