eh wow is just for people that either have very little time and care only about being handed things or younger players you dont have the skill for more challanging mmos. Lota older players prob getting in cause the game is so easy and it doesnt take much to learn except how to use a mouse
Broad sweeping statements like this are just for people who either have very little skills in explanations and care only about grossly over simplified summary as these people lack the skill or ability to substantiate their empty assertions. It does not take these people much more than the ability to randomly hit the keyboard and press the submit button.
Well when it comes to a grossley simplified game how else can you describe it?
Learn to appreciate, and stop making nonsense conclusions. How is a game evaluated? Complexity makes a game, simplification fails a game? What is the measurement of complexity? You need to do 600 pressed ups to launch the game or jump in hoops for 2 hours to select a character? What exactly is a game? An IQ test?
It seems that WoW players for the majority are in their FIFTIES. Not that I have anything against ppl who play MMO's past FIFTY. Actually I think on one hand it is a very cool thing to want to keep up with your grand kids. But I remember the days of WoW when the HARDCORE fanboy was in there TEENS. It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play. Dont get me wrong I plan on playing MMO's until I'm NINETY. Is that WRONG?? come to think of it I think I heard somewere there is a NINETY year old player somewhere playing WoW. If you can verify this pls do.
What are your thought or comments? I'm I the only one that SEE'S the TREND??
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
It seems that WoW players for the majority are in their FIFTIES. Not that I have anything against ppl who play MMO's past FIFTY. Actually I think on one hand it is a very cool thing to want to keep up with your grand kids. But I remember the days of WoW when the HARDCORE fanboy was in there TEENS. It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play. Dont get me wrong I plan on playing MMO's until I'm NINETY. Is that WRONG?? come to think of it I think I heard somewere there is a NINETY year old player somewhere playing WoW. If you can verify this pls do.
What are your thought or comments? I'm I the only one that SEE'S the TREND??
wow was always in its simplest form, thats why so many teens with short attention spans played it. those people in their fifties are far more competent than any little teen.
Simplest form? What is simple form? Show me your measurement, or is it just an empty statement with no meaning, just to start off your line of discussion, like the word "Hi"?
It seems that WoW players for the majority are in their FIFTIES. Not that I have anything against ppl who play MMO's past FIFTY. Actually I think on one hand it is a very cool thing to want to keep up with your grand kids. But I remember the days of WoW when the HARDCORE fanboy was in there TEENS. It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play. Dont get me wrong I plan on playing MMO's until I'm NINETY. Is that WRONG?? come to think of it I think I heard somewere there is a NINETY year old player somewhere playing WoW. If you can verify this pls do.
What are your thought or comments? I'm I the only one that SEE'S the TREND??
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
I belong to the old aged group now, the group around 50. I do not feel any superiority or hard core when talking to the younger, nor do I feel embarassed or soft core when talking to older gamers. Fact is, I dunno what is hard core soft core in a game, A GAME. EQ is hard core? Training to zone ins, dragging corpse to loot, lfg outside instance entrance is hard core? DAoC is hard core? EvE is hardcore? EvE can be as safe as you want if you hide in a big guild. WoW can be as difficult as you want, if you set high standard in what you want and proceed to do it. Actually a friend of mine delete his alt whenever it dies in the game, whatever the gear and money it earns. That makes maxing level very challenging and require good planning. Fact is tetrix is "hardcore" if you force yourself to play on a PC with only 1 finger. Or close your eyes every alternate second.
It seems that WoW players for the majority are in their FIFTIES. Not that I have anything against ppl who play MMO's past FIFTY. Actually I think on one hand it is a very cool thing to want to keep up with your grand kids. But I remember the days of WoW when the HARDCORE fanboy was in there TEENS. It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play. Dont get me wrong I plan on playing MMO's until I'm NINETY. Is that WRONG?? come to think of it I think I heard somewere there is a NINETY year old player somewhere playing WoW. If you can verify this pls do.
What are your thought or comments? I'm I the only one that SEE'S the TREND??
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
I belong to the old aged group now, the group around 50. I do not feel any superiority or hard core when talking to the younger, nor do I feel embarassed or soft core when talking to older gamers. Fact is, I dunno what is hard core soft core in a game, A GAME. EQ is hard core? Training to zone ins, dragging corpse to loot, lfg outside instance entrance is hard core? DAoC is hard core? EvE is hardcore? EvE can be as safe as you want if you hide in a big guild. WoW can be as difficult as you want, if you set high standard in what you want and proceed to do it. Actually a friend of mine delete his alt whenever it dies in the game, whatever the gear and money it earns. That makes maxing level very challenging and require good planning. Fact is tetrix is "hardcore" if you force yourself to play on a PC with only 1 finger. Or close your eyes every alternate second.
