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Hipsters... hipsters everywhere

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  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Originally posted by bunnyhopper
    Originally posted by Quirhid
     

    Accessibility.

    Marketing.

    Ease of use.

    Cost.

    Getting there first in the market and grabbing market share.

    Time it takes to get into.

    Carrot dangling progression.

    Players knowing other players and not wanting to leave them.

    Players not wanting to lose "their stuffz".

    Players not knowing what else is on the market/on offer.

    Loyalty to a particular brand/IP.

    Loyalty to a particular type of game.

     

    There are plenty of drivers for both popularity and for longevity of sorts, non of which you would classically attribute to "quality".

    First, accessibility and ease of use are both usability and usability is part of quality. I should know, usability and user interfaces is my major. Loyalty to anything or being afraid to lose your progression are the worst reasons possible to play a game - and likely not very common too. But if they are common, people truly are stupid...

    Second, none of those reasons attribute to any significant popularity. It might be why some people hang on to some games, but it does not explain mass appeal.

     

    Popularity points to the potential that there is some quality there for some people, but when a forum poster says a game is good or bad, that is their subjective view. A billion people can play GW2 and someone who doesn't like it can say it is a "shit game" and that has NOTHING to do with him/her saying that because it is popular, it is because they think the mechanics are in their mind "shit".

    I have encountered may players who dislike a game just because it is cool to do so, and they don't even know what the game is like. I'm sure you've come across them too. It has everything to do with feeling insecure about their own preferences and the need to justify them.

     

    Your analogy shows how retarded the whole popularity as a yardstick for quality is. Do I think two games, one popular and one unpopular are equal in quality?

    Well it depends really, do they both have exactly the same mechanics?

    Do they both have exactly the same advertising budget and reach out to exactly the same userbase?

    Do they both appeal to the same userbase?

    Because if they don't have pretty much exactly the same parameters, then saying one is more popular than the other due to quality is a false argument, when you should instead be looking at what makes the games tick.

    The point was to force you to make a statement about popularity if it was the only variable that was different between the two games. But you dodged it. image

     

    And that's the trouble isn't it, people use the whole "popularity = quality" argument for products aimed at completely different audiences, with completely different mechanics, with completely different levels of accessibility and cost

     

    If you are telling me that a game which can be played in a five minute pick up session for a quick blast and accessed through a browser, is more popular than one which takes hours to get into and requires a monthly sub, because of "quality" then you are, quite frankly, mad.

     

    You could make an exceptionally high quality product, if that product is not as accessibile to as many people or is in some way "niche", whilst it may be more popular than it's direct niche peers, it will not be as popular as something more accessible and less niche. Amazing stuff.

    Again, accessibility contributes to quality. And you are paraphrasing me wrongly: I never said popularity = quality. If you want to bring math or formal logic into this, my argument would roughly be "popularity -> quality" where the arrow stands for logical implication meaning "if there is popularity, there is quality" and "if there is no popularity, nothing can be said about quality".

     

    Btw "Wow-clone", "easymode", "player sheep" and "console generation" may well be crappy old slurs, but non of them have anything whatsoever to do with popularity......

     The sheep comment specifically refers to popularity and mass market appeal.

     

    So popularity may point ot a product having quality, but it isn't clear cut, so the comment I made earlier stands, If you just cite popularity as proof of quality then you will get /facepalmed in response. If though you go and point out exactly what makes a product quality in your mind, then you have a good debate on your hands.

    Just like changes in the spectrum or "wobbling" of stars is a sign of exoplanets, so is popularity a sign of quality. With the presumption that no one plays bad games, there is always quality where there is popularity. Those games do something right.

     

    I don't like most modern mmos and I can assure you I am neither a hipster, nor do I like/dislike things based on how many other people like/dislike them.

    Reply in green.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Originally posted by Scot

    Unfortunately for Quirhid, just because he does not like an analogy does not make it wrong. :)

    We have had a few discussions before based around this topic. People do like big Mac’s and the company is making a mint. But that does not prove intrinsic quality, it is a fair analogy, like it or not.

