How you are possibly being manipulated into liking this gameFollow

So did you use rabbit or bird entrails for that augury?

What you titled it: How you are possibly being manipulated into liking this game
How I would have titled it: MMO Launches and Manipulation

They didn't teach you about maintaining an objective standpoint and not treating your readers to a bias? Heck, a close friend of mine has a bachelor's in Psych and they taught that at the 100-level.

I love when people try to tell me the psychology of why I made a decision as if I had no agency or power to make a choice for myself. I believe marketing can and does influence decisions but I don't believe it controls me or my destiny. At the end of the day I decide what I like or dislike what I'm going to spend my time doing or not.

I think you the problem is that you are either misremembering history or have a very skewed view of what people are saying now.

I too played 1.0 beta, and I too was very critical. And I do remember getting rated down and called a troll, etc.

Here's the problem with the comparison:

1.0 was genuinely a crap game. There were many obvious flaws with it. People who defended it or felt hyped about it generally fell into two categories: Those who hadn't played it at all and those who had played it and were expecting a miracle patch to fix the flaws they saw while playing.

2.0 Is not crappy. The people who like it most are the people who have actually played it. No one is waiting for a patch to "fix" anything, because there's nothing inherently broken. Some one doesn't have to use their imagination to think of how the game might be fun to play, because it's already fun to play.

Also, the psychological principles you're talking about tend to be very weak, and they depend on having to commit up front. You tend to like the car you bought possibly as a coping mechanism for the fact that you paid a lot for it and can't easily recoup your investment. A car isn't very fungible so even if you bought a bad one, you might tend to over estimate how good it is. Similar for a spouse or a child. People tend to think more highly of family in part because they're basically stuck with them for life.

Pre ordering or playing a few beta weekends isn't nearly the same level of commitment. You can generally get back your small pre order deposit, if you even had to pay one, and most of the effort in beta testing is irrelevant, since servers were wiped prior to last weekend.

Experienced MMO players understand that the substantial commitment comes after launch. Hundreds or thousands of hours invested in a character, hundreds or thousands of dollars invested in subscriptions, etc. A 5 dollar deposit and a few weekends of play are a tiny portion of the total cost, and are very unlikely to influence some one's thinking about an MMO if they have some concept of how little an investment that really is.

I can't speak for every one else, but I beta tested Warhammer Online and pre ordered. Didn't buy it. Pre ordered and beta tested Age of Conan, didn't buy it. Pre ordered and beta tested FF14 v1.0, didn't buy it (wouldn't have played it if you paid me too, based on my experience in beta). I pre ordered and beta tested Guild Wars 2, and bought it. Same for RIFT. Why? Because those games were polished and fun in beta, and the others weren't.

The ideas you're talking about, they're relevant to human thinking in general, but not especially relevant to this game, and as such, that knowledge probably doesn't justify telling people that their preferences in this regard are merely an illusion.

Skinner hates that name, he prefers Operant Conditioning Chamber, but he was a bit of a nutjob.

The game launches in a few hours, depending on where you are, and we've spent the day discussing homosexual marriage and psychology. I'm speechless to be honest.

Anyone excited for Manchester United vs Chelsea on Monday?

I love this post
You win a cookie!
I won't argue with you but I will point out that many people have posted things like
"20,000 people not being able to log in isn't a problem"
or "there is no problem with entering codes" even though there were almost 40 diff topics on it across boards with 100s of responses
etc.
Those were the people I was mainly talking about.
The ones who think that even if 20% of NA can't get into the game, it isn't an issue at all because of x-excuse.


That was what i was going to post about next if i wouldn't have got rated down :p But yeah i tried mentioning that around 1.0 and people raged.

Well this is a new development. Apparently I don't actually like what I like.

Why is it so hard for you to swallow the fact that people are going to play this game and enjoy it? Some people just surprise the hell out of me.

Tad off topic but I for one would like to see one of these topics or one of the ones on gay marriage just devolve into cannibalism for a change. I mean that'd be something fresh and new for everyone to experience I'm sure. It'd bring a whole new light into such debates.

Don't like what that guy said? Well now you've the option to eat his liver. SpoilerMake it happen Devs<3

Not taking sides here, but that's not really what it means. Because there are goodies attached, it's easier for people who do pre-order to justify making their purchase. Almost any company marketing a product does this to some extent. It's not always the case and I'm not trying to come across like it is, but most of the time that's how people make decisions. That's just how it works. I'm not condemning anyone for being manipulated(if it makes people feel that badly), but it's pretty obvious that it's a tactic used to market and sell goods.

You've never played 1.0, but consider the people who already bought the game. What other motivation could they have to pre-order and purchase something they already own? Every time I've asked someone on these boards why they'd buy the game twice, they say because they didn't want to miss out on early access or because they wanted one or both of the bonus items. It's a digital download so it's not like it's going to be out of stock.

I'm not sure why this upsets people. I find it interesting that SE completely removed the necessity of buying the game again for the sake of the game, yet they still have a mass of people who will buy it for perks alone.


Disclaimer: Real talk for grown folks who can look past what they want for themselves and see the bigger picture.

SE is in a unique position here, there is no denying that. They will be able to see how many people are registering codes for pre-order bonuses on accounts that existed prior to ARR. We all know they want to stick to a sub model and we already know why, but the data they are able to get from this would provide a lot of insight into how well micro-transactions would do. Jus sayin




Everybody knows that God created the earth 5k years ago

Edited, Aug 23rd 2013 9:39pm by FilthMcNasty

But it's just not the same.