The idea behind the sub $15 a month was to help provide the company with a steady income so they could keep the servers running and keep patchnig the game and also work on paid exp packs.. at least that is how i always seen it... yes $15 a month gave you full access to the game.. none of this shitty cash shops where you have to pay for every little bit of content..
The cash shops in MMOs are the worse thing to happen to MMORPGs since wow..
The idea behind the sub $15 a month was to help provide the company with a steady income so they could keep the servers running and keep patchnig the game and also work on paid exp packs.. at least that is how i always seen it... yes $15 a month gave you full access to the game.. none of this shitty cash shops where you have to pay for every little bit of content..
The cash shops in MMOs are the worse thing to happen to MMORPGs since wow..
Its all about money so cash shops(also DLC) is part of that.
Result for me personally i quit mmo's and play solo games or co-op games with friend.
I also don't buy DLC eather for solo games, only expansions.
Some games The Witcher 2 or divinity 2 give free expansions and are DRM free.
I carefully seek developers who release games as it should be and are DRM free.
I used to love LoTRO,burglar is still one of the best rogue classes ever if not he best, but since it went F2P I haven't found the new content compelling or long lasting or as good as before it's transformation.This goes for all the games you mentioned and STO's released were always short lived and anemic even before going F2P.Bur hey if it works for you I can't argue against that.
The point is that these games all have new content, and while it is up to debate if one game has enough new content to fill a person's entertainment needs, i don't have to play just one. It is F2P, and if you total them up, i don't have enough time to consume all the content.
Unfortunately this is where the MMO industry has been for a few years now. Trying to keep players interested in one MMO template when you have hundreds of MMOs out there using the same template is not easy. I do feel MMO's have entered a feeding frenzy and are in danger of eating each other.
I am not sure what will be left, but we are in July now and only one P2P/B2P MMO has been released this year. If F2P from launch MMO's are all that the future has to offer then an even more bland, standardised, cheap product may be the future of MMO's.
The F2P model has two main issues, lack of money from investment before release and the cash shop distorting the MMO's gameplay. A few years ago I would have seen no solution to either issue, now Kickstarter could provide a solution to the lack of funding. Could, but has yet to, so don't hold your breath. Some hybrid MMO's have a better cash shop than others, but they never escape the problems associated with a cash shop. So I don't see much light on the horizon.
1) It is no different than other industries when an explosion will cause consolidation. There are so many now that certainly i cannot play them all. So the danger is on the supply side. If they "eat" up some, i wouldn't really care, as a consumer.
2) You did not count the "close enough" games. There are a ton of F2P releases. marvel heroes, NWO, Warframe, March of War, Jagged Alliance Online .... some actually claim to be MMOs. And if you actually play these games, i don't know how you would call them bland. They are as different as you can get from games.
3) KS raises peanuts compared what you need for a proper MMO. Cash shop? It is just a preference that you don't like it. I feel it is pretty easy just to ignore it and play.
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 know how anyone could equate gaming with getting an education. That flew right over my head. Even golf allows for handicaps.
I would say it is safe to assume that the majority of gamers are playing for the entertainment, not as some kind of replacement for real life achievement. I get that some people like and want that, but to expect the entire genre to side more with that philosophy when it is not the fiscally responsible way to go is a bit of a stretch. Maybe some indie company can get away with it with their lower overhead and be content with lower profit margins, but I cannot see the genre ever going back to the days when it was hardcore nerds that were the primary consumer base.
I agree with both the OP of this thread, and Mark Kern, that MMORPGs have become far too easy. World of Warcraft is still leaking subs like a sieve; I foresaw this in 2010, and wrote this description of what I considered to be the reasons for said decline. Most of the points I made there, are probably even more relevant now, three years later, than they were at the time when I made them.
Without repeating that post's points here, broadly speaking, the problem we have is that the people who are making these games, are attempting to simply produce a single product for every demographic, and are refusing to differentiate between mainstream and non-mainstream audiences. This is, in truth, the same crisis which is currently afflicting the Star Trek franchise specifically, and science fiction film and television more generally.
I'm going to present four gamer demographic profiles, here; with names drawn from pop culture so that they will be easy to recognise. I will call them Dr. Woolsey, Colonel Quaritch, Sheldon, and Legolas. I will also assign them into two groups of two each; mainstream and non-mainstream. I will describe the mainstream group first, and go on from there, in the order of most to least mainstream.
I advocate voluntary segregation as a solution to this problem, in which we have two different games, broadly speaking, to cater to the needs of the two (mainstream and non mainstream) groups that I describe here.
Dr. Woolsey, AKA the Mainstream Casual.
Bartle Equivalent:- Limited Explorer/Achiever.
Dr. Woolsey is the most mainstream, normal, and populous of the demographics listed here. He has a wife or significant other, between one and three children, lots of offline connections, and anywhere between one and three jobs, depending on the state of the economy where he lives. He will either be between his late 20s and 40 years of age, or he may occasionally be a Baby Boomer; although the latter is rare.
The Doctor both wants and needs his life to be very rigidly and precisely scheduled; he goes to bed relatively early, and because of both his employment and the size of his offline social network, he has very little disposable recreation time; 1-3 hours per day at most. He views MMORPGs as a form of dessert, relative to the main course of his offline life. Because of his relatively high degree of offline satisfaction and self-actualisation, he generally does not need MMORPGs to serve the "Hero's Journey," developmental function that Bartle documented, but instead uses them for pure recreation.
The Doctor is a relative newcomer to MMORPGs as a genre; World of Warcraft was arguably his first game, although some of the more intrepid of the breed were occasionally sighted within EverQuest. He is, however, the primary demographic who the makers of MMORPGs are currently attempting to satisfy the needs of. This is for two reasons:-
* His demographic is by far the largest, occupying upwards of 50% of the overall population. In other words, he's where the most money is.
* He has a lot in common with the management suits of game publishing companies themselves, so they feel most comfortable in producing content for him.
While the Doctor is relatively socially capable, (and somewhat moreso than Colonel Quaritch) his level of in-game social interaction will generally be minimal, for two reasons.
* He simply doesn't have the time.
* Given his large offline social network, he is already getting his social needs met offline, and does not need to try and satisfy them within the game.
Although the Doctor is not a dedicated player, WoW's Wrath of the Lich King expansion in particular, lowered the bar sufficiently that he was able to gain access to the raid scene for the first time. Within a raid environment, his type are solid and dependable, and their comparitively high level of psychological stability and social skill, means that they tend to automatically gravitate towards leadership roles, such as the main tank or healer. Because of this type's time constraints, however, endurance is not his forte. He needs to get raids finished within a maximum of 140 minutes or so.
Colonel Quaritch, AKA The Semi-Mainstream PVP/FPS Gamer.
Bartle Equivalent:- Killer/Achiever.
Colonel Quaritch is slightly less mainstream than Dr. Woolsey, but like the Doctor, he is also not native to the MMORPG genre. The Colonel is a First Person Shooter gamer. Although his offline profile is similar to the Doctor's, he may or may not be married, and is usually also between 5-10 years younger, as well as being largely anti-intellectual. The Colonel likes his violence big and loud, and his explosions bigger and louder. This type are the closest real life humanity gets, to Orcs.
Because the Colonel has less social aptitude and is usually younger than the Doctor, he generally has a correspondingly larger degree of spare time. This does not, however, usually mean that he has a greater ability to delay gratification than the Doctor does; in fact, his level of patience will often be even less. This type usually suffers from a very short attention span; they want everything five minutes ago.