    As for an analogy for the future of gaming, I would suggest a sweet shop. The length of time you need to eat fast food will be too long to represent where MMO’s are heading. Casualness will be enhanced, lobby style gameplay advanced, the speed you get to top level increased. So something like a bag of candy as our analogy for future MMO’s will fit the bill better.

    Hey I take Big Macs over mud cakes any day. Both are made in roughtly the same time (as games are), but mud cakes take a lot longer to ingest. Does that analogy go right with you?

    -Didn't think so.

    Do you see my point now? Anyone can create an analogy to suit them.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • BeansnBreadBeansnBread Member EpicPosts: 7,254
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by Scot

    Unfortunately for Quirhid, just because he does not like an analogy does not make it wrong. :)

    We have had a few discussions before based around this topic. People do like big Mac’s and the company is making a mint. But that does not prove intrinsic quality, it is a fair analogy, like it or not.

    As for an analogy for the future of gaming, I would suggest a sweet shop. The length of time you need to eat fast food will be too long to represent where MMO’s are heading. Casualness will be enhanced, lobby style gameplay advanced, the speed you get to top level increased. So something like a bag of candy as our analogy for future MMO’s will fit the bill better.

    Hey I take Big Macs over mud cakes any day. Both are made in roughtly the same time (as games are), but mud cakes take a lot longer to ingest. Does that analogy go right with you?

    -Didn't think so.

    Do you see my point now? Anyone can create an analogy to suit them.

    The McDonalds analogy is horrible.

     

    600k people play EVE. 200k people play AoC. EVE is the McDonalds of MMORPGs.

     

    It's just an ultimately stupid argument with a seriously flawed logic to it.

  • WabbaWayWabbaWay Member Posts: 101

    Example: I play the game "Salem" a lot and there's very few people who actually play that game - not because it's bad (atleast, i like to think it isnt) but because it caters to a small minority of players who loves crafting and permadeath in the games they play. 

    I like to think there's (mostly, not always) a correlation between popular and good, but that doesn't have to mean it's the same for unpopular and bad... Dig around in indieDB.com and you'll find some awesome games you've never heard of - not because they're bad, but because they don't have the money to advertise for themselves.

    So please, don't piss on those of us who likes the smaller, unpopular games and call us hipster and our games bad - that's just simplifying the topic. But yeah, if someone calls it "fine dining" they're pretty fucking stupid - but some of us actually do like some odd shit in our games, not because we want to be gamin-hipsters but because thats just what we like.

    It's sorta like calling somosexuals for hipsters. Sorta, a little. 

    image
  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435
    Originally posted by colddog04
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by Scot

    Unfortunately for Quirhid, just because he does not like an analogy does not make it wrong. :)

    We have had a few discussions before based around this topic. People do like big Mac’s and the company is making a mint. But that does not prove intrinsic quality, it is a fair analogy, like it or not.

    As for an analogy for the future of gaming, I would suggest a sweet shop. The length of time you need to eat fast food will be too long to represent where MMO’s are heading. Casualness will be enhanced, lobby style gameplay advanced, the speed you get to top level increased. So something like a bag of candy as our analogy for future MMO’s will fit the bill better.

    Hey I take Big Macs over mud cakes any day. Both are made in roughtly the same time (as games are), but mud cakes take a lot longer to ingest. Does that analogy go right with you?

    -Didn't think so.

    Do you see my point now? Anyone can create an analogy to suit them.

    The McDonalds analogy is horrible.

     

    350k people play EVE. 200k people play AoC. EVE is the McDonalds of MMORPGs.

     

    It's just an ultimately stupid argument with a seriously flawed logic to it.

    And AOC is the Burger King of MMO's, with LOTRO taking the place of Wendy's and Mortal online, I dunno, Jack in the box?

    Probably more accurate to call WOW McDonalds however, billions served and all that you know.

