Ok, amny of the people who contribute regularly to the forums also know most of the multiplayer games on AG. For those game developers out there, I created this thread so that they know what the Gamers want.
Please add thoughtful suggestions and please don't negate anyone's opinions.
There's always the obvious less lag and no hackers or glitchers. Having a friendlist and private rooms. Be able to kick people from rooms. Few imbalances between low and high level players
those are the ones i remember off the top of my head
Yeah, the newest (i think) multiplayer game is The Last Castle. There is no friend list or the ability to kick people from rooms. I don't know about other games so any players of other multiplayer games on AG wanna reply?
On release, immediate focus: 1. Server loads and ping (balance). 2. Invisible depth, meaning you cannot see or truly understand the limits of the game as soon as you start. 3. Mother moderation. If someone hacks, ban them. 4. Rules. Let everyone know what they can and cannot do, or they will do anything and everything.
Secondary focus: 1. Communication. If no updates are intended ever, the developer needs to say this every day. The day the developer stops talking, the game starts to die. 2. Content generation. Even if the game is designed not to end for 100 years, someone will find a way to get to the end content and screenshot day 2-ish. You must have contingency plans in place. 3. Death. You must be ready for your game to die at some point. I would suggest a strong single player mode to compensate, or the ability to host a server elsewhere. 4. Word of mouth, minimum. If your game sucks, people will not get their friends to play. If you break something on an update, you will lose people. If you moderate properly, you may lose people overall. Word of mouth and communication go hand in hand. Still, word of mouth is only a secondary requirement if you already have community support (JTMB, GameInABottle, other well known portals, etc).
Not required: 1. Gameplay/story/controls/other "soft" features. A well developed tool, or an idle game can generate millions of hits day 1. 2. Monetization. Believe it or not you can actually do better, financially with some no money techniques than you can with many yay money ones. We are just starting to understand this philosophy for flash games. Lucky for us there are plenty of monetization routes to go down so there's no need to go hungry just to prove a point 3. You. Either get on the train or sit down.
I'm just a user right now, but the above are my somewhat well read opinions :P I hope they help someone, but I will go down in flames if needed.
