In the days of EQ the casual players didnt begrudge the players who had more time, skill, whatever. They had plenty of stuff to do and had fun doing it. It wasnt born of jealousy or entitlement, etc.
You're correct; it did take quite some time before gamers began to see everything in MMOs as competition.
Wonder where that went wrong...
We didn't begrudge them because we left the game, more than 2 million of us tried EQ and quit between its release and the development of EQ2. The whole point of EQ2 was to catch those gamers like me who hated the raid or die paradigm. What's sad is that over the years, EQ2 has done nothing but add more and more weight and focus to the raiding game.
I agree with a lot of what you said, but not everything can be blamed on casual players and their entitlement. A lot of this is on the developers shoulders. Yes, these are games, but for the developers its a business too. And they want that business to be profitable. If games were so great back then before all the casuals stepped in, the developers wouldn't have had to implement the easier features we expect today. But this was not the case. Though the players that they had enjoyed the game, it was not enough to sustain them profit wise. Next came the "If you build it, they will come" way of thinking, and like fish drawn to bait, the casual players were hooked in. You can't have the egg before the chicken, and likewise you can't fully blame casual players for asking for more of what was first handed out to them.
I understand where you're coming from on the profitability argument, the problem is that MMO's can be extremely profitable with a lot less subscribers than people think.
Just for some numbers. Rift cost approx $50 million to make (original Rift, not sure on xpac).
Now, according to this article they sold a million copies of the game as of about 3 months after release:
So, basically with less than a million subscribers, keep in mind that was 1 million sold over the three months, that wasnt neccesarily 1 million subbed as of 3 months later. Whatever they lost in the months following up to the end of the year (guesses at the time were down to between 400 and 500k actual subs), they made back their development costs and then an extra 50 million on top of that.
That means it was already extremely profitable.
An mmo could have a 100 million dollar budget, sell 500k copies, and retain 40% of those subs and it would be profitable within a couple of years. And thats on a HUGE budget. They could easily make a fantastic mmo with a 20-30mil budget, sell 500k copies, retain 40% of that and be profitable in less than a year.
Yes, you're right, they can be very profitable, but what the average person sees as profitable is different from what a company sees. All they care about is making more and more money, which is something they can not do without expanding their player base. Not to mention, though they may make their money back during the initial months, if they want to keep producing content and paying employees, they can not guarantee that they will be able to sustain that once the player base begins to decline barely a few months after launch.
Originally posted by Salahudin definitely 15$ a month ought to give access to all content... but whether you get to it or not should depend on your skill and play..
Everyone has always had access to all content in P2P games. Everyone could raid in WoW. Whether you got around to it was determined by the time you could invest in the game and skill you had to play your character in a raid setting.
I pay $45 a month (with in game currency) to play EVE online with 3 accounts. Have I done all there is to do in EVE? No. Will I do all there is to do in EVE? Will I fly EVERY ship in EVE? No. But I have the same chance as everyone else who subscribes to the game to ANYTHING I want as long as I put in the time and effort to train skills and be a good pilot.
Maybe the real issue is that most P2P games now and in the past would funnel everyone into a singular play style, raiding. Perhaps if they had the decency to offer other kinds of content at end game with their own epic loot progression, it wouldn't be an issue. It really sucks to have these "casual" MMOs out there and yet they turn into hardcore raidfest turds and people like me feel like we've been ripped off and forced to subsidize niche content in a game that was suppose to be targeted at us casuals.
I'm willing to listen. But I personally can't think of such a thing.
can you give examples of such endgame ? I mean the obvious answer is eve-like metagame pvp sov warfare. Right ? there's virtually no raiding in EVE at all. most pve is done solo or in micro-groups. So it's possible. but eve is not by any means "casual". so what does a non-raiding casual endgame look like to you ? can you squeeze out such a concept ?
Take a look at a game like Wildstar and look at their plans to even out the end game reward system between raiding and everything else. I have no issues with end game being more questing, dungeon crawling, puzzle solving, exploration, crafting, spvp and so forth, as long as we can still progress in every way the game offers, including loot, story and alternate advancement without being forced to do raids. GW2 does a decent job at rewarding all play styles without forcing everyone to raid. If only they had gone with a slower paced combat system, it would have been the perfect game for me.
With the recent post by Mark Kern regarding how the casualization or MMO's has essentially ruined the genre got me to thinking about what other aspects have contributed to the "ruining" of mmo's.
Personally i believe the mentality of many of the players that because they pay $15 they should have access to every bit of content in the mmo is both absurd, and heavily contributed to the current state of the genre.
We use the example of a gymnasium, but i think using an example of a themepark is a better idea.
Lets take Disneyworld. Most people schedule for multiple days when they vacation or visit. They know that buying entrance for the themepark for one day is not enough time to experience all the things they want to do. The average person knows that they're paying for ACCESS to all of the themeparks content, but that with their limited time, they are only able to partake in parts of it. So, they know if they spend 2 hours watching the mickey mouse play with their kids, and then spend 2 hours on roller coaster, that they may not have time to go to the waterpark, etc.
