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Casual Play Column: Raiding Needs to Die

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Comments

  • AshynAshyn Member Posts: 91

    Steve Wilson nailed the difference between the "hardcore" and "casual' gamers and what each "generally" wants in a game.

    It was a well written opinion piece.  I would liked to have seen "DKP's" added to the article simply because that does play a huge roll in the two play styles (casual gamers who at least "try" to do some raid content end up losing out due to the lack of accumulated points, thus leading to even more hardship on the casuals who do try to work with the "end-game raid content").

    I'd like to see someone tackle that in an editorial or column: the in-game effect of external organization.

     

    -Ashyn

  • AncileAncile Member Posts: 21

    Originally posted by DonnieBrasco

    Then there's the raiders. Raiders seek to tackle the hardest content the game generally has to offer. They by no means are stuck in a definition of having to spend countless hours playing.



    Don't you think you have just completely and totally opposed your very own opinion with this? :))) I remember you saying that whoever want the real good content (IE: gear) in a game, must invest a LOT of their precious time into the game... remember? now?

    Gotcha... (was too easy anyway :)


    DB



    Originally posted by Ashyn

     I would liked to have seen "DKP's"
    added to the article simply because that does play a huge roll in the
    two play styles (casual gamers who at least "try" to do some raid
    content end up losing out due to the lack of accumulated points, thus
    leading to even more hardship on the casuals who do try to work with
    the "end-game raid content").

    To address the first quote. I've always opposed guilds and other raiders who were in the mind set that, we needed to raid for several hours on end, even though there were examples of guilds out there across other servers that managed to do it faster, better, with less people. In part by putting in a higher level of skill obviously, either through the various members simply playing their characters better, or by having a highly efficient management system for raids and the guild it self.

    I'm a firm believer that the raids were always able to be accomplished in a better or faster way then how others usually did them. And more often then not, proved that the guilds that I were a part of, could always accomplish far greater things at a faster pace then the members the guild thought possible.

    I'm not at all surprised when WoW raiders moan about spending countless hours at raids. Many of them are first time MMORPG players, and I'd reckon just as many are first time raiders too. It all boils down to the way the guild is managed, and the competence of the raid leader(s) and other guild officers/leaders.
    Key individuals are what makes the raids endurable, and not drag out for countless hours.

    To address the item distribution issue, there's various ways to distribute items accumulated at a raid.
    I've seen various systems, multiple variations of DKP and what not, and the one system that I favor the most is having set key individuals distributing items based on various criteria. Such as attendance, how much of an upgrade said item is to XYZ players, class benefits the most, ect ect.
    This system eliminates the extreme need or feeling that you must show up at all raids. Obviously it doesn't mean you can't just log on randomly whenever you want, it obviously comes with certain expectations from the members of the guild to contribute a certain level of attendance, but that level can vary a lot all depending on the type of guild and it's overall goals.

  • BattleFelonBattleFelon Member UncommonPosts: 483

    Great article - and the writer made a very good point. At best, the current 40-man ZERG style of raiding is a "stuck" paradigm, the MMOG equivalent of monsters jumping out of closets in the FPS genre or peasants chopping wood in the RTS genre. At worst, it's just damn lazy.

    Look, I work in the casual games business and I can tell ya, the devs I know work their butts off coming up with new content on a daily basis. Yeah, yeah, I know that "WOW is infinitely more detailed than Bejeweled 2" but the fact remains - how come smaller developers can come up with plenty of fresh content but WOW sticks players with one uninspired, repetitive dungeon after another? WOW has sold almost as many copies as Halo 2, and that's before you factor in the $15 a month X 7 million subscribers. Sure staff and servers are expensive, but with their massive war chest WOW could easily afford to add new challenging small party quests every few months, if not every month. But time after time WOW takes the easy road by creating another VIP room that only 5 percent of the population will ever see.