I think you misunderstood my response. The OP appeared to me to be blaming 50 somethings for dumbing down the MMO experience. And he clearly lamented the shift (in his eyes) of the average wow gamer from the "hard core teen" to a more geriatric demographic.
I am not in the 50s crowd but I do have time in grade playing pong, trash 80 casette games, Atari 2600 etc. And I know that many of you that are older than me started playing the first MMOs on mainframes via punch card. That, to me, makes your generation pretty hard core as far as gaming is concerned. Pretty much bottom line, in my opinion.
I don't know that any generation is guilty of dumbing gaming down. Devs seem predisposed to do that themselves. But I will object to any proposition that older gamers are in any way feeble gamers, or inherently soft core. They are clearly not.
Actually WoW released age range numbers a year ago or so....The average age was around 26 IIRC.......I think 50+ was less than 10 percent........I have no clue why the OP thinks everyone is over 50........Usually players over 50 in any MMO are very rare.
Just a question as to why you think 50, 60, 70, 80 shouldnt play games? There all people (ok so 65+ is a bit high for these times) but give it another 10yrs and you will probably see those ages in games as it was that genre that started.
What you (me) and many others , take for utter granted thesedays, is like oh my god to them. I myself, will be playign at that age (if i get to be that age) and i think many of you will also be gaming too. May not be the same type of gaming but you will be gaming on whatever it is by then.
Sorry OP I don't get the trend you are trying to refer to. What amazes me most in your post is that so far every thread that whines about MMOs, esp. WoW, is going against kiddies. "Oh, before MMOs were soooooo hardcore! Now it is dumbed down for the kids". And now suddenly it is dumbed down for the oldies??? Because of one out of four gamers are 50+ (which doesn't correspond to WoW players)???
I just found INTRESTING stats on curse.com. I took those STATS and wanted to RUN with the thought that 1 in 4 GAMERS are now over the age of 50. I think THAT it seems that some HAVE a problem with it SOME do not. I personaly DONT. As far as WoW is concern my PERSONAL experience is that I KNEW most of the four to be playing WoW. I had two players MARRIED none of the less in MY guild who were 50+ He was a PALLY tank and she was a HEALER and you know what I ENJOYED very much so playing in RUNS with these two since I can COUNT on them to play there BEST. To TELL you the TRUTH I belive that one's who are OLDER are more likely to HELP you, more liekly to PLAY their toon in a more PROFESIONAL way, MORE likely not to GANK because of the MATURE factor.
Sorry OP I don't get the trend you are trying to refer to. What amazes me most in your post is that so far every thread that whines about MMOs, esp. WoW, is going against kiddies. "Oh, before MMOs were soooooo hardcore! Now it is dumbed down for the kids". And now suddenly it is dumbed down for the oldies??? Because of one out of four gamers are 50+ (which doesn't correspond to WoW players)???
I just found INTRESTING stats on curse.com. I took those STATS and wanted to RUN with the thought that 1 in 4 GAMERS are now over the age of 50. I think THAT it seems that some HAVE a problem with it SOME do not. I personaly DONT. As far as WoW is concern my PERSONAL experience is that I KNEW most of the four to be playing WoW. I had two players MARRIED none of the less in MY guild who were 50+ He was a PALLY tank and she was a HEALER and you know what I ENJOYED very much so playing in RUNS with these two since I can COUNT on them to play there BEST. To TELL you the TRUTH I belive that one's who are OLDER are more likely to HELP you, more liekly to PLAY their toon in a more PROFESIONAL way, MORE likely not to GANK because of the MATURE factor.
I'm glad you appreciated the friendliness and professionalism of your guild mates. I think the reason that some people have been critical of your original post is that you did not appear so predisposed four pages ago:
"It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play."
This is the particular line I had a problem with. But again, yes I have had the same general experience with "older" players (which some would probably consider me, as I'm in my mid 30s, but I digress). I have to say that at the same time I have also played with some exceptionally helpful, mature and knowledgeable "children", and that I also do not subscribe to the anti kiddie hate that is so fashionable these days. Players are players and define themselves by their behavior.
