Casual Play Column: Raiding Needs to Die

Meddle · December 2006

In his weekly Casual Play column, Steve Wilson laments the use of raid content as an end-game for many MMORPGs.

Anofalye · December 2006

Despite the fact I am a hardcore, a power gamer and even worser.

I support this guy, completely! I will take the front line. Tanking FoH np!

Baldzulu · December 2006

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".

Grimm666 · December 2006

Great article overall.

However, I don't think we'll see raiding die out any time in the near future no matter what us casuals think. Until technology improves exponentially, it'll be much easier and cheaper for a company to push out half a dozen raid dungeons that take hundreds of hours to get everything than to design the hundreds of individuals quests that will take a player the same amount of time to consume.

I'd love to play a game where I can log on at any moment of any day and have a choice between joining a randomly generated massive siege on some enemy stronghold, investigating some recently unearthed ruins that involves unique puzzles and dungeon design and permanently wiping out a goblin infestation from a nearby village and having similar choices every time I log into the game, but based on current design trends, I just don't see that happening unless a game can afford to retain an unrealistically large programming, QA and GM staff to design, create test and man all these events.

Until that happens, most quest-based MMOs are going to stick with the tried and true raiding formula - at least for PvE endgame. As far as I know, no MMO has died solely because of the use of raids (although I heard DAoC took a subscription hit) as an endgame solution

actmodern · December 2006

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.

Harpy_Lady · December 2006

I don't understand the appeal of raiding. It's mind-numbingly boring. I, for one, would love to see an interesting alternative.

konradg · December 2006

"Raiding" will never take 10-15 bucks a month out of my pocket because i have an IQ above 25. Also, the fact that I played one of maybe three mmo's that have open ended possibilities (UO), to stoop down to raiding would cause me to waste 10 bucks. No Thanks. Great article.

PegasusJF · December 2006

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.

Try this as a casual player in EVE. My corp for example keeps free mods and frigates available to all members, and greater assistance to those players who have hit on hard times. This allows them to make good use of their game time, even for casual players. Casual players can prosper in a good corporation.

Bringing up subscriber numbers (a tad low for EVE I might add) are irrealevant to this discussion. The topic at hand is the quality of the endgame (which in EVE, agent missions are only a small part of, but they are also a means to an end). Does WOW have the same quality endgame where you can actually affect the world as EVE can. This is despite of what you might think of EVE, consider it from a neutral perspective.

Speaking from personal experience, being in a great alliance (for over two years) fighting and surviving despite all odds (we've been heavily outnumbered more than once) , the resulting comraderie and alliance pride has always keep this game fresh for me.

You should take the time to read some of the histories of the older alliances of EVE, you'll see as much intrigue, heroism, and bloodshed as any real life war.

vajuras · December 2006

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.

Most players I know that like WoW avoid raiding like the plague. Raiding the same old dungeon over and over killing the same old mobs that doesnt fear death gets old at some point. Not to mention you have to wait like an hour for 40 people to show up in a lot of cases. Then you have to pray yer guild holds together so you can build up enough DKP to 'roll' on loot that finally dropped. Atop of that you gotta worry bout ninja looting, etc. Let's not even discuss the low drop chances for loot to drop too (UBRS, LBRS, scholomance, etc the list just goes on).

It gets old man. Every MMO out there relies on keeping subscribers around by suckering them into raiding for loot. Vanguard will be adding it and I just read somewhere that even Age of Conan will rely on it too. FFXI had it and probably most other MMOs.

Yeah sure WoW has 7.5 mil but most every hardcore subscriber I knew hung around for the pvp / battlegrounds. None of my good friends cared for raiding much at all. They enjoyed rolling alts and the pvp...