    But as a long-time Blizzard fan, I do want to think that the former reason (stuck paradigm) is more to blame than the latter (Blizzard are a bunch of lazy/greedy SOBs). One can only hope that new games will either redesign the raiding dynamic to make it more fun for all involved or eliminate it alltogether.

  • BlackluckBlackluck Member Posts: 3
    According to PARC (Play on), very few players even in WoW raid.
    More info can be found here: http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2006/03/raid_content_us.html.

    I think any developer willing to risk it will see a huge market for gamers that do not want raiding (or even pvp) as their sole
    end game content.




  • vajurasvajuras Member Posts: 2,860

    The good news is that Warhammer Online apparently has no plans to add end game raiding. Just read the article here at mmorpg.com and the closest thing is one high level encounter that will be Player vs Enviroment vs Realm. So sounds like armies might be fighting some PvE mobs while at the same time fighting players. So far WAR is looking really promising

    Next, WoW is adding a lot of high level pvp gear I here in the expansion. From what I gather from my friends, they're all really happy with the new honor system. How successful the new expansion will be at reducing the need to raid tho remains to be seen

  • AncileAncile Member Posts: 21

    Originally posted by vajuras
    The good news is that Warhammer Online apparently has no plans to add end game raiding. Just read the article here at mmorpg.com and the closest thing is one high level encounter that will be Player vs Enviroment vs Realm. So sounds like armies might be fighting some PvE mobs while at the same time fighting players. So far WAR is looking really promising Next, WoW is adding a lot of high level pvp gear I here in the expansion. From what I gather from my friends, they're all really happy with the new honor system. How successful the new expansion will be at reducing the need to raid tho remains to be seen
    Because Warhammer Online is a RVR game, and is primarily focused around PvP as the "end game". It's funny it comes up in a raider vs non-raider discussion when it really is about a completely different aspect of MMORPGs. Apples and orranges.


  • gjsfaungjsfaun Member CommonPosts: 34

    I disagree with many points in the article. Here are some thoughts:

    Summery: Most games I've played as a casual gamer I never saw the end game content. I usually left because I would get stuck at the middle-game content with no way of really progressing further. Lack of groups (everyone is already high level), lack of good equipment and no way of getting it (can't play enough to get the coin to buy the equipment either), lack of soloability or lack of profitablity of soloing without excessive repetitiveness, etc. I've tried every major game that's been released - almost all of them are designed with a steep experience curve that requires being online and playing the game for more than 30 hours a month to make any sort of reasonable progress.

    Hate of Repetitiveness is not owned by casual gamers - it's hated by a percentage of all kinds of players. The type of repetitiveness also depends - I have no problem running the same quest over and over again, so long as something is being learned or developed. I particuarlly like working with a small team or group, learning tricks, trying new tactics, exploring new areas previously skipped, etc. I do hate sitting at a spawn point and wacking mobs over and over again, for hours, just to get 0.0001% experience or the chance at a rare drop.

    DDO raids are pretty easy to do. Some raids you just need to show up for and the speed of completion depends on the party and player skills. Other raids require some pre-requsit quests to be completed, but once they are done you are raid ready. With a decent group, most quest steps don't take long to do. With a decent guild, scheduling the quests isn't that difficult either.

    As a casual gamer, I found EVE to be difficult to get into. I liked the skill system, but let's say I want to really feel involved but don't have the time? I can't beat the people who are dedicated and playing all the time. I can't get the wealth needed to get the cool ships, or mine enough, or sell enough at competitive prices to really get involved. If they wouldn't keep rejecting my credit card, I'd give Agent missions another try but I don't think I'd last more than a couple months.

    EQ Raids - heh, forget it.  My cleric could never find a group in the time frames available to get to a high enough level to even consider raids. I never saw the end game content because I couldn't get the groups needed to see the middle game content! I finally just left as I saw no fun or purpose in staying. I've heard that they released a bunch of new modules that may help address this, but why would I spend $200 just to do what the game should allow for the normal subscription price?

