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Hellgate reveals 2011 stats, hints at 2012 updates

Jef Reahard — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Horror, Game mechanics, MMO industry, News items, Hellgate: London, Free-to-play

T3Fun has released a few statistics designed to keep Hellgate Global in the public eye. Included in the data are interesting nuggets like the gender breakdown for characters created (60/40 in favor of the guys), the most-played class (Marksman), the least-played class (Guardian), and the class with the highest growth rate in terms of character creation (also the Guardian).

We're not exactly sure what that last bit means, but we can tell you that Hellgate's devs have a few new wrinkles planned for 2012 (assuming the world doesn't end in a hail of apocalyptic demon fire first). Among the improvements slated for the new year are "improved services, deeper guild engagement [...] and greater challenges for the most motivated players [via] some of the biggest events yet."

Hellgate Global is free-to-play, so there's really nothing stopping you from moseying over to the game's official website and downloading the client.

[Source: T3Fun press release]

Hellgate reveals 2011 stats, hints at 2012 updates originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 04 Jan 2012 13:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Enter at Your Own Rift: A guild-tool wishlist

Karen Bryan — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST

Filed under: Fantasy, Guilds, Opinion, RIFT, Enter at Your Own Rift

As we fended off dripping, soggy, Abyssal infiltrators all over the cities, many rejoiced at seeing the arrival of guild banks with the latest update. Finally, guild members could unload their stacks of tradeskill resources, extra shinies, and other random loot that ends up cluttering the bank and making guild leaders cringe in frustration.

Now that our patience has paid off, and the non-stop calls for guild banks has been answered, I'd like to show my appreciation by doing what any true MMOer would do -- rattle off a wish list of new guild tools that I want to see in RIFT! Read on for a look at what I'd like to see added, and also what I hope isn't put in game.

Continue reading Enter at Your Own Rift: A guild-tool wishlist

Enter at Your Own Rift: A guild-tool wishlist originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 20 Jul 2011 20:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Which guild tools make SOE's Community Influencers tick?

William Dobson — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Guilds, MMO industry

SOE called on their Community Influencers (a term which is defined near the beginning of this post) a while ago to get some feedback about guild tools in the games they play. The result was a document, "Fundamental Guild Tools", which lists all the most desired features of the Influencers group. Not all of these ideas are in SOE's games yet, but if they made it on to the document, chances are that they will be seen some time in the near future.

Looking through the list, there is a lot of focus on having features extend to outside of the game: being able to chat with guild members both in text and voice from the Station Launcher, checking guild mail without being logged in to the game, in-game message boards that can be viewed from out of the game, etc. Some suggested features that aren't in SOE's games right now are available in rival MMOs, and the fact that the term "RvR" appears on the document shows that at least someone had one of Mythic's games in mind -- but as is the way with games of all genres, if there's a good new idea or feature, it's probably going to be adopted by others later on. Have a browse through the full article to get an idea of what a guild in an SOE game will likely have access to down the track.

Which guild tools make SOE's Community Influencers tick? originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Player vs. Everything: The retention game

Cameron Sorden — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Business models, Culture, Game mechanics, Player vs. Everything

The conventional wisdom in any service-driven industry is that it's far, far cheaper to retain an existing customer than to recruit a new one. This is especially true in the MMOG industry, where your business model is largely dependent on maintaining a long-term subscriber base. The concept also applies to transaction-driven and episodic games, where you need your customers to want to stick around and continue spending money. Box sales are great, but ultimately they're pretty useless except as an indicator of how many people actually bought the game -- returning players are the bread and butter of the MMO world.

In fact, that's exactly why companies are so interested in finding out why you're quitting their game. If they can fix issues that are making a lot of people quit, they can retain more customers and drive up their revenue. Surprisingly, Blizzard is the only company I know of which actually makes people fill out an exit survey in order to cancel a subscription. It's not that annoying and it gives them great information about how to make their game better for you (so if you're adamant on copying Blizzard, that's a good thing to copy). Unfortunately, Blizzard keeps notoriously quiet about their internal numbers like that. So why exactly do people quit MMOGs, and what can and should game companies be doing to keep you interested?

Continue reading Player vs. Everything: The retention game

Player vs. Everything: The retention game originally appeared on Massively on Mon, 02 Jun 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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