144287-shades-eve-splash-page-indicative-of-core-ethos-problem

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OK, So I've just been to the Homepage "splash page" about Shade's Eve.
 
There's an embeded video with the a huge Play Now button under it.
 
When you press Play Now, it DOESN'T play the video, it downloads the Game Client.
 
 
This, it seems to me, is a core ethos problem that runs right through the game.
 
There's a video to be watched, under it is a Play Now button.
 
What type of special and unique cupcakeing snowflake would code that Play Now button to do anything other than play that video?
 
 
Listen up Carbine.
I like your core product, the game world is brilliant, awesome.
I really like your classes (although I just can't get into my groove with Engineers for some reason, or Espers).
I simply can not express how much of a smile the hoverboard puts on my face... ...every single time I use it.
 
What I am horrified by is you almost total lack of understanding of "ease of accessibility" for your players.
 
I AM NOT talking about making content easier here, so please all you "hardcore defenders" don't go superfly TNT on me just yet.
 
I am talking about making it clear what a player is doing, pressing, buying whenever they do, press, buy.
 
Its like you want it to be a burdensome chore to figure out what to buy, from where, and how many of them you can use.  
Its like your past experiences of the MMO industry taught you absolutely nothing about accessibility.
The Game Designers, Web Developers etc are seemingly somewhat myopic in that they invariably fail to undertsand that other people will see and understand things differently to how they see them.
There is so much lack of clarity in this game that it is almost like you want the game to be obscured from the player in some way.
 
From a business point of view you really, really, really do NOT want that at all.
 
In fact, I suggest that some of this unnecessary lack of clarity is, in part, why the game needed server mergers and F2P just to keep going.
 
Many, many of the issues that lead players to come here and complain, or maybe even walk away from the game entirely could be resolved if the next patch was 100% entirely devoted to increasing accessibility by improving clarity.
 
For example, consolidate the four different types of AMPS to a single Vendor, let's call him/her an AMP Vendor,  Make it clear when an AMP is single use only.  Make it clear whenever a player is about to purchase a unique use item wherever they are found in the game.
 
Make things clearer, it will lead to less complaints, and so fewer numbers of calls to Customer Service - and that Carbine, means a saving in Customer Service overheads.
 
All The Best	
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			Spot on, Red. Spot-freaking-on!	
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Yep, since original beta and launch one of the biggest problems the game has faced is poor accessibility. And despite revamping the game for F2P nothing has significantly changed in this regard.
 
The game's UI is stuck in the dark ages of game interface design - it's not modular, it's not fully customizable (without 3rd party addons), it's inflexible (very little can be peeled off or placed where the player wants it), it's cluttered and confusing, it's not properly scalable (most of the text, buttons and widgets can't be resized other than globally), nothing docks properly, there's no consistency (every UI dialogue seems to have a differentt set of rules). My personal pet peeve is the really annoying animation on confirmation buttons that slows down your ability to click on them and the way dialogues can't be dismissed easily and you have to wait for them to fade out (as anyone who regularly lists multiple items on the AH will know).
 
Irony is that they revamped the game for F2P launch and addressed NONE of the accessibility issues. What's the point in redesigning the starter areas, stats, runes, crafting and more if you don't make the game any more polished, any more accessible, any less buggy and any less laggy? It's a monumental waste of time to do other stuff and not address these issues. I'm not privvy to exit surveys (do Carbine even collect this data?) but I would hazard a guess that more players left because of poor accessibility and poor game performance than because they didn't understand what Moxie was or they thought the Dominion Church in the old starter area was a bit too scary. I bet plenty of players STILL find themselves staring at the UI for Amps and Runes scratching their heads, not because Amps and Runes themselves are too complicated, but because they way they are presented is plain horrible.	
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While I do want to agree with your overall point, I have to point out that your core example of the video is flawed.  On literally every other website with embedded videos, I play the video by clicking the video itself.  There's never a link you click under the video thumbnail to play the video.
 
The Play Now button, though, does lack context.  And the in game UI is pretty dire, which is why it got replaced PDQ.  Supporting add-ons is great, but should never be used as an excuse for going halves on the original.  And in this case, WoW should absolutely not be used as a template, since that UI is arguably worse, or at the very least no better.
			
				
	Edited October 23, 2015 by Tuscatsi	
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			It's pretty obvious what they were trying to do. "Check out this awesome video, then get the game!" is the message. The link really should say "Play Wildstar Now" though, just to avoid that kind of confusion. Carbine desperately needs a usability or user experience team if they don't have one already. I do that regularly for my own company and would donate my time to them to help out on that front.	
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			Amen! I thought the exact same thing when I saw the promo site.	
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Pff that's hilarious.
 
Guess they thought "play now" meant "Play the game now"
 (Also, the warpig is shown as a "reward" but it is not actually a reward for doing the content)
			
				
	Edited October 19, 2015 by Roda	
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			It never ceases to amaze me what people will complain about and elevate to the level of some horrible flaw in the "core ethos". When have you ever seen a video with a link beneath it that says "Play Now"?. Yes, they could make it clearer that it is "Play Wildstar Now", but you are on the freaking game site. You click on an embedded video to play it. It's not rocket science, chicken little. There is no core ethos problem, only tempests in a teacup.
			
				
	Edited October 20, 2015 by CristianoD	
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