     

  • DijonCyanideDijonCyanide Member UncommonPosts: 586

     

      Good article with which most I agree since I've never been a huge fan of big dramatic lengthy investment required raiding.  Of course as with me, most has laready been stated before but it never hurts to remind us.  I do think that raiding is a neccessary teething for the current MMORPG trend.  The EQ raids I attended a few years ago when playing were fun, mostly because of the strategy & banter amongst fellow players.  Not always the dynamic or lack there of content during the raid.   Absolutely there should be more options made available for all players to progress, not just the raiding.  I think a few years ago EQ set itself up for a plummet by coercing raiding to too much of a degree.  Then again when EQ began setting certain trends it was top hog so it could get by with it.  I still miss EQ which I probably always will but is it worth returning now given it's vastness even with newer games released?  Another point I still believe is that EQ should become a movie, ahh the Gnome punting possibilities.  Casual players cannot always afford the needed investment of time to attempt such raids.  Especially with too few dangling carrots on a stick when the raid content required more & more participation & time.  Alternative progression methods, even if acquiring the same glittery item would take longer, needs to be applied.  I think questing has lost some impact which is sad.  When I played EQ, which is my only raiding experience, I admired those dedicated & knowing of the higher tiered raiding content.  Also, those able to meet that upper pinnicle of gaming do deserve more of a reward for their efforts.  What killed EQ to me was realizing I wouldn't be able to enjoy all the visuals of zones because of the raiding requirements, I liked to sight see in EQ often to my death.  Perhaps developers thought by doing such a mechanism there would be a trickle down of sorts for the game, but I more witnessed a bottleneck effect since EQ didn't entice much for players to help players.  It has to be difficult attempting to create a gaming environment that will appeal to the majority.  Yes I'm one of those that still think casual players are the majority but perhaps not as vocal.  With recent news of the Vanguard connection to SOE I fear an eventual similar path like EQ since there's already a history between the two.  Although if/when that Vanguard enters that Station Access along with EQ, EQ2, & SWG could create a enticing arrangement.  We all play these MMORPGs yes to play with other players, but the ever most important fact we as player customers want is to have fun.  If we cannot progress our characters there is probably little fun to be had.  We players want a challenge & we will even seek that challenge out in whatever MMORPG there is.  Good luck to us all in whichever MMORPG we are playing:  EQ, EQ2, WoW, SWG, Vanguard, etc etc etc.  So is WoW worth trying since the new expansion is releasing soon or should I just wait for Vanguard?  All I do now is from time to time dabble in the pseudo Guild Wars which is fun too.  image

  • vajurasvajuras Member Posts: 2,860



    Originally posted by Ancile



    Originally posted by vajuras

    The good news is that Warhammer Online apparently has no plans to add end game raiding. Just read the article here at mmorpg.com and the closest thing is one high level encounter that will be Player vs Enviroment vs Realm. So sounds like armies might be fighting some PvE mobs while at the same time fighting players. So far WAR is looking really promising

    Next, WoW is adding a lot of high level pvp gear I here in the expansion. From what I gather from my friends, they're all really happy with the new honor system. How successful the new expansion will be at reducing the need to raid tho remains to be seen


    Because Warhammer Online is a RVR game, and is primarily focused around PvP as the "end game". It's funny it comes up in a raider vs non-raider discussion when it really is about a completely different aspect of MMORPGs. Apples and orranges.


    Lol this entire article was about MMORPGs and raiding, period. The article is not focused on a single MMO- its about MMORPGs as a whole. You cant say WAR doesnt count no more then EvE online, WoW, etc. Hell WoW had PvP since day 1 and it has RvR. Many say WoW end game is PvP. I'd say that statement is true I spent very little of my end game life raiding. I spent most of it doing fun things like PvP. So yeah, thats a pretty stupid point really. WoW has more pvp then any other MMO I've played so far

    Back on topic my friend also tells me our entiure guild has stopped raiding altogether (over 500+) since the new honor system hit and he swears up and down the BC expansion will have even better stuff for level 70s for pvpers. According to him there will be no need for pvpers to waste their time raiding anymore. WoW might be something worth relooking into.....

