Originally posted by chance-airwolf
Some time ago I d/l'd Americas Army and was a bit put off that you were forced to complete basic training (i.e. learn what all the keyboard commands were) before you could die online in typical noob fashion.
Disclaimer: This post may become a rant.
This was one of the good points of the game. Most games have some kind of tutorial, but they usually also have an option to skip them.
By forcing the user to learn something in order to play, you automaticly cancel out a large percentage of potential players. Possibly even the majority of players (Hereafter referred to as "Average Gamers" or simply "Idiots") fall into this group. The problem with them is, they don't want to learn the game, they don't understand that it matters how they behave. They're looking for a single player game. It's a group which are not easily captured in a pay-to-play online game(for fairly obvious readond). But a game that can snag them is guarenteed to make money. And so they keep trying.
One thing people tend to miss, more players isn't always better. In any mmog, the most important part of the game, beyond any single aspect of the game itself, is the community. A bad community can turn a great game into crap, and a good community can make even a bad game fun.
NOTHING can ruin a game faster than a flood of complete idiots who never really become part of the community. Whats worse is when the developers start listening to these people to try and attract more, and get more to stay. They usually succeed in keeping some, but almost always manage to alienate thier veteran players which are by far the most important group. In EVERY game, the majority of newbies never stay long enough to become veterans. The ones who do stay however, are the ones who will be paying thier monthly fee for years.
Greed kills games. It kills off the long term players, while trying to grab short term players who all tend to leave after a few months.