So, normal sane people understood in the early days of MMO's that it was the same way. You didnt get to raid if you didnt want to spend 4-6 hours online at once. Nobody begrudged the people who could. They simply went on and did whatever else was available that was fun. Whether that was crafting, running a dungeon, exploring, whatever. Nobody begrudged the crafter who chose to spend his hours investing into crafting at the detriment of his character leveling, or raiding, etc.
Instead, because of the influx of these content locusts casual players, who come in like a flock of squawking birds demanding that everything cater to them. We have ourselves in our current situation.
You complaining that leveling takes too long because you only have 2 hours a week to play is the same as expecting disney world to make their rollercoasters 1/3 of the length, so it only takes you 5 minutes to get through the rollercoaster instead of 15 minutes. Or asking them to cut out important parts of the Mickey Mouse show, so its only 20 minutes instead of an hour long. Its entitled and selfish, and it ruins the purity of the original material. It dumbs it down, makes it worthless. Its like trying to cram the entire lord of the rings into a 200 page book because you "dont have the time" to read the whole thing.
So instead of being like normal, sane people, who take 2 or 3 months maybe to read through the whole lord of the rings, you instead feel like the author should be obligated to cut it down to make it more palatable for you. In the process the thing is ruined.
Have you beaten all WoW raid content on heroic? Do you possess all the BIS gear? Do you have all achievements? How many world-firsts do you have? You can trade WoW for just about any MMORPG for the same results.
You can't really complain about a game being too easy, until you've managed to complete said game and had little difficulty doing so.
Agree. I feel if you are paying $15 (often ONTOP of game and expansion cost) you should be entitled to everything (or damn close). In that model, everyone paying means that everyone contributes evenly. F2P (unfortunately) ends up making those high and dedicate players usually having to pay more, even with a model that gives more potential/urging for the nonhardcore to pay as well.
Both the hardcore AND casual benefit from it. Hardcore have content meant for more challenge and difficulty (thus more reward) to obtain while a casual gains a goal, one that even on progressing through it SHOULD give a sense of achievement, something I feel many players forget what that feels like. Having stuff given to you robs you of that joy, and it makes hardcore players (aka ones far more likely to dedicate themselves to a game) less likely to stay around, after all, why pay for a game you finished off? Big issue for me with WoW was that I had everything done and virtually little to do but wait for a raid, which meant I'd have maybe 12 hours a week to raid (aka I was hardcore ) with the rest of the time being just unproductive stuff. The game was overly simplified and just lacked things to do. Sure it didn't need more 'hardcore' content, but it should had stuff to work towards or activities to keep me interested without needing that 'reward' (or some other variation not linked to character progression).
Hardcore players don't want things handed to them, and despite what they think, casual players don't want it either. There is a reason they are so quickly to flock away after you give them what they 'cry' for.
Take a look at a game like Wildstar and look at their plans to even out the end game reward system between raiding and everything else. I have no issues with end game being more questing, dungeon crawling, puzzle solving, exploration, crafting, spvp and so forth, as long as we can still progress in every way the game offers, including loot, story and alternate advancement without being forced to do raids.
traditionally, themeparks want to try to unify the experience at the peak, though. most games do, really.
being 'on rails". (not used derogatorily here), they need to offer a climactic end of the journey. The big nemesis whose death will fix everything that's wrong with the virtual world...seems like a good fit. I have my doubts that questing alone can achieve this. The reason I do...I doubt you'll 'feel' it.
games can offer the 'wooh, it's getting harder now, i must be close to the end' but then bad players...(YES, BAD PLAYERS. THEY DO EXIST.) would get stuck and not make it to the end since the process is mostly solo.
games can offer flatline difficulty quests...but then you beat it and think "huh. that was it? dissapointing end".
Or they can offer raiding. reality is YOU will either get stuck or burn through content much quicker than they build it. So they must slow you down without stopping you completely, in order to keep up with you. They MUST do this. They can't keep up.
Think of Bob, in cubicle #5. He spent all of Friday designing the head and left arm of the mob you 3-shot 5min ago. He's not making them quicker than you're tearing them down...
Then why is it in casual games, they keep setting the benchmark based on power gaming hardcores? They're the ones who chew through content, not us hour a day, three days a week gamers who also play casually when we are online. It would be understandable in a game like EQ, but WoW was suppose to be for us and once we reach level 50 to 60, we get funneled into a bunch of hardcore content, so we re-roll and or move to another game. I guarantee you, if they make the content their target audience seeks, they will benefit from it and to hell with the content locusts setting the pace.