  • vajurasvajuras Member Posts: 2,860



    Originally posted by Ancile
    To address the first quote. I've always opposed guilds and other raiders who were in the mind set that, we needed to raid for several hours on end, even though there were examples of guilds out there across other servers that managed to do it faster, better, with less people. In part by putting in a higher level of skill obviously, either through the various members simply playing their characters better, or by having a highly efficient management system for raids and the guild it self.

    I'm a firm believer that the raids were always able to be accomplished in a better or faster way then how others usually did them. And more often then not, proved that the guilds that I were a part of, could always accomplish far greater things at a faster pace then the members the guild thought possible.





    Those guilds that blow through those tough instances really fast are usually the ones with epics. Its not uncommon for guilds in WoW to have ev1 decked in epics. I'll make you a deal show me a guild that wears all greens and they blow through those end game instances fast. Cause thats what casual players show up to raids wearing- greens and maybe a blue here and there

    So let's pretend here for a minute. This hardcore raiding guild is gonna let some newb get a spot thats wearing greens and will let them get epics on their first raid? Thats usually very rare because someone else will have way more DKP built up. Yeah, sometimes guilds 'loan' out the gear til you get the DKP earned for it. But if you try to leave the guild while you're negative you'll get blacklisted.

    In any case no real casual gamer is going to raid anyway cause they'll get booted as soon as they try to leave the raid early in most cases. I know my one bud that was fairly casual got booted from his raiding guild when he told them he jsut oculdnt put in the time.

    That's the point of this article- casuals just cant do the raids.

  • New_to_MMONew_to_MMO Member Posts: 71

    Ideas for end game:

    Have an Alpha Class al la Jedi in SWG. WITH permadeath. And a Bounty Hunter type character to hunt them down. Have perma death the same as it was supposed to be in the original SWG as well, 3 lives and you start your character over, losing everything. This way won't even ever have an end game for those that get into it. And its great for those who like to solo; be the BH to hunt the alpha class.

    Have a political system with player cities. After a certain amount of time, have the largest become the ruling force of the planet, making all others have to come to you and your cities leaders for upgrades to the city. But don't tell this to th community and player base. Might be some funny stuff going on to get populations up. When you spring this on them, it would be the best surprise and MMO developer ever gave. This would give end game for those that aren't interested in PvP but will have an army of men to defend his being the head of the planet. Lots of possibilities like aligning with other heads of planets.

    And finally have player crafting WITH item decay. I'm sure most people would be in guilds, and a good guild should at least have a weaponsmith to supply everyone with cheap weapons. And plenty of shops would be set up for solo'ers to get 'em pretty quick as well with easy travel. Crafted weapons should be better than looted, except for maybe a few lucky looters who get a "legendary" weapon. But what looters would go after are enhancements instead of weapons so that crafters can make them. This could also be good for solo'er and definitely crafters.

    just a few of my thoughts after i smoked.image

  • LytaLyta Member Posts: 12
    Originally posted by Balmer
    Someone else made the point about the current level 60 epics being instantly obsolete with the release of TBC. That's true. But who do you think will be the first, as a market segment' to conquer the new content and obtain the end-game Tier 3 and 4 gear? Won't be casuals, I'm guessing...but that's fine. People choose to spend their time, in the manner they see fit, however they like. If chatting and socializing with some friends...or, *gasp* even roleplaying is your gig, that's great! But don't whine about your pathetic green gear that your're sporting in battlegrounds and wonder why you get your ass kicked by the other team...and then cry that the raiders are ruining your game.



    We definently do not need to remove raids, some like them!  But: the raiding affects everyone elses gameplay as well, can that be right? 

