Update: He’s back! Mr. Freeman appears to be reposting some of his material from the old blog. I hope he has the opportunity to do new writing as well.
Scott Jennings over at Broken Toys posts about the sad news that Jeff Freeman has taken down h…

I read Jeffs blog pretty regularly, and it had some nice food for thought in it (especially in the essays section – girls cheating when playing jump rope, permadeath, advancement through quest progression, …).

I think a few factors played together to cause the recent uproar at the SWG boards about Jeff’s blog.

In an entry labeled “Shenanigans” Jeff talked about Star Wars Galaxies and his role in the design of the NGE (albeit as far as I remember the words “SWG” or “NGE” were never used). The basic statements were that he is not the only one responsible for the NGE design, but that he had his part in it (he did not state which parts were his ideas and which parts he didnt like, if any). This was the first time his blog got dragged to the official SWG forums, as far as I know.

In his last update before he took his blog down, he specifically stated that “MMOs need complexity”. The problem with this statement was that the NGE is widely perceived as a dumbing-down of the game, a perception that was underlined by SOE and LA public relations (“kill, get treasure, repeat”, to quote Nancy McIntyre of NYT fame).

A large part of the player base still playing SWG at that time was not interested in a dumbed-down game, though (the players wanting a less complex game already left for other games), and talking about games needing complexity after taking part-responsibility for dumbing down the very game he is the Lead Gameplay Designer for made no sense at all – philosophing one way and designing another way. That is the main reason he got torn apart on the SWG forums for this particular blog entry – the players liked his vision more than what actually ended up in the game.

Should game designers blog their ideas to encourage discussion with other designers? Absolutely. Can I understand Jeff taking down his blog? Absolutely – the question of his ideas being different to the SWG implementation is opening a can of worms nobody wants to get into. Is Jeff right when he says he cannot discuss anything on his blog anymore since it will be dragged to the official boards? Absolutely.

Having said that, I think it is a pity that the blog is no more, as I enjoyed reading it (although I didnt take part in discussing things). Its also a pity that some forum trolls are not able to formulate their criticism in a respecting way and need to resort to flames.

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On another topic I read here:
If people are not satisfied with a game anymore, they can just pack up and leave – no need to argue over it, take it as it is and enjoy it, or simply leave.

This statement is oversimplifying when talking about MMOs in my opinion. An MMO is more than a game to the players, and an MMO is designed to be that way (some more, some less).

Raph Koster believes in two things when it comes to MMOs: Building communities with strong ties and creating a sense of ownership. There are several effects caused by those two (as Koster explains in more detail), but I will focus on the effects that keep players playing the game.

Koster points out that building a strong community is important, since a strong community will keep individual players from leaving the game – there are other players in the game who depend on them, hence they have responsibility for those other players, and holding responsibility for others always means it is harder to just leave. This design idea can directly be seen in SWG, with player cities and the inter-profession-dependencies of the original ones being the most obvious ones.

Creating a sense of ownership also focusses on the individual player, but also on whole groups of players. Koster says that in order to keep a player playing the game, the want for him to possess something in the game needs to be created, and that he cannot take his possession with him if he leaves that game. Legendary items fall into this category, player achievements (successful crafter businesses, for example), and most noteworthy player cities also fall into this category (“This is our city, a city that we built together and a sign of our community, friendship and common beliefs we share”).

I will get SWG-specific one last time here (I know this blog is not related to SWG, but SWG is a good example): SWG was successful in both points I mentioned above.
The original SWG had a lot of community-encouraging concepts: The crafters needed the combat players, the entertainers needed the crafters, the combat players needed the crafter and the entertainers. Also, there was no way for an avatar to become a good crafter, entertainer and combat player at the same time – people needed to choose which role they wanted to fill, and they could only have one toon per server to play with their friends (although changing professions was a matter of days). People could band together and found player cities, and every single individual could have an important role in that player city.
Also, SWG created a strong sense of ownership – it was hard to become a good crafter, but running a successful virtual crafting business in SWG was considered an achievement one could be proud of. The same is true for PvPers defending their hometown and faction base, they could become well-respected by the community. The same is true for PvE players – there were rare loots, and possessing them was something to be proud of, also.
I wont even talk about the achievement and reward that was unlocking the alpha class (whole different topic on its own).

That those concepts held SWG together in its foundation can be seen by reading the comments of current and former SWG players:
“Our guild left overnight” or “I am only subscribing because of the friends I can talk to on the forums”: strong community bonds, whole guilds voted on a game to play next to see each other in that game again.
“I lost millions worth of resources in the CU / NGE” or “Its sad to see our player city become deserted” or “Unbelievable to think of the effort I put into becoming a Jedi Knight when now it is available as a starter profession”.

Because of all of this, the statement “Just leave if you dont enjoy the game anymore” is unfair since MMORPGs are designed not to be “just another game”.

Never, never, never. Only don’t argue that they don’t. Not with them, anyway.

If players knew what they wanted they’d have jobs making their own games.

I’ve learned after being in front of the community in one way or another over the years to be pretty guarded about what I say even to my close friends. I think it’s a shame though that people end up having to shut down inciteful and interesting blogs just because they’re getting heat from players for it. No one deserves that no matter who they work for unless we’re talking about a government scandal or something. In this case we’re talking about a game that at anytime people can hit ‘cancel’ on their account manager for and be done with it. Like Scott says, sometimes you need to learn when it’s time to walk away. If it’s no fun, then stop. Take a break. If you go back to it, then great. If you stay away from it, great. It’s a game meant for entertainment and shouldn’t be your life. It’s just harder for MMO players because when you divorce from the game you are often leaving friends behind but sometimes it’s a sacrifice you need to make for sanity’s sake.

You represent the company you work for. Of course, naturally, it\’e2\’80\’99s going to spill over from one venue to the other, despite any boundaries you would wish to impose.

Welcome to real life.

You say that as though I am implying it shouldn’t be this way.

I mean, it wasn’t for a couple of years, but now that it is that way, well, yeah, that’s just the way it is.

I haven’t shed any tears over it.

Happy V-Day.

It\’e2\’80\’99s not an issue of \’e2\’80\’9cdealing with criticism\’e2\’80\’9d.

The issue is that we cannot have philosophical design discussions on the game\’e2\’80\’99s official forums. Since anything I post about game design on my blog is the same thing as posting on the official forums (since it winds up there almost immediately anyway), I can no longer post those things on my blog either.

You represent the company you work for. Of course, naturally, it’s going to spill over from one venue to the other, despite any boundaries you would wish to impose.

Welcome to real life.

When leaving the first love in your life you are suffering trauma. After the second you are cautious. After the third you think “there are plenty more in the world if this one doesn’t work out”. After the fourth you will hop into bed with just about anybody…..including going back to old relationships just to make sure you made the right decision.

SWG was my first. Since then…AO, Horizons, EQ2, COH,WOW, and COV.
I’m at the point where I will “hop into bed” with any MMO. Like I have done with real love, I am very careful about emotional investment, because the games (like people) evolve over time into something different than what you were first attracted to.

Which is probably a twisted sign that the non-gameplay stuff: communities, guilds, etc. are working too well at times. People want to leave the games but are trapped in guild-relationships where they don’t want to betray their friends by leaving. Ah.. mammal herd/pack instincts rule again.