Recent searches
Search options
Administered by:
I thank Cory Doctorow for the term #enshittification it perfectly describes any late stage #MMO
I am a very old gamer, and I have seen several MMOs do this. Most have already passed on, but the two surviving examples are #GuildWars2 and #Destiny2.
Late stage MMO developers while preparing to move onto their next big product, do some interesting things while preparing to put their old game on maintenance. They ramp up the game's difficulty to cater to a niche audience that they are sure will not leave them.
They simplify the game by removing resources or currencies to streamline the economy and make things easier for the skeleton team who will handle maintenance.
They prioritize #PVP because their data wranglers tell them that those guys aren't going anywhere. And because the diehards also have significant crossover with the cash pigs and the whales they also dial up the paid offerings and micro transactions.
#Warframe seems to have avoided all this bullshit, because #Soulframe is a lateral move. Digital Extremes has their own bullshit with the lily white future setting where only five brown or black people seem to exist, but that rant is for another day.
@ecksearoh seems like a bit of an odd choice to note #GuildWars2.
The game caters to the broader playerbase, devalues challenging content and PvP, and has just increased resources in complexity considerably.
If there is any "enshittification" (and I don't think there is in the way of other game companies) then it's by making things easier and catering less to niche communities which means the latter is needing to deal more often with bugs, things not working, and inattentive balance.
@Lucinellia these were the trends I noted while I played. You might not have been there when the insane jumping puzzle push was overshadowing everything, or when WvW was initially being pushed. I was and that's what it felt like to me. They may have changed directions afterwards because there's no Guild Wars 3, but back then it truly sucked.
I didn't just hop into Guild Wars 2, I came to it from the first Guild Wars and beta tested Guild Wars 2. I watched the game and the developer change over time.
@ecksearoh @Lucinellia I don't know how long ago it was that you played, but ANet has been working to avoid a lot of the negative practices other companies\MMOs (especially with out a monthly sub) use to drive revenue. The replacement for the login reward is effectively a free battle.pass system, but where the rewards are very attainable, and if you don't have time to play you can (or will be, since it's still the first 'season') pick up the old rewards from the same system.
@ecksearoh @Lucinellia I mean, I'm not saying it's perfect (that's a very hard balance to strike between FTP, living content and devs eating), and it is a public company, so I'm always wary, but it isn't actively driving enshittification currently.
I haven't seen any other MMO that I would call "respectful" of players time.