It seems that WoW players for the majority are in their FIFTIES. Not that I have anything against ppl who play MMO's past FIFTY. Actually I think on one hand it is a very cool thing to want to keep up with your grand kids. But I remember the days of WoW when the HARDCORE fanboy was in there TEENS. It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play. Dont get me wrong I plan on playing MMO's until I'm NINETY. Is that WRONG?? come to think of it I think I heard somewere there is a NINETY year old player somewhere playing WoW. If you can verify this pls do.
What are your thought or comments? I'm I the only one that SEE'S the TREND??
Wow, I hope that you do nothing in your career that relies on you to read anything. I've seen tons of stories like the one you linked to (actually i'm betting the one you quickly googled and found when you realized you had nothing to backup your absurd claim. Most people they talk about are people who play the many... many light games online. The yahoo stuff, the solitare type stuff, they certainly don't mean wow. Wow has a lot of older players but by no means the majority.
It seems that WoW players for the majority are in their FIFTIES. Not that I have anything against ppl who play MMO's past FIFTY. Actually I think on one hand it is a very cool thing to want to keep up with your grand kids. But I remember the days of WoW when the HARDCORE fanboy was in there TEENS. It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play. Dont get me wrong I plan on playing MMO's until I'm NINETY. Is that WRONG?? come to think of it I think I heard somewere there is a NINETY year old player somewhere playing WoW. If you can verify this pls do.
What are your thought or comments? I'm I the only one that SEE'S the TREND??
Wow, I hope that you do nothing in your career that relies on you to read anything. I've seen tons of stories like the one you linked to (actually i'm betting the one you quickly googled and found when you realized you had nothing to backup your absurd claim. Most people they talk about are people who play the many... many light games online. The yahoo stuff, the solitare type stuff, they certainly don't mean wow. Wow has a lot of older players but by no means the majority.
That's a very good point. My wife plays literati online at yahoo, which makes her an online gamer from a demographics perspective. But she's no online gamer, and in fact if I were to call her that she would probably be offended lol.
It seems that WoW players for the majority are in their FIFTIES. Not that I have anything against ppl who play MMO's past FIFTY. Actually I think on one hand it is a very cool thing to want to keep up with your grand kids. But I remember the days of WoW when the HARDCORE fanboy was in there TEENS. It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play. Dont get me wrong I plan on playing MMO's until I'm NINETY. Is that WRONG?? come to think of it I think I heard somewere there is a NINETY year old player somewhere playing WoW. If you can verify this pls do.
What are your thought or comments? I'm I the only one that SEE'S the TREND??
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
I belong to the old aged group now, the group around 50. I do not feel any superiority or hard core when talking to the younger, nor do I feel embarassed or soft core when talking to older gamers. Fact is, I dunno what is hard core soft core in a game, A GAME. EQ is hard core? Training to zone ins, dragging corpse to loot, lfg outside instance entrance is hard core? DAoC is hard core? EvE is hardcore? EvE can be as safe as you want if you hide in a big guild. WoW can be as difficult as you want, if you set high standard in what you want and proceed to do it. Actually a friend of mine delete his alt whenever it dies in the game, whatever the gear and money it earns. That makes maxing level very challenging and require good planning. Fact is tetrix is "hardcore" if you force yourself to play on a PC with only 1 finger. Or close your eyes every alternate second.
I think you misunderstood my response. The OP appeared to me to be blaming 50 somethings for dumbing down the MMO experience. And he clearly lamented the shift (in his eyes) of the average wow gamer from the "hard core teen" to a more geriatric demographic.
I am not in the 50s crowd but I do have time in grade playing pong, trash 80 casette games, Atari 2600 etc. And I know that many of you that are older than me started playing the first MMOs on mainframes via punch card. That, to me, makes your generation pretty hard core as far as gaming is concerned. Pretty much bottom line, in my opinion.
I don't know that any generation is guilty of dumbing gaming down. Devs seem predisposed to do that themselves. But I will object to any proposition that older gamers are in any way feeble gamers, or inherently soft core. They are clearly not.
Sorry I use a tone too harsh, I am not really critical of what you said. I just used ur post as spring board and spin off to express my feelings. Too much careless or intentional use of the term hardcore in a way I feel meaningless self praise.
Oh yeah the oldest computer game is not played on main frames, its on Texas Intruments calculators. Programming it for even the simplest game is a real headache. That was when I was in my Junior highs. Its more for the sake of programming than gaming.