This type is aggressive, elitist, and largely antisocial; although their adaptation to team games (Capture the Flag, and Team Fortress etc) means that they have needed to maintain some degree of ability to co-operate with each other. They are expansionist, and are not content to remain within their native FPS genre, but will instead migrate to other games, and attempt to coerce the developers of said games into remaking them as FPS. The Colonel also represents the type who primarily appreciated Michael Bay's Transformers films, and whose money J.J. Abrams was trying to get, with his recent cinematic Star Trek remakes.
Blame for the decline of World of Warcraft, can primarily be attributed to Blizzard's attempts at seducing the Colonel and his kind, and recreating WoW to meet his needs, with the Arena in particular, which was essentially an FPS simulator within WoW's engine. The Colonel has diametrically opposed needs and preferences to World of Warcraft's original target demographics, and the fact that he is incapable of co-existing with said demographics, was the reason for WoW's fall. The Colonel and his breed have also largely destroyed the multiplayer environment of Minecraft.
I would estimate the Colonel as representing another 25-30% of the overall gaming population.
Despite the fact that the Colonel and the Doctor are still very different people, broadly speaking, they both have largely identical needs; which are also, again, diametrically opposed to the needs and preferences of the other two profiles which I will be describing here.
* Instant gratification. Neither of the above two types can tolerate waiting long periods for anything. These two types are the reason why Blizzard added the LFD/LFR matchmaking tools to World of Warcraft, as was the heirloom system.
* Anonymity. Neither of them are interested in trying to form relationships with the people they encounter online, for the most part.
* Emphasis on Pavlovian/materialistic "rewards." These two do not play MMORPGs because they enjoy the process/experience for its' own sake, and they also don't have either the intelligence or desire to form their own in-game objectives. They need clearly defined end goals, such as armor or gold, to be provided directly by the game's mechanics themselves, (as in, the LFD tool) before they will consider doing anything.
* Social isolation. Again, they don't have either the time or the inclination to associate with anyone, for the most part. They are there to do what they are doing, and get out. They generally aren't going to be interested in joining a guild, or helping someone else level up, because they won't be able to see anything in it for themselves.
This type is your generic basement dweller. It is also the group of which I am a member. He is almost always male, and his age range can be anywhere between 15 to 40. He is usually referred to within the psychiatric literature as having either High Functioning Autism, (HFA) or Schizotypal Personality Disorder. In mathematic/scientific terms, he is by far the most intelligent of the four profiles listed here, (usually with an IQ of 120-160) but his social weakness also matches his intellectual strength.
Almost always single, this type will often be unemployed, but even if he isn't, his lack of offline social connections/attachments means that he has time to burn. As such, he is the first of the two types who didn't think twice about literally spending 4-8 hours inside Blackrock Depths before Blizzard partitioned it into seperate instances.
He is very different from the mainstream two listed above, in the sense that he appreciates MMORPGs more for the process and the number crunching, rather than just winning "phat lootz" at the end. He will pride himself on training hard within the game's environment, will know the best strategies for doing anything, and will view sharing them with others as a means of social fulfillment; one of the only forms of such that he has.
This group was one of the two who played the earliest MMORPGs. His numbers are small, however, (probably around 10% of the overall population) so game publishing companies do not care about him or his needs, because his type are not their primary source of revenue. Most of the letters to the developers about a player quitting, while also outlining the reasons, that you will read in a game's forums, will be written by this type; and said letters will generally go entirely ignored.
The suits are unwise to ignore this demographic, and his cousins the Roleplayers, however; and the reason why is that these two are the kinds who will keep paying and playing, month in and month out, for decades, until the servers are turned off if they like the game. The above two mainstream demographics are fickle, and will come and go; but Sheldon and Legolas represent a long term investment.
Legolas, AKA The PvE Roleplayer.
Bartle Equivalent:- Socialiser/Limited Achiever.
Finally we come to the smallest, loneliest, and least mainstream MMORPG demographic of them all. While World of Warcraft had a few roleplaying servers, seeing an actual roleplayer was about as rare as seeing a koala during the day in Australia.
I have always considered it lamentable that this type are as uncommon as Tolkien's Elves, because while often deeply strange, in many ways they are the most desirable of these four groups, for many of the same reasons that said Elves were.
Few in number, shy, and generally only communicating in private messages, they are hard to find; but the experience of discovering and interacting with a group of them, brings to mind the wonder of Diane Fossey, when interacting with the Lowland Gorilla.
Once one of the most prolific of MMORPG demographics, now this is a group that is extremely fragile, and needs preserving; but sadly, they tend to be attacked whenever they are found, primarily by the FPS gamer type listed above. They are an even smaller group than the Sheldon type; less than 5% of the overall gaming population at best guess, and so the developers of any given game do not care about them at all. If roleplaying servers are set aside for them, they will still tend to be attacked and mocked by the FPS demographic, and these acts will go unpoliced by the game's development staff. As Bartle himself documented, when the FPS gamer arrives, the Roleplayer heads for the Grey Havens.
It goes without saying, then, that these latter two groups tend to need and prefer a gaming environment which is the opposite of the first two, as mentioned.
* PvE. The Legolas/Roleplayer type in particular is very largely pacifistic. He will take part in instances and raids, yes; but he doesn't engage in much PvP at all, for the most part. They are also usually much less aggressive than the FPS demographic, which is why they tend to get forced out by them. Sheldon does want *some* PvP, but usually a much slower paced kind; think WoW's battlegrounds, not the Arena.
* An environment which supports rich online social interaction, such as World of Warcraft's was in its' beginning, and Ultima Online originally was to an even greater extent.
* Strong support for player accountability, trust, and reputation, ideally within an intimate, single-server setting. This allows for cohesive community to be built and to thrive, which these two types love.
* Instances which are not constrained by time. As previously mentioned, Blackrock Depths originally could take 4-8 hours to complete, before Blizzard cut it up. These latter two demographics need and want these types of environments.
* RP servers need to be regarded by developers as the in-game equivalent of offline national parks, and policed accordingly, with FPS gamers (the equivalent of poachers, in this case) being kept out.
I was played a LOT, but I never even got to SEE Veeshans Peak. I never once stepped foot in the zone. Did I complain? No. I actually think it added a lot of wonder and awe to the game. I dreamed of the day I might set foot in the zone. I never did, but just having them types of zones was amazing. Seeing someone in armor from that zone was like, man, you must really know your shit. It was the types of zones that if people could even step foot in, they were considered pretty awesome.
This brings me to difficulty sliders. Thank GOD they didnt have them in EQ. Could you imagine working your ass off to get to Vex Thal, and it turns out that someone else barely spent any time and is seeing the same zone/content that you are seeing? Its not always about being able to fight the mobs and get the loot. Sometimes its about the scenery, certain zones that are things of legend, that only a few people ever saw. Zones where there was immense risk and immense reward.
Quick offshoot - Risk and reward is something that they need to bring back, but until a meaningful death penalty gets implemented in a modern game, people will continue to use death as a means of travel, necessity, and not something that makes them pucker their butthole worrying if you're going to die, but then come out on top and feel like you just survived ww2.