Then why is it in casual games, they keep setting the benchmark based on power gaming hardcores? They're the ones who chew through content, not us hour a day, three days a week gamers who also play casually when we are online. It would be understandable in a game like EQ, but WoW was suppose to be for us and once we reach level 50 to 60, we get funneled into a bunch of hardcore content, so we re-roll and or move to another game. I guarantee you, if they make the content their target audience seeks, they will benefit from it and to hell with the content locusts setting the pace.
well, LEGO Universe shut down...
but really, there's plenty of cutesy casual MMOs out there. But nobody really hears about them...because if you're on the forums arguing in defense of casuals, then you're already a few notches above them in hardcore-ness.
which leads to the next issue...what do casuals want ? I mean they can't tell us...because they are typically not on forums. If they are on forums, then they're a non-representatie sample of casuals. Farmville proves they like building things rather than destroying them, but infinite building cant be sustained without infinite destruction. So how do you keep them building ? we don't know.
and this is the part where I must defend my feelings towards casuals. I've had a great reputation in WoW for being an advanced player who wasn't mean or unhelpful. That's...rare. But, while being casual is not a problem, being resilient is. Back in early Cataclysm when heroic 5mans were indeed much harder than previous expansion ones, I got to deal with many super-weak players.
I've killed these bosses 100 times, I wiped to them 50 times...I have enough patience to wipe 3 times so you can figure out how to walk away from the brown circle. It's okay. I can get you through it. If you don't get depressed and ragequit after first death. Odds are I died a couple times to it too while i was learning. But when you have no interest of getting out of that one-shotting circle, we have a problem. I can't work with you...I can't move your toon for you.
Why do you assume the super weak players you got stuck with were casual gamers? I've come across plenty of gamers over the years who talked the talk, but always laid the blame on everyone else even when they were at fault.
With the recent post by Mark Kern regarding how the casualization or MMO's has essentially ruined the genre got me to thinking about what other aspects have contributed to the "ruining" of mmo's.
Personally i believe the mentality of many of the players that because they pay $15 they should have access to every bit of content in the mmo is both absurd, and heavily contributed to the current state of the genre.
We use the example of a gymnasium, but i think using an example of a themepark is a better idea.
Lets take Disneyworld. Most people schedule for multiple days when they vacation or visit. They know that buying entrance for the themepark for one day is not enough time to experience all the things they want to do. The average person knows that they're paying for ACCESS to all of the themeparks content, but that with their limited time, they are only able to partake in parts of it. So, they know if they spend 2 hours watching the mickey mouse play with their kids, and then spend 2 hours on roller coaster, that they may not have time to go to the waterpark, etc.
So, normal sane people understood in the early days of MMO's that it was the same way. You didnt get to raid if you didnt want to spend 4-6 hours online at once. Nobody begrudged the people who could. They simply went on and did whatever else was available that was fun. Whether that was crafting, running a dungeon, exploring, whatever. Nobody begrudged the crafter who chose to spend his hours investing into crafting at the detriment of his character leveling, or raiding, etc.
Instead, because of the influx of these content locusts casual players, who come in like a flock of squawking birds demanding that everything cater to them. We have ourselves in our current situation.
You complaining that leveling takes too long because you only have 2 hours a week to play is the same as expecting disney world to make their rollercoasters 1/3 of the length, so it only takes you 5 minutes to get through the rollercoaster instead of 15 minutes. Or asking them to cut out important parts of the Mickey Mouse show, so its only 20 minutes instead of an hour long. Its entitled and selfish, and it ruins the purity of the original material. It dumbs it down, makes it worthless. Its like trying to cram the entire lord of the rings into a 200 page book because you "dont have the time" to read the whole thing.
So instead of being like normal, sane people, who take 2 or 3 months maybe to read through the whole lord of the rings, you instead feel like the author should be obligated to cut it down to make it more palatable for you. In the process the thing is ruined.
I could make the argument that content locust folks who play 8-10 hours a day ruined the genre. You folks constantly complain that there's not enough to do, not enough raid content, not enough faction grinding, etc. then bitch to the devs on forums cause you literally have nothing else to do as you're top level with all the best gear in the game. Ypu get bored and move on to he next target.
Yet, you blame casual gamers...lol. I spose "mark kern" whoever the fuck that is cant be wrong though lol.
I think the "entitlement" is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Content is overly gated, overly simplified , and excessively to easy to access. I don't have the answer and I won't attempt one, I'd to easily fall into the .. do what my other game used to do trap.
With the recent post by Mark Kern regarding how the casualization or MMO's has essentially ruined the genre got me to thinking about what other aspects have contributed to the "ruining" of mmo's.
Personally i believe the mentality of many of the players that because they pay $15 they should have access to every bit of content in the mmo is both absurd, and heavily contributed to the current state of the genre.
We use the example of a gymnasium, but i think using an example of a themepark is a better idea.