Not to mention what WoW bandwagon fans neglect to mention is that Blizzard is a powerhouse. They've been making hits since day 1- worldwide. Everyone knows who Blizzard is and they have the big $$$ to advertise on TV and stores. EvE was made by a small company with no hype. Blizzard has been well established by the Starcraft and Warcraft RTS franchises. I dont know any RTS fan thats never played Starcraft personally.

edit - Problem was that raiding also ruined pvp. Cause a 60 newb in blues can easily get steamrolled by some guy decked in all epics. Heck we've all seen the vids on wowmovies.com whereas some epic geared dude blows through teams of folks. The new patch is aimed at fixing this via honor points. So, perhaps WoW has become a much better game with the new patch.

btw I got a bud thats been playing EvE months casually. EvE is a sandbox whereas you can mine, pvp, do stuff with your corparation, etc. Newbies have no idea the amount of stuff you can do in that game. Corporations can build huge titans that can blow away huge fleets. It requires huge teamwork to build and maintain. Its cool stuff like that that makes EvE players care about their world. We need more good, true massive multiplayer worlds that follow EvE.

Reklaw · December 2006

Wake up people and realise that most of you that explain HARDCORE are those that explain what harcore means in FPS or singleplayer games, before www.mmorpg.com was down someone told me that MMORPG are losing there hardcore crowed because the game stopped being hard this alone showed us that many people think that hardcore in mmorpg has anything to do with how hard the game is, in a MMORPG you are hardcore when, you enjoy the complete game, when you are not that stupid to run the same dungeon over and over again meaning the same content for the same sub-fee wich lets face it would be just plain stupid to pursuit, exploring, challenges, fun are whats make you hardcore in a MMORPG, want harder stuff and want what the wanna be mmorpg players call hardcore , move away from mmorpg and step into FPS or singleplayer games, and its excectly this crowd with only their FPS or singleplayer experiance that has ruined our mmorpg worlds and made it into just a MMOG.

I do not blame you people for thinking this cause lets face it, look at real life we are so stupid and blind to think that terrorist'm has anything to do with religeon even the media is so incridible stupid to say so, holdon it gets even more messed up those same terrorist even think that what they do has anything to do with religeon, how messed up is this

People really start to forget what things really means in real life so that explains all those misguided people who think they are hardcore because the play the same thing over and over again.....

tkobo · December 2006

Raiding doesnt need to "die".

I hate raiding with a passion.BUT there is a measureable percentage of the player base of MMOs that like raiding.

That percentage should not be penalized simply becuase others dislike that style of play.That would be a knee jerk like over reaction, much like we commonly see dev teams react to balance issues.

Now that last line is really important,becuase the raiding main problem IS a balance issue.Right now raiders are treated as the favored children despite their low numbers.THIS is what needs to be changed.

Take away from raiding the "you can only get this quality gear from here" design mentality.Make sure that there is an equal amount of interesting content for non raiders.Etc...

Raiding doesnt need to be removed from games, it simply needs to be balanced appropriately.

The main problem as always is with the DEVs and their tunnel "vision" ,their lack of work ethic and lack of respect for the player base (paying customers).

Raids as done now allow the DEV teams to force people into a play style, to keep large amounts of those people busy with LESS content,and to create a small fanatic fanbois base.This is all appealing to the DEV teams becuase it means they can do less work and still get an overly vocal team of fanbios to defend them.

So again, much like a overly powerful character class,raiding doesnt need to be removed,it simply needs to be more appropriately balanced.

And that will only happen when the DEVs are forced to change their "reasoning".Sadly as most games show, and the SWG MMO shows in the extreme,getting the existant DEV teams to change their reasoning is comparable to holding back flood waters.

Mischiff · December 2006

This is the best topic I have read in a LONG LONG time ! It hits right on why I have stopped playing many games.
It would be so great if you could actually effect the world instead of it being stagnant. I would love to be
a hard core player, but my real life outside doesn't allow me the time; but even as a hard core player I dont agree
with armor and items unbalancing the game for those who cant put as much time into a game. I feel it makes
pvp, B'Gs etc less fun for those of us who cant put the long hours into getting the rare drops in raids.
Doing dungeons is fun but I think the rewards could be of a different nature.

spiritglow · December 2006

There's usually so much content to many mmorpgs that they could just offer a non raid server and many would be happy with that. EQ1 for instance is quite huge it would take years to go through it solo/grouped then you could just add new quests or player triggered events to existing zones for better gear, spells etc.