As for the argument of dumbing down games, I generally ignore them. Dumbing down is another meaingless terms like hard core. A game that is easily accessible allows more people to play, in as much as cell phones allow people to stay in contact easier. Does that means cell phones dumbs down communications, and that we should all lament the days we use pigeons to communicate?
That's a very good point. My wife plays literati online at yahoo, which makes her an online gamer from a demographics perspective. But she's no online gamer, and in fact if I were to call her that she would probably be offended lol.
Indeed if you want to be very academic, I would say, ignore those so called research reports. They are misleading, intentionally or carelessly. I am a researcher at work, I wrote most of those craps for a living.
One of the flaws of those papers, not just the one quoted by the OP, is the use of single definitions. A WoW gamer is a WoW gamer, and he is different from a non-WoW gamer. That is bullshit.
I play WoW and I hate PVP, my old classmate plays WoW and he is a zealous PVP gamer. So are we both WoWers? Yes. Do we both fall into the category of anti-PVPs? No.
To really understand the meaning of those reports, we need to know how they define their terms. We also need to check how they design their surveys, draw samples. We want information on questionnaire design, estimation formulae and technical imputations and so on. Quality control is also vital. Let me elaborate.
If they draw samples from gamers thru mass mail, say yahoo mail, they are hitting people who use yahoo a lot, and hence a higher chance to hit yahoo gamers. If they draw samples from university students, they have a higher chance to hit what game is popular in that school there and then. Say in China, you will hit games popular to Chinese students. In korea, the type of games will be different. If you do it from households, you have a higher chance to hit those idle at home, who generally plays a timesink game, more than those at work.
Questionnaire design is important. Careless researches list a list of games for gamers to select, the order of the game list will influence selection, and for some stupid studies they allow only 1 selection, which obviously leads to very biased findings. Even multiple selections does nof mean good replies, we need information on how many hours in each game, whether its played or just watching friends/families played and so on and so forth. Asking people just to check from a list risks allowing different people to interprete what it is meant by checking. Some people checked if they occasionally come across a game, some people only check the game they play most often, some people ... you know the picture.
Quality control, how do the researcher know that the respondent actually play the game or is telling the truth? Respondents might be shy about playing a game others find it ridiculous. Imagine a survey done at school by your teacher asking if you play hallow kitty online. I bet 99% of the class will avoid checking that box, unless its an anonymous questionnaire, in which everybody drops into a box without the teaching coming around to collect it from you. What the respondent say =/= true. Same for taxation or income/spending surveys. Some research runs into the risk of collecting falsified replies. Imagine a household survey asking the husband about frequencies hitting up hookers. Will the hushand answer that in the presence of family members? Imagine a survey asking tourist how wondering the country they are visiting is? Calling up random people by phone or sending out emails already identifies the person, and the person is likely to shape his answers to make himself look good. Why do I need to tell you the truth, just b/c you identify yourself as a "researcher"?
The list can go on and on, suffice to say, I give no credit to research reports, unless it comes with full documentation on the way the finding is arrived at. I am especially suspicious of pretentiously scientific surveys on stupid issues as, how many hours ppl spend on sex, or so on, things with vanity. Its not unknown that research people fabricate questionnaires to support ridiculous claims in TV ads, like 95% of the doctors recommend X&Y candy that will fight tooth decay. Bullshit, total bullshit.
Sorry OP I don't get the trend you are trying to refer to. What amazes me most in your post is that so far every thread that whines about MMOs, esp. WoW, is going against kiddies. "Oh, before MMOs were soooooo hardcore! Now it is dumbed down for the kids". And now suddenly it is dumbed down for the oldies??? Because of one out of four gamers are 50+ (which doesn't correspond to WoW players)???
I just found INTRESTING stats on curse.com. I took those STATS and wanted to RUN with the thought that 1 in 4 GAMERS are now over the age of 50. I think THAT it seems that some HAVE a problem with it SOME do not. I personaly DONT. As far as WoW is concern my PERSONAL experience is that I KNEW most of the four to be playing WoW. I had two players MARRIED none of the less in MY guild who were 50+ He was a PALLY tank and she was a HEALER and you know what I ENJOYED very much so playing in RUNS with these two since I can COUNT on them to play there BEST. To TELL you the TRUTH I belive that one's who are OLDER are more likely to HELP you, more liekly to PLAY their toon in a more PROFESIONAL way, MORE likely not to GANK because of the MATURE factor.
well, cudos to you, that you are sticking to your own thread and following up the replies. I think you did yourself a disfavovour bymost likely expressing yourself unclearly with what you were aiming at with your opening post.
that aside - yes, that is the general consent, that older people are more likely to help you and that is what i often encounter as well. On the other hand, that is implying that all young people are gankers - i have meet equally many young people that where helpful, as well as "old" people that where ganking.