    Point is, among MMORPG's, just like among fast food hamburger joints, the quality is pretty much the same between all of them, and the reason for one chain's greater popularity over another is less about one really being "better" than another, but more about who's advertising has been more effective over the long haul.

    Where the food analogy fails is if you try to say one MMORPG is of a higher quality than the others, that EVE for some reason is the 5 Guys/Burger 21/BurgerMonger etc of Burger joints, when in fact there's no discernable evidence that is true.

    There are differences in how things taste between food at the various low end restaurant chains, but that doesn't really reflect any difference in quality, but more about consumer preferences about certain features each might have (hey, I like my burger flame broiled, McDonalds doesn' t offer that)

    Yet some folks hate McDonalds just  because it's McDonalds and the most popular, and take their business elsewhere.

    I think a more interesting example in the real world of this phenomenon is how many people loath Walmart, and won't even shop there despite the fact it frequently has the lowest price for the item they are shopping for.

    Their distaste has nothing to do with what matters, price, or quality, and everything to do with some esoteric perceptions about corporate unfairness or in fact, they are too hip or high brow to shop at such a store.

    They are being hipsters in this scenario as well.

     

     

    "True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde 

    "I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant

    Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm

    Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

    Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™

    "This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon






  • bunnyhopperbunnyhopper Member CommonPosts: 2,751
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by bunnyhopper
    Originally posted by Quirhid
     

    First, accessibility and ease of use are both usability and usability is part of quality. I should know, usability and user interfaces is my major. Loyalty to anything or being afraid to lose your progression are the worst reasons possible to play a game - and likely not very common too. But if they are common, people truly are stupid...

    Second, none of those reasons attribute to any significant popularity. It might be why some people hang on to some games, but it does not explain mass appeal.

    Accessibility may be a yardstick of quality specifically for a user interface. But not for a total product. The local shop is more accessible to me than Harrods, but it doesn't have more quality due to that fact.

    They may not be reasons in your mind, but they are, like it or not.

    Second, yes, they clearly do.

     

     

    I have encountered may players who dislike a game just because it is cool to do so, and they don't even know what the game is like. I'm sure you've come across them too. It has everything to do with feeling insecure about their own preferences and the need to justify them.

    Some people certainly seem to dislike games/mechanics because it is the "cool thing to do", funnily enough though, most who do this seem to be "against" older systems and more niche mechanics. So not so sure about the whole "insecurity" thing in terms of popularity.

     

    The point was to force you to make a statement about popularity if it was the only variable that was different between the two games. But you dodged it. image

    The point of the response was to say that that is virtually never the case. You came up with something which is just about implausible when looking at whole products. I didn't "dodge it", I pointed out the flaw in it.

     

    Again, accessibility contributes to quality. And you are paraphrasing me wrongly: I never said popularity = quality. If you want to bring math or formal logic into this, my argument would roughly be "popularity -> quality" where the arrow stands for logical implication meaning "if there is popularity, there is quality" and "if there is no popularity, nothing can be said about quality".

    Stop arguing then. If I want to bring math into this? Not really I use complex mathematics for my day to day work, why would I want to use it on a discussion forums for games? I wasn't aware that whacking in the = sign pointed to that.

    Btw I see you avoided the main crux of the point, that unless you are comparing like for like products and have removed all other variables, then saying popularity is proof of quality is incorrect.

     

     

     The sheep comment specifically refers to popularity and mass market appeal.

    Actually is specifically refers to the fact that popularity is not neccessarily an indicator of quality. Not that "I hate this because it is popular".

     

    Just like changes in the spectrum or "wobbling" of stars is a sign of exoplanets, so is popularity a sign of quality. With the presumption that no one plays bad games, there is always quality where there is popularity. Those games do something right.