Spiritglow

spiritglow · December 2006

Originally posted by tkobo
Raiding doesnt need to "die". I hate raiding with a passion.BUT there is a measureable percentage of the player base of MMOs that like raiding. That percentage should not be penalized simply becuase others dislike that style of play.That would be a knee jerk like over reaction, much like we commonly see dev teams react to balance issues. Now that last line is really important,becuase the raiding main problem IS a balance issue.Right now raiders are treated as the favored children despite their low numbers.THIS is what needs to be changed. Take away from raiding the "you can only get this quality gear from here" design mentality.Make sure that there is an equal amount of interesting content for non raiders.Etc... Raiding doesnt need to be removed from games, it simply needs to be balanced appropriately. The main problem as always is with the DEVs and their tunnel "vision" ,their lack of work ethic and lack of respect for the player base (paying customers). Raids as done now allow the DEV teams to force people into a play style, to keep large amounts of those people busy with LESS content,and to create a small fanatic fanbois base.This is all appealing to the DEV teams becuase it means they can do less work and still get an overly vocal team of fanbios to defend them. So again, much like a overly powerful character class,raiding doesnt need to be removed,it simply needs to be more appropriately balanced. And that will only happen when the DEVs are forced to change their "reasoning".Sadly as most games show, and the SWG MMO shows in the extreme,getting the existant DEV teams to change their reasoning is comparable to holding back flood waters.

I would imagine that it's huge boost to the ego of dev's to have their fanbois, like having their own fiefdom, of course the raiders would be the ultimate serfs and everyone else lessor serfs. Sad...

Spiritglow

Balmer · December 2006

It's really frustrating to hear that an already dumbed down, main-stream, low-investment in time for raiding like what we see in WoW is STILL not easy enough for your 'casuals'.

You reap what you sew. If you spend the most time, the most energy, the most strategy, the most in-game coin on consumables, then you DESERVE the best gear in the game. The end-game SHOULD reward those who are the most dedicated. If you don't have the time to commit, sorry, QQ more. I have a full time job, a family, AND go to school in the evenings, and I still find time to raid a few nights a week. You ppl have no idea how easy you have it in most of the MMOs out there. You want your fun spoon-fed to you and you want the same rewards as those that spend much more time and energy. I say, tough sh*t and grow up. The real world isn't going to work like that...why should a massive online community.

I've played Eve for many years, WoW since Day 1, EQ1, DAOC, Shadowbane, DDO, LOTR beta currently, so I have a little experience with MMOs.

Eve has a really nice system for casuals because they can 'level up skills' even when offline. It requires no effort whatsoever...only time. But where's the reward for being more dedicated? I doesn't instill any sort of motivation to actually try harder...kind of like socialism, I think. Democratic, free market economies reward the business for it's ingenuity, dedication, and creates a competitive environment. Yeah, it's a tad cut-throat and borders on evil, maybe, but it's the best system to push mankind to prosper.

spiritglow · December 2006

Originally posted by Grimm666
Great article overall.

However, I don't think we'll see raiding die out any time in the near future no matter what us casuals think. Until technology improves exponentially, it'll be much easier and cheaper for a company to push out half a dozen raid dungeons that take hundreds of hours to get everything than to design the hundreds of individuals quests that will take a player the same amount of time to consume.

I'd love to play a game where I can log on at any moment of any day and have a choice between joining a randomly generated massive siege on some enemy stronghold, investigating some recently unearthed ruins that involves unique puzzles and dungeon design and permanently wiping out a goblin infestation from a nearby village and having similar choices every time I log into the game, but based on current design trends, I just don't see that happening unless a game can afford to retain an unrealistically large programming, QA and GM staff to design, create test and man all these events.