Look at all the "hardcore people" who miss the days of EQ1 or UO, whining about the nerfed down pvp - some have been e.g. looking forward to Darkfall for ages to do their hardcore pvp. if you add upp the years, they are definetly not teenagers (and only to some extend 50+).
I don't believe the statistics - it depends on who makes them, with which group, how big, etc.
Without the numbers to back it up and the sources of polls such as at curse, the whole thing for me is still
i dont think that wow is geared at more mature people . i wish it were in some ways or at least had adult servers. most of the players with attitude problems are those under the age of 18 .
Originally posted by Isturi Oh my bad lol here is the link... www.curse.com/articles/other-en-news/18099.aspx and here is what caught my attention... Among the survey's main findings: * 65 percent of American households play computer and video games;
* 38 percent of American homes have a video game console;
* The average game player is 35 years old;
* One out of four gamers are over age 50;
* Women age 18 or older represent a significantly greater portion of the game-playing population (33 percent) than boys age 17 or younger (18 percent); and,
* 41 percent of Americans expect to purchase one or more games this year. And I personlay know that when I played WoW I would always on a dalily bassis run into a player who was over FIFTY.
It is true that there are many older gamers today and some play Wow but the quetion is what game older person prefer. I can tell you directly that games like EQ2 have a lot older playerbase than Wow.
To actually get anything useful you would need to make a survey on how old MMO players are and what game they prefer.
I have read on some news articles n such...that older players are getting into games. One reason is cause it gives them a better chance to connect with their kids on a level playing field. So I doubt your logic of dumbing a game down enouph so older players can grasp it is accurate. Keep in mind...older gamers were playing before the WoW generation was born.
Ummmm.......
Older players getting into game?
Who do you think started the games?
Who do you think writes the games?
It's not that older people are starting to game, the simple fact is, the people who started the gaming industry have simply continued to play as they have gotten older.
And I don't connect with my teenager on a level playing field when gaming.......I completely own her 8)
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Comments
Broad sweeping statements like this are just for people who either have very little skills in explanations and care only about grossly over simplified summary as these people lack the skill or ability to substantiate their empty assertions. It does not take these people much more than the ability to randomly hit the keyboard and press the submit button.
Well when it comes to a grossley simplified game how else can you describe it?
Learn to appreciate, and stop making nonsense conclusions. How is a game evaluated? Complexity makes a game, simplification fails a game? What is the measurement of complexity? You need to do 600 pressed ups to launch the game or jump in hoops for 2 hours to select a character? What exactly is a game? An IQ test?
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
wow was always in its simplest form, thats why so many teens with short attention spans played it. those people in their fifties are far more competent than any little teen.
Simplest form? What is simple form? Show me your measurement, or is it just an empty statement with no meaning, just to start off your line of discussion, like the word "Hi"?
Meh intreasting VIEW points. What I have LEARN from this thread is that you should have FUN in gaming no matter what AGE you are.
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
I belong to the old aged group now, the group around 50. I do not feel any superiority or hard core when talking to the younger, nor do I feel embarassed or soft core when talking to older gamers. Fact is, I dunno what is hard core soft core in a game, A GAME. EQ is hard core? Training to zone ins, dragging corpse to loot, lfg outside instance entrance is hard core? DAoC is hard core? EvE is hardcore? EvE can be as safe as you want if you hide in a big guild. WoW can be as difficult as you want, if you set high standard in what you want and proceed to do it. Actually a friend of mine delete his alt whenever it dies in the game, whatever the gear and money it earns. That makes maxing level very challenging and require good planning. Fact is tetrix is "hardcore" if you force yourself to play on a PC with only 1 finger. Or close your eyes every alternate second.
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
I belong to the old aged group now, the group around 50. I do not feel any superiority or hard core when talking to the younger, nor do I feel embarassed or soft core when talking to older gamers. Fact is, I dunno what is hard core soft core in a game, A GAME. EQ is hard core? Training to zone ins, dragging corpse to loot, lfg outside instance entrance is hard core? DAoC is hard core? EvE is hardcore? EvE can be as safe as you want if you hide in a big guild. WoW can be as difficult as you want, if you set high standard in what you want and proceed to do it. Actually a friend of mine delete his alt whenever it dies in the game, whatever the gear and money it earns. That makes maxing level very challenging and require good planning. Fact is tetrix is "hardcore" if you force yourself to play on a PC with only 1 finger. Or close your eyes every alternate second.
