Two Games whose Developers Pay Attention

I've been thinking recently about the two games that have claimed the majority of my gaming time over the past couple of months and over the past couple of years. While both are RPGs with meaningful character choices, they are quite disparate - but they have a common thread and it's in the quality of the developers.

Guild Wars 2 is an MMO, while Path of Exile is an online action RPG along the lines of Diablo. The mechanics, the game worlds and their properties, the playerbases are all quite different. But they have something in common that makes them stand out in their categories:

These developers have paid close attention to what people like and hate, enjoy and don't enjoy, about these types of games from well before the game was released, and they have continued to refine and iterate to make them fun for more players and more fun for existing players. Interestingly enough, they both also eschew ongoing revenue for anything but cosmetic or convenience microtransactions, relying on the goodwill of the players and frequent releases of new cosmetic options for income; GW2 charges once for the game client, but PoE doesn't even do that.

In embracing fun for all their players, both games also reject anything that would be fun for the sort of trolls and arsewipes who get their fun from ruining other players' day. PvP is available in ways that are both consensual and designed not to affect PvE players. Other forms of griefing like "kill stealing" are mechanically impossible.

Other commonalities seem to come from these points. Gold farming, power-leveling, and other schemes for spending real money for game advantages are nigh-nonexistent in both games, and the players seem to be a bit more civil.

I'll go into more detail about both of these games in separate articles soon. Meanwhile, if you are interested in either of these genres do yourself a favor and try them out.