Until that happens, most quest-based MMOs are going to stick with the tried and true raiding formula - at least for PvE endgame. As far as I know, no MMO has died solely because of the use of raids (although I heard DAoC took a subscription hit) as an endgame solution

There has never been raiding in Guild Wars and I like it just fine except for not having a shared world persistency except for towns. If they came out with a seperate server that offered a shared world persistency I'd pay to play on that server. So it would still be free to play per month except on the shared world server.

Spiritglow

Ryowulf · December 2006

Great article.

spiritglow · December 2006

Originally posted by Balmer
It's really frustrating to hear that an already dumbed down, main-stream, low-investment in time for raiding like what we see in WoW is STILL not easy enough for your 'casuals'. You reap what you sew. If you spend the most time, the most energy, the most strategy, the most in-game coin on consumables, then you DESERVE the best gear in the game. The end-game SHOULD reward those who are the most dedicated. If you don't have the time to commit, sorry, QQ more. I have a full time job, a family, AND go to school in the evenings, and I still find time to raid a few nights a week. You ppl have no idea how easy you have it in most of the MMOs out there. You want your fun spoon-fed to you and you want the same rewards as those that spend much more time and energy. I say, tough sh*t and grow up. The real world isn't going to work like that...why should a massive online community. I've played Eve for many years, WoW since Day 1, EQ1, DAOC, Shadowbane, DDO, LOTR beta currently, so I have a little experience with MMOs. Eve has a really nice system for casuals because they can 'level up skills' even when offline. It requires no effort whatsoever...only time. But where's the reward for being more dedicated? I doesn't instill any sort of motivation to actually try harder...kind of like socialism, I think. Democratic, free market economies reward the business for it's ingenuity, dedication, and creates a competitive environment. Yeah, it's a tad cut-throat and borders on evil, maybe, but it's the best system to push mankind to prosper. The real world is not invited into mmorpgs currently no matter what they say. No matter how innovative, dedicated, or competitive you are, you are limited by the imagination of the devs game. They don't want you having the FREEDOM to buy what you want if you can afford it. They want you to have to go through the path they create to get it and I'm really sick of that paradigm. If I want a certain item and it requires a raid of 50 people to get it then that's not real world. It doesn't require 50 people to buy a luxary car or house. If you have the money you go in and buy it period. They don't ask if you have 50 people behind you as a qualifier. It's really all about control and ego and the devs don't want to give you control of your own fate in the game except through what they offer you, imo.
Spiritglow

Balmer · December 2006

Thats kind of a moronic response, Spiritglow. Why would you think the devs' ego has anything to do with how their customers obtain wealth or items. It's game mechanics, yes...but without rules or a system that governs what you do in this make-believe world, it's not a game. Would you play Chess with no rules? How would you win? Would you even bother trying? Thats like playing Chess with a 3 year old...who randomly pushes the pieces wherever he wants and tackles the queen and makes dinosaur noises. "I Win!"

So, I argue that there has to be a rule system. And the rule system that WoW has includes multiple paths to wealth, power and glory. The expansion will certainly make it a lot easier for casuals with the new 5 man content, but imo, the greater glory is progressing a larger force into a much more formiddable set of circumstances...ie, a raid. Coordinating not 4 other people, but 39 (or 24 in TBC) is much more rewarding to a lot of players. Casuals deserve to have some fun, too, but those that don't log the time, don't deserve the best rewards. Maximum effort=maximum reward. I don't know how many other ways to say that.

If you want a game experience that doesn't involve other ppl, or doesn't require you to be social, then maybe MMOs aren't for you. Don't ride the bandwagon cause it's what all the cool kids are doing.

Havoc-PK · December 2006

Mods to delete less posts IMO....

As I said, reminds me of the word "Vanguard".

dippitydodah · December 2006

I couldn't agree more with this.

I am a fairly hardcore mmo player, however I still play for fun even if I have the time to devote to a game doesn't mean I want my time wasted on pointless loot waiting 3 months to get a new pair of socks.

I think the entire idea of raiding and it's rewards are boring and mindumbing.... Why OOOHH why would I want to run through the same exact content over and over and over again.. easy answer I don't and I pay for it in WoW every day I come across others in thier tier 3 armor on my battle group.

luckily you can still win in pvp in wow with skill however gear makes a HUGE difference and most MMO's gear is absolutely everything.

just waiting on Darkfall don't let my down you bastard.

