I'm a pretty forgiving person, so I don't usually allow a bad first impression to cloud my judgement. I try to give the benefit of the doubt, even when I know its leaving me open for disappointment.
It usually takes me under a week to determine that an MMORPG is not what I'm looking for, because its best to make an educated decision. Truth is, I can usually tell within the first hour.
Example: the first thing I did in the last MMO I played was attempt to jump off a cliff into a sparkling pond below. I knew it wasn't part of the golden path because the guard was urging me to move on, yet I thought it was important to know that I had the option to do "my own thing." When I found an invisible wall preventing this activity, I was itching to uninstall it right there. How typical, I thought. I was generous though, and continued playing for a week, despite my first impression.
Turned out my first impression was right, yet I held out until I had a better understanding.
I'll ask a related question instead of answering directly: Should the starter zone(s) be beautiful and peaceful? Or can they be war-torn, ugly etc?
For example, I didn't like Rift's newbie zone (guardian side) very much. Dark, ugly and undead everywhere. Although it did a good job of throwing you into the story. Quite a contrast was Tera's starter zone, which was breath-takingly beautiful, so much that I wanted to stick around in it to enjoy the scenery.
For me personally, I prefer a nice, friendly place to start (and its a good way to show off the game engine). Then if the game mechanics also feel good, I'm pretty much certain to stick around.
First impressions can be quite important. A game that dumps me into the world at large wearing rags and my fists as my only weapon is going to intrigue me so much faster than one where I spawn into a tutorial that holds my hand, leads me to a class trainer that outfits me in gear and calls me a hero.
Also, community first impression is very important to me. If I try a game and the chat is full of 'l2pn00b' talk then I'm unlikely to give the game the benefit of the doubt even if it's the most stellar game I've ever seen.
If I'm not hooked by the time I level into the teens, then you've lost me. Games that rush you through the first 10-20 levels can't hope to compete with the game that makes me work for it.
Does any of that even answer your question, Kilsin? I hope my scattered thoughts have some insight at least.
Sarim said:I'll ask a related question instead of answering directly: Should the starter zone(s) be beautiful and peaceful? Or can they be war-torn, ugly etc?
For example, I didn't like Rift's newbie zone (guardian side) very much. Dark, ugly and undead everywhere. Although it did a good job of throwing you into the story. Quite a contrast was Tera's starter zone, which was breath-takingly beautiful, so much that I wanted to stick around in it to enjoy the scenery.
For me personally, I prefer a nice, friendly place to start (and its a good way to show off the game engine). Then if the game mechanics also feel good, I'm pretty much certain to stick around.
I had the same first thoughts of Rift too Sarim, great story and immersive but something about being thrown into ugly undead war put me off and made it hard to push through, once I did I was very glad to be away from it.
I prefer beautiful and peaceful myself but I am sure everyone is different and it would also depend on race/class choice.
Marilee said:First impressions can be quite important. A game that dumps me into the world at large wearing rags and my fists as my only weapon is going to intrigue me so much faster than one where I spawn into a tutorial that holds my hand, leads me to a class trainer that outfits me in gear and calls me a hero.
Also, community first impression is very important to me. If I try a game and the chat is full of '2pn00b' talk then I'm unlikely to give the game the benefit of the doubt even if it's the most stellar game I've ever seen.
If I'm not hooked by the time I level into the teens, then you've lost me. Games that rush you through the first 10-20 levels can't hope to compete with the game that makes me work for it.
Does any of that even answer your question, Kilsin? I hope my scattered thoughts have some insight at least.
First impressions are important. Remember the big discussion on starting cities? :)
I will usually give the game a chance because the first month is free in most cases.
It's funny you guys mention Rift. That game held me for only 2 or 3 days and I had friends with which to group. I just didn't get into it.
That is a tough question. Some games I am willing to look past glaring issues and other games not so much. For a game that I am invested in it is easy to look past what is and look for what can be. I was a champion for Vanguard until I was pretty much the last one turning out the lights in my guild before moving on. The first impression is a big deal when it comes to new games and game companies.