    The trouble is your analogy doesn't hold. You see, for a scientific principle to hold, you have to be able to discount all other potential variables. If it was shown that other factors could cause star wobble then the effect would NOT be proof of an exoplanet. As it is as clear as day that there are other variables outside of "quality" which can impact upon popularity, then you cannot just say popularity is a sign of quality in anywhere near the same sense. Hence popularity is a sign of potential quality, but you need to then demonstrate said quality.

    Again "bad games" is subjective.

    I don't like most modern mmos and I can assure you I am neither a hipster, nor do I like/dislike things based on how many other people like/dislike them.

    Reply in green.

    Popularity can point to quality. It cannot though be used as proof of quality which many people seem to try to do here.

    Plenty of people who dislike certain games do so with zero interest in whether said game has three people playing or three million people playing.

     

    I have put forward two key principles:

    1. That not everyone who dislikes modern games does so because they are "hipsters" who just don't like popular stuff.

    2. That whilst popularity can be an indicator of quality, unless you have managed to remove all other potential variables, then the usual popularity = quality (no that doesn't mean I want to debate stochastic differential equations with you) argument that gets bandied about on here all the time, well it doesn't hold up on it's own without further clarification, at all.

     

    To prevent this becoming even more of a circle jerk, if you are going to respond, stick to those two core arguments (not an order debate what you want, just seems sensible for the sake of clarity). But I fail to see how you can disagree with them. If you don't then we have been talking around the houses for the last few posts.

     

     

     

    "Come and have a look at what you could have won."

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Originally posted by bunnyhopper
    Originally posted by Quirhid
     

    Popularity can point to quality. It cannot though be used as proof of quality which many people seem to try to do here.

    Plenty of people who dislike certain games do so with zero interest in whether said game has three people playing or three million people playing.

     

    I have put forward two key principles:

    1. That not everyone who dislikes modern games does so because they are "hipsters" who just don't like popular stuff.

    2. That whilst popularity can be an indicator of quality, unless you have managed to remove all other potential variables, then the usual popularity = quality (no that doesn't mean I want to debate stochastic differential equations with you) argument that gets bandied about on here all the time, well it doesn't hold up on it's own without further clarification, at all.

     

    To prevent this becoming even more of a circle jerk, if you are going to respond, stick to those two core arguments (not an order debate what you want, just seems sensible for the sake of clarity). But I fail to see how you can disagree with them. If you don't then we have been talking around the houses for the last few posts.

    See this is our main difference, you say popularity can be a sign of quality and I say popularity is a sign of quality. You imply that a poor quality game can still be popular. If we take 3 of the latest mainstream titles, Rift, TSW and GW2, do you think any of them achieved popularity through anything other than quality?

    So far, popularity has been a reliable indicator of quality. Would you accept that? Good products sell themselves.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • XasapisXasapis Member RarePosts: 6,337

    You put up there three games that have different monetary models from companies that have different reputaiton with the core mmoprg audience, different marketing campaign and so on. Not to mention that those products were aiming at different subsection of the mmorpg population.

     

    If your argument had any merit, the best quality games would be the facebook games, by far. Do you honestly believe that?

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Originally posted by Xasapis
    You put up there three games that have different monetary models from companies that have different reputaiton with the core mmoprg audience, different marketing campaign and so on. Not to mention that those products were aiming at different subsection of the mmorpg population.

    Those three segments are hardly separate. I'm going to hazard a guess and say most of their playerbase have played or tried all of three.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • QuirhidQuirhid Member UncommonPosts: 6,230
    Originally posted by Xasapis

    If your argument had any merit, the best quality games would be the facebook games, by far. Do you honestly believe that?

    By making that conclusion you show you've misunderstood my argument.

    I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky

  • fenistilfenistil Member Posts: 3,005
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by fenistil

    "I still play because my friends are still playing"

    "I still play because of community ingame"

    "I still play because I invested so much time and effort over the years"

    "I still play because [developer name] I support all their games"

    "I still play because [developer name] is great and will change(or revert changes) what I don't like in future surely."

