Over-Development
My capitalization is intentional, and I will explain myself after a trip down memory lane. Veteran fans of the Tribes series will hurriedly shake their fists and discount Tribes:Vengeance and Ascend. They would tell you that the games lost something along the way.
Personally, I have played World of Warcraft off and on since the Burning Crusade expansion, but I didn't have a max level character until Wrath of the Lich King. Engrossed in a rich interactive experience, I had little desire to get to the level cap. Upon hitting the maximum level in the Cataclysm expansion, I was challenged. My depth of understanding when it came to my characters abilities and the situations I was encountering, was not only a boon, but it was necessary. My use of abilities that I wasn't "supposed" to be using saved us on many occasions. There were certain dungeons that people would not run because they were too difficult, and on average taking the deserter debuff for fifteen minutes was cheaper than beating your head against the first boss, while the rest of your group cycles.
The website designer for a newspaper company spoke to my Video Production class, and posited that consumers, like Burger King, "want it their way." The free-to-play model is a perfect example of this. I played Tribes:Vengeance which was an iteration where you could effortlessly customize your toolbox, and select from a wide variety of weapons. Tribes:Ascend gives you two weapons slots, as opposed to the prior three. In addition, your weapon variety is greatly reduced. They have narrowed down an arsenal of flamethrowers, shotguns, spinfusors, mortar and rocket launchers from the previous iterations, into rapid fire projectile weapons, and low refire rate, explosive weapons. To provide players with choice after release, they introduced weapons that fall between those two extremes, in a kind of gray area. Rather than getting good with either, or both separately, you can just purchase a gun that is a little of both.
League of Legends is one of the most successful free to play models to date. They provide cosmetic skins for characters in their real money store, and make a new character to play as, every few weeks. There was a point in time when the characters being made were very middling. They couldn't do crazy damage like an archer, but they did a considerable amount. Neither could they slow, daze or fear enemies as well as a mage could, but they couldn't tank as well as a knight could. These characters became known as Tanky Bruisers. Riot games provided you with the option of not having to choose to become skillful at the extremes they provided you with, but to purchase a middle ground, which was easier.
Blizzard saw Free to Play games like this on the horizon, and incorporated choice into stylistically how you play your character. Rather than being presented with hundreds of choices, where there is only one accepted "right" configuration, you now have a choice of three mechanics every fifteen levels. None of these are objectively "worse" than the others, but in different situations one could be more applicable. While doing this, they also significantly reduced the importance of abilities you could use outside of your primary role.
Some games, compound the span of time between release and re-imagining by inviting people into an open beta. This means that all the players who are playing, know that this is a work in progress and are stress testing the product. During this time, bugs arise and are fixed. This means you get a finished product faster, and you are already generating money before the project launches.
What if this is limiting us? After all, skiing in the original Starsiege:Tribes was a technique developed after launch by players, and this was back when you bought games and they handed you a cardboard box, not entrance to a VIP club and tickets to the pre-screening. If that game were developed today, someone would have dutifully reported that they could achieve great velocity with a combination of bunny-hopping to reduce their friction with the ground, and the jet-pack that is issued to every soldier on the battlefield. A developer would have read that ticket, said "PFFFT, Ship it!" in a sarcastic exclamation and fixed it within the hour.
Is it better to have a game that is fair? Like a Board Game, (note the capitalization) do we want every loose end tied up? It is easier for some to find pride in entering conflict when it is obvious that they brought trip wire to a gun fight. Can we know in defeat that the odds were against us, acknowledge that and continue? It seems like games where you may not have an answer to a given situation are unpopular. This is why all these homogenized grey zones are making bank.
In conclusion: Mistakes are great, sometimes beautiful. Beta's don't give them enough time to air out. Also, fair isn't necessarily good.
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