I think you misunderstood my response. The OP appeared to me to be blaming 50 somethings for dumbing down the MMO experience. And he clearly lamented the shift (in his eyes) of the average wow gamer from the "hard core teen" to a more geriatric demographic.
I am not in the 50s crowd but I do have time in grade playing pong, trash 80 casette games, Atari 2600 etc. And I know that many of you that are older than me started playing the first MMOs on mainframes via punch card. That, to me, makes your generation pretty hard core as far as gaming is concerned. Pretty much bottom line, in my opinion.
I don't know that any generation is guilty of dumbing gaming down. Devs seem predisposed to do that themselves. But I will object to any proposition that older gamers are in any way feeble gamers, or inherently soft core. They are clearly not.
There doesn't seem to be a point to the OP at all...maybe im missing something..
And why the HELL do YOU type like THIS
The POINT is what YOU make out or it. I TYPE like this is because it is MY style. I like to have FUN whith ALL I do.
Actually WoW released age range numbers a year ago or so....The average age was around 26 IIRC.......I think 50+ was less than 10 percent........I have no clue why the OP thinks everyone is over 50........Usually players over 50 in any MMO are very rare.
Sorry OP I don't get the trend you are trying to refer to.
What amazes me most in your post is that so far every thread that whines about MMOs, esp. WoW, is going against kiddies.
"Oh, before MMOs were soooooo hardcore! Now it is dumbed down for the kids".
And now suddenly it is dumbed down for the oldies??? Because of one out of four gamers are 50+ (which doesn't correspond to WoW players)???
Just a question as to why you think 50, 60, 70, 80 shouldnt play games? There all people (ok so 65+ is a bit high for these times) but give it another 10yrs and you will probably see those ages in games as it was that genre that started.
What you (me) and many others , take for utter granted thesedays, is like oh my god to them. I myself, will be playign at that age (if i get to be that age) and i think many of you will also be gaming too. May not be the same type of gaming but you will be gaming on whatever it is by then.
I just found INTRESTING stats on curse.com. I took those STATS and wanted to RUN with the thought that 1 in 4 GAMERS are now over the age of 50. I think THAT it seems that some HAVE a problem with it SOME do not. I personaly DONT. As far as WoW is concern my PERSONAL experience is that I KNEW most of the four to be playing WoW. I had two players MARRIED none of the less in MY guild who were 50+ He was a PALLY tank and she was a HEALER and you know what I ENJOYED very much so playing in RUNS with these two since I can COUNT on them to play there BEST. To TELL you the TRUTH I belive that one's who are OLDER are more likely to HELP you, more liekly to PLAY their toon in a more PROFESIONAL way, MORE likely not to GANK because of the MATURE factor.
I just found INTRESTING stats on curse.com. I took those STATS and wanted to RUN with the thought that 1 in 4 GAMERS are now over the age of 50. I think THAT it seems that some HAVE a problem with it SOME do not. I personaly DONT. As far as WoW is concern my PERSONAL experience is that I KNEW most of the four to be playing WoW. I had two players MARRIED none of the less in MY guild who were 50+ He was a PALLY tank and she was a HEALER and you know what I ENJOYED very much so playing in RUNS with these two since I can COUNT on them to play there BEST. To TELL you the TRUTH I belive that one's who are OLDER are more likely to HELP you, more liekly to PLAY their toon in a more PROFESIONAL way, MORE likely not to GANK because of the MATURE factor.
I'm glad you appreciated the friendliness and professionalism of your guild mates. I think the reason that some people have been critical of your original post is that you did not appear so predisposed four pages ago:
"It goese to show that once you EVOLVE a MMO to its SIMPLEST form anyone can play."
This is the particular line I had a problem with. But again, yes I have had the same general experience with "older" players (which some would probably consider me, as I'm in my mid 30s, but I digress). I have to say that at the same time I have also played with some exceptionally helpful, mature and knowledgeable "children", and that I also do not subscribe to the anti kiddie hate that is so fashionable these days. Players are players and define themselves by their behavior.