When Guild Wars 2 was hyping up the game for release. They kept talking about how they redefined the group roles and how new an innovative it was. However, I went into the game sceptical and I knew within the first ten levels it was not the game for me.
People can be lost or won with the PR. At this point, Pantheon is saying and doing all the right things. A quick way to ruin the buzz would be a bait and switch situation. Other games have done this in the past and it has not worked out for them in my opinion. It is important for people to look past bugs and flaws and see what the potential is. It is important also for companies not to make huge promises they can not deliver on. When it comes down to it I think that is the biggest factor for a first impression. If expectations are realistic it drastically lessens the chance of a bad first impression.
I usually reserve final judgement until I approach the level cap. I personally am someone who likes to compete for server/world firsts, so if the game is unplayable/unenjoyable at the maximum level come it's release I usually lose interest.
Age of Conan has some of the most beautiful MMORPG graphics I've ever seen. The starting island looked phenomenal. While this definitely caught my attention and the leveling/combat experience captured my interest, it wasn't until I entered the final zones that I started to lose my interest. Dungeon bosses dropped no loot, gave little to no experience, quests were incomplete, even regular zone mob difficulty wasn't properly tuned allowing for exploiting grind groups. Instead of being one of the server first maximum level barbarians I uninstalled the game...
Similar experiences with Rift and SWTOR come to mind as well, although not as drastic.
MMORPGs by design are created where you spend the majority of your time at the maximum level (as you should) so it's expected that there be an abundance of things to do once you reach that level (at whatever pace that may be) but I by no means think that an MMORPG should only start once you reach the maximum level (I'm looking at you WoW).
I usually give a game to about level 10 to truly figure out what I think of it. Although I usually have a pre-conceived notion much quicker, but am willing to give it a chance to reclaim me.
That said, if I can reach level 10 in 20 minutes, you've lost me.
If I spend every moment of the game running from question mark to exclamation point, you've lost me.
If the tutorial or starting area basically has me alone in the world, you've lost me.
If the entire gameplay is about doing a linear line of quests, you've lost me.
If each zone is geared to a specific small level range, you've lost me.
If I find I am literally following a single dirt path through your world, you've lost me.
If I am unable to wander off in a random direction and still accomplish something, you've lost me.
If every NPC I pass calls for me to come talk to them about "their problem", you've lost me.
Marilee said:First impressions can be quite important. A game that dumps me into the world at large wearing rags and my fists as my only weapon is going to intrigue me so much faster than one where I spawn into a tutorial that holds my hand, leads me to a class trainer that outfits me in gear and calls me a hero.
...
If I'm not hooked by the time I level into the teens, then you've lost me. Games that rush you through the first 10-20 levels can't hope to compete with the game that makes me work for it.
I'm pretty much right here with Marilee.
One of the better things about EQ1 at the outset was the very distinct lack of handholding. I drowned in a fountain in Felwithe and got killed by 2 different NPCs in my first hour of playing EQ1, and my best friend was one of the gazillion wood elf players who fell off Kelethin and died within minutes of logging in the first time. That made EQ1 scary right from the outset, and that scary stuck with you for the longest time. The best way to describe it was Norrath being a world that dared you to try and conquer it, while WoW's Azeroth (and many other newer MMO worlds) simply added a level check to a pre-conquered, submissive world. At level 15, do not go here, but at level 20, feel free to come back and ROFLstomp all before you. In WoW, you could eventually feel safe, and in EQ, you pretty much never felt safe. EQ1's world felt a lot more tangible and visceral as a result.
To add that to Furor's point, that was the nice thing about EQ1's max level. Max level content in early MMOs felt properly dangerous, as in, you're smoked if a single mob sees you. Yes, you got to max level, good for you, doesn't mean that a pack of mobs 15 levels below you can't zap you in under 5 seconds, but hey, good job on the exp grinding! Norrath never stopped giving you content that could kill you in 2 hits. That was a big part of why the max level content stayed fun, because lower level content could still kill you pretty decently, thus max level content was serious about staying on the correct side of dangerous.