Cerion · December 2006

The characterization as these obsessive players as 'achievers' is a misnomer. They are just that, obsessive, with a possible gambling addiction. Let's face it, these ultra rare mobs are just like Vegas slot machines. Pull the arm on these MOBS long enough until the rare jackpot uber item drops.

Games that cater to this gambling addiction are just as ethically suspect as Casinos.

You know who is an achiever? CEOs, Presidents, Neurosurgeons, Directors...these people are achievers. Playing a game obsessively does not make you an achiever.

dippitydodah · December 2006

I also think it's funny how companies claim to be trying to cater to a more causual crowd, or put little warnings on thier games to take breaks after playing for periods of time.. yet don't reward any of this behavior when all indicators show, they constantly reward obsessive behavior and punish those who take things in moderation.

Nothing is more annoying than seeing that screen that says remember to take all things in moderaton even World of warcraft but the only people who have gear to compete truly in pvp are the ones who don't take it in moderation because the entire game mechanic is made for the truly addicted.

It's like being a drug dealer and then saying what a shame it is that all these people are addicted to drugs.

Ryguy105 · December 2006

I find it enjoyable to see the people defending World of Warcraft, when it is the prime target in this conversation.

I am a hardcore player, I played WoW since release. They butchered endgame content. That is all that needs to be said. But yes, it seems they are working to fix it.

I played Dark Age of Camelot from release until a couple years ago (several months after Frontiers expansion was released) and I feel they did a better job at that time with players actually having an affect on the world than WoW has yet to do. Which is why I can not wait until Warhammer Online comes out.

vajuras · December 2006

Originally posted by Balmer

It's really frustrating to hear that an already dumbed down, main-stream, low-investment in time for raiding like what we see in WoW is STILL not easy enough for your 'casuals'.
You reap what you sew. If you spend the most time, the most energy, the most strategy, the most in-game coin on consumables, then you DESERVE the best gear in the game. The end-game SHOULD reward those who are the most dedicated. If you don't have the time to commit, sorry, QQ more. I have a full time job, a family, AND go to school in the evenings, and I still find time to raid a few nights a week. You ppl have no idea how easy you have it in most of the MMOs out there. You want your fun spoon-fed to you and you want the same rewards as those that spend much more time and energy. I say, tough sh*t and grow up. The real world isn't going to work like that...why should a massive online community.

Okay so for pve'ers like yourself that doesnt mind doing the same content over and over I have no problem with you getting some gear. However, for us PvPers that like to fight real players or do different things let us get rewards. I have no problem with raiding per se- just dont force me to do it. I hate killing the same mobs over and over that will just respawn a few seconds later- mobs that doesnt fear death. I put in the same amount of time as a raider or more. AND I am also working with a team of other pvpers to fight other players. In Battlegrounds I had fun fighting with 39 other pvpers towards the goal of wiping out enemy guilds. Also, I enjoyed raiding cities and boats with my guild (we had 80+ people once). We DESERVE rewards just as good as the raiders.

One good thing the new WoW patch does add good rewards via honor for lvl 60s however, theres a plethora of other MMOs that handle this way worse then WoW. City of Heroes for example also has some end game raiding and theres no options to earn the end game drops from pvp whatsoever. So I still consider this article accurate. The article isnt really aimed at just WoW per se- theres TONS of MMORPGs that use end game raiding mainly to get certain pieces of end game gear. Rappelz, vanguard, City of heroes, FFXI, EQ, the lsit goes on and on....

wjrasmussen · December 2006

Customers train the developers/publishers how to create and run their games by giving money on a monthly basis. Wow offers raiding and regardless of what percentage of the playerbase is playing in them, the money flow every month is what they are looking at and responding too. At the number of people paying to play in Wow has taught the devs of the MMORPG industry that what wow is doing works.

It doesn't get more basic than that.

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