Lets take Disneyworld. Most people schedule for multiple days when they vacation or visit. They know that buying entrance for the themepark for one day is not enough time to experience all the things they want to do. The average person knows that they're paying for ACCESS to all of the themeparks content, but that with their limited time, they are only able to partake in parts of it. So, they know if they spend 2 hours watching the mickey mouse play with their kids, and then spend 2 hours on roller coaster, that they may not have time to go to the waterpark, etc.
So, normal sane people understood in the early days of MMO's that it was the same way. You didnt get to raid if you didnt want to spend 4-6 hours online at once. Nobody begrudged the people who could. They simply went on and did whatever else was available that was fun. Whether that was crafting, running a dungeon, exploring, whatever. Nobody begrudged the crafter who chose to spend his hours investing into crafting at the detriment of his character leveling, or raiding, etc.
Instead, because of the influx of these content locusts casual players, who come in like a flock of squawking birds demanding that everything cater to them. We have ourselves in our current situation.
You complaining that leveling takes too long because you only have 2 hours a week to play is the same as expecting disney world to make their rollercoasters 1/3 of the length, so it only takes you 5 minutes to get through the rollercoaster instead of 15 minutes. Or asking them to cut out important parts of the Mickey Mouse show, so its only 20 minutes instead of an hour long. Its entitled and selfish, and it ruins the purity of the original material. It dumbs it down, makes it worthless. Its like trying to cram the entire lord of the rings into a 200 page book because you "dont have the time" to read the whole thing.
So instead of being like normal, sane people, who take 2 or 3 months maybe to read through the whole lord of the rings, you instead feel like the author should be obligated to cut it down to make it more palatable for you. In the process the thing is ruined.
I agree with most of what you're saying but the title and the thing about paying $15 a month is confusing. At first it sounded like you meant that people shouldn't be able to get everything from an MMO by subscribing and that they should have to pay extra or something. Your title does nothing to help that either.
I'm making shit up? Here ya go, took me all of 45 seconds to find, even though it was 2 years ago:
______________________________________
Now, pay attention to the ONE THOUSAND responses (actually 1135) the majority of which was pissant whining on part of the players.
Now, google "ghostcrawler L2P backlash" and then tell me im making shit up.
You obviously never spent even a second on the WOW forums, all they are is constant whining about everything.
Edit: Honestly, did you even play wow, or rift, or any of these themepark MMO's? I've had countless times where people refused to run a certain dungeon because it was "too hard" or, this dungeon only takes 15 minutes, i dont want to spend 25 minutes on this dungeon. That kind of garbage was a DAILY occurance in those games. Everything in those players minds was motivated by how easy is it, if it was too hard they wouldnt do it. They WANTED to faceroll everything. They didnt WANT a challenge of ANY kind.
If you think that's proof of anything, you seem to fundamentally misunderstand how conversations online work.
For example in this thread you started off with a disagreement of a sentiment you've heard in the past, replied 5 times with disagreement with people, and agreed once. So your posting activity is overwhelmingly negative.
But that's fine. That's the nature of online conversation. Where there is agreement, there isn't anything left to say, and where there is disagreement, conversation abounds.
But it's also why it doesn't really matter that he received a bunch of responses disagreeing with the decision, because the players who agreed with the decision for the most part simply stayed quiet. Which is why developers need to be extremely careful to ever read too much into random knee-jerk feedback like that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
MMO design moved away from players who wanted to play an online RPG to those who wanted to play their solo RPG online. And just like their solo RPG, they think you should be able to see everything in the one online.
While shifts in society have had some impact on MMO's it is gaming companies chasing a wider audience that have transformed MMO's. The market they are looking to now would put Angry Birds in its list of top five games.
It was a decisive thing that made game design changes and later on one of biggest factors to rise of microtransactions.
People demanding that game and other players change and cater to them "because they don't have time or skill" instead of finding other game for themself, is what ruined MMORPG genre.
MMORPG genre got so disgusting and shallow it's not even funny. btw. I am only whining every now and then on forum when I feel like it, I don't play anymore, can't stand what industry produce anymore.
With the recent post by Mark Kern regarding how the casualization or MMO's has essentially ruined the genre got me to thinking about what other aspects have contributed to the "ruining" of mmo's.
i stopped right there. you got tricked by mark kern's "trend marketing". congratulations.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
With the recent post by Mark Kern regarding how the casualization or MMO's has essentially ruined the genre got me to thinking about what other aspects have contributed to the "ruining" of mmo's.
Personally i believe the mentality of many of the players that because they pay $15 they should have access to every bit of content in the mmo is both absurd, and heavily contributed to the current state of the genre.
We use the example of a gymnasium, but i think using an example of a themepark is a better idea.
Lets take Disneyworld. Most people schedule for multiple days when they vacation or visit. They know that buying entrance for the themepark for one day is not enough time to experience all the things they want to do. The average person knows that they're paying for ACCESS to all of the themeparks content, but that with their limited time, they are only able to partake in parts of it. So, they know if they spend 2 hours watching the mickey mouse play with their kids, and then spend 2 hours on roller coaster, that they may not have time to go to the waterpark, etc.