So my first impression of the game needs to be that I find it harsh and unforgiving, so every ding, every single % of HP/DPS, and every day you live through seems like a legit achievement. And that difficulty should either remain constant or even increase as your level goes up. Killing a yellow at level 5...no sweat. Killing a yellow at level 50...bring a bunch of friends, and hope you pull it off.
Yes, of course they do!
But just so i can clarify, for me they have nothing to do with typical aspects such as 'hard/easy start', 'why are mountains this shade of brown' or 'why do i start with this spell or that skill'? All superficial, all either subject to change and/or partial, and as such inadmissable. Patience is a virtue, absolutely no reason to rush to conclusions on a genre being all about patience :)
That said, what needs to impress me (read, the sooner the better) is broken down in more or less three distinct categories. from least to most important:
1) UI:
a) Are its elements unattached from one another, or can they be?
b) Are they scalable?
c) Are they movable?
d) Does the accursed health bar have a design/docking function that allows it to be anywhere other than the top left of the screen? Just because one game shipped with it there, doesn't mean all have to until the end of times you know..
e) How friendly is the chat window?
2) Level design:
a) Layout/geography
b) Land mass splits, junctions, etc. If, when, where and how
c) Mob placement. Density and location
3) Pacing:
a) Skill/spells acquisition
b) Item farm/grind need
c) Progress-to-hardship factor
These are what i'll be looking for, these will get to shape my opinion on Pantheon. And no, these do not entail a need for patience. If they are found lacking even in the first couple of areas..problem..
(do consider that the first areas are as always the ones that have been iterated upon the most)
I know to some of you this may sound overly demanding, geeky, picky, quirky or adjective of your choice. Hardly. Play MMOs for 20+ years, you get to amount sufficient empirical experience to make a call or two. If it still strikes you as too much? Read them again, apply them to all the MMOs that never managed to capture your interest, see if it gets you anywhere :)
It is an odd thing for me. In all honesty I normally make my mind up before I play now. I know thats not fair but I just don't play many games right now at all that if I am going t commit the time I need to be pretty sure. That being said there are differnt things that let me know.
For example EQ I was not sure about at first I played on a friends account just to try but I wanted to play with them so I got my own and never really stopped because I was hooked by level 10. On the other hand even after having supper high hopes for WoW after a month I was pretty out of it. For Vanguard though it was a few months and mostly because the community on my server was to small and I could never find a group with my limited time but I looked past some intial bugs (like zones running out of mobs) to stick with it until that point. EQ2 I was not able to get into it until I got sick and just physically could do little else other than start getting outside the starting areas and got into the game.
Overall I would say I typically give a game a least a month so first impressions are not that important but I have already weeded out a lot of the game that first impression would have made up my mind one way or another. If any of that makes sense.
The two most important things to me when I start playing a new game, given the game runs well enough to play at launch, is having a defined class I can learn to play that can't be changed in a moment’s notice, in addition to finding a game in which it could take me upwards of six months to a year to max level. If a game offers both of these mechanics from day one I'll likely be very willing to overlook tons of other issues at launch. Just having those two mechanics in place goes a very long way in making a good impression to me, and if/when that has happened in the past it went a long way to keep me playing. So, I guess my answer is the first impression is pretty relevant for me since a big part of that includes staple mechanics that are very important to me.
Given the mechanics I need are there, if the game has a bad launch I will be frustrated for sure, but I will stick with it for at least a week to give it a fair shake.
I never judge a book or MMORPG by its cover or lack there of .
As for how long before I determine its not my style of game : depends . It could be weeks or months .. Took less then week to realize WOW was not my style . Yet took months of Landmark to realize I dislike building ( actully I suck at Building ) .
