A few days ago, "Taris World", published by Tencent and developed by Ledong Excellence, ended its final test.
I still remember that on the first day of this test, more than one million players rushed to enter the game, far exceeding official expectations. These days, the official released two letters to players before and after, almost the first time, sorted out the problems during the beta period, and in the player letter on April 1, it promised to complete improvements and optimizations before the open beta.
This tone and gesture of almost treating players as brothers made me a little abrupt - this is completely different from everyone's inherent impression of Tencent. Combined with the game's "return to purity, don't sell values", I can't help but wonder: how big a market will "The World of Taris" be?
01 MMO more suitable for contemporary veteran players
Judging from the performance of this test, objectively speaking, the advantages and disadvantages of "World of Taris" are obvious.
The good thing is that it is more suitable for the life rhythm and entertainment tendencies of current old MMO players: fast land development, focus on dungeon group books, and PVP does not provide numerical rewards. Therefore, the overall experience is not too high, and the fun points are very concentrated.
The disadvantage is that this game is positioned as a double-end MMORPG, which inevitably needs to take care of the user experience of the mobile game, so it is more like a mobile game in terms of design, and on this basis, it balances the expectations of players of the mobile game.
As a result, most of the feedback from players on the game in the final test is also positive and optimistic, especially focusing on a few key points:
First of all, the game is fast-paced, for players who are more liver-like, they can basically push the main line to upgrade the level on the first day of the wasteland, and then enter the medium-term gameplay such as dungeons and group books faster. This is a good plus point for some older MMO players, and for young MMO users who are new to MMOs, they can also get more access to fun and challenging gameplay sooner.
Secondly, there are not too many mandatory points in payment, and the experience of zero krypton players is also in place. On the one hand, there are no direct numerical payment items in the game, and the main payment points of the game are monthly and season passes, skins, and the purchase of coins. Among them, gold coins can be purchased to a certain extent in disguise through the gem function, but the majority of gold coins are life occupations, and it is easy to achieve self-sufficiency by relying on life occupations.
Alchemy is a very lucrative profession in life
Finally, the difficulty of the game belongs to the design logic of low threshold and high ceiling. For example, in the dungeon gameplay, in most cases, the dungeons of the first few difficulties are easy to pass, but when it comes to the dungeon of the challenge mode, you need to manually organize people in the team hall, which also tests command and cooperation, otherwise the wild team will hardly be able to pass smoothly.
Another example is the Vientiane Corridor gameplay, which will refresh the boss every once in a while to challenge the player, but will provide some special challenge conditions (such as adding terrain traps or traps during the challenge), as well as the required challenge points, and the challenge points need to be actively selected by the player to increase the additional challenge conditions, and the points can be challenged only if there are enough points. Therefore, the first few difficulties of this gameplay can also be pushed flat, and the last few difficulties need to be carefully planned and operated carefully to pass.
Special challenge conditions for the Vientiane Cloister
There is also a cultivation mechanism, like the aforementioned "World of Taris" in the early stage of the cultivation is very fast, can quickly rise to the full level, in the middle of the need to make up a suit, brush the inscription stone, the pursuit of the limit value of the player in the later stage may need to through the output of life occupation, the accumulation of high-level gems (different from the gems of the general numerical game, and the attributes of a single gem are not high, the necessity of this is a matter of opinion). Among them, the planning of the inscription stone route and the matching of inscription stones largely determine the gameplay and style of the characters, so the depth and playability of this part are very prominent.
Beaconstone system
This design with a low threshold and a high ceiling runs through almost all of the most fun core gameplay of this game. Therefore, when you usually have a casual experience or the advancement of wasteland, the low-threshold gameplay allows players to quickly familiarize themselves with the game, and when you have your own fixed team and want to experience the fun of multiplayer, the game can provide corresponding challenges and difficulties.
So overall, "World of Taris" is more like a refined multi-terminal mobile game, which is friendly to old MMO players who need to relax, as well as young players who are interested in MMOs, and its milder payment mechanism and environment that does not sell values can also ensure a benign game experience that "focuses on PVE, teamwork and technology".
02 Long-term: Let players no longer accommodate the game
It can be said that the product positioning of fast-paced, taking care of 0 krypton, almost no sales value, and season-driven determines that "World of Taris" is likely to be a slow-burning game, and its paid explosiveness is definitely not as good as that of an MMO with a full load of paid pits, so what about its long-term potential?
I think this problem can be looked at in two ways, the first is the iteration within the product.
Strictly speaking, the final test still exposed some shortcomings of "World of Taris". For example, the lack of large world and exploration content, the fast pace of the main line of the game, and the portrayal of NPCs and the polishing of content-based details in the game are not top-notch, so the overall sense of substitution is not strong. Obviously, this is a trade-off between rhythm and content, but subsequent updates will inevitably have to be made up, so the long-term production team needs to test the content capacity and the level of investment in packaging.
In addition, the homogeneity of vocational skills is more obvious. The vast majority of professions have adopted the template of "1 or 2 small skill charges; subsequent skill release charges to achieve amplification, bursts, displacements, shields, etc.", which is taken care of from the perspective of balance, but from the perspective of differentiation, the difference between classes is not obvious enough. Maybe there will be more new mechanics in the subsequent updates, but considering that the mobile terminal is compatible, it is not easy to adapt the new mechanics.