So, normal sane people understood in the early days of MMO's that it was the same way. You didnt get to raid if you didnt want to spend 4-6 hours online at once. Nobody begrudged the people who could. They simply went on and did whatever else was available that was fun. Whether that was crafting, running a dungeon, exploring, whatever. Nobody begrudged the crafter who chose to spend his hours investing into crafting at the detriment of his character leveling, or raiding, etc.
Instead, because of the influx of these content locusts casual players, who come in like a flock of squawking birds demanding that everything cater to them. We have ourselves in our current situation.
You complaining that leveling takes too long because you only have 2 hours a week to play is the same as expecting disney world to make their rollercoasters 1/3 of the length, so it only takes you 5 minutes to get through the rollercoaster instead of 15 minutes. Or asking them to cut out important parts of the Mickey Mouse show, so its only 20 minutes instead of an hour long. Its entitled and selfish, and it ruins the purity of the original material. It dumbs it down, makes it worthless. Its like trying to cram the entire lord of the rings into a 200 page book because you "dont have the time" to read the whole thing.
So instead of being like normal, sane people, who take 2 or 3 months maybe to read through the whole lord of the rings, you instead feel like the author should be obligated to cut it down to make it more palatable for you. In the process the thing is ruined.
I understand and agree.
But do you realy think they do for whom this topic you wrote was made for?
I dont think so, over the years i gave up on explaining the dumb down and why, its hopeless. Even tho your topic is right on the spot, it hit's the nail perfectly, but its just not getting throught these concrete walls build around there heads its blocking all explain why info, im affraid.
They have abandon those who just wanne still invest game time(this is with nuances, ill explain: Time sink for me or invest long periods accomplish something over several days/weeks/months i realy dont care if its spread of longer periods of time i dont want SPOON FED instant gratification and pleasure here and now i wanne infest time to get it if this take long so be it) and achievements/goals.
I dont have alot time playing work and all, so when i go ingame and it maybe take weeks or months or even years to accomplish something ill spread it over longer periods of time if other players have 24/7 so be it i accept that thats how it is i realy dont care eventually i catch up.
Good try tho:)
Is this explanation clear to those who want it all fast easy and now i serieusly doub they even comprihent what im trying to say here there to far brainwashes by parents and gaming industrie and all the entertainment they absorb these days.
If any of this maybe change someday i realy don't know but im confinced it's not soon i can asure you.
Not everyone paying his college fees gets As and degrees.
^ This, right here, should end the thread.
No more needs to be said. Absolutely true.
Its not a bad analogy but not a good business one when the outcome is trivial - see what you get in college or university usually matters for the rest of your life so you'll stick it out even if you just get a pass. In games it matters nothing so people can just unsub and the devs have a heart attack. If everyone that didn't get an "A" left in their first semester then Universities would be in crisis - somehow there exists an environment where people are too scared to do that. Probably supply and demand again driven by the importance.
I don't agree people should get the highest achievement given they have access but not sure how to ensure the system works when the motivation to keep the average playing isn't significant enough.
Maybe Golf is a better analogy. I pay my fee for a round but that doesn't guarantee me a score. I also cant nerf the course but I can complete it an get a score. Maybe getting a score type of thing is what gear should be driven by etc e.g time trials for raids as in the challenge mode dungeons in WoW. i.e everyone gets to do it and you can take as long as you want but you get a greater reward the faster you do it. Or something along those lines.
Totally agree with you, except for the $15 a month part. I want to have access to everything in a game, I don't want to pay $15 for 1/2 and another $15 for the other half. Other than that, I enjoy when activities take time. The more time you spend on something the more valuable your accomplishment becomes to you. On the other hand, when they say something like, you can only do this 2 times a week, that's not fun. That would be like a Disney world only letting you ride the funnest rides 2 times. instead they should let you waste as much time on as few rides as you would like. If I want to ride one ride over and over till the weekend is over, plz let me. If I want to Raid, let me raid as many times as I like, don't restrict me to 2 times a week..
So much energy and hate around here. Yet, we've already SEEN a MMO that handles this problem. CoH. Its very simple to let everyone "see" content. Its called having content scaling built into your game engine. Granted, CoH didn't have the most perfect system for this...as such a system would also take into account your gear as well as level and party size. But I really don't understand why, with a clever enough system, you couldn't have endlessly scaling content based upon those factors with endlessly scaling rewards.
Hell, you could craft an endless end game if you managed the math well. A game that could spawn new items and equipment with higher values along side of generating harder mobs as you progressed. This would take a great deal of work, sure. But even if you only had ONE "final dungeon" when it was all done...that one dungeon would outlive all of WoW's raids combined. To top it off, you'd have all your content tailored to all your players.
MMO design moved away from players who wanted to play an online RPG to those who wanted to play their solo RPG online. And just like their solo RPG, they think you should be able to see everything in the one online.
While shifts in society have had some impact on MMO's it is gaming companies chasing a wider audience that have transformed MMO's. The market they are looking to now would put Angry Birds in its list of top five games.
How long before the Angry Birds MMO is with us?
Spot on^
The thing that people don't seem to get is mmorpgs aren't meant to be rushed through. Convenient. Work around your schedule. The world is what it is. They used to be dangerous. Intimidating. Make you think about the risk of your actions. Now there really isn't a challenge. The game literally BENDS OVER for you. Gives the gear away. Nothing is an accomplishment anymore.
I think it's the devs fault and not the casuals. They are chasing the almighty buck. Instead of bastardizing the mmorpg genre, they should refine the arpg genre to accommodate these people that want it all handed to them, to solo or whatever and let the genre have its dignity back.
Not everyone paying his college fees gets As and degrees.
^ This, right here, should end the thread.
No more needs to be said. Absolutely true.
Its not a bad analogy but not a good business one when the outcome is trivial - see what you get in college or university usually matters for the rest of your life so you'll stick it out even if you just get a pass. In games it matters nothing so people can just unsub and the devs have a heart attack. If everyone that didn't get an "A" left in their first semester then Universities would be in crisis - somehow there exists an environment where people are too scared to do that. Probably supply and demand again driven by the importance.
I don't agree people should get the highest achievement given they have access but not sure how to ensure the system works when the motivation to keep the average playing isn't significant enough.
Maybe Golf is a better analogy. I pay my fee for a round but that doesn't guarantee me a score. I also cant nerf the course but I can complete it an get a score. Maybe getting a score type of thing is what gear should be driven by etc e.g time trials for raids as in the challenge mode dungeons in WoW. i.e everyone gets to do it and you can take as long as you want but you get a greater reward the faster you do it. Or something along those lines.
I don't think faster is the way to go, Time is not the only way to challenge somebody. The way to go would be to have certain parts more challenging. Make it so you have to do the dance so perfectly that one mistake will throw it all off. Along with that you should have the easy parts, so everybody can do them. Making people want to rush through something encourages the wrong type of game play I think.
I don't think I have ever seen anyone complain about how long it takes to level in an MMO on these forums. Well maybe except for Aion when it first launched.
The thing is, a casual's $15 is the exact same value as a hardcore player's $15 when you are talking p2p games. The hardcore didn't need to spend anymore money and the casual wasn't able to spend less. It was a flat rate for everyone, no matter what.
So if you build a theme park with only a certain number of rides that mainly catered to one group of people, you would probably notice that the Jones' theme park down the street that has more rides catering to even more types of people is making more money and also people from your theme park visit and buy tickets with them as well.
Business is about competition and catering to your customer's needs and wants. If you can't supply that then sure, you will have some loyal customers who like your few products that you offer, but you will lose out on all that profit from sales from other customers if you would have diversified. So you have to stay competitive and offer more goods and services to attract more customers.
TLDR: In way you thread title is right, except only close minded people will see it as a negative.
You must be blind. There were multiple threads in GW2 complaining that 50 hours to max level was ASIAN GRINDER MMO ridiculous...
Moving on, im not sure what you're trying to say because you're arguing the point we're making, but you don't even realize it.
Nobody is asking anybody to build a theme park filled with hard core high G' death defying roller coasters and nothing else.
A real themepark is just like you said, it has something for everyone. Tea Cups for the young girls, rollercoasters for the grown men or strapping young lads, crazy tall free fall rides for those people. Water rides, etc etc.
The difference is that when some parent comes up to the park manager and says "you know you should slow those high G rollercoasters down substantially so that my young girl can ride them and not be so scared", instead of the manager saying, "well sir, those coasters are not designed for small children and are designed to entertain people who like fast rides and high G's, Im sorry you feel that way, but we have multiple OTHER rides you can take your small girl on", the MMO developers have essentially gone "Oh jeez mister, let me change that for you, i guess all those other customers can F right off, i wanna make sure YOU are taken care of, even though your request is irresponsible and ridiculous'
The reason i have stopped subbing to games is because my money was going to develop content that i have no interest in( raiding). IT's a new bloody raid every couple of months and everyone else who isn't interested in raiding gets shafted.
Originally posted by Salahudin definitely 15$ a month ought to give access to all content... but whether you get to it or not should depend on your skill and play..
I have 3 jobs and 2 wives. Devs should cater to the majority like me. (/pauses to giggle like a schoolgirl)..who have a life, not the basement dwelling zombies.
A grown man giggling like a school girl aside. Even though you are being sarcastic you are telling the truth. There are lot of gamers who fall in this category and i won't be surprised if they make majority of gamers these days.
"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
Comments
We didn't begrudge them because we left the game, more than 2 million of us tried EQ and quit between its release and the development of EQ2. The whole point of EQ2 was to catch those gamers like me who hated the raid or die paradigm. What's sad is that over the years, EQ2 has done nothing but add more and more weight and focus to the raiding game.