By not being able to make it to certain zones due to difficulty, by not even being able to step foot in them, is a GOOD thing. It separates the good players from the not so good players. It gives people something to wonder about, and work towards. I remember the first time I set foot in Plane of Fear in classic EQ. This was a zone that you didnt just go in nonchalantly. Hell, some people never even saw the inside of the planes during the classic period. And it was better that way.
People who complain that they should be able to see everything, do everything, get everything that the people who put in 5 to 10 times the amount of work should realize that some things in life need to be earned. And thats what MMOs have lost. They hand everything to everyone, with barely any effort. With no risk, they get the same rewards. This system needs to change.
Bring back RISK. Bring back REAL rewards. Call it elitism or whatever you want to call it, but if I am a better at a game then you, then it should show. If you suck at a game, then dont expect to be able to get the best gear or see the best content. It gives you a reason to LEARN, to get better. I miss the days when people would recognize people by their skill as a player, and built a community around helping others, teaching others, and striving to be the best in order to get what others cant get, and see what others cant see.
i pay 15 a month like everyone, i should see and do everything.... but that doesnt mean i need it a week after i started playing. Thats the actual problem. What normaly would take people 8 months to achieve, now is achievable in 1-2 weeks. Revert that to long term. Thats what mmorpgs are, long term. Everyone get to see and do the same content, at their own pace. But the leveling system affects old content when new content arrives so people who progress slower are usually left out and miss the "old" goals. Remove leveling and tier systems so old content remains as relevant as new content, just make the new one different so the game have variety and not tier based that renders lower tiers useless. Therefore, slower players dont miss out on content just because the new thing was added.
Originally posted by petrus4 I agree with both the OP of this thread, and Mark Kern, that MMORPGs have become far too easy. World of Warcraft is still leaking subs like a sieve; I foresaw this in 2010, and wrote this description of what I considered to be the reasons for said decline. Most of the points I made there, are probably even more relevant now, three years later, than they were at the time when I made them.
Without repeating that post's points here, broadly speaking, the problem we have is that the people who are making these games, are attempting to simply produce a single product for every demographic, and are refusing to differentiate between mainstream and non-mainstream audiences. This is, in truth, the same crisis which is currently afflicting the Star Trek franchise specifically, and science fiction film and television more generally.
I'm going to present four gamer demographic profiles, here; with names drawn from pop culture so that they will be easy to recognise. I will call them Dr. Woolsey, Colonel Quaritch, Sheldon, and Legolas. I will also assign them into two groups of two each; mainstream and non-mainstream. I will describe the mainstream group first, and go on from there, in the order of most to least mainstream.
I advocate voluntary segregation as a solution to this problem, in which we have two different games, broadly speaking, to cater to the needs of the two (mainstream and non mainstream) groups that I describe here.
Dr. Woolsey, AKA the Mainstream Casual.
Bartle Equivalent:- Limited Explorer/Achiever.
Dr. Woolsey is the most mainstream, normal, and populous of the demographics listed here. He has a wife or significant other, between one and three children, lots of offline connections, and anywhere between one and three jobs, depending on the state of the economy where he lives. He will either be between his late 20s and 40 years of age, or he may occasionally be a Baby Boomer; although the latter is rare.
The Doctor both wants and needs his life to be very rigidly and precisely scheduled; he goes to bed relatively early, and because of both his employment and the size of his offline social network, he has very little disposable recreation time; 1-3 hours per day at most. He views MMORPGs as a form of dessert, relative to the main course of his offline life. Because of his relatively high degree of offline satisfaction and self-actualisation, he generally does not need MMORPGs to serve the "Hero's Journey," developmental function that Bartle documented, but instead uses them for pure recreation.
The Doctor is a relative newcomer to MMORPGs as a genre; World of Warcraft was arguably his first game, although some of the more intrepid of the breed were occasionally sighted within EverQuest. He is, however, the primary demographic who the makers of MMORPGs are currently attempting to satisfy the needs of. This is for two reasons:-
* His demographic is by far the largest, occupying upwards of 50% of the overall population. In other words, he's where the most money is.
* He has a lot in common with the management suits of game publishing companies themselves, so they feel most comfortable in producing content for him.
While the Doctor is relatively socially capable, (and somewhat moreso than Colonel Quaritch) his level of in-game social interaction will generally be minimal, for two reasons.
* He simply doesn't have the time.
* Given his large offline social network, he is already getting his social needs met offline, and does not need to try and satisfy them within the game.
Although the Doctor is not a dedicated player, WoW's Wrath of the Lich King expansion in particular, lowered the bar sufficiently that he was able to gain access to the raid scene for the first time. Within a raid environment, his type are solid and dependable, and their comparitively high level of psychological stability and social skill, means that they tend to automatically gravitate towards leadership roles, such as the main tank or healer. Because of this type's time constraints, however, endurance is not his forte. He needs to get raids finished within a maximum of 140 minutes or so.
Colonel Quaritch, AKA The Semi-Mainstream PVP/FPS Gamer.
Bartle Equivalent:- Killer/Achiever.
Colonel Quaritch is slightly less mainstream than Dr. Woolsey, but like the Doctor, he is also not native to the MMORPG genre. The Colonel is a First Person Shooter gamer. Although his offline profile is similar to the Doctor's, he may or may not be married, and is usually also between 5-10 years younger, as well as being largely anti-intellectual. The Colonel likes his violence big and loud, and his explosions bigger and louder. This type are the closest real life humanity gets, to Orcs.
Because the Colonel has less social aptitude and is usually younger than the Doctor, he generally has a correspondingly larger degree of spare time. This does not, however, usually mean that he has a greater ability to delay gratification than the Doctor does; in fact, his level of patience will often be even less. This type usually suffers from a very short attention span; they want everything five minutes ago.
This type is aggressive, elitist, and largely antisocial; although their adaptation to team games (Capture the Flag, and Team Fortress etc) means that they have needed to maintain some degree of ability to co-operate with each other. They are expansionist, and are not content to remain within their native FPS genre, but will instead migrate to other games, and attempt to coerce the developers of said games into remaking them as FPS. The Colonel also represents the type who primarily appreciated Michael Bay's Transformers films, and whose money J.J. Abrams was trying to get, with his recent cinematic Star Trek remakes.
Blame for the decline of World of Warcraft, can primarily be attributed to Blizzard's attempts at seducing the Colonel and his kind, and recreating WoW to meet his needs, with the Arena in particular, which was essentially an FPS simulator within WoW's engine. The Colonel has diametrically opposed needs and preferences to World of Warcraft's original target demographics, and the fact that he is incapable of co-existing with said demographics, was the reason for WoW's fall. The Colonel and his breed have also largely destroyed the multiplayer environment of Minecraft.
I would estimate the Colonel as representing another 25-30% of the overall gaming population.
Despite the fact that the Colonel and the Doctor are still very different people, broadly speaking, they both have largely identical needs; which are also, again, diametrically opposed to the needs and preferences of the other two profiles which I will be describing here.
* Instant gratification. Neither of the above two types can tolerate waiting long periods for anything. These two types are the reason why Blizzard added the LFD/LFR matchmaking tools to World of Warcraft, as was the heirloom system.
* Anonymity. Neither of them are interested in trying to form relationships with the people they encounter online, for the most part.
* Emphasis on Pavlovian/materialistic "rewards." These two do not play MMORPGs because they enjoy the process/experience for its' own sake, and they also don't have either the intelligence or desire to form their own in-game objectives. They need clearly defined end goals, such as armor or gold, to be provided directly by the game's mechanics themselves, (as in, the LFD tool) before they will consider doing anything.