There is also a trading mechanism limit, each account can only purchase a limited number of specific items for a certain period of time to achieve the gift of gold coins. This mechanism greatly restricts the movement of bricks by individual players, but does not fundamentally restrain the studio's large-scale trumpet to move bricks, and there are already signs in the test server. After the need to maintain a well-maintained game environment, this detail is also an official must take care of.
The second aspect is to look at the operation and maintenance outside of the game.
In fact, around the actions of the game operation team before and after this test, we have basically figured out the "player-centric" strategy of "World of Taris".
On the second day of the beta, the game attracted MMO heavyweight players, such as Warcraft streamer [NasDa] and [Scripe] of echo, the first overseas Warcraft guild, to jointly broadcast the trial and open up the wasteland with barrage friends.
During the period, the effect of the program was flying all over the sky, on the one hand, domestic water friends taught Stripe to learn Shanghainese and Cantonese, and on the other hand, the two bigwigs played the challenge mode and overturned the car, which let everyone see the difficult gameplay of the game. In addition, Stripe also recognizes the English translation of "The World of Taris", and you can understand the mechanics of the team book after a simple game, and the integration plugins that do not need to be downloaded separately in the game, the customizable UI interface, and the details of not selling values have also been praised by him.
After the test, the official decided to invest an additional 10 million bonus in addition to the bonus investment during the test period to recruit team leaders to guide other players, which further strengthened the game's attraction to Nasda, Scripe, and other MMO veteran "team leaders". Before and after, the official actions are all done around the player, while working to shorten the distance between the players, while increasing investment in the hands of experienced players to optimize the in-game environment.
Secondly, the official attitude is sincere enough, and even the posture is very low. After the first day of the beta, strictly speaking, the player's emotions are also easy to explode, but the official expanded the server in time to successfully solve the technical problem, and at the same time promised to give away the pet gift code of the whole server during the public beta, giving all players a permanent pet "logic cat", and at the same time taking care of the people who did not test, so it successfully appeased the player group.
Finally, and most importantly, the official determination to optimize and iterate on the game is strong enough. Around this test, the official released a total of two letters to players, the first letter in addition to responding to the bombing incident, but also for the first time in response to the player's "lack of camps, no PVP in the wild, studio swiping, cross-server teaming, professional differentiation and other problems to give and solve the ideas and commitments.
In response to all the problems that arose during the testing period, the latter letter carefully planned many optimization items in accordance with the general direction of "reducing the burden, optimizing the balance, improving the basic experience, and other multi-module adjustments", promising to improve the game in the official version. This project is huge, with more than 120 modifications and tuning items for the daily experience and system optimization module alone.
Interestingly, in fact, there were many doubts and controversies during the test, such as "instead of doing mobile optimization, it is better to polish the PC side" and "I don't have time to play on the computer, what age do you still despise chains?", but the production team is also very ambitious, in their opinion: "The immersive experience of terminal games, the lightweight and portable mobile games, we all want them, because the world should accommodate your equipment, time and needs, rather than requiring you to adapt to the game, or even sacrifice life." ”
To be honest, the courage in these few sentences makes me a little impressed,From the perspective of hard power,Tencent products in the face of these massive optimization details,In fact, as long as there is enough time,It is not difficult to achieve。 However, on the premise of not distorting the original idea of the product, it is not so easy to continue to take the route of "optimizing and reducing the burden, not selling the value, and grasping both ends".
Now "World of Taris" is a low attitude and sincere enough for players, and it has a clear understanding and firm determination for itself, which is undoubtedly more advantageous in the long run. Then, as long as the public beta is stabilized, the production capacity can keep up with the subsequent seasons, and the operation strategy is appropriate, this product will be able to run well in the medium and long term.
03 Let players play more assured
In the end, I have to say that "Taris World" has caught up with a good time, and it is very easy to give full play to its advantages of "domestic R&D + double-end interconnection + team-oriented".
Domestic R&D is undoubtedly a needle for the older generation of MMO players who have just experienced backstabbing, as long as the game experience is good and the official insists on long-term operation, then players can naturally play more assured.
There are pros and cons to the cost of losing some users, in exchange for the favor of other part of the old players whose habits have changed, and the fun of the game can also make the game faster and more concentrated, and at the same time, there is also an opportunity to test the waters to contact the younger generation of users and introduce some fresh blood.
The game's characteristics that focus on team-based games are the key points that have been precipitated in many MMO games for so many years and are the most enjoyable for some core players. By firmly grasping the core player base through this feature, "World of Taris" has the hope of slowly snowballing and expanding its own market.
In addition, whether it is optimizing the burden reduction or not selling the value, it is a skill to improve the details and comprehensive experience from the side, and at the same time, it can also open up the gap with the products on the market and form a differentiated competitive advantage.
I have to say that "The World of Taris" has taken a different approach, and it is indeed easier to attract players in the current game environment, and the scene of the influx of millions of players in the final test also shows its feasibility. Taking advantage of its own advantages, this game may really be able to get a lot of market cake in the future.