Do you follow MMOs because of their designers?

[Morreion]

The Daily Grind: Do you follow MMOs because of their designers? (Massively)

An interesting Kill Ten Rats article a few weeks ago pondered the idea that gamers purchase games because those games are "by the makers of" some other game -- to their doom. Much ado, for example, was made over WildStar's dev team because of its members' work on World of Warcraft, and names like Jake Song, Brad McQuaid, and Mark Jacobs carry a lot of weight when attached to a new MMO title. Yet star power doesn't necessarily make for a good or successful game, especially if that famous designer wasn't directly responsible for whatever it was that made an old game great...


I do. I'm following Shroud of the Avatar because of Richard Garriott & Starr Long (UO) who are the main devs there. I'd follow a Raph Koster (UO, SWG) MMO in a heartbeat. I used to follow Brad McQuaid! But there certainly is no guarantee- it seems to be very hard to follow up an MMO hit with another hit.

[dortmunder]

Yes, and no.

If a game looks like crap, made by designers that previously made something awesome, I'm pretty much guaranteed to pass. I did grab a SotA pack though, because I hope they make something good of it. It currently "looks" pretty crappy, largely because of animations and no polish. Hopefully they'll sort that out.

I'll often play anything made by Blizzard though, because their games are usually good, at least for a while. I still play Diablo, Hearthstone, waiting to play Heroes of the Storm. Didn't enjoy the SC2 multiplayer though(too many gimmicky units), the single player campaign was great. Will probably play through them all again when the Protoss campaign draws near.

One thing friends and I agree about over WoW though, is that its character control is still one of, if not the best out there. It's one big deal breaker for me about ArcheAge now, the character control is sub-par. It's just a shame they have dumbed WoW down so much, or I would still play that.

I generally try to look at some actual gameplay and see if a game looks good, or looks like it could be good before blindly buying a game because of who made it. I don't know who makes that Life is Feudal game, but I was ready to buy it a while back, just because I had nothing to play. Sort of glad I didn't, it looks terrible now that I've seen some people playing it

[Regolyth]

There are very few people that I would actually follow simple because they made a game. That's partially because I know very few names when it comes to gaming. Although the few I do know, I probably would check out their game simply based on their name. Now whether or not I would stay, is completely based on gameplay. I do somewhat follow Shroud of the Avatar because Garriot is making it, but it's mainly because I'm a huge fan of Ultima Online and he's trying to make it UO2 (and isn't hiding the fact). I played Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning half because it was Marc Jacobs/Mythic and half because it was Warhammer (the Warhammer IP is too awesome to not get on board). I'm following Camelot Unchained mostly because it's PvP-centered and a marriage of Dark Age of Camelot and WAR.

So I mainly play a game based on what the game is, but having a good name behind it, one I can trust, does help give me that little push I need to back it.