* Social isolation. Again, they don't have either the time or the inclination to associate with anyone, for the most part. They are there to do what they are doing, and get out. They generally aren't going to be interested in joining a guild, or helping someone else level up, because they won't be able to see anything in it for themselves.
This type is your generic basement dweller. It is also the group of which I am a member. He is almost always male, and his age range can be anywhere between 15 to 40. He is usually referred to within the psychiatric literature as having either High Functioning Autism, (HFA) or Schizotypal Personality Disorder. In mathematic/scientific terms, he is by far the most intelligent of the four profiles listed here, (usually with an IQ of 120-160) but his social weakness also matches his intellectual strength.
Almost always single, this type will often be unemployed, but even if he isn't, his lack of offline social connections/attachments means that he has time to burn. As such, he is the first of the two types who didn't think twice about literally spending 4-8 hours inside Blackrock Depths before Blizzard partitioned it into seperate instances.
He is very different from the mainstream two listed above, in the sense that he appreciates MMORPGs more for the process and the number crunching, rather than just winning "phat lootz" at the end. He will pride himself on training hard within the game's environment, will know the best strategies for doing anything, and will view sharing them with others as a means of social fulfillment; one of the only forms of such that he has.
This group was one of the two who played the earliest MMORPGs. His numbers are small, however, (probably around 10% of the overall population) so game publishing companies do not care about him or his needs, because his type are not their primary source of revenue. Most of the letters to the developers about a player quitting, while also outlining the reasons, that you will read in a game's forums, will be written by this type; and said letters will generally go entirely ignored.
The suits are unwise to ignore this demographic, and his cousins the Roleplayers, however; and the reason why is that these two are the kinds who will keep paying and playing, month in and month out, for decades, until the servers are turned off if they like the game. The above two mainstream demographics are fickle, and will come and go; but Sheldon and Legolas represent a long term investment.
Legolas, AKA The PvE Roleplayer.
Bartle Equivalent:- Socialiser/Limited Achiever.
Finally we come to the smallest, loneliest, and least mainstream MMORPG demographic of them all. While World of Warcraft had a few roleplaying servers, seeing an actual roleplayer was about as rare as seeing a koala during the day in Australia.
I have always considered it lamentable that this type are as uncommon as Tolkien's Elves, because while often deeply strange, in many ways they are the most desirable of these four groups, for many of the same reasons that said Elves were.
Few in number, shy, and generally only communicating in private messages, they are hard to find; but the experience of discovering and interacting with a group of them, brings to mind the wonder of Diane Fossey, when interacting with the Lowland Gorilla.
Once one of the most prolific of MMORPG demographics, now this is a group that is extremely fragile, and needs preserving; but sadly, they tend to be attacked whenever they are found, primarily by the FPS gamer type listed above. They are an even smaller group than the Sheldon type; less than 5% of the overall gaming population at best guess, and so the developers of any given game do not care about them at all. If roleplaying servers are set aside for them, they will still tend to be attacked and mocked by the FPS demographic, and these acts will go unpoliced by the game's development staff. As Bartle himself documented, when the FPS gamer arrives, the Roleplayer heads for the Grey Havens.
It goes without saying, then, that these latter two groups tend to need and prefer a gaming environment which is the opposite of the first two, as mentioned.
* PvE. The Legolas/Roleplayer type in particular is very largely pacifistic. He will take part in instances and raids, yes; but he doesn't engage in much PvP at all, for the most part. They are also usually much less aggressive than the FPS demographic, which is why they tend to get forced out by them. Sheldon does want *some* PvP, but usually a much slower paced kind; think WoW's battlegrounds, not the Arena.
* An environment which supports rich online social interaction, such as World of Warcraft's was in its' beginning, and Ultima Online originally was to an even greater extent.
* Strong support for player accountability, trust, and reputation, ideally within an intimate, single-server setting. This allows for cohesive community to be built and to thrive, which these two types love.
* Instances which are not constrained by time. As previously mentioned, Blackrock Depths originally could take 4-8 hours to complete, before Blizzard cut it up. These latter two demographics need and want these types of environments.
* RP servers need to be regarded by developers as the in-game equivalent of offline national parks, and policed accordingly, with FPS gamers (the equivalent of poachers, in this case) being kept out.
Well thought out and welcome to the site. But I am not sure how you would achieve the segregation you mention. MMO companies loathe to split the player base for any reason. In fact they are trying via 'looking for grouping' systems to create a player pool that stretches across server names. I love the idea of RP servers being the equivalent of a national park, but I just cannot see anything remotely like that happening.
But I am not sure how you would achieve the segregation you mention. MMO companies loathe to split the player base for any reason. In fact they are trying via 'looking for grouping' systems to create a player pool that stretches across server names. I love the idea of RP servers being the equivalent of a national park, but I just cannot see anything remotely like that happening.
Thank you. I'm curious as to why MMORPG companies want to put the entire playerbase in one place? Is it because they're scared of new people logging in and finding few people present?
Cumulative time spent is a different issue entirely. If one player plays a game 5 hours per day and another plays 5 hours per week, it's reasonable to expect that the latter player will take about seven times as long (in real-life time) to get to content as the former. What's unreasonable is if the latter player is never allowed to get to some content, rather than merely taking longer to get there.
I think this can't be said enough. Now what follows is a long explanation, but I think it ought to be said. Because I, like Quizzical, think the question the OP posts doesn't quite get to the heart of the concern.
Because there are, and always have been, people who do pay $15 and "see everything," due to a relentless and ruthless drive to über out as quickly as possible.
And there are others who, because of a desire to place other things ahead of their own überness, can pay $1,500 in fees (over eight years of fees), and never see everything, because they are doing other things--important things--and aren't spending time consuming content by hook or crook. I saw these people in games like CoH. I saw these people in games like SWG. They were the base builders, the fanfic writers, the GMs, the Architect Entertainment writers and the roleplayers. And when the game shut down, these are the folks that payed more, got less, and were utterly unrewarded for their efforts.
From my experience, this genre typically doesn't reward people who pay in a lot of money. It rewards people who can consume the content rapidly. People who pay in a lot of money? Well, they may get some temporary satisfaction, but will always be "keeping up with the Jones's," so to say. And the more a player plays in the spirit of the game by roleplaying, slow playing, taking time out to help friends, run or participate in community events or do anciliary functions (websites, guild creation, fanfiction, etc.), the less likely that player is to be rewarded in the games they play.
So, I think we ought to rephrase the question a different way. The question isn't "I pay $15/mo like everyone, I should see everything," because powergamers like xXDEATHDEALERXx and his überposse counterstrike clan are always going to "see everything" really quickly.
The question is, "I pay $1,500 over a series of years, doing important things for everyone else and the game, why shouldn't I see everything?"
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Why don't they? It's real simple. The ones who powergame through the grind and min/max are always one step ahead of the nerfs, the rebalances and the inevitable service cancellation. I think of SWG and the whole "grind to Jedi" that awarded the coveted class to the ones who could power through the professions as quickly and unrepentently as possible. It rewarded the people who didn't care if they cluttered up the cantinas with AFK. It rewarded the people who didn't care if they were camping places with high XP mobs. It rewarded the spammers, the hoarders, the inconsiderate and the antisocial. But at least they got a Jedi...