Yes, you're right, they can be very profitable, but what the average person sees as profitable is different from what a company sees. All they care about is making more and more money, which is something they can not do without expanding their player base. Not to mention, though they may make their money back during the initial months, if they want to keep producing content and paying employees, they can not guarantee that they will be able to sustain that once the player base begins to decline barely a few months after launch.
Take a look at a game like Wildstar and look at their plans to even out the end game reward system between raiding and everything else. I have no issues with end game being more questing, dungeon crawling, puzzle solving, exploration, crafting, spvp and so forth, as long as we can still progress in every way the game offers, including loot, story and alternate advancement without being forced to do raids. GW2 does a decent job at rewarding all play styles without forcing everyone to raid. If only they had gone with a slower paced combat system, it would have been the perfect game for me.
Have you beaten all WoW raid content on heroic? Do you possess all the BIS gear? Do you have all achievements? How many world-firsts do you have? You can trade WoW for just about any MMORPG for the same results.
You can't really complain about a game being too easy, until you've managed to complete said game and had little difficulty doing so.
Agree. I feel if you are paying $15 (often ONTOP of game and expansion cost) you should be entitled to everything (or damn close). In that model, everyone paying means that everyone contributes evenly. F2P (unfortunately) ends up making those high and dedicate players usually having to pay more, even with a model that gives more potential/urging for the nonhardcore to pay as well.
Both the hardcore AND casual benefit from it. Hardcore have content meant for more challenge and difficulty (thus more reward) to obtain while a casual gains a goal, one that even on progressing through it SHOULD give a sense of achievement, something I feel many players forget what that feels like. Having stuff given to you robs you of that joy, and it makes hardcore players (aka ones far more likely to dedicate themselves to a game) less likely to stay around, after all, why pay for a game you finished off? Big issue for me with WoW was that I had everything done and virtually little to do but wait for a raid, which meant I'd have maybe 12 hours a week to raid (aka I was hardcore
) with the rest of the time being just unproductive stuff. The game was overly simplified and just lacked things to do. Sure it didn't need more 'hardcore' content, but it should had stuff to work towards or activities to keep me interested without needing that 'reward' (or some other variation not linked to character progression).
Hardcore players don't want things handed to them, and despite what they think, casual players don't want it either. There is a reason they are so quickly to flock away after you give them what they 'cry' for.
Then why is it in casual games, they keep setting the benchmark based on power gaming hardcores? They're the ones who chew through content, not us hour a day, three days a week gamers who also play casually when we are online. It would be understandable in a game like EQ, but WoW was suppose to be for us and once we reach level 50 to 60, we get funneled into a bunch of hardcore content, so we re-roll and or move to another game. I guarantee you, if they make the content their target audience seeks, they will benefit from it and to hell with the content locusts setting the pace.
Why do you assume the super weak players you got stuck with were casual gamers? I've come across plenty of gamers over the years who talked the talk, but always laid the blame on everyone else even when they were at fault.
I could make the argument that content locust folks who play 8-10 hours a day ruined the genre. You folks constantly complain that there's not enough to do, not enough raid content, not enough faction grinding, etc. then bitch to the devs on forums cause you literally have nothing else to do as you're top level with all the best gear in the game. Ypu get bored and move on to he next target.
Yet, you blame casual gamers...lol. I spose "mark kern" whoever the fuck that is cant be wrong though lol.
I think the "entitlement" is a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Content is overly gated, overly simplified , and excessively to easy to access. I don't have the answer and I won't attempt one, I'd to easily fall into the .. do what my other game used to do trap.
I agree with most of what you're saying but the title and the thing about paying $15 a month is confusing. At first it sounded like you meant that people shouldn't be able to get everything from an MMO by subscribing and that they should have to pay extra or something. Your title does nothing to help that either.
Smile
If you think that's proof of anything, you seem to fundamentally misunderstand how conversations online work.
For example in this thread you started off with a disagreement of a sentiment you've heard in the past, replied 5 times with disagreement with people, and agreed once. So your posting activity is overwhelmingly negative.
But that's fine. That's the nature of online conversation. Where there is agreement, there isn't anything left to say, and where there is disagreement, conversation abounds.
But it's also why it doesn't really matter that he received a bunch of responses disagreeing with the decision, because the players who agreed with the decision for the most part simply stayed quiet. Which is why developers need to be extremely careful to ever read too much into random knee-jerk feedback like that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
MMO design moved away from players who wanted to play an online RPG to those who wanted to play their solo RPG online. And just like their solo RPG, they think you should be able to see everything in the one online.
While shifts in society have had some impact on MMO's it is gaming companies chasing a wider audience that have transformed MMO's. The market they are looking to now would put Angry Birds in its list of top five games.
How long before the Angry Birds MMO is with us?
Decisive.