     

    Example: Wouldn't you hate it if a roleplayer got an uber kick ass sword throu an rp session, that he then went into a bg with and totally pwned your ass with? Or perhaps a pve'er got a super rare drop equivallent to a purple 60 (or soon to be 70)? Yes, that would be incredibly annoying.

    Luckily it isent so. But raiders are and will soon again be the only ones who have something that affects everyone else. Can a raider not understand the level of annoyance it is, for a pve-fan to get bashed silly by something a raider got?  I put in the same hours, should I not be rewarded for that, just for spreading it differently? For a roleplaying fan it is incredibly annoying, and a "leave-booster" that everyone feels forces to leave the rp guilds, and join raidguilds, if they want a chance at fun in any battle situation. Can a raider not understand that in this aspect; it is just as annoying to be wtfpwned by your epics, as it would be for you to get whipped with something we got throu for example rping a long court session. yes... it is THAT annoying...

     

    Now mentioning rp'rs getting a pwnweapon in an rp session would probably seem completely bewildered to many. But alas, this game is afterall and mmoRPG. The difference is that any roleplayer would understand the unfaireness of such a thing, forcing ppl to do something they despiced so much. we would never! and just like that I understand that pvp'rs, pve'rs, socializers, and raiders feel the same. It sometimes seem like its only raiders that dont understand that shinies should be obtainable throu other activities than only their niche. then they "whine" call ppl -.-

    I agree so very much with a previous poster here, saying that you should be allowed to achieve your goal throu different paths. Raiders say we dont put in the time, althou I think that if there were 3-4 different ways to get the shinies, they wouldnt be raiding eighter. Its like raiders want to be honored or cheered for their tireless efforts in the raids, as if they did something they hated, but stuck to it throu sweat and tears to get their gear. Why should we do something we dont like?! we don't have to put up with it!

    I know a few who wholeheatedly enjoy the raiding experience, and they should be allowed to continue that just as much as a pvp'r should be allowed to bash heads in his realm. But If we open up equal options for eveybody, everyone could find something they really like.

     

    Flexibility and the option to choose will be the key for sucessfull mmorpg's in the future. Or will it be full focus on special niches? time will tell

     

    ps: Casual gamers often pack their suitcases and jump games, because the game isn't offering various ways of endgame, not becuase they are just jumpers by birth. Just as said, you can lvl in many different ways, and suddenly you are stuck with raiding.

    image

  • AnofalyeAnofalye Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,433

    Bump.

     

    I still think this issue has to be resolved by most devs who are obviously unable to understand this.

     

    Some devs feel like foreign peoples who keep saying yes yes yes, but understand nothing of your point.

     

    Raiding is hurting your game more then helping it when it is done in the actual form as in most MMOs (EQ, EQ2, WoW are example of ill-done raiding).  Removing raiding althogether is better then keeping it in such a form.

     

    I am a very simple guy.  I just want my games to be cool, fun and entertaining.  They can be as hard or as easy as you want, but make them resolve around the main gameplay, grouping.  I can accept some infringments, especially by soloing...but some, I can't.

     

    We all witness the launch of a raid-centric game with Vanguard: Saga of the raiding disfunctionnality.  A game that has little to offer beside raiding despite foreign claims by devs who don't seems to understand what they say and just nods endlessly.  Check how well Vanguard is doing.  Vanguard is raid-centric despite some meek advertising to say it wasn't; while some other games manage to hide their raiding mistakes better.  Vanguard is widely supported by online and vocal minorities such as FoH.  A game with raiding may succeed or fail, but raiding isn't any part of the core of that game, nor of the reason why it succeed.  A game core resolving around raiding is doomed to a Vanguard experience.

    - "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren

  • mindmeldmindmeld Member UncommonPosts: 229
    I like raiding let it be :)





    Anyway nothing is forcing anyone to participate in a highend raid

    -Semper ubi sub ubi!
    always wear underwear

  • AnofalyeAnofalye Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,433
    Originally posted by mindmeld

    I like raiding let it be :)





    Anyway nothing is forcing anyone to participate in a highend raid



    The rewards are.

     

    The best grouping tools have to be given in groups, not raids.  Otherwise, you enforce raiding.

    - "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren

  • mindmeldmindmeld Member UncommonPosts: 229
    hmm not sure what you mean ?



    Do you imply that grouping isnt fun enough when a game has raidiing in it or?

    -Semper ubi sub ubi!
    always wear underwear

  • Napolleon2Napolleon2 Member Posts: 26
    no raiding = the game fails, it needs high end content... sorry if you casuals dont got the time.. time invested in a mmo= better success, better gear etc etc... you cant want to play for 1-2 hours and be just as good as the nerd in his moms basement.  mmo's and casual should never go together...



    want casual?



    go play a single player mmorpg on a console.
  • VorthanionVorthanion Member RarePosts: 2,749
    Originally posted by actmodern
    Right. So Eve did it right but WoW didn't? Is that what you're saying about the so-called "bulk of the subscriber base?"

    Explain to me then why Eve has 100k subscriptions which can be paid for by in-game currency and WoW has 7.5 million plus and can't keep stable servers up because of the demand?

    Actually, have you played Eve casually? I'm curious what you were smoking when you wrote your article. Eve has repetitive instanced content as per agent missions. Go play it.

    The "casual" playerbase that you describe as the bulk is not a lazy one you seem to allude to. You want good loot and a fun experience? Take the time to treat 39 other people with respect and schedule the time to raid like everyone else. If this is not your cup of tea please go buy NWN2.

     

    I will say this about WoW.  Back in the day, when the game was at it's peak of popularity.  Blizzard revealed at a Blizzcon that less than 20% of the game's player base participated in raiding content.  The genre has known that raiding is a niche playstyle for a long time, even before WoW.  The problem is that many of the developers themselves are hardcore raiding fans.  Another problem is the effort to payoff ratio for end game content.  Sadly, raiding is easier to design and requires players to waste huge amounts of time between updates, where as other types of content would require more effort and would be consumed more quickly between updates.

    There is absolutely no reasonable reason why just about every frakking MMO embraces raiding as it's primary end game path of progression.  Yet the MMO genre continues to respond to the lash of the vocal minority of raiders and PvPers at the expense of everyone else, the majority that foot the bill.

    image
  • craftseekercraftseeker Member RarePosts: 1,740

    I have already been accused, more than once, on these forums of being a "carebear".  I have also been accused of being one of the "entitled generation". 

    Just to clarify:I am over 55, I have raided in Everquest, World of Warcraft, Everquest II and Rift.  I have run raiding guilds and I have, at times, raided up to 10 times a week for over 3 hours at a time.  I have been part of  guilds that had "phone trees" and pager or SMS systems and used spotters logged on 24 hours 7 days a week, so that the guild could form up a raid and kill a MOB in the open world as soon as it spawned and before anyone else on the server got a chance to get a "pull" on it.  Guilds that took pride in "server firsts" and "world firsts" and tried to always be in the top 10 guilds in that particular game.

    I have had long periods when I played an MMO for more than 40 hours a week.

    In short I think I know what hardcore is, been there done that.

    While raiding has a place and a time in MMO's it should not have the pre-eminence it has and has had for some time.  Raiding should not die, but the concept of END GAME should die and with it the idea that the only way to get the "Best in Slot" gear is to raid or buy it from raiders.  We should be demanding much more open content and options than the endlessly repeated 5 boss raid zone that must be completed twenty or thirty times in order to start ""working"" on the next raid zone that also must be completed 20 or 30 times to move on.

    It needs to stop, players burn out and need to be replaced and your guild slips back on the progression to equip the replacements.  It this happens often enough players move on to other guilds or burn out.  It is a pointless treadmill that is not fun and serves the egos of a few.

    Stop thinking in terms of hardcore and casual, carebears, and ooh bah! raiders.  Start examining is this really fun?  Why do I spend so much time waiting for the raid to form up, loot to be handed out or auctioned off and that one dood on his fifth bio break of the night?

    Wake up do you raid for fun or to be considered part of the leet?  Wouldnt you rather be doing something else if only the best gear was available from some other challenging activity?

     

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by Harpy_Lady
    I don't understand the appeal of raiding. It's mind-numbingly boring. I, for one, would love to see an interesting alternative.

    Developers have only been seeking good viable alternatives to "Raid or PvP" for sixteen years now.

    Let us know when you come up with some.

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

  • IsaneIsane Member UncommonPosts: 2,630
    Originally posted by Baldzulu
    I could not agree with you more. 

    I'm your classic definition of a casual player and I'd love to see more game developers come up with better ideas for the "end game".

    It is called real design , not lazy design .....

    Until people accept that insta max level is not really practical , raiding will be in forever.

    I believe most developers should work on charachter to max level in no less that 2-3 years, but for a game to last that long you need really well thought out games with depth and a lot more than just combat...

    Developers need to accept that Insta Travel / Insta Sell / Insta Everything feature work against game content depth and community.

    ________________________________________________________
    Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel 

  • IsaneIsane Member UncommonPosts: 2,630
    Originally posted by Icewhite
    Originally posted by Harpy_Lady
    I don't understand the appeal of raiding. It's mind-numbingly boring. I, for one, would love to see an interesting alternative.

    Developers have only been seeking good viable alternatives to "Raid or PvP" for sixteen years now.

    Let us know when you come up with some.

    The alternatives exist Developers are just ignoring them; Exponential Leveling Gameplay and Community are the answers. But sadly easy mode clone with no real depth seem to be all the rage for the dumbed down masses.

    ________________________________________________________
    Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel 

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by Isane

    The alternatives exist Developers are just ignoring them; Exponential Leveling Gameplay and Community are the answers. But sadly easy mode clone with no real depth seem to be all the rage for the dumbed down masses.

    Exponential leveling gameplay just hides the problem (and it's an archaic idea from the 80s). Assuming that we want to keep a cap, for the orignal "we want a cap" reasons, you haven't fixed capped-and-bored yet.

    Community is a beginning, middle, and end game, not something that gives capped players something to do for boredom relief. (I agree that for an individual player, people can be more entertaining than more content; but only if you're a fairly sociable person--not a universal idea).

    Next? Do keep them coming, there's money in this for us, if we come up with something workable.

    Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.

  • ShakyMoShakyMo Member CommonPosts: 7,207
    Elitist wow / EQ raiding needs to die.

    Inclusive everyone on the server pile on daoc/coh style raiding i would welcome a return of.
  • Asuran24Asuran24 Member Posts: 517

    I would not say riading needs to die as many people like riading, and so that would impart of reduction in the enjoyment of their time in game. THough i would say that raiding an pvp need to stop being the sole method of end-game progression in mmos, and so deversify the activies with other activies giving both worth-while as well as equally rewarding progression outside of raiding an pvp (even if that means it takes longer, or is more difficult to do). I mean you could even shift raiding to being more used in the leveling proccess by having raids prior to cap that can be done (such as for quests, class specific bonus, items, or even lore)., while making more content that is gained access to in the open world (ranging from outdoor dungeons, elite fields, objectives, elite quests, crafting, and such) that would give equal rewards to raiding so that you do not isolate the non-raiders from the raiders in the game. 

    I would lvoe to see raiding just being another option of play both during the leveling process (even making leveling much longer 5-12 times what it is now), and then expand the end-game activies for advancing your character to include more than raiding an pvp at end-game (this could blow the entire myth of the fun starts at end-game or the game starts at end-game). A nice fact of slowing the leveling process is that it would give the dev's alot more time to make, tweak, and test their content, as well as make more of it as they are not having to rush as much as they are now (even non-raiding content since  fewer people would get to raiding, and more people woould be in the wrold an small scale content.). 

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