    -------------------

    Even if you don't agree with any of the above there is one thing. There is no objective quality to games that you can measure, at least not in a sense you seem to imply. Quality is not a sum of how many people like certain game. If more people like certain game it just mean that more people like it. Not more not less. 

    What could be used as measureable objective quality of a game is things like: number of bugs, number of quests or classes or races and so on, how fast bugs and exploit get fixed, how fast Consumer Support resolve problems and so on. Still even those things are not easily measureable and especially comparable between games. Most importantly though while they have impact, sometimes great impact on game success it is not absolute one. There were and are games that released polished and with good support and failed and there are games that weren't as much polished and with bad support and succeded.

    All of those reasons are... I would never play a game because of that - and I'm sure some people do, but it is hardly widespread enough to make a serious impact.

    Popularity is an objective measure as much as bugs per lines of code is*. And I've never said its an absolute one. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I've always formed it "popularity is evidence of some quality". If you've read anything else its just other posters misquoting / misreading my meaning.

    *(BTW the number of quests, classes or races are definitely NOT a measure of quality)

    Does they are widespread or not we can only speculate like we do with most of things in this forum since we don't have any data to prove it one way or another.

    Obviosuly that popularity is evidence of some quality, but it cannot be used as evidence to measure amount of quality.

    It is obvious that game that lack technical quality won't be popular. Best example is Vanguard.  This game had incredible amount of bugs at release, was obviously unifnished, support was scarce and unable to fix rampant players exploiting and gold selling. Additionally peformance was so obnoxious that many people that bought it could not play it even solo. 

    That is definately example how bad game quality can practically ruin it. Still that does not mean you can use popularity to measure amount of quality game does have.

    You cannot say that World of Warcraft is 5-10 x bigger quality than GW2 or that it has 20-30 x more quality than Swtor. It would be even harder to prove that EVE has more quality than Rift because it is more popular and so on. 

    Quality is diffrent term than popularity that's why they are not synonyms.

    What could be proved propably is that if something is popular then there is higher mathematical chance that this thing have some feature or part that is perceived by many people as feature of high qualitty to them.  But that's just a long way to say 'popular'.

     

    I think it will be impossible to you to prove that popularity equal quality.  It is like trying to prove that Football (Soccer) is of higher quality than Handball because it is more popular.

  • Threatlevel0Threatlevel0 Member UncommonPosts: 179
    Originally posted by Quirhid

    See this is our main difference, you say popularity can be a sign of quality and I say popularity is a sign of quality. You imply that a poor quality game can still be popular. If we take 3 of the latest mainstream titles, Rift, TSW and GW2, do you think any of them achieved popularity through anything other than quality?

    So far, popularity has been a reliable indicator of quality. Would you accept that? Good products sell themselves.

     

    Not at all.  Popularity is a measure of quantity it doesn't relate to quality at all.    You can't measure the quality of any product by it's popularity.   Argumentum ad populum fallacy.    

     

    Smoking is popular.  Millions of people may smoke, yet is that a sign of smoking's quality?   Good products sell themselves...

     

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

    If anyone can claim any game is fine dining and by doing so makes it true, don't you think it diminishes the whole notion? Afterall, the whole idea is to set your preference above everyone else's. You see if every game is fine dining, none is.

    You understand that the phrase "fine dining" is an advertising tagline, and meaningless in absolute terms, right?

    Yes, for any given poster (x), the definition of what makes "fine dining", for him, is entirely subjective.  It can't be anything else.

    "I think Big Mac Secret Sauce is the tastiest thing ever.  McDonald's, without a doubt, makes the best burgers."

    "What?  That stirring collection of anemic ingredients, artificial beef-like substance, and wilted lettuce?  Joes Burger positively makes the best burgers around here."

    "Ur wrong." "No U Are" "Commie Pinko!" "Fascist!"

    Sound like a couple of forums around here?  Which one is 'wrong'?

    ===========

    But what's most interesting here is that the labels (Commie Pinko, Fascist) are attached after the value judgements.

    As opposed to the original op, which starts with the label, and works backwards to telling us what the labeled people believe, what they're like, why I hate them.  Predjudicial logic.

    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.

  • BossalinieBossalinie Member UncommonPosts: 724
    Originally posted by Threatlevel0
    Originally posted by Quirhid

    See this is our main difference, you say popularity can be a sign of quality and I say popularity is a sign of quality. You imply that a poor quality game can still be popular. If we take 3 of the latest mainstream titles, Rift, TSW and GW2, do you think any of them achieved popularity through anything other than quality?

    So far, popularity has been a reliable indicator of quality. Would you accept that? Good products sell themselves.

     

    Not at all.  Popularity is a measure of quantity it doesn't relate to quality at all.    You can't measure the quality of any product by it's popularity.   Argumentum ad populum fallacy.    

     

    Smoking is popular.  Millions of people may smoke, yet is that a sign of smoking's quality?   Good products sell themselves...

    If smoking was some form of entertainment, you might be on to something...but it clearly isn't.

    Many smokers would probably tell you they wish smoking wasn't popular....

  • Threatlevel0Threatlevel0 Member UncommonPosts: 179
    Originally posted by bossalinie
    Originally posted by Threatlevel0
    Originally posted by Quirhid

    See this is our main difference, you say popularity can be a sign of quality and I say popularity is a sign of quality. You imply that a poor quality game can still be popular. If we take 3 of the latest mainstream titles, Rift, TSW and GW2, do you think any of them achieved popularity through anything other than quality?

    So far, popularity has been a reliable indicator of quality. Would you accept that? Good products sell themselves.

     

    Not at all.  Popularity is a measure of quantity it doesn't relate to quality at all.    You can't measure the quality of any product by it's popularity.   Argumentum ad populum fallacy.    

     

    Smoking is popular.  Millions of people may smoke, yet is that a sign of smoking's quality?   Good products sell themselves...

    If smoking was some form of entertainment, you might be on to something...but it clearly isn't.

    Many smokers would probably tell you they wish smoking wasn't popular....

     

    I'm not on to anything...   Smoking is a habit, gaming is a form of entertainment, yet claiming popularity as a sign of quality for either is a fallacy.  These are facts.     

     

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by bossalinie
    Originally posted by Threatlevel0

    Smoking is popular.  Millions of people may smoke, yet is that a sign of smoking's quality?   Good products sell themselves...

    If smoking was some form of entertainment, you might be on to something...but it clearly isn't.

    Many smokers would probably tell you they wish smoking wasn't popular....

    Er, you may want to re-read his analogy...smoking, popularity unrelated to quality.

    Lots of reading on the internet available on ad populum and ad numerum.  We really shouldn't have to explain them to MMO fans tooooo often.

    Big ol scary latin words.

    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.

  • XasapisXasapis Member RarePosts: 6,337
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by Xasapis
    You put up there three games that have different monetary models from companies that have different reputaiton with the core mmoprg audience, different marketing campaign and so on. Not to mention that those products were aiming at different subsection of the mmorpg population.

    Those three segments are hardly separate. I'm going to hazard a guess and say most of their playerbase have played or tried all of three.

    And that's where you're wrong.

    Rift basically launched in a period where it had no competition by any other subscription based mmoprg. Their marketing was quite decent, especially in the US, where they mimicked the marketing strategy of Blizzard. The company was new but the reputation of the man in charge helped them. They are still profitable and they have stabilised their population in a profitable margin. They don't have the absurd numbers of WoW, but they don't need to.

     

    TSW launched in a period where they had heavy competition by two other heavy hitter mmorpgs. Their marketing was ... slow. The company had soiled the repution by previous releases and thus, despite the good polished and different product, it didn't reach the expected numbers. The population is stabilised atm, but at a much lower margin than Rift (comparison with GW2 population is irrelevant due to the different model). The only saving grace now is that they don't abandon their games, no matter how bad they do.

     

    GW2 launched in a good period (a bit later than TSW & TERA and a bit earlier than the WoW expansions). Their marketing was they biggest hypestorm the mmoprg genre has seen since the pre release days of SW:TOR (probably worse in rabid fanboysm). The previous offering was solid (successful as a single player game with multiplayer, but not as an mmorpg) so that helped their absurd manifesto claims. The monetary model helped in terms of people treating it as a single player game with mulitplayer support (sort of like a Diablo in bigger scale) and were more forgiving to the numerous bugs, hacks and exploits that are still rampant.

     

    How is quality mesured though? If you were right, GW2 would be a better quality product than TSW. The biggest problem in TSW was the unfied server chat, not more than 5 quests (out of 500 or so multilevel quests) that were not working and the only major exploit was the ability to leave the dungeon death area. Later on they were breaking stuff in the new nightmare dungeons they introduced, but the problem was not there at launch.

    Compare this to the more popular GW2. Same chat channel problem, even without the cross server chat ability. Trade/mail/AH not working. Dynamic events, skill quests etc not firing in whole zones (forcing people to server swap until they found a server that worked). And too many exploit and hacks to mention both in PvE and PvP (or especially so in PvP).

     

    Population can be an indication of quality, but it can also be misleading.

    WoW is still the most popular mmorpg in the subscription market. How many of you think it offers the best quality in the market?
     
    The easiest path to making a game popular is to make it casual friendly. While there are numerous casual friendly games that offer good quality gameplay, that doesn't exclude games that are targetting a more specialised audience from being equaly if not of better quality than the casual counterparts.
  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403
    Originally posted by Xasapis
    WoW is still the most popular mmorpg in the subscription market. How many of you think it offers the best quality in the market?

    Irrelevant.

    No really. What we think does not matter, unless we're holding Blizzard accounts.

    Blizzard's interest is to keep the majority of their customers believing that, and generation of new customers.

    Pretty sure they'd snicker at the hubris..."Hey boss, those guys on mmorpg.com think we care about their opinions." 'Heee heee (rolling around on stacks of cash)"

    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.

  • XasapisXasapis Member RarePosts: 6,337

    Actually what we think does matter. I'm not talking about the people of this forum, but in general.

    If people are tired by the hub quest system or the quests system in general, it will change in future mmorpgs. If people are tired of raidings, then new offerings will deliver other features. If people are tired of themeparks, we may see quality sandboxes or hybrids offered.

    And Blizzard is notorious about doing nothing but the minimum effort. Which in their case involves copying the best features of their competitors and incorporating them into their game, whether they fit or not. When they have no serious competition, people get the same reheated soup over and over again.

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

    Actually what we think does matter. I'm not talking about the people of this forum, but in general.

    If people are tired by the hub quest system or the quests system in general, it will change in future mmorpgs. If people are tired of raidings, then new offerings will deliver other features. If people are tired of themeparks, we may see quality sandboxes or hybrids offered.

    And blizzard cares a lot about that...why?

    They're noting an aging game begin the inevitable slow fade.

    We may see..nearly anything.  Even inherently fine ideas like D3 and SC2 and pandas...cough.

    The conflicting opinions of a herd of aging vets?  Probably matter less than the opinions of a (much bigger) herd of Smartphone owners.  And that second group has an advantage, from a new-business standpoint; no opinions already set in rock (apparently something of an issue for the MMO industry).

    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.

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,435
    Originally posted by Icewhite
    Originally posted by Xasapis
    WoW is still the most popular mmorpg in the subscription market. How many of you think it offers the best quality in the market?

    Irrelevant.

    No really. What we think does not matter, unless we're holding Blizzard accounts.

    Blizzard's interest is to keep the majority of their customers believing that, and generation of new customers.

    Pretty sure they'd snicker at the hubris..."Hey boss, those guys on mmorpg.com think we care about their opinions." 'Heee heee (rolling around on stacks of cash)"

    Yeah, same as the music producers who keep creating the next big boy band or pop female singers care about what critics think of the music that they produce. 

    May not be considered high quality, but it sure brings in a butt load of cash.

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  • Paradigm68Paradigm68 Member UncommonPosts: 890
    Originally posted by Quirhid
    Originally posted by Paradigm68
    Originally posted by Quirhid
     

    Yep. Your opinion that there is no fine dining is negated as being a fact by other people's opinion that there is fine dining. Isn't that obvious?

    If anyone can claim any game is fine dining and by doing so makes it true, don't you think it diminishes the whole notion? Afterall, the whole idea is to set your preference above everyone else's. You see if every game is fine dining, none is.

    Not at all. As I said, its a subjective judgement. Its true for that person. What it does mean is that any claim that there isn't any any fine dining quality mmo's is demonstrably false, because somone thinks there is.

    See, you're making the claim that no one can judge any current mmo's as being above a certain quality. For you to be wrong, someone just has to in fact judge a given mmo above a certain quality. That being the case, your argument is rendered invalid.

  • ArglebargleArglebargle Member EpicPosts: 3,381

    Cassette tapes become the defacto standard despite being the poorest available solution for conveying music (but the easiest for recording).  VHS wins despite not being as good as Betamax, due to market dominance and a few other factors.

     

    Popcorn may be fluff, but you don't always want to eat a steak at the movies.  'The Best' is not a singular characteristic.      'Popularity' is much more easily manipulated.

    If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.

  • BeansnBreadBeansnBread Member EpicPosts: 7,254
    Originally posted by Kyleran
    Originally posted by colddog04

    The McDonalds analogy is horrible.

     

    350k people play EVE. 200k people play AoC. EVE is the McDonalds of MMORPGs.

     

    It's just an ultimately stupid argument with a seriously flawed logic to it.

    And AOC is the Burger King of MMO's, with LOTRO taking the place of Wendy's and Mortal online, I dunno, Jack in the box?

    Probably more accurate to call WOW McDonalds however, billions served and all that you know.

    Point is, among MMORPG's, just like among fast food hamburger joints, the quality is pretty much the same between all of them, and the reason for one chain's greater popularity over another is less about one really being "better" than another, but more about who's advertising has been more effective over the long haul.

    Where the food analogy fails is if you try to say one MMORPG is of a higher quality than the others, that EVE for some reason is the 5 Guys/Burger 21/BurgerMonger etc of Burger joints, when in fact there's no discernable evidence that is true.

    There are differences in how things taste between food at the various low end restaurant chains, but that doesn't really reflect any difference in quality, but more about consumer preferences about certain features each might have (hey, I like my burger flame broiled, McDonalds doesn' t offer that)

    Yet some folks hate McDonalds just  because it's McDonalds and the most popular, and take their business elsewhere.

    I think a more interesting example in the real world of this phenomenon is how many people loath Walmart, and won't even shop there despite the fact it frequently has the lowest price for the item they are shopping for.

    Their distaste has nothing to do with what matters, price, or quality, and everything to do with some esoteric perceptions about corporate unfairness or in fact, they are too hip or high brow to shop at such a store.

    They are being hipsters in this scenario as well.

    The actual sub numbers were irrelevant to me. I was just making them up to demonstrate a point. A point that I think you made well here. It's a terrible analogy for many reasons to be honest. I think people cling to it because they need to believe whatever they are currently doing is more worthwhile than whatever other people are doing. 

     

    I only eat steaks! I would never eat that cheap hamburger place stuff! I'm better at life than you!

     

    From the outside looking in, both parties are wasting their life in a video game trying to prove to each other how superior their decisions have been. It's a bit sick. I think only the most insecure type of person could actually level the McDonalds comparison with a straight face.

  • SovrathSovrath Member LegendaryPosts: 31,937
    Originally posted by Xasapis

    WoW is still the most popular mmorpg in the subscription market. How many of you think it offers the best quality in the market?
     
     

    Well, I don't like WoW and I think it is one of the best "quality" games on the market.

     

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