It was a decisive thing that made game design changes and later on one of biggest factors to rise of microtransactions.
People demanding that game and other players change and cater to them "because they don't have time or skill" instead of finding other game for themself, is what ruined MMORPG genre.
MMORPG genre got so disgusting and shallow it's not even funny. btw. I am only whining every now and then on forum when I feel like it, I don't play anymore, can't stand what industry produce anymore.
i stopped right there. you got tricked by mark kern's "trend marketing". congratulations.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
I understand and agree.
But do you realy think they do for whom this topic you wrote was made for?
I dont think so, over the years i gave up on explaining the dumb down and why, its hopeless. Even tho your topic is right on the spot, it hit's the nail perfectly, but its just not getting throught these concrete walls build around there heads its blocking all explain why info, im affraid.
They have abandon those who just wanne still invest game time(this is with nuances, ill explain: Time sink for me or invest long periods accomplish something over several days/weeks/months i realy dont care if its spread of longer periods of time i dont want SPOON FED instant gratification and pleasure here and now i wanne infest time to get it if this take long so be it) and achievements/goals.
I dont have alot time playing work and all, so when i go ingame and it maybe take weeks or months or even years to accomplish something ill spread it over longer periods of time if other players have 24/7 so be it i accept that thats how it is i realy dont care eventually i catch up.
Good try tho:)
Is this explanation clear to those who want it all fast easy and now i serieusly doub they even comprihent what im trying to say here there to far brainwashes by parents and gaming industrie and all the entertainment they absorb these days.
If any of this maybe change someday i realy don't know but im confinced it's not soon i can asure you.
Its not a bad analogy but not a good business one when the outcome is trivial - see what you get in college or university usually matters for the rest of your life so you'll stick it out even if you just get a pass. In games it matters nothing so people can just unsub and the devs have a heart attack. If everyone that didn't get an "A" left in their first semester then Universities would be in crisis - somehow there exists an environment where people are too scared to do that. Probably supply and demand again driven by the importance.
I don't agree people should get the highest achievement given they have access but not sure how to ensure the system works when the motivation to keep the average playing isn't significant enough.
Maybe Golf is a better analogy. I pay my fee for a round but that doesn't guarantee me a score. I also cant nerf the course but I can complete it an get a score. Maybe getting a score type of thing is what gear should be driven by etc e.g time trials for raids as in the challenge mode dungeons in WoW. i.e everyone gets to do it and you can take as long as you want but you get a greater reward the faster you do it. Or something along those lines.
Totally agree with you, except for the $15 a month part. I want to have access to everything in a game, I don't want to pay $15 for 1/2 and another $15 for the other half. Other than that, I enjoy when activities take time. The more time you spend on something the more valuable your accomplishment becomes to you. On the other hand, when they say something like, you can only do this 2 times a week, that's not fun. That would be like a Disney world only letting you ride the funnest rides 2 times. instead they should let you waste as much time on as few rides as you would like. If I want to ride one ride over and over till the weekend is over, plz let me. If I want to Raid, let me raid as many times as I like, don't restrict me to 2 times a week..
I stopped reading around page 7.....
So much energy and hate around here. Yet, we've already SEEN a MMO that handles this problem. CoH. Its very simple to let everyone "see" content. Its called having content scaling built into your game engine. Granted, CoH didn't have the most perfect system for this...as such a system would also take into account your gear as well as level and party size. But I really don't understand why, with a clever enough system, you couldn't have endlessly scaling content based upon those factors with endlessly scaling rewards.
Hell, you could craft an endless end game if you managed the math well. A game that could spawn new items and equipment with higher values along side of generating harder mobs as you progressed. This would take a great deal of work, sure. But even if you only had ONE "final dungeon" when it was all done...that one dungeon would outlive all of WoW's raids combined. To top it off, you'd have all your content tailored to all your players.
Spot on^
The thing that people don't seem to get is mmorpgs aren't meant to be rushed through. Convenient. Work around your schedule. The world is what it is. They used to be dangerous. Intimidating. Make you think about the risk of your actions. Now there really isn't a challenge. The game literally BENDS OVER for you. Gives the gear away. Nothing is an accomplishment anymore.
I think it's the devs fault and not the casuals. They are chasing the almighty buck. Instead of bastardizing the mmorpg genre, they should refine the arpg genre to accommodate these people that want it all handed to them, to solo or whatever and let the genre have its dignity back.
http://thewordiz.wordpress.com/
I don't think faster is the way to go, Time is not the only way to challenge somebody. The way to go would be to have certain parts more challenging. Make it so you have to do the dance so perfectly that one mistake will throw it all off. Along with that you should have the easy parts, so everybody can do them. Making people want to rush through something encourages the wrong type of game play I think.
I love this. Spot on.
A grown man giggling like a school girl aside. Even though you are being sarcastic you are telling the truth. There are lot of gamers who fall in this category and i won't be surprised if they make majority of gamers these days.
"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