As long as characters are interesting , the ability to climb that mountain I see rather then being lead away . decent game play and mechanics I'm willing to try it out .. I still find Zork fun :)
to the north you see a window ajar , to the west a forest hehehe
I'll answer the direct questions first, then meander down the path that this conversation invariably leads me to:
a) As with anything, the first impression is very important; you NEVER get to make another one. As an example, if half of my guild can't get on our server of choice on release day due to load, lag, borked account management, etc., and we end up scattered to the winds in levels and locations, it's not a game breaker, but it definitely doesn't make the experience super enjoyable (nevermind the fact that I'm usually one that does NOT get online during this period and I want to play RIGHT NOW, DAMMIT!!!). This has happened in the past, and some of my guildies are a LOT less tolerant than I am, so we invariably lose a few right off the bat due to a crap launch.
b) Typically, once I pay for a game, I will play it for at least a month -- this makes me feel like I've at least gotten my money's worth, either from the cost of software purchase, or the first month's subscription or whatever. Yes, a month is an arbitrary amount of time, but it's mine to set, so =P~.
With that said, for some reason that completely baffles me, MMO's have always gotten a pass on a crappy first impression. If first impressions were indicative of whether an online game survived or not, certain other games would've never seen the success they have because, let's be honest, some of them have been god-blessed dumpster fires at release with the ungodly latency issues, load issues shutting down character creation on new servers, etc.
But, for whatever reason, game customers are VERY forgiving if the product doesn't completely suck. I honestly don't even have a theory on WHY we put up with some of the crap we do, paying for services that don't function as intended/advertised/expected, because that certainly is not the case in any other industry that I can think of off the top of my head.
In closing, EverQuest (1999-2005) and Vanguard (beta circa-2006 - Dec. 22, 2009) are the two games I've played the longest, and enjoyed the most, in my 17ish years of MMO experience, and I'm REALLY looking forward to another such experience with Pantheon!
First impressions are definitely important to me, but in a different way than you'd normally assume. If the front-end is too over the top and trying too hard, that can be really detrimental. It should be a strong foundation, but some MMO's try to go way overboard on a dramatic intro/early setting and then dial it back. This kills all interest for me.
Most games that start off this way I won't give more than an hour or two tops to sway me back in their favor.
EQ1 had it done right early on. Just plop you in the world as a nobody, and go figure it out yourself. No dramatic intro story and cutscenes. No amped up flashy stuff, otherwise you leave players with nothing to build to. The wonder and curiousity gets smothered to death.
I feel any "intro" type material should be laid out during character creation. Lay down general background text snippets based on your character choices. I mean real broad strokes here, not some "personal story" deal. Again, I think EQ did a great job. Broad race blurbs, class blurbs, and starting city blurbs (and artwork for all of course).
I don't want all the flash, features, and dramatic stories shoved down my throat the first hour of playing. I want to feel like a grain of sand in an immense world.
edit: Typos!
For me, a positive first impression is not something I typically have. I am either immediately turned off by a game or I play it in a neutral attitude until I either get bored or find myself playing it way past bedtime.
What turns me off is usually things like 1) hitting level 2 or 3 before leaving the starting town, 2) a lot of flashy in your face graphics and animations, 3) excessive/unrealistic art, armor (boob armor), huge shoulder pads, etc
What I notice over the long term that turns a neutral interest into something more is a vast world where I feel overwhelmed and a little scared, immediately understanding the game is challenging and the satisfied feeling when you finally hit level 2, an intuitive interface, and knowing my race and class is different than another person in the same role.
I think the race of the character should have a huge impact on the starting area. I totally loved the starting areas in VG and I hope they can do the same with this game, though on a much smaller scale. Orcs should start in a war torn area, where as may be Elves should start in more of a peaceful, tranquil home.
I would love to see a larger "Hub" cities connecting the starting cities with a mixure of races from the starting cities in both npcs, quests, and in styling. After the 3 starting area characters come together then they can be on their own to venture in the world. It could be cool to see a Orc styled Blacksmith standing across the street from a Elvish Herbal shop. It does not have to be a true racial building (could have influences from the other races) but enough so you know what race runs the shop.
This "comming together" in a hub city in my opinion would create and strengthen a "factional" bond or allegiance between the 3 races.