The perils of MMO tourism

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"Retention" is going to be a hot topic over the next few years. What causes player retention or abandonment? What types of features increase retention?

It seems like the last couple years have been full of "What does the player want?" instead of "What makes the player stay?". No downtime, instant travel, fast combat, quick leveling, no grind, map markers, and solo content may sound great. Those kinds of features may make a game easier to jump into, but it also makes them easier to jump out of. I enjoy those types of features, but I rarely stick with the games that use them.

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I just have to say that this is an *excellent* point.

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Right, lets make a game people DON'T like to play instead by sticking in arbitrary and needless time wasters. Funny enough WoW has had a lot of players stick with it for a long while, yet it is the epitome of this mindset. (ease of leveling, easy to get into)

The problem I see is that many of these games are trying to be like WoW, but they are trying to be like WoW without the content, polish or overall feel that WoW has. In the end they just get a boring gimped MMO. I'm not saying following the WoW model is a bad thing (although stepping out the box would be a welcome change) but at least get it right. Too many times developers sort of half-ass it and we end up with a game that just sucks.

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