Wow, I hope that you do nothing in your career that relies on you to read anything. I've seen tons of stories like the one you linked to (actually i'm betting the one you quickly googled and found when you realized you had nothing to backup your absurd claim. Most people they talk about are people who play the many... many light games online. The yahoo stuff, the solitare type stuff, they certainly don't mean wow. Wow has a lot of older players but by no means the majority.
Wow, I hope that you do nothing in your career that relies on you to read anything. I've seen tons of stories like the one you linked to (actually i'm betting the one you quickly googled and found when you realized you had nothing to backup your absurd claim. Most people they talk about are people who play the many... many light games online. The yahoo stuff, the solitare type stuff, they certainly don't mean wow. Wow has a lot of older players but by no means the majority.
That's a very good point. My wife plays literati online at yahoo, which makes her an online gamer from a demographics perspective. But she's no online gamer, and in fact if I were to call her that she would probably be offended lol.
LOL You must be 10 yourself. If a gamer is in his fifties he grew up on shit that's much more hard core than whatever you tweeners play these days. I'd much rather play with a gamerbase that is in its 50s than a bunch of punk kidz.
Hard core teens? Are you shitting me? They wouldn't know hardcore if it took a dump in their mouths. You want to blame a demographic for pussifying games? You are looking at the wrong group.
I belong to the old aged group now, the group around 50. I do not feel any superiority or hard core when talking to the younger, nor do I feel embarassed or soft core when talking to older gamers. Fact is, I dunno what is hard core soft core in a game, A GAME. EQ is hard core? Training to zone ins, dragging corpse to loot, lfg outside instance entrance is hard core? DAoC is hard core? EvE is hardcore? EvE can be as safe as you want if you hide in a big guild. WoW can be as difficult as you want, if you set high standard in what you want and proceed to do it. Actually a friend of mine delete his alt whenever it dies in the game, whatever the gear and money it earns. That makes maxing level very challenging and require good planning. Fact is tetrix is "hardcore" if you force yourself to play on a PC with only 1 finger. Or close your eyes every alternate second.
I think you misunderstood my response. The OP appeared to me to be blaming 50 somethings for dumbing down the MMO experience. And he clearly lamented the shift (in his eyes) of the average wow gamer from the "hard core teen" to a more geriatric demographic.
I am not in the 50s crowd but I do have time in grade playing pong, trash 80 casette games, Atari 2600 etc. And I know that many of you that are older than me started playing the first MMOs on mainframes via punch card. That, to me, makes your generation pretty hard core as far as gaming is concerned. Pretty much bottom line, in my opinion.
I don't know that any generation is guilty of dumbing gaming down. Devs seem predisposed to do that themselves. But I will object to any proposition that older gamers are in any way feeble gamers, or inherently soft core. They are clearly not.
Sorry I use a tone too harsh, I am not really critical of what you said. I just used ur post as spring board and spin off to express my feelings. Too much careless or intentional use of the term hardcore in a way I feel meaningless self praise.
Oh yeah the oldest computer game is not played on main frames, its on Texas Intruments calculators. Programming it for even the simplest game is a real headache. That was when I was in my Junior highs. Its more for the sake of programming than gaming.
As for the argument of dumbing down games, I generally ignore them. Dumbing down is another meaingless terms like hard core. A game that is easily accessible allows more people to play, in as much as cell phones allow people to stay in contact easier. Does that means cell phones dumbs down communications, and that we should all lament the days we use pigeons to communicate?
That's a very good point. My wife plays literati online at yahoo, which makes her an online gamer from a demographics perspective. But she's no online gamer, and in fact if I were to call her that she would probably be offended lol.
Indeed if you want to be very academic, I would say, ignore those so called research reports. They are misleading, intentionally or carelessly. I am a researcher at work, I wrote most of those craps for a living.
One of the flaws of those papers, not just the one quoted by the OP, is the use of single definitions. A WoW gamer is a WoW gamer, and he is different from a non-WoW gamer. That is bullshit.
I play WoW and I hate PVP, my old classmate plays WoW and he is a zealous PVP gamer. So are we both WoWers? Yes. Do we both fall into the category of anti-PVPs? No.
To really understand the meaning of those reports, we need to know how they define their terms. We also need to check how they design their surveys, draw samples. We want information on questionnaire design, estimation formulae and technical imputations and so on. Quality control is also vital. Let me elaborate.