...Those who actually cared about playing the professions the way they were meant to be played had enough respect for the game, and the environment, to put other things ahead of Jedi grinding. While all the powergamers were busy doing the Jedi grind, the real players entertained, made the weapons, formed the groups, fought the GCW and told the stories, completing professions when they could. They said :"I'll always have time to do Jedi, but right now, some things are more important." And what was their reward for putting the good of the game ahead of the good for themselves? The whole Jedi system was nerfed, and they had to relearn a new system.
The new system rewarded the powergamers even more than the old system. It was only accessable to combat characters, and involved a whole series of massive combat grinds in the village. And, if you were a powergamer who didn't care about anything but getting what you wanted quickly, you had no trouble with parking yourself at "the village" to be fed by your alts. But if you actually cared about making the rest of the server run, you wouldn't be at the village so much. You'd complete it when you could, after you did the things that mattered (entertain, build weapons, do GCW things, etc.). You'd say, "I'll have time to do the village, but it's best to do more important things now, like a player event or GCW things." But, as we all know, time was short.
When this system was nerfed in favor of NGE, a lot of people--powergamers and slow players--quit. But it seems that those who powered through the Corellian Corvette, the Jedi Village, the Warren, Kashyyk, etc. were able to quit a whole lot easier than the ones like the ATK dancer who never saw those things, or the weaponsmith and guild leader who spent his time making sure everyone else could grind to Jedi. Because at least the powergamer saw it all and did it all. The slow player who did things the right way? He got the shaft.
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The ones who slow down, play the right way, take some time to do player made events, help friends and enjoy themselves in a normal way are always the ones who are always playing a much more difficult game. A lot of what we throw out around here, things like "just because you pay $15 doesn't mean you're entitled to everything the game has to offer," are probably people who think nothing of speed throughs, powerlevelling, min/maxing and staying up for days on end after an expansion comes out to consume the content before anyone else.
But one ought to look at this issue a different way. There are people like xXDEATHDEALERXx and his powergaming clan who can, because of powergaming guides and a relentless drive to be über, "see everything" in one month of $15 or a few months of $15. In fact, his time is a lot easier, because he's always one step ahead of the nefs and wholesale redesigns that make it more difficult for the next guy.
The problem is what to do with those folks who are always doing the helpful things and the necessary things, slow playing the game, playing realistically and advancing when and if they can, who always tend to get the shaft when the game closes, and they didn't experience much of the "cool stuff." Because, as history shows, that kind of player always tends to come off worse than the guy who just doesn't care about anything but consuming content.
And then we wonder why our communities are bad, or we don't RP or socialize, or we don't have much of an interest in player-made content...
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
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...
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...
First, I agree developers have been dumbing down their games. As for why? I don't accept your assumption that it is due to casual players complaining, what information, data, evidence exactly do have to make that assumption. Does every segment of the MMO community complain? YES, emphatically yes, even your original post is a complaint OP. So what, did a casual player put a gun to the head of the developers and force them to change games. Not that I am aware of.
As for your complaint, "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 to every bit of content in the mmo is both absurd, and heavily contributed to the current state of the genre" is pure nonsense. Of course they should have ACCESS. They are paying their way. Access does not mean that they have a right to finish or complete the quest, dungeon, event or whatever other content there is but there is no question they should have the right to try.
Before you condemn a huge portion of the MMO community you ought to show what facts you have to support your assumptions.
So here is my take on the topic. I understand the mentality of hey I paid so much for this I should get to see everything, I would feel that way myself. However back in the day when I played old school games, I paid that sub and never said such things. Why? Well its because I was busy enjoying myself. Often times I never raided because I had so many other things to do or never got to the point in a game. Today though I wipe through the content in a couple of weeks on most games. It is strange that I play less today then ever and yet I get further, faster then ever. So is that because I have become more of a content locus or because the games have become smaller. I'd say the former. So what ends up happening in smaller worlds/games is that people finish up fairly quickly then start getting bored. That is where this idea hey how come they are making content for this group and not for me comes from. They feel that they are paying and want some value for money. I don't think that's unfair to think that way. But my opinion is that the root of the problem is smaller games, shorter games, quicker progression. Not people eating through things to quickly or being entitled. People just want to have fun with the games that they pay for, when that ends, that is where discontent comes from. Something like 'idle hands are the devils tools'. If they are having fun but don't enjoy dungeons, I doubt most would complain if they added a new dungeon as long as they got their thing as well. This also falls a bit to game companies who constantly string along people with this 'it will all change in the next patch just you wait and see' bs.
Now I understand there are reasons for developers making smaller games, budget issues, time, etc. I believe that is a bit of a different topic so I wont debate that much here, but I really personally feel that is the root problem. And I'll add that I don't think any of this has anything to do with casuals either. People played, longer and harder games casually, in fact I still do sometimes. So I don't think they have been asking for smaller or simpler games. I have never heard someone say, 'god I wish this game had less stuff to do so I could keep up'.
But I am not sure how you would achieve the segregation you mention. MMO companies loathe to split the player base for any reason. In fact they are trying via 'looking for grouping' systems to create a player pool that stretches across server names. I love the idea of RP servers being the equivalent of a national park, but I just cannot see anything remotely like that happening.
Thank you. I'm curious as to why MMORPG companies want to put the entire playerbase in one place? Is it because they're scared of new people logging in and finding few people present?
Yes, they want the population to be as big as possible. This is also the reason they try to shoehorn players into a MMO design that supposedly pleases us all. They try to provide something for everyone, but in the process have to restrict each element because they have to please us all. The only distinction you see today in servers is PvP and PvE, having a RP server is a thing of the past.
...Those who actually cared about playing the professions the way they were meant to be played had enough respect for the game, and the environment, to put other things ahead of Jedi grinding. While all the powergamers were busy doing the Jedi grind, the real players entertained, made the weapons, formed the groups, fought the GCW and told the stories, completing professions when they could. They said :"I'll always have time to do Jedi, but right now, some things are more important." And what was their reward for putting the good of the game ahead of the good for themselves? The whole Jedi system was nerfed, and they had to relearn a new system.
I can absolutely relate to this.
Within probably three months of the end of my period playing World of Warcraft, I was approached by someone who wanted to pay me to write a class guide for the Hunter. Yet I was consistently mocked and made fun of on the forums, because those who had access to my Armoury profile, could see that I had hardly raided at all. There were three reasons for that.
a} I spent a lot of my time doing battleground (not Arena, which I hated for the most part) PvP.
b} I spent even more of my time giving much lower level players runs through various instances; Blackrock Depths was probably the main one which comes to mind.
c} I spent the rest of my time in solitary training; usually in instances fairly close (within ten levels) of my own level, that had been originally designed for five person groups.
The raid game was never the most important thing to me, in WoW. Technique always was, first and foremost; and the main reason why, was simply because I loved it to the degree that I did. TBC was a time before the game was dumbed down to the extent that it later was; I would buy various different damage grades of arrows, and use them like golf clubs in order to regulate my threat.
This is an important distinction to make, because the speed racers did the opposite. Sure, they had the server first boss kills, and the epic flying mounts before anyone else, and they'd get to the cap within 2-3 weeks of the expansion's first release; but the thing that I realised about such people, was that they did not really enjoy the game. It was all for epeen; it was all so that they could get the points on the board and brag to other people about how quickly they had done everything.
When I missed out on raid progression because of taking the umpteenth group of 15 year olds through BRD, I would also tell myself that I could raid later; there'd be time. And although I saw a tiny bit of it, for the most part, there never actually was time, in the end; but for me, that was ok.
The slow player who did things the right way? He got the shaft.
Yep. WoW was the same. It never rewarded altruistic behaviour. Some of the classes were designed for altruistic roles (the Paladin, the healers, the Hunter to a degree) but nobody wanted to tank or heal; there was a shortage of them throughout the history of the game. I tanked and healed at times; they were always my alts, but I still found it fun...and it helped people.
And then we wonder why our communities are bad, or we don't RP or socialize, or we don't have much of an interest in player-made content...
The answer is epeen. It's all because of epeen. I saw a very large number of people on the WoW forums who were largely sociopathic, yet for various real world reasons weren't able to join their fellow sociopaths in climbing the proverbial corporate ladder. So they tried to use doing the same thing, vicariously within an MMORPG, as a means of psychologically compensating for that, and having a group of people who they could still tell themselves that they were superior to.
Most people these days (particularly in America) seem to have extremely unhappy, restricted, non-free, and disempowering offline lives. Because of this, they are miserable, and feel helpless and unfulfilled. So they see MMORPGs as a means, again, of trying to emotionally fill the void that is left as a result of that. They hope desperately that the server first kills or whatever else, will impress other people sufficiently that maybe for just five minutes, they'll be able to stop focusing on how worthless they consider themselves to be.
Some hybrid MMO's have a better cash shop than others, but they never escape the problems associated with a cash shop. So I don't see much light on the horizon.
The only real reason why the F2P/cash shop model exists that I can see, is to cope with two issues:-
a} Players not wanting to put down sub money for a game that actually sucks, when the suits still try and tell themselves that it doesn't.
b} Players being immature, entitled, spoiled, Generation Y brats with close to zero discipline or integrity, who think that they should get everything they want, immediately, for no investment of any kind whatsoever; whether it be money, effort, or time, and who then complain later that they don't understand why they are bored.
Given that I am old school when it comes to this particular topic, my attitude concerning it is roughly this:-
If an MMORPG dev company wants to have a cash shop for their MMORPG, then as far as I am concerned, that is perfectly fine. However, if they don't have a scenario where I can still pay a monthly sub, then they shouldn't expect me to be interested. I want the monthly sub more than I want F2P, because I want the inherent agreement that exists between me and the company as a result of that. I understand that the development company needs a steady income in order to keep the lights on, the servers running, and people getting paid etc etc. I am not a 14 year old with unrealistic entitlement issues.
I will pause here to explain something important, in case people who read this don't understand it.
Free to Play is actually a misleading term.
MMORPG development companies are not in the business of making truly free games. They're there to make money. What a supposedly "free to play," game is, is one where you get to download the client and enter the game environment, without any money down up front, and go through a certain, variable amount of introductory content.
However, don't fool yourselves about the fact that the company are always expecting you to eventually go to the cash shop and pay to unlock the really good stuff. DDO, from memory, gave F2P players 3 out of 5 of the playable races, but if you wanted the last two, you had to pay. They also made most of the newbie instances in the first hub free, but if you wanted to get the good stuff in Stormreach, then again, you had to pay.
So I don't want that. I don't want to be incrementally drip fed content which I have to go back and pay additionally for, over and over again, because the irony is, that by doing so, I will ultimately end up paying more in the long term, than I will with a monthly sub.
A monthly sub, particularly if a lot of people are paying for it, is potentially MUCH cheaper for you as a customer in the long term, than the "Free to Play," model could ever hope to be. The suits are probably hoping that you never figure that out; and I'm guessing that most of you haven't, yet.
Hence, I absolutely want my monthly sub, because I want the contract that goes with it. Said contract is this; that if I pay my monthly sub, I get access to every single thing that said dev company produces for the game. Notice that I said access. I'm very likely not going to use every possible race/class combo in a large game, and nor, given the way I usually play, am I likely to see more than 50-75% of the overall content.
Let me explain another point to you here, so that we can clean up the controversy surrounding it. A lot of people cried oceans of tears over the fact that during the original World of Warcraft, well under 5% of the playing population ever got to see inside Naxxramas. I never had a problem with that; and I want to tell you why.
Although I never saw the original Naxx myself, when TBC first came out, I was level 58, which meant that technically I was able to go through the Dark Portal into Outland, even though it wasn't a good idea, as it turned out. So I went through and queued up for a Hellfire Ramparts 5 man, and also assumed, in my hubris, that I was going to be able to lead the group, and we'd blitz through it.
I got absolutely destroyed, and so did the rest of the group I was with. The group disbanded very rapidly. I then went and tried some of the initial questing around Thrallmar. Although the mobs there were non-elites, the same thing happened. I wasn't up to it yet.
So I went back to the Scarlet Monastery and trained by soloing it for another six weeks, as well as doing the quests I needed to get to 60, farming BRD for other gear, and playing Warsong Gulch enough that I got the epic shotgun from there, to use as my weapon when I went back to HFP.
The result? When I got back, I no longer had a problem, and also had a ranged weapon which lasted me almost into Zangarmarsh.
The point is, that while other people have used the analogy of McDonald's for an MMORPG, I'm going to use the analogy of a gymnasium. Gyms have a monthly sub, but if you expect that after paying that, you're going to instantly get fit without having to do any work whatsoever, you're in for a very rude awakening. If you try and lift a certain weight without having developed the necessary strength first, you will either simply be unable to do it, or you will risk injuring yourself very severely.
This isn't the gym owners being unfair, either; the weights and different settings are there for anyone to use. They don't restrict access. If you're paying the money, you can try...but you have to have worked up to it as well, first.
So it is here. Richard Bartle has written a lot about the relationship between MMORPGs and the developmental process he refers to as, "The Hero's Journey." It's a funny idea, that gaming can actually help you develop positively as a person; but it's also true. My time in WoW taught me a lot.
To close, if you think that you ought to be able to go into literally any content in the game, from your first day there, and effortlessly burn through it, I'd invite you to invest some serious thought into what sort of game that would likely end up being. I'll give you a hint; it's the sort of game that WoW has ended up being, with Mists of Pandaria.
Ultimately, I think I'll allow His Majesty to explain my point, here; because he can do it a lot more eloquently than I can, anyway.
I actually do think I should see everything. I don't go to MC donalds and pay a full price for a hamburger to only get half of it. I don't spend 20 dollars (which is how much it costs in California for each person) to watch the movie and not see the end. I don't spend 60 dollars on a game (RTS/RPG/FPS etc), only to not see how it ends or be locked out of content that I paid a lot of money for. Pretty simple really.
You aren't using the correct analogy. Think more like paying for entrance to a national wilderness park.
Sure, your 10.00 fee gets you in, and you are free to walk around, hike the trails, take pictures etc. But, if you want to zip line, or white water raft you'll probably have to pay extra, sometimes quite a bit more than the entrance fee to partake.
Some activities, such as mountain climbing or rock wall rappelling are just going to be unavailable to you either due to physical limitations or the fact you don't have the time to climb to 14k foot mark on the mountain.
So think of a MMO environment as one where there are multiple options for fun, however you might not get to experience all of it without some additional investments of either time or money, which you actually may never have.
And that's OK, games do not have to be designed so that everyone may experience everything.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
But you see it is not a misleading term at all. Take the sentence for what it is. In order to play, you do not have to pay a penny. That means exactly what it says, it does not say in order to have access to everything it is free
A monthly sub, particularly if a lot of people are paying for it, is POTENTIALLY much cheaper for you as a customer in the long term, than the "Free to Play," model could ever hope to be. The suits are probably hoping that you never figure that out; and I'm guessing that most of you haven't, yet.
Gonna fix that for you.
The point is, that while other people have used the analogy of McDonald's for an MMORPG, I'm going to use the analogy of a gymnasium. Gyms have a monthly sub, but if you expect that after paying that, you're going to instantly get fit without having to do any work whatsoever, you're in for a very rude awakening. If you try and lift a certain weight without having developed the necessary strength first, you will either simply be unable to do it, or you will risk injuring yourself very severely.
This isn't the gym owners being unfair, either; the weights and different settings are there for anyone to use. They don't restrict access. If you're paying the money, you can try...but you have to have worked up to it as well, first.
I have to honestly say I like this analogy, it does really ring true. But you have to add in that there are people out there who are willing to run around the block instead of on a treadmill. You gym is the sub system, the block is the f2p system. In a gym there is much more access to many different things, and you may well tone up much faster thanks to the access of it all, however it does not invalidate working out in other ways.
Play what you Like. I like SWOTR, Have a referral to get you going! --> http://www.swtor.com/r/nBndbs <-- Several Unlocks and a few days game time to make the F2P considerably easier
Yes, they want the population to be as big as possible. This is also the reason they try to shoehorn players into a MMO design that supposedly pleases us all. They try to provide something for everyone, but in the process have to restrict each element because they have to please us all. The only distinction you see today in servers is PvP and PvE, having a RP server is a thing of the past.
That is only because RP is not that popular. People log onto MMO to play games, not to RP.
Games CAN be designed so that everybody can experience everything, Kyleran. That's what difficulty levels are for.
For instance, raids can be separated into pickup group difficulty level, normal modes and hardcore modes, several games use that model successfully. That allows everyone paying his $15 to see the content he contributed to fund the creation of.
There's also the point of "seeing" versus "completing". For instance, in GW2, everyone can "see" the jumping puzzles, there's no restricted entrance... but that doesn't mean everyone will be able to complete all of them. The last jumping puzzle they added is incredibly difficult, but everyone can access the inside of the mountain and see the awesome design, the huge airship in the cave, the content he contributed to pay for when he bought the game box.
"I pay $15 like everyone, I should see everything" is TRUE.
"I pay $15 like everyone I should complete everything" is WRONG.
But no area of a well designed game should be restricted to only an "elite". Bullshit like the heavy restrictions you had to enter some raids during vanilla and TBC WoW are good examples of how NOT to do things.
Agreed 100% with this post. People pay for access to the game, so they should have an equal opportunity to see the content, but as you said, this doesn't mean they get to complete everything.
The original 40 man Naxx in WoW is a good example. The entry to this raid instance was so gated that roughly 3% of the total population ever got to see it, let alone complete it. Hence when they re-released it for WotLK with 10 and 25 man versions, it was new content to the majority. The original gated raiding mechanics in WoW were completely ridiculous, because the general paying audience had little to no opportunity to see the actual content they were paying for. MMOs are games, and shouldn't have to be treated as a second job.
I have no problem having to learn fights, wipe on bosses, having to do some prep work for raids (potions, foods, enchants, etc). I have a huge problem when content is artificially blocked though. Vanilla and TBC WoW raiding is something I will never go back to, nor support a game that attempts such a raiding model.
Additionally, I believe more developers need to look at expanding what they offer for PvE endgames as well. Smaller group content needs to be given as much importance and large group content. Player created content is something more developers will need to embrace as well.
Agreed 100% with this post. People pay for access to the game, so they should have an equal opportunity to see the content, but as you said, this doesn't mean they get to complete everything.
The original 40 man Naxx in WoW is a good example. The entry to this raid instance was so gated that roughly 3% of the total population ever got to see it, let alone complete it. Hence when they re-released it for WotLK with 10 and 25 man versions, it was new content to the majority. The original gated raiding mechanics in WoW were completely ridiculous, because the general paying audience had little to no opportunity to see the actual content they were paying for. MMOs are games, and shouldn't have to be treated as a second job.
I have no problem having to learn fights, wipe on bosses, having to do some prep work for raids (potions, foods, enchants, etc). I have a huge problem when content is artificially blocked though. Vanilla and TBC WoW raiding is something I will never go back to, nor support a game that attempts such a raiding model.
Additionally, I believe more developers need to look at expanding what they offer for PvE endgames as well. Smaller group content needs to be given as much importance and large group content. Player created content is something more developers will need to embrace as well.
This ^^^
Naxx and Sunwell were ridiculous. But Blizz learned. They won't just develop for the two-percenters anymore.
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Somebody, somewhere has better skills as you have, more experience as you have, is smarter than you, has more friends as you do and can stay online longer. Just pray he's not out to get you.
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.
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.
That line is absurd. In any other area if you did not get all that you payed for you would lose your shit, but no not in the MMO genre? Why not? And the entire complaint about people that do not have enough time to devote as opposed to say a student or someone who may be unemployed, whatever, that is just as absurd.
I don't know but for some reason this post totally pisses me off. Just the sheer fact that you think that even though I pay my money each month to play the game of my choice that I should be limited in what content I can take part of is assinine.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
Comments
The idea behind the sub $15 a month was to help provide the company with a steady income so they could keep the servers running and keep patchnig the game and also work on paid exp packs.. at least that is how i always seen it... yes $15 a month gave you full access to the game.. none of this shitty cash shops where you have to pay for every little bit of content..
The cash shops in MMOs are the worse thing to happen to MMORPGs since wow..
Its all about money so cash shops(also DLC) is part of that.
Result for me personally i quit mmo's and play solo games or co-op games with friend.
I also don't buy DLC eather for solo games, only expansions.
Some games The Witcher 2 or divinity 2 give free expansions and are DRM free.
I carefully seek developers who release games as it should be and are DRM free.
Me personally have no hope for mmo's anymore.
The point is that these games all have new content, and while it is up to debate if one game has enough new content to fill a person's entertainment needs, i don't have to play just one. It is F2P, and if you total them up, i don't have enough time to consume all the content.
1) It is no different than other industries when an explosion will cause consolidation. There are so many now that certainly i cannot play them all. So the danger is on the supply side. If they "eat" up some, i wouldn't really care, as a consumer.
2) You did not count the "close enough" games. There are a ton of F2P releases. marvel heroes, NWO, Warframe, March of War, Jagged Alliance Online .... some actually claim to be MMOs. And if you actually play these games, i don't know how you would call them bland. They are as different as you can get from games.
3) KS raises peanuts compared what you need for a proper MMO. Cash shop? It is just a preference that you don't like it. I feel it is pretty easy just to ignore it and play.
I don't know how anyone could equate gaming with getting an education. That flew right over my head. Even golf allows for handicaps.
I would say it is safe to assume that the majority of gamers are playing for the entertainment, not as some kind of replacement for real life achievement. I get that some people like and want that, but to expect the entire genre to side more with that philosophy when it is not the fiscally responsible way to go is a bit of a stretch. Maybe some indie company can get away with it with their lower overhead and be content with lower profit margins, but I cannot see the genre ever going back to the days when it was hardcore nerds that were the primary consumer base.
Without repeating that post's points here, broadly speaking, the problem we have is that the people who are making these games, are attempting to simply produce a single product for every demographic, and are refusing to differentiate between mainstream and non-mainstream audiences. This is, in truth, the same crisis which is currently afflicting the Star Trek franchise specifically, and science fiction film and television more generally.
I'm going to present four gamer demographic profiles, here; with names drawn from pop culture so that they will be easy to recognise. I will call them Dr. Woolsey, Colonel Quaritch, Sheldon, and Legolas. I will also assign them into two groups of two each; mainstream and non-mainstream. I will describe the mainstream group first, and go on from there, in the order of most to least mainstream.
I advocate voluntary segregation as a solution to this problem, in which we have two different games, broadly speaking, to cater to the needs of the two (mainstream and non mainstream) groups that I describe here.
Dr. Woolsey, AKA the Mainstream Casual.
Bartle Equivalent:- Limited Explorer/Achiever.
Dr. Woolsey is the most mainstream, normal, and populous of the demographics listed here. He has a wife or significant other, between one and three children, lots of offline connections, and anywhere between one and three jobs, depending on the state of the economy where he lives. He will either be between his late 20s and 40 years of age, or he may occasionally be a Baby Boomer; although the latter is rare.
The Doctor both wants and needs his life to be very rigidly and precisely scheduled; he goes to bed relatively early, and because of both his employment and the size of his offline social network, he has very little disposable recreation time; 1-3 hours per day at most. He views MMORPGs as a form of dessert, relative to the main course of his offline life. Because of his relatively high degree of offline satisfaction and self-actualisation, he generally does not need MMORPGs to serve the "Hero's Journey," developmental
function that Bartle documented, but instead uses them for pure recreation.
The Doctor is a relative newcomer to MMORPGs as a genre; World of Warcraft was arguably his first game, although some of the more intrepid of the breed were occasionally sighted within EverQuest. He is, however, the primary demographic who the makers of MMORPGs are currently attempting to satisfy the needs of. This is for two reasons:-
* His demographic is by far the largest, occupying upwards of 50% of the overall population. In other words, he's where the most money is.
* He has a lot in common with the management suits of game publishing companies themselves, so they feel most comfortable in producing content for him.
While the Doctor is relatively socially capable, (and somewhat moreso than Colonel Quaritch) his level of in-game social interaction will generally be minimal, for two reasons.
* He simply doesn't have the time.
* Given his large offline social network, he is already getting his social needs met offline, and does not need to try and satisfy them within the game.
Although the Doctor is not a dedicated player, WoW's Wrath of the Lich King expansion in particular, lowered the bar sufficiently that he was able to gain access to the raid scene for the first time. Within a raid environment, his type are solid and dependable, and their comparitively high level of psychological stability and social skill, means that they tend to automatically gravitate towards leadership roles, such as the main tank or healer. Because of this type's time constraints, however, endurance is not his forte. He needs to get raids finished within a maximum of 140 minutes or so.
Colonel Quaritch, AKA The Semi-Mainstream PVP/FPS Gamer.
Bartle Equivalent:- Killer/Achiever.
Colonel Quaritch is slightly less mainstream than Dr. Woolsey, but like the Doctor, he is also not native to the MMORPG genre. The Colonel is a First Person Shooter gamer. Although his offline profile is similar to the Doctor's, he may or may not be married, and is usually also between 5-10 years younger, as well as being largely anti-intellectual. The Colonel likes his violence big and loud, and his explosions bigger and louder. This type are the closest real life humanity gets, to Orcs.
Because the Colonel has less social aptitude and is usually younger than the Doctor, he generally has a correspondingly larger degree of spare time. This does not, however, usually mean that he has a greater ability to delay gratification than the Doctor does; in fact, his level of patience will often be even less. This type usually suffers from a very short attention span; they want everything five minutes ago.
This type is aggressive, elitist, and largely antisocial; although their adaptation to team games (Capture the Flag, and Team Fortress etc) means that they have needed to maintain some degree of ability to co-operate with each other. They are expansionist, and are not content to remain within their native FPS genre, but will instead migrate to other games, and attempt to coerce the developers of said games into remaking them as FPS. The Colonel also represents the type who primarily appreciated Michael Bay's Transformers films, and whose money J.J. Abrams was trying to get, with his recent cinematic Star Trek remakes.
Blame for the decline of World of Warcraft, can primarily be attributed to Blizzard's attempts at seducing the Colonel and his kind, and recreating WoW to meet his needs, with the Arena in particular, which was essentially an FPS simulator within WoW's engine. The Colonel has diametrically opposed needs and preferences to World of Warcraft's original target demographics, and the fact that he is incapable of co-existing with said demographics, was the reason for WoW's fall. The Colonel and his breed have also largely destroyed the multiplayer environment of Minecraft.
I would estimate the Colonel as representing another 25-30% of the overall gaming population.
Despite the fact that the Colonel and the Doctor are still very different people, broadly speaking, they both have largely identical needs; which are also, again, diametrically opposed to the needs and preferences of the other two profiles which I will be describing here.
* Instant gratification. Neither of the above two types can tolerate waiting long periods for anything. These two types are the reason why Blizzard added the LFD/LFR matchmaking tools to World of Warcraft, as was the heirloom system.
* Anonymity. Neither of them are interested in trying to form relationships with the people they encounter online, for the most part.
* Emphasis on Pavlovian/materialistic "rewards." These two do not play MMORPGs because they enjoy the process/experience for its' own sake, and they also don't have either the intelligence or desire to form their own in-game objectives. They need clearly defined end goals, such as armor or gold, to be provided directly by the game's mechanics themselves, (as in, the LFD tool) before they will consider doing anything.
* Social isolation. Again, they don't have either the time or the inclination to associate with anyone, for the most part. They are there to do what they are doing, and get out. They generally aren't going to be interested in joining a guild, or helping someone else level up, because they won't be able to see anything in it for themselves.
Sheldon, AKA The Non-Mainstream Hardcore.
Bartle Equivalent:- Explorer/Achiever/Limited Socialiser
This type is your generic basement dweller. It is also the group of which I am a member. He is almost always male, and his age range can be anywhere between 15 to 40. He is usually referred to within the psychiatric literature as having either High Functioning Autism, (HFA) or Schizotypal Personality Disorder. In mathematic/scientific terms, he is by far the most intelligent of the four profiles listed here, (usually with an IQ of 120-160) but his social weakness also matches his intellectual strength.
Almost always single, this type will often be unemployed, but even if he isn't, his lack of offline social connections/attachments means that he has time to burn. As such, he is the first of the two types who didn't think twice about literally spending 4-8 hours inside Blackrock Depths before Blizzard partitioned it into seperate instances.
He is very different from the mainstream two listed above, in the sense that he appreciates MMORPGs more for the process and the number crunching, rather than just winning "phat lootz" at the end. He will pride himself on training hard within the game's environment, will know the best strategies for doing anything, and will view sharing them with others as a means of social fulfillment; one of the only forms of such that he has.
This group was one of the two who played the earliest MMORPGs. His numbers are small, however, (probably around 10% of the overall population) so game publishing companies do not care about him or his needs, because his type are not their primary source of revenue. Most of the letters to the developers about a player quitting, while also outlining the reasