Larzul talking about GW2 as a failure...?? Really ? The most successful MMORPG since WOW
only in your mind... most hyped, probably, that´s about it
Not in his mind.
From business and financial point of view GW2 is a huge success. You want to know what failure is? TSW and AOC.... you should know better.
You know what else is a financial success? Farmville, Fifa 13 and Dragonvale. Do I need to play financially succesful games?
HELL NO. Not touching any of these "successes" with a six foot pole. Same goes for Gw2.
By the way TSW and AoC are doing fine, there are more than enough people around to play with and the finanacial side of things is none of our your or my business, unless you are a stakeholder. Are you? Guess not. So, cut out the business talk.
financial success aside, many people are loving many games, and the games for these whiners like op do exist, go support them and they'll grow into something you will enjoy even more.
Well...the guys point in the video is pecisely that. MMO's have been going downhill for many years and he does touch on things that ring true. Games have been getting shallower as time goes by. Rewards are just carrots on a stick with no real need to do anything other then button mash to get them. I mean, when you can get pvp rewards even if you never win a fight...you just need to participate....hollow games for hollow people.
But it is to be expected, look outside the door and see what is happenning to the world. Stupidity is celebrated, popluarity is more important then aptitude, People think generosity is some rich dude giving their wages for another overpaid job when they are rich enough to never have to work again rather then the person who gives 50p and has to miss out on a meal...
The problem with MMO's today is the games people used to enjoy have been changed. So listen to your own advice.
I stopped the video early on so that I could finish watching my paint dry.
The reason I think mmo's are failing miserably right now is because they are being released at an astronomical rate. When WoW, SWG, and EQ were released, there wasn't a lot of competition. WoW ended up being the big winner out of those early releases and now it has a huge following. If you think about it, when you have a list of mmo's like we have here on this site, it's going to spread players way out among them and game populations now seem to die out really fast.
Like me...some people jump ship from their mmo to try out the next big thing and they end up hopping around to try out all of these new releases. And, it doesn't help that mmo devs are throwing out unfinished products to further assist the game hopping.
As far as TESO goes, I am actually excited to try it out. I think people are too quick to flame a game that we know very little about.
You have to imagine this in a different point of view - imagine that you're a chess player - now imagine that the pawns now respawn everytime they get killed, the king can now shoot everything in his line of sight regardless of distance, and horses now have this special hability called "trample" and everything inside their "L" movement dies. Completely destroys the game. It DESTROYS THE GAME for chess players... I dont care if 10 million more ppl would start to play chess after those changes but as a chess player I would be pissed and prolly stop playing chess.
You and Larzul and many others talk about the identity of MMOs being lost to corporate greed and use expressions like "average gamer", "your kind instead of (...) real mmo player fanbase", "how an MMO should be", "the true MMO" as a mechanism to let us know that YOU know what MMORPGs truly are and people that enjoys how the genre has evolved don't. As if you are the preserver this arcane knowledge and are battling the hordes of MMO ignorants. But if you search a little bit you will se that not even ardent 'traditional' MMORPG defenders agree on what MMORPGs are and how they should be built, Should they be a themepark or a sandbox? Pve or PvP oriented? Instanced or not? My point is: what gives you and Larzul the right to tell millions of people who are now enjoying the genre that they are wrong? Larzul said: "Ah, they "think" they are having fun, but they are not really having fun". What a cliché. What an irrational cliché.
And since you talked about chess. Please remember that chess was not always as it is now. The game evolved into its current form. Before the 16th century the bishop and the queen were really weak pieces. Many variants were intorduced over time to make the game more dynamic, e.g. en passant, castling, promotion, etc. and when many of these rules were introduced they were rejected or frowned upon by many a player who considered the game was losing its essence. Why did the current form stayed? Because it became the most popular form of chess. Exactly the same thing you are trying to battle: both chess and MMOs evolved in order to appeal to a broader audience and in both cases they were rejected by resented / nostalgic commentators that fought the changes.
Sure we all have an idea of what a perfect MMO would be for each and one of us. I would love to see my dream MMO realized and I would love if other people joined me in it and they liked it too. I don't see my perfect MMO anywhere, but why on earth would I say that people that enjoys MMOs that I don't enjoy aren't true MMO players? How the idea of identity that I have placed over MMOs is suddenly not there when my expectations are not met? See, you have an idea that says "this is MMORPG's identity, this is what an MMO should be like" and since you don't see it anywhere, since no developer is creating that concept and no player is enjoying it, you claim "there are no true MMOs left". Well, all my friends who play MMOs they truly believe they are playing an MMO. Heck, they KNOW they are playing an MMO.
Of course Larzul can always say: "They think they know they are playing an MMO, but they are not, everything is an illusion." If King Richard I, King Louis IX or King Alfonso X saw chess today, they prob would go "What meschief is this? Satan's gamen! Chess this is not, for I do not recall the lady being so full of madness!" (prob they wouldn't, they were very open minded about cultural change those three).
Pretty much disagree with every thing the dude is saying in the video. Lots of rosey tinted glasses. The guy is the true definition of "the hipster" because anything that is mainstream or popular automatically becomes worthy of deprecation.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
is above the average gamer and so he's able to understand and appreciate the true meaning of gaming
Illusory superiority drives 95% of the posts on any given message board. No particular fresh insights here.
"No ur wrong"--try to estimate how many replies that entails, exactly.
But you separate out those, and "Ur so rite, me too!"--and you really don't have much message board left.
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.
Yes but just because you pay you have no right to bend games at your will ruining the experience that mmo gamers are expecting - that is the point of the rant - companies that completely change how the game should be to catter more audience and where do they get their other players from? From other genres. How? By inserting mechanics and play styles that have nothing to do with how an mmo should be. And that includes "risk/reward" since most non-mmo players are used to "shoot-die-respawn-getstars-upgradeweapon-nevertheless".
You have to imagine this in a different point of view - imagine that you're a chess player - now imagine that the pawns now respawn everytime they get killed, the king can now shoot everything in his line of sight regardless of distance, and horses now have this special hability called "trample" and everything inside their "L" movement dies. Completely destroys the game. It DESTROYS THE GAME for chess players... I dont care if 10 million more ppl would start to play chess after those changes but as a chess player I would be pissed and prolly stop playing chess.
That is what this conversation is about - not about what you like or not, but about how a game that fits a genre can lose its identity by including other genres mechanics into it virtually reducing its value and... well evolving or devolving into something that cant be called an MMORPG anymore.
Hell I think they should drop the RP there since noone does it anymore - you used to feel your character, and identify with it and you grew attached to it - it used to be... sord of an extension, a virtual extension of yourself - your face, or you in that world. Now... its just not like that anymore, so... I suggest ppl just change the acronym to MMOG - since games like that are only games, not Role-Playing Games.
And btw... whats that about "forced grouping"? In WoW or any other major mmo you have forced grouping - want to go on a boring raid to kill arthas or whatever - get 9 or 24 more players if you want to see that part of the content. Period. I dont see you complaining about it tho. (I'm an ex DAoC player and I hate the concept of rading - I dont raid in WoW and I hate the concept of repeating the same crap over and over again against something I already know the "tactics" but thats just me) - and still I like the concept of grouping in PvE to do things that you simply CANT DO ALONE - this is an MMO - want to be that special snowflake? Theres lots of single player games out there - and even those are dumb down - Skyrim is a joke compared to Oblivion or Morrowind.
I believe mmos should be damn hard, there has to be a special reward for those who push the extra mile. And talking like this I may sound hardcore, but I'm not - I'm usually the one looking at those guys who have those rewards going "woooow" and to be honest, if I can get it with no effort whatsoever, then... its pointless. As a casual player I rather not have something because I know its too hard or too demanding for me, than to know that I can get it while grabbing a coke from the fridge and playing 2 hours a day - it loses its purpose.
The true mmo genre is dead - now all we have are these... mashups of games into one that turns into a cluster fuck of "nothing" because everyone wants everything their way, whining and bitching on forums, wanting stuff to be easier, faster, taking less effort and with that self-entitlement crap of "if I pay I deserve" - no you dont.
An mmo should be done like mmos used to be done and if you like it, you play it. If you don't, you dont play it. Easy. I dont need my game to have 10 million players - companies do. So... they'll just butcher any mmo to appease your kind instead of trying to deliver a good game to a real mmo player fanbase. Then of course everything turns to shit because what you want from an mmo is NOTHING, not even CLOSE to what an mmo gamer wants.
Larzul is right - getting gimmicks and mechanics of other games into an mmo to try and get more and more people will turn the game to shit because actually the game is... nothing. Its not an mmo, nor an fps nor an rts, not anything really... just a cluster fuck of 10 million ignorants shaping a game to their ignorant mind and while doing it, ruining the game for people that actually like mmos how they really are.
You and Larzul and many others talk about the identity of MMOs being lost to corporate greed and use expressions like "average gamer", "your kind instead of (...) real mmo player fanbase", "how an MMO should be", "the true MMO" as a mechanism to let us know that YOU know what MMORPGs truly are and people that enjoys how the genre has evolved don't. As if you are the preserver this arcane knowledge and are battling the hordes of MMO ignorants. But if you search a little bit you will se that not even ardent 'traditional' MMORPG defenders agree on what MMORPGs are and how they should be built, Should they be a themepark or a sandbox? Pve or PvP oriented? Instanced or not? My point is: what gives you and Larzul the right to tell millions of people who are now enjoying the genre that they are wrong? Larzul said: "Ah, they "think" they are having fun, but they are not really having fun". What a cliché. What an irrational cliché.
And since you talked about chess. Please remember that chess was not always as it is now. The game evolved into its current form. Before the 16th century the bishop and the queen were really weak pieces. Many variants were intorduced over time to make the game more dynamic, e.g. en passant, castling, promotion, etc. and when many of these rules were introduced they were rejected or frowned upon by many a player who considered the game was losing its essence. Why did the current form stayed? Because it became the most popular form of chess. Exactly the same thing you are trying to battle: both chess and MMOs evolved in order to appeal to a broader audience and in both cases they were rejected by resented / nostalgic commentators that fought the changes.
Sure we all have an idea of what a perfect MMO would be for each and one of us. I would love to see my dream MMO realized and I would love if other people joined me in it and they liked it too. I don't see my perfect MMO anywhere, but why on earth would I say that people that enjoys MMOs that I don't enjoy aren't true MMO players? How the idea of identity that I have placed over MMOs is suddenly not there when my expectations are not met? See, you have an idea that says "this is MMORPG's identity, this is what an MMO should be like" and since you don't see it anywhere, since no developer is creating that concept and no player is enjoying it, you claim "there are no true MMOs left". Well, all my friends who play MMOs they truly believe they are playing an MMO. Heck, they KNOW they are playing an MMO.
Of course Larzul can always say: "They think they know they are playing an MMO, but they are not, everything is an illusion." If King Richard I, King Louis IX or King Alfonso X saw chess today, they prob would go "What meschief is this? Satan's gamen! Chess this is not, for I do not recall the lady being so full of madness!" (prob they wouldn't, they were very open minded about cultural change those three).
Spot on good sir spot the eff on!
Also people need to understand the big 3...the 3 MMO's that started the populaarity of the Genre were as diametrically opposed to each ather as one can get. Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron's Call.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Larzul talking about GW2 as a failure...?? Really ? The most successful MMORPG since WOW
only in your mind... most hyped, probably, that´s about it
Not in his mind.
From business and financial point of view GW2 is a huge success. You want to know what failure is? TSW and AOC.... you should know better.
You know what else is a financial success? Farmville, Fifa 13 and Dragonvale. Do I need to play financially succesful games?
HELL NO. Not touching any of these "successes" with a six foot pole. Same goes for Gw2.
By the way TSW and AoC are doing fine, there are more than enough people around to play with and the finanacial side of things is none of our your or my business, unless you are a stakeholder. Are you? Guess not. So, cut out the business talk.
The guy you quoted earlier was talking about the financial success and you told him it is just in his head. I could care less about your hate for GW2. I am just stating the facts. The world doesn't revolve around your personal likes or dislikes by the way. GW2 is a huge success and that is a fact not an opinion.
And tell to all those people who lost their job at FC that TSW and AOC is doing just fine. Atleast NCSOFT / Anet didn't have to fire people because game sold poorely. That is my friend is real life where money matters.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Yes but just because you pay you have no right to bend games at your will ruining the experience that mmo gamers are expecting - that is the point of the rant -
And it's a stupid one. It's not our fault that the developers are making games that we choose to buy. You need to take that attitude to the people that make the games, not the ones who play them.
You have to imagine this in a different point of view - imagine that you're a chess player - now imagine that the pawns now respawn everytime they get killed, the king can now shoot everything in his line of sight regardless of distance, and horses now have this special hability called "trample" and everything inside their "L" movement dies. Completely destroys the game. It DESTROYS THE GAME for chess players... I dont care if 10 million more ppl would start to play chess after those changes but as a chess player I would be pissed and prolly stop playing chess.
Hate to burst your ego but chess is nothing like video games. Video games have been evolving since pong. There are more variety in MMos then there ever has been. If you miss the good old days of forced grouping and FFA sandboxes, then Darkfall awaits and Archeage and the Repopulation will be coming soon.
EDIT: a quick google on chess will show you that even it "evolved" into something different from when it started. So even you apples to oranges comparison falls on its face.
Hell I think they should drop the RP there since noone does it anymore - you used to feel your character, and identify with it and you grew attached to it - it used to be... sord of an extension, a virtual extension of yourself - your face, or you in that world. Now... its just not like that anymore, so... I suggest ppl just change the acronym to MMOG - since games like that are only games, not Role-Playing Games.
Speak for yourself. I roleplay and so does most of the people on my server.
And btw... whats that about "forced grouping"? In WoW or any other major mmo you have forced grouping - want to go on a boring raid to kill arthas or whatever - get 9 or 24 more players if you want to see that part of the content. Period. I dont see you complaining about it tho.
Might want to check my post history bud, because I've posted many times about hating Raids.
The true mmo genre is dead - now all we have are these... mashups of games into one that turns into a cluster fuck of "nothing" because everyone wants everything their way, whining and bitching on forums, wanting stuff to be easier, faster, taking less effort and with that self-entitlement crap of "if I pay I deserve" - no you dont.
Another part where you might want to check post history before ranting.
An mmo should be done like mmos used to be done and if you like it, you play it. If you don't, you dont play it. Easy.
You forget the part where someone has to spend the money to make them. MMOs are expensive as hell to develop and maintain. Right now, no devloper wants to spend millions of dollars to make a hardcore sandbox game. Again, if you have a problem with this, take it up with the developers.
I dont need my game to have 10 million players - companies do. So... they'll just butcher any mmo to appease your kind instead of trying to deliver a good game to a real mmo player fanbase. Then of course everything turns to shit because what you want from an mmo is NOTHING, not even CLOSE to what an mmo gamer wants.
/SNORE. Your ignorance of how I like to play games has now just gotten anoying. YOu also seem to forget that it is the company whose ass is on the line, not yours. YOu're not the one who loses when a game loses money, the company is. You're out maybe sixty dollars. The company is out millions and could face bankruptcy. So if they feel that a player style like sandbox isn't worth investing millions of dollars in, then you're just SOL. I don't like the current state of popular music, but you don't see me stomping my feet and griping on the internet about it.
Larzul is right - getting gimmicks and mechanics of other games into an mmo to try and get more and more people will turn the game to shit because actually the game is... nothing. Its not an mmo, nor an fps nor an rts, not anything really... just a cluster fuck of 10 million ignorants shaping a game to their ignorant mind and while doing it, ruining the game for people that actually like mmos how they really are.
There's only one MMO out there that has 10 million PLAYERS and that is WOW. You've just spent an entire rant labeling me without even knowing what type of player I am. So I would sugggest thinking twice before labeling an entire player base as ignorant because yours has been on display here for all to see.
Larzul talking about GW2 as a failure...?? Really ? The most successful MMORPG since WOW
only in your mind... most hyped, probably, that´s about it
Not in his mind.
From business and financial point of view GW2 is a huge success. You want to know what failure is? TSW and AOC.... you should know better.
You know what else is a financial success? Farmville, Fifa 13 and Dragonvale. Do I need to play financially succesful games?
HELL NO. Not touching any of these "successes" with a six foot pole. Same goes for Gw2.
By the way TSW and AoC are doing fine, there are more than enough people around to play with and the finanacial side of things is none of our your or my business, unless you are a stakeholder. Are you? Guess not. So, cut out the business talk.
The guy you quoted earlier was talking about the financial success and you told him it is just in his head. I could care less about your hate for GW2. I am just stating the facts. The world doesn't revolve around your personal likes or dislikes by the way. GW2 is a huge success and that is a fact not an opinion.
That statement needs to be read and remembered by every self important elitist on this site.
The guy you quoted earlier was talking about the financial success and you told him it is just in his head. I could care less about your hate for GW2. I am just stating the facts. The world doesn't revolve around your personal likes or dislikes by the way. GW2 is a huge success and that is a fact not an opinion.
That statement needs to be read and remembered by every self important elitist on this site.
And it also needs to be remembered that people who use this line forget to apply it to themselves just as much. It just so happens that at the moment the existing trend of gaming supports your side...guess what, it's changing. Just remember what you say here because if games become more shandbox, less themepark, more involved, less pointless fluff....you might just be the guy complaining about how your games are being changed by other peoples playstyle.
You bothered too much for nothing. When I said "10 million" it was an example, I didnt even know that WoW had 10 million players right now and I wasnt refering to WoW specifically because I actually play wow from time to time - I always have my WoW account open to dump the frustrations I get from all those "next-best-thing" mmos that keep coming out. I said 10 million out of nowhere, it was in any way related to any game - just for the purpose of being "huge" and how meaningless a huge number can be when brought down to its meaning - which is, and I repeat, for the player MEANS NOTHING. For the player it shouldnt mean anything if the game has 2000 or 20 million players - for the player its irrelevant because it doesnt change, on any circunstances, his game. Unless of course you're some retard that likes to play a game by its numbers so you can tell ppl "the game I play has 20 million more ppl like me playing" - what you want to sound normal? Are you a 12 year old justifying to your parents? The number of players is irrelevant to the player unless it goes below 1000 - below that in an mmo you can feel it... and still depends on the zones... if WoW only had 1000 players and they were all in stormwind at the same time as you, you'd feel the game full of ppl...
I was not saying "company-wise" I'm saying "player-wise". You really think I'm worried about the finances of some Blizzard or Zenimax? Any of those companies, be Zenimax, Activision, EA can support a zero-profit game btw. They can afford to.
And... I hate sandbox mmos. I like SOME aspects to be "sand-boxy" but I like story driven, lore-driven, quest based mmos with a good narrative and meaningfull pvp - Like DAoC - I'm not a huge fan of WoW but I recognize that unfortunately it is still better than most of the competition.
Take GW2 for instance. They're both crap... but WoW is so much better crap. GW2 is a retarded game wanting to be everything while being good at nothing. Absolutely nothing. Its an empty shallow game, with a shallow ... story - I refuse to call it "lore" and everything about gw2 is.... meh. Its like... fast food with no condiment. Tastes like... actually it tastes like nothing, you just feel the texture, theres no flavour at all. Of course you can always pretend is chicken since it prolly tastes the same way.
if games become more shandbox, less themepark, more involved, less pointless fluff....you might just be the guy complaining about how your games are being changed by other peoples playstyle.
Only question being how long we deny reality and demand the industry change to suit us?
It's not what you love, that's the problem among gamers. It's this adversarial relationship that every Fanboy contingent insists on promoting (vs. the other(s)).
These are MY games, MINE. Mom, Jimmy won't stop playing with my games!
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.
Honestly, I'm surprised at the (over)reaction of many posters here. It's ok if you don't agree with Larzul's analysis but, for the love of God, focus on the topic and present contra-arguments. What I'm seeing are personal attacks - calling the guy names, even assuming he's a ganker (¿¿??), or coming up with unrelated, out-of-topic contra-arguments that put into question your listening/reading comprehension. For the glory of my mother, please, many of you would be envied by the Salem's witch-hunters.
Ok, the delivery of his message might not be the most appropiate but the substance, in my opinion, rings true. Basically he's complaining about the oversupply of super-casual themepark model mmos that present a regression of systems and mechanics in comparison with early mmorpgs - which were more aligned with rpg tabletop mechanics - due to a way of commercialization that has pretended to cater to all the possible conceivable public - consequently, if you pretend to cater to everyone (including soccer moms, the halo fans, the spec ed kids, the adhd crowd...well, you know what i'm trying to say) the experience is going to result bland, dumb and boring - eventually so even to the so called "casuals". If we look to the mmos released in the last 7 years, we can see that most of them have not meet their expectation, so this model of "catering to everyone through "welfare, handholding, lowest common denominator" mechanics might - hope you appreciate the irony here- not work.
The solution? As the guy suggests, going back to the model of catering to specialized, niche publics. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be an overcasual, disneyland-coloured, consoley game to play along your children, or solo, or casually - ala Guild Wars 2, Rift, post-vanilla WoW...But there should also be an alternative for players that want to expend their limited gaming-time in an immersive, realistic, challenging experience.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
The guy you quoted earlier was talking about the financial success and you told him it is just in his head. I could care less about your hate for GW2. I am just stating the facts. The world doesn't revolve around your personal likes or dislikes by the way. GW2 is a huge success and that is a fact not an opinion.
That statement needs to be read and remembered by every self important elitist on this site.
And it also needs to be remembered that people who use this line forget to apply it to themselves just as much. It just so happens that at the moment the existing trend of gaming supports your side...guess what, it's changing. Just remember what you say here because if games become more shandbox, less themepark, more involved, less pointless fluff....you might just be the guy complaining about how your games are being changed by other peoples playstyle.
Nope. Sorry, but I'm not one to pitch a bitch when I don't get my way. Plus, I don't limit myself to one playstyle. I've had fun in both sandbox and thempark games. If the Repopulation turns out to be what it says it will, I'll be in that game enjoying it even though it is nothing like the MMOs I currently play. But if it doesn't, I'll move on and let everyone else enjoy the game. That's what grown ups do.
Larzul talking about GW2 as a failure...?? Really ? The most successful MMORPG since WOW
only in your mind... most hyped, probably, that´s about it
Not in his mind.
From business and financial point of view GW2 is a huge success. You want to know what failure is? TSW and AOC.... you should know better.
You know what else is a financial success? Farmville, Fifa 13 and Dragonvale. Do I need to play financially succesful games?
HELL NO. Not touching any of these "successes" with a six foot pole. Same goes for Gw2.
By the way TSW and AoC are doing fine, there are more than enough people around to play with and the finanacial side of things is none of our your or my business, unless you are a stakeholder. Are you? Guess not. So, cut out the business talk.
It's not so much that I think GW2 is some super mmorpg or something. But when you say GW2 is a failure, you mean other mmorpg are doing better? Because I think GW2 is doing fine because they are doing better than "the other mmorpg on the market now".
So you think TSW and AoC is doing better than GW2? I don't know about TSW, the thing with AoC is they don't have enough subscriber that they are actually lossing money, at least for quite a while. And I'm not talking about the business side, I'm talking blatantly I dont' think many people is playing AoC.
And you lost me when you are talking about farmville or Fifa13, those arn't mmorpg. You dont' need to play a financially successful mmorpg, but you do kind of have to worry if the company is consistantly lossing money. You never know when the studio can't take enough and just shut down the game.
The solution? As the guy suggests, going back to the model of catering to specialized, niche publics. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be an overcasual, disneyland-coloured, consoley game to play along your children, or solo, or casually - ala Guild Wars 2, Rift, post-vanilla WoW...But there should also be an alternative for players that want to expend their limited gaming-time in an immersive, realistic, challenging experience.
Your bias is as bad as the commentator's - and easy to see.
"overcasual, disneyland-coloured, consoley game to play along with your children,"
... nice to see you aren't being too dimissive of casual players here...
The very idea that an "immersive, realistic, challenging experience" cannot exist for anyone except 24/7 hardcore players (those that many 'Carebears call 'No-Lifers') is a steaming pile of mythology perpetuated by two things;
1. Lack of sufficient innovation amongst games companies to date.
2. Crass egocentric 'leetism from a vocal tiny minority of gamers who go on and on and on about it ad nauseam - like theirs is the only voice worth listening to.
I have been in turns, an almost feverish hardcore player in a hardcore raiding guild, a hardcore player in a more casual guild, and a casual player in a casual guild.
I have seen all sides of the play spectrum, and as I have got older and have matured, I increasingly find the types of players the commentator represents to be the most self-aggrandising and self-centered of the hardcore set. Anyone who takes a balanced approach to gaming knows the telltale signs. Anyone over the age of 30 and has a job, social life and partner and/or kids is sick to death of hearing this one-sided argument.
Just to make myself clear here.
The MMO gaming world has far more 'casual' players than hardcore - by several orders of magnitude. WE are the ones with the biggest voice and the deepest pockets, and Games Companies have realised this and are trying to cater for us - the majority.
They haven't got it right yet, but they will eventually.
What none of US need is a return to the kind of game that requires 12 hours a day (or more) to play competitively. We don't want full loot; we don't want FFA OW PvP without a robust consequences system; we don't want an endless gear grind...
... and we certainly don't want the narrowly focussed, self-serving and grossly overly opinionated telling us what the MMOs that we play 'need'.
I think we know already...
Now if you want to post a rejoiner - then might I ask that you please confine yourself to characterising the elements of it you don't agree with, with less obvious condescension.
Trying to pass off someone elses playstyle as 'invalid' and demanding games which would naturally exclude them is pretty innexcusable. Doing so when in the tiny minority is just plain stupid - it's always easier to exclude the few and cater for the majority, and it's a no-brainer when revenue is involved...
What you and the commentator should be doing is making a lot of noise demanding a well-crafted hybrid game that is inclusive and caters for your style alongside the others.
You would'nt be happy in a small game without much support because of low revenues, and you should know this really.
Your bias is as bad as the commentator's - and easy to see.
"overcasual, disneyland-coloured, consoley game to play along with your children,"
... nice to see you aren't being too dimissive of casual players here...
The very idea that an "immersive, realistic, challenging experience" cannot exist for anyone except 24/7 hardcore players (those that many 'Carebears call 'No-Lifers') is a steaming pile of mythology perpetuated by two things;
1. Lack of sufficient innovation amongst games companies to date.
2. Crass egocentric 'leetism from a vocal tiny minority of gamers who go on and on and on about it ad nauseam - like theirs is the only voice worth listening to.
I have been in turns, an almost feverish hardcore player in a hardcore raiding guild, a hardcore player in a more casual guild, and a casual player in a casual guild.
I have seen all sides of the play spectrum, and as I have got older and have matured, I increasingly find the types of players the commentator represents to be the most self-aggrandising and self-centered of the hardcore set. Anyone who takes a balanced approach to gaming knows the telltale signs. Anyone over the age of 30 and has a job, social life and partner and/or kids is sick to death of hearing this one-sided argument.
Just to make myself clear here.
The MMO gaming world has far more 'casual' players than hardcore - by several orders of magnitude. WE are the ones with the biggest voice and the deepest pockets, and Games Companies have realised this and are trying to cater for us - the majority.
They haven't got it right yet, but they will eventually.
What none of US need is a return to the kind of game that requires 12 hours a day (or more) to play competitively. We don't want full loot; we don't want FFA OW PvP without a robust consequences system; we don't want an endless gear grind...
... and we certainly don't want the narrowly focussed, self-serving and grossly overly opinionated telling us what the MMOs that we play 'need'.
I think we know already...
Now if you want to post a rejoiner - then might I ask that you please confine yourself to characterising the elements of it you don't agree with, with less obvious condescension.
Trying to pass off someone elses playstyle as 'invalid' and demanding games which would naturally exclude them is pretty innexcusable. Doing so when in the tiny minority is just plain stupid - it's always easier to exclude the few and cater for the majority, and it's a no-brainer when revenue is involved...
What you and the commentator should be doing is making a lot of noise demanding a well-crafted hybrid game that is inclusive and caters for your style alongside the others.
You would'nt be happy in a small game without much support because of low revenues, and you should know this really.
We are all biased in relation to what we expect and value in mmorpgs and games in general. Even you Caliburn...
When I started playing muds and mmorpgs - those were Dragon Realms, the first Neverwinter Nights, UO and AC - , these games were mostly aligned with rpg tabletop mechanics - in fact, most of the guys I came across those came from the tabletop a/o pen&paper rp scene, same as me. There was no spoon-feeding, no markers, no on-rails personal story or tunneled questing, no convenience tools, no welfare-rewards...Also, in terms of rp there was no need of suspension of disbelief, nor the necessity of creating imaginary assets and situations via emoting, as all this could be provided by the very game - i.e. If you role-played a merchant that had a fleet of 5 caravans, it's because you actually had those caravans in-game. Basically, you ( aka your character)- were put into a sort of virtual-world that had a defined lore and a set of rules and you (aka your character) just wandered around that world - your actions defined your character, not a predetermined scripted story.
Naturally, people that share my background associate mmoRPG with this model, and what we expect from a mmoRPG is in relation to this very model. And, you can see, this model is completely opposed to what the so-called "casuals" expect. In fact, for us "casual", "easy" and "convenient" are incompatible with our idea of mmoRPG.
In this sense, I have no intention of defending a model that pretends to cater both publics ("hardcore roleplayers" and "casual" or however you want to call it) for I have the certainty that such thing is impossible in terms of satisfaying both sides of the equation - conceptually, mechanically, metaphysically impossible. Listen, I don't like to be treated like an idiot, as I feel whenever I play casual-themepark - I don't say that people that play casual-themeparks are idiots, I know that -, I don't like to be handed rewards under a push-a-button-reward algorithm (would I say "reward/reward" algorithm, in opposition to risk/reward one?), I don't like to have to follow a predetermined story in which I'm the savior of the mmorpg world (a notion that I find absurd in a mmoRPG), I don't want a tunnel-vision experience, I don't like.... Man, and you tell me that I should defend a model that pander to the likes of me and the so-called casuals?
On top of that, that model of pandering to everyone has already been tried and, as far as I can see, it doesn't work - you end up pissing off one or even both sides of the rope. I think it would be more realistic to segment the objective publics and design especialized products for each of those segment - as I've already say, I think there also is a problem with branding, perhaps we should start distinguising between plain MMOs, MMORPGs, MMOFPS, Multi-Games, Coop. Casual Games.... Whatever ettiquete in order to help the public choose their fitting product - same as they do in music, clothes, cars.... My two cents anyway.
Last but not least:
"The very idea that an "immersive, realistic, challenging experience" cannot exist for anyone except 24/7 hardcore players (those that many 'Carebears call 'No-Lifers') is a steaming pile of mythology perpetuated by two things;"
This is a very extended and commonplace fallacy. It's not a question of amount of available time, is about what experience you actually want to have with your available time. It's directly related to what you value in mmoRPGs. Many of us don't need to have the best rewards or to be treated like especial snowflakes that deserve to have access to all the features and content and shit of the game. No, we just want to have an immersive experience in so far as our available gaming-time allows us.
I work hard, I have an active social live, go trekking once per week, have a family, responsabilities, bills and mortgage to pay...so, I have an average of 12-20 hours per week that I can dedicate to gaming (alongside my gf and rp gang). 12-20 hours, not a big deal, right? Does that justify that I should be playing switch-and-go, spoon-fed, overeasy games? Of course not, because I look for a different kind of experience - I was never a Vampire Lord when I roleplayed the pen&paper version of Masquerade, didn't have that much available time, couldn't go to all the rp sessions, wasn't all that committed. Did I enjoy the experience in spite of this? Of course I did! Did I tell the DM that he should handle me rewards because I had to study for my Degree and didn't have that much available time? Of course not, the very notion of that idea was just foreign.
We are different kind of beasts Caliburn, and we are not getting along in the same mmorpg. Of this I have absolute faith.
EDIT: typos
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
I wonder if Don understands the manifest ironies of his handle - creating illusory windmills for other people to tilt at...
... perfect!
Without wanting to go too much off topic:
I always wondered if actually Quixote created illusory giants, the answer of course being found in the book itself when the Knight says: "I know who I am and who I can be". Giants are a fact in the eyes of the Don, Windmills in the eye of the barber. The problem there is Sancho: he does not know what he believes, his knowledge is merely circumstancial.
Back on topic:
there's this fallacy called 'of the true scotsman' that can certainly be applied here. It would go like this:
- No MMORPG would deliver over-casual disneyland-coloured press-button-to-win gameplay.
- Hey, this is an MMORPG and is over-casual.
- Then is not a true MMORPG.
As we all know, instead of modifying the definition of our universal we modify our subject. So it becomes merely circumstancial. Sticking to a universal definition of what an MMORPG should be against all odds is not a sign of virtue, but of intellectual bad habits.
I always wondered if actually Quixote created illusory giants, the answer of course being found in the book itself when the Knight says: "I know who I am and who I can be". Giants are a fact in the eyes of the Don, Windmills in the eye of the barber. The problem there is Sancho: he does not know what he believes, his knowledge is merely circumstancial.
Show of hands if you're read Cervantes, audience.
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.
Originally posted by miagisan i agree with the other posters.....who cares what some loudmouth or some poster thinks about a game. If you enjoy it....rock on. Noone else can tell you what to enjoy or what to spend your money on.
so totaly +1
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Comments
You know what else is a financial success? Farmville, Fifa 13 and Dragonvale. Do I need to play financially succesful games?
HELL NO. Not touching any of these "successes" with a six foot pole. Same goes for Gw2.
By the way TSW and AoC are doing fine, there are more than enough people around to play with and the finanacial side of things is none of our your or my business, unless you are a stakeholder. Are you? Guess not. So, cut out the business talk.
Secrets of Dragon?s Spine Trailer.. !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwT9cFVQCMw
Best MMOs ever played: Ultima, EvE, SW Galaxies, Age of Conan, The Secret World
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2X_SbZCHpc&t=21s
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The Return of ELITE !
financial success aside, many people are loving many games, and the games for these whiners like op do exist, go support them and they'll grow into something you will enjoy even more.
Stop trying to change games that people enjoy.
<Welcome to my world>
Well...the guys point in the video is pecisely that. MMO's have been going downhill for many years and he does touch on things that ring true. Games have been getting shallower as time goes by. Rewards are just carrots on a stick with no real need to do anything other then button mash to get them. I mean, when you can get pvp rewards even if you never win a fight...you just need to participate....hollow games for hollow people.
But it is to be expected, look outside the door and see what is happenning to the world. Stupidity is celebrated, popluarity is more important then aptitude, People think generosity is some rich dude giving their wages for another overpaid job when they are rich enough to never have to work again rather then the person who gives 50p and has to miss out on a meal...
The problem with MMO's today is the games people used to enjoy have been changed. So listen to your own advice.
"Not even a cray super computer can make this game run well. Thats what happens when you code an MMO in pascal. " - miglor
I stopped the video early on so that I could finish watching my paint dry.
The reason I think mmo's are failing miserably right now is because they are being released at an astronomical rate. When WoW, SWG, and EQ were released, there wasn't a lot of competition. WoW ended up being the big winner out of those early releases and now it has a huge following. If you think about it, when you have a list of mmo's like we have here on this site, it's going to spread players way out among them and game populations now seem to die out really fast.
Like me...some people jump ship from their mmo to try out the next big thing and they end up hopping around to try out all of these new releases. And, it doesn't help that mmo devs are throwing out unfinished products to further assist the game hopping.
As far as TESO goes, I am actually excited to try it out. I think people are too quick to flame a game that we know very little about.
/jumpsoffsoapbox
You and Larzul and many others talk about the identity of MMOs being lost to corporate greed and use expressions like "average gamer", "your kind instead of (...) real mmo player fanbase", "how an MMO should be", "the true MMO" as a mechanism to let us know that YOU know what MMORPGs truly are and people that enjoys how the genre has evolved don't. As if you are the preserver this arcane knowledge and are battling the hordes of MMO ignorants. But if you search a little bit you will se that not even ardent 'traditional' MMORPG defenders agree on what MMORPGs are and how they should be built, Should they be a themepark or a sandbox? Pve or PvP oriented? Instanced or not? My point is: what gives you and Larzul the right to tell millions of people who are now enjoying the genre that they are wrong? Larzul said: "Ah, they "think" they are having fun, but they are not really having fun". What a cliché. What an irrational cliché.
And since you talked about chess. Please remember that chess was not always as it is now. The game evolved into its current form. Before the 16th century the bishop and the queen were really weak pieces. Many variants were intorduced over time to make the game more dynamic, e.g. en passant, castling, promotion, etc. and when many of these rules were introduced they were rejected or frowned upon by many a player who considered the game was losing its essence. Why did the current form stayed? Because it became the most popular form of chess. Exactly the same thing you are trying to battle: both chess and MMOs evolved in order to appeal to a broader audience and in both cases they were rejected by resented / nostalgic commentators that fought the changes.
Sure we all have an idea of what a perfect MMO would be for each and one of us. I would love to see my dream MMO realized and I would love if other people joined me in it and they liked it too. I don't see my perfect MMO anywhere, but why on earth would I say that people that enjoys MMOs that I don't enjoy aren't true MMO players? How the idea of identity that I have placed over MMOs is suddenly not there when my expectations are not met? See, you have an idea that says "this is MMORPG's identity, this is what an MMO should be like" and since you don't see it anywhere, since no developer is creating that concept and no player is enjoying it, you claim "there are no true MMOs left". Well, all my friends who play MMOs they truly believe they are playing an MMO. Heck, they KNOW they are playing an MMO.
Of course Larzul can always say: "They think they know they are playing an MMO, but they are not, everything is an illusion." If King Richard I, King Louis IX or King Alfonso X saw chess today, they prob would go "What meschief is this? Satan's gamen! Chess this is not, for I do not recall the lady being so full of madness!" (prob they wouldn't, they were very open minded about cultural change those three).
Don Quixote's Delusions
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Illusory superiority drives 95% of the posts on any given message board. No particular fresh insights here.
"No ur wrong"--try to estimate how many replies that entails, exactly.
But you separate out those, and "Ur so rite, me too!"--and you really don't have much message board left.
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.
Spot on good sir spot the eff on!
Also people need to understand the big 3...the 3 MMO's that started the populaarity of the Genre were as diametrically opposed to each ather as one can get. Ultima Online, Everquest and Asheron's Call.
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
The guy you quoted earlier was talking about the financial success and you told him it is just in his head. I could care less about your hate for GW2. I am just stating the facts. The world doesn't revolve around your personal likes or dislikes by the way. GW2 is a huge success and that is a fact not an opinion.
And tell to all those people who lost their job at FC that TSW and AOC is doing just fine. Atleast NCSOFT / Anet didn't have to fire people because game sold poorely. That is my friend is real life where money matters.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
That statement needs to be read and remembered by every self important elitist on this site.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
And it also needs to be remembered that people who use this line forget to apply it to themselves just as much. It just so happens that at the moment the existing trend of gaming supports your side...guess what, it's changing. Just remember what you say here because if games become more shandbox, less themepark, more involved, less pointless fluff....you might just be the guy complaining about how your games are being changed by other peoples playstyle.
You bothered too much for nothing. When I said "10 million" it was an example, I didnt even know that WoW had 10 million players right now and I wasnt refering to WoW specifically because I actually play wow from time to time - I always have my WoW account open to dump the frustrations I get from all those "next-best-thing" mmos that keep coming out. I said 10 million out of nowhere, it was in any way related to any game - just for the purpose of being "huge" and how meaningless a huge number can be when brought down to its meaning - which is, and I repeat, for the player MEANS NOTHING. For the player it shouldnt mean anything if the game has 2000 or 20 million players - for the player its irrelevant because it doesnt change, on any circunstances, his game. Unless of course you're some retard that likes to play a game by its numbers so you can tell ppl "the game I play has 20 million more ppl like me playing" - what you want to sound normal? Are you a 12 year old justifying to your parents? The number of players is irrelevant to the player unless it goes below 1000 - below that in an mmo you can feel it... and still depends on the zones... if WoW only had 1000 players and they were all in stormwind at the same time as you, you'd feel the game full of ppl...
I was not saying "company-wise" I'm saying "player-wise". You really think I'm worried about the finances of some Blizzard or Zenimax? Any of those companies, be Zenimax, Activision, EA can support a zero-profit game btw. They can afford to.
And... I hate sandbox mmos. I like SOME aspects to be "sand-boxy" but I like story driven, lore-driven, quest based mmos with a good narrative and meaningfull pvp - Like DAoC - I'm not a huge fan of WoW but I recognize that unfortunately it is still better than most of the competition.
Take GW2 for instance. They're both crap... but WoW is so much better crap. GW2 is a retarded game wanting to be everything while being good at nothing. Absolutely nothing. Its an empty shallow game, with a shallow ... story - I refuse to call it "lore" and everything about gw2 is.... meh. Its like... fast food with no condiment. Tastes like... actually it tastes like nothing, you just feel the texture, theres no flavour at all. Of course you can always pretend is chicken since it prolly tastes the same way.
Only question being how long we deny reality and demand the industry change to suit us?
It's not what you love, that's the problem among gamers. It's this adversarial relationship that every Fanboy contingent insists on promoting (vs. the other(s)).
These are MY games, MINE. Mom, Jimmy won't stop playing with my games!
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.
I wonder if Don understands the manifest ironies of his handle - creating illusory windmills for other people to tilt at...
... perfect!
Honestly, I'm surprised at the (over)reaction of many posters here. It's ok if you don't agree with Larzul's analysis but, for the love of God, focus on the topic and present contra-arguments. What I'm seeing are personal attacks - calling the guy names, even assuming he's a ganker (¿¿??), or coming up with unrelated, out-of-topic contra-arguments that put into question your listening/reading comprehension. For the glory of my mother, please, many of you would be envied by the Salem's witch-hunters.
Ok, the delivery of his message might not be the most appropiate but the substance, in my opinion, rings true. Basically he's complaining about the oversupply of super-casual themepark model mmos that present a regression of systems and mechanics in comparison with early mmorpgs - which were more aligned with rpg tabletop mechanics - due to a way of commercialization that has pretended to cater to all the possible conceivable public - consequently, if you pretend to cater to everyone (including soccer moms, the halo fans, the spec ed kids, the adhd crowd...well, you know what i'm trying to say) the experience is going to result bland, dumb and boring - eventually so even to the so called "casuals". If we look to the mmos released in the last 7 years, we can see that most of them have not meet their expectation, so this model of "catering to everyone through "welfare, handholding, lowest common denominator" mechanics might - hope you appreciate the irony here- not work.
The solution? As the guy suggests, going back to the model of catering to specialized, niche publics. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be an overcasual, disneyland-coloured, consoley game to play along your children, or solo, or casually - ala Guild Wars 2, Rift, post-vanilla WoW...But there should also be an alternative for players that want to expend their limited gaming-time in an immersive, realistic, challenging experience.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Nope. Sorry, but I'm not one to pitch a bitch when I don't get my way. Plus, I don't limit myself to one playstyle. I've had fun in both sandbox and thempark games. If the Repopulation turns out to be what it says it will, I'll be in that game enjoying it even though it is nothing like the MMOs I currently play. But if it doesn't, I'll move on and let everyone else enjoy the game. That's what grown ups do.
Currently Playing: World of Warcraft
It's not so much that I think GW2 is some super mmorpg or something. But when you say GW2 is a failure, you mean other mmorpg are doing better? Because I think GW2 is doing fine because they are doing better than "the other mmorpg on the market now".
So you think TSW and AoC is doing better than GW2? I don't know about TSW, the thing with AoC is they don't have enough subscriber that they are actually lossing money, at least for quite a while. And I'm not talking about the business side, I'm talking blatantly I dont' think many people is playing AoC.
And you lost me when you are talking about farmville or Fifa13, those arn't mmorpg. You dont' need to play a financially successful mmorpg, but you do kind of have to worry if the company is consistantly lossing money. You never know when the studio can't take enough and just shut down the game.
Your bias is as bad as the commentator's - and easy to see.
"overcasual, disneyland-coloured, consoley game to play along with your children,"
... nice to see you aren't being too dimissive of casual players here...
The very idea that an "immersive, realistic, challenging experience" cannot exist for anyone except 24/7 hardcore players (those that many 'Carebears call 'No-Lifers') is a steaming pile of mythology perpetuated by two things;
1. Lack of sufficient innovation amongst games companies to date.
2. Crass egocentric 'leetism from a vocal tiny minority of gamers who go on and on and on about it ad nauseam - like theirs is the only voice worth listening to.
I have been in turns, an almost feverish hardcore player in a hardcore raiding guild, a hardcore player in a more casual guild, and a casual player in a casual guild.
I have seen all sides of the play spectrum, and as I have got older and have matured, I increasingly find the types of players the commentator represents to be the most self-aggrandising and self-centered of the hardcore set. Anyone who takes a balanced approach to gaming knows the telltale signs. Anyone over the age of 30 and has a job, social life and partner and/or kids is sick to death of hearing this one-sided argument.
Just to make myself clear here.
The MMO gaming world has far more 'casual' players than hardcore - by several orders of magnitude. WE are the ones with the biggest voice and the deepest pockets, and Games Companies have realised this and are trying to cater for us - the majority.
They haven't got it right yet, but they will eventually.
What none of US need is a return to the kind of game that requires 12 hours a day (or more) to play competitively. We don't want full loot; we don't want FFA OW PvP without a robust consequences system; we don't want an endless gear grind...
... and we certainly don't want the narrowly focussed, self-serving and grossly overly opinionated telling us what the MMOs that we play 'need'.
I think we know already...
Now if you want to post a rejoiner - then might I ask that you please confine yourself to characterising the elements of it you don't agree with, with less obvious condescension.
Trying to pass off someone elses playstyle as 'invalid' and demanding games which would naturally exclude them is pretty innexcusable. Doing so when in the tiny minority is just plain stupid - it's always easier to exclude the few and cater for the majority, and it's a no-brainer when revenue is involved...
What you and the commentator should be doing is making a lot of noise demanding a well-crafted hybrid game that is inclusive and caters for your style alongside the others.
You would'nt be happy in a small game without much support because of low revenues, and you should know this really.
I don't think i can remember a time when i've come across such brutal irony.
We are all biased in relation to what we expect and value in mmorpgs and games in general. Even you Caliburn...
When I started playing muds and mmorpgs - those were Dragon Realms, the first Neverwinter Nights, UO and AC - , these games were mostly aligned with rpg tabletop mechanics - in fact, most of the guys I came across those came from the tabletop a/o pen&paper rp scene, same as me. There was no spoon-feeding, no markers, no on-rails personal story or tunneled questing, no convenience tools, no welfare-rewards...Also, in terms of rp there was no need of suspension of disbelief, nor the necessity of creating imaginary assets and situations via emoting, as all this could be provided by the very game - i.e. If you role-played a merchant that had a fleet of 5 caravans, it's because you actually had those caravans in-game. Basically, you ( aka your character)- were put into a sort of virtual-world that had a defined lore and a set of rules and you (aka your character) just wandered around that world - your actions defined your character, not a predetermined scripted story.
Naturally, people that share my background associate mmoRPG with this model, and what we expect from a mmoRPG is in relation to this very model. And, you can see, this model is completely opposed to what the so-called "casuals" expect. In fact, for us "casual", "easy" and "convenient" are incompatible with our idea of mmoRPG.
In this sense, I have no intention of defending a model that pretends to cater both publics ("hardcore roleplayers" and "casual" or however you want to call it) for I have the certainty that such thing is impossible in terms of satisfaying both sides of the equation - conceptually, mechanically, metaphysically impossible. Listen, I don't like to be treated like an idiot, as I feel whenever I play casual-themepark - I don't say that people that play casual-themeparks are idiots, I know that -, I don't like to be handed rewards under a push-a-button-reward algorithm (would I say "reward/reward" algorithm, in opposition to risk/reward one?), I don't like to have to follow a predetermined story in which I'm the savior of the mmorpg world (a notion that I find absurd in a mmoRPG), I don't want a tunnel-vision experience, I don't like.... Man, and you tell me that I should defend a model that pander to the likes of me and the so-called casuals?
On top of that, that model of pandering to everyone has already been tried and, as far as I can see, it doesn't work - you end up pissing off one or even both sides of the rope. I think it would be more realistic to segment the objective publics and design especialized products for each of those segment - as I've already say, I think there also is a problem with branding, perhaps we should start distinguising between plain MMOs, MMORPGs, MMOFPS, Multi-Games, Coop. Casual Games.... Whatever ettiquete in order to help the public choose their fitting product - same as they do in music, clothes, cars.... My two cents anyway.
Last but not least:
"The very idea that an "immersive, realistic, challenging experience" cannot exist for anyone except 24/7 hardcore players (those that many 'Carebears call 'No-Lifers') is a steaming pile of mythology perpetuated by two things;"
This is a very extended and commonplace fallacy. It's not a question of amount of available time, is about what experience you actually want to have with your available time. It's directly related to what you value in mmoRPGs. Many of us don't need to have the best rewards or to be treated like especial snowflakes that deserve to have access to all the features and content and shit of the game. No, we just want to have an immersive experience in so far as our available gaming-time allows us.
I work hard, I have an active social live, go trekking once per week, have a family, responsabilities, bills and mortgage to pay...so, I have an average of 12-20 hours per week that I can dedicate to gaming (alongside my gf and rp gang). 12-20 hours, not a big deal, right? Does that justify that I should be playing switch-and-go, spoon-fed, overeasy games? Of course not, because I look for a different kind of experience - I was never a Vampire Lord when I roleplayed the pen&paper version of Masquerade, didn't have that much available time, couldn't go to all the rp sessions, wasn't all that committed. Did I enjoy the experience in spite of this? Of course I did! Did I tell the DM that he should handle me rewards because I had to study for my Degree and didn't have that much available time? Of course not, the very notion of that idea was just foreign.
We are different kind of beasts Caliburn, and we are not getting along in the same mmorpg. Of this I have absolute faith.
EDIT: typos
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Without wanting to go too much off topic:
I always wondered if actually Quixote created illusory giants, the answer of course being found in the book itself when the Knight says: "I know who I am and who I can be". Giants are a fact in the eyes of the Don, Windmills in the eye of the barber. The problem there is Sancho: he does not know what he believes, his knowledge is merely circumstancial.
Back on topic:
there's this fallacy called 'of the true scotsman' that can certainly be applied here. It would go like this:
- No MMORPG would deliver over-casual disneyland-coloured press-button-to-win gameplay.
- Hey, this is an MMORPG and is over-casual.
- Then is not a true MMORPG.
As we all know, instead of modifying the definition of our universal we modify our subject. So it becomes merely circumstancial. Sticking to a universal definition of what an MMORPG should be against all odds is not a sign of virtue, but of intellectual bad habits.
Don Quixote's Delusions
Show of hands if you're read Cervantes, audience.
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.
so totaly +1
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"