If they draw samples from gamers thru mass mail, say yahoo mail, they are hitting people who use yahoo a lot, and hence a higher chance to hit yahoo gamers. If they draw samples from university students, they have a higher chance to hit what game is popular in that school there and then. Say in China, you will hit games popular to Chinese students. In korea, the type of games will be different. If you do it from households, you have a higher chance to hit those idle at home, who generally plays a timesink game, more than those at work.
Questionnaire design is important. Careless researches list a list of games for gamers to select, the order of the game list will influence selection, and for some stupid studies they allow only 1 selection, which obviously leads to very biased findings. Even multiple selections does nof mean good replies, we need information on how many hours in each game, whether its played or just watching friends/families played and so on and so forth. Asking people just to check from a list risks allowing different people to interprete what it is meant by checking. Some people checked if they occasionally come across a game, some people only check the game they play most often, some people ... you know the picture.
Quality control, how do the researcher know that the respondent actually play the game or is telling the truth? Respondents might be shy about playing a game others find it ridiculous. Imagine a survey done at school by your teacher asking if you play hallow kitty online. I bet 99% of the class will avoid checking that box, unless its an anonymous questionnaire, in which everybody drops into a box without the teaching coming around to collect it from you. What the respondent say =/= true. Same for taxation or income/spending surveys. Some research runs into the risk of collecting falsified replies. Imagine a household survey asking the husband about frequencies hitting up hookers. Will the hushand answer that in the presence of family members? Imagine a survey asking tourist how wondering the country they are visiting is? Calling up random people by phone or sending out emails already identifies the person, and the person is likely to shape his answers to make himself look good. Why do I need to tell you the truth, just b/c you identify yourself as a "researcher"?
The list can go on and on, suffice to say, I give no credit to research reports, unless it comes with full documentation on the way the finding is arrived at. I am especially suspicious of pretentiously scientific surveys on stupid issues as, how many hours ppl spend on sex, or so on, things with vanity. Its not unknown that research people fabricate questionnaires to support ridiculous claims in TV ads, like 95% of the doctors recommend X&Y candy that will fight tooth decay. Bullshit, total bullshit.
SIGH......
Lets settle this once and for all and we will see what the FINAL answer will be.
POLL TiME.....
I just found INTRESTING stats on curse.com. I took those STATS and wanted to RUN with the thought that 1 in 4 GAMERS are now over the age of 50. I think THAT it seems that some HAVE a problem with it SOME do not. I personaly DONT. As far as WoW is concern my PERSONAL experience is that I KNEW most of the four to be playing WoW. I had two players MARRIED none of the less in MY guild who were 50+ He was a PALLY tank and she was a HEALER and you know what I ENJOYED very much so playing in RUNS with these two since I can COUNT on them to play there BEST. To TELL you the TRUTH I belive that one's who are OLDER are more likely to HELP you, more liekly to PLAY their toon in a more PROFESIONAL way, MORE likely not to GANK because of the MATURE factor.
well, cudos to you, that you are sticking to your own thread and following up the replies. I think you did yourself a disfavovour bymost likely expressing yourself unclearly with what you were aiming at with your opening post.
that aside - yes, that is the general consent, that older people are more likely to help you and that is what i often encounter as well. On the other hand, that is implying that all young people are gankers - i have meet equally many young people that where helpful, as well as "old" people that where ganking.
Look at all the "hardcore people" who miss the days of EQ1 or UO, whining about the nerfed down pvp - some have been e.g. looking forward to Darkfall for ages to do their hardcore pvp. if you add upp the years, they are definetly not teenagers (and only to some extend 50+).
I don't believe the statistics - it depends on who makes them, with which group, how big, etc.
Without the numbers to back it up and the sources of polls such as at curse, the whole thing for me is still
i dont think that wow is geared at more mature people . i wish it were in some ways or at least had adult servers. most of the players with attitude problems are those under the age of 18 .
Age has nothing to do with maturity.
As soon as I remember where I left my dentures and walker, I'm gonna argue that point......
Crap, now my hearing aid batteries are failing....gonna have to catch this later.
It is true that there are many older gamers today and some play Wow but the quetion is what game older person prefer. I can tell you directly that games like EQ2 have a lot older playerbase than Wow.
To actually get anything useful you would need to make a survey on how old MMO players are and what game they prefer.
Ummmm.......
Older players getting into game?
Who do you think started the games?
Who do you think writes the games?
It's not that older people are starting to game, the simple fact is, the people who started the gaming industry have simply continued to play as they have gotten older.
And I don't connect with my teenager on a level playing field when gaming.......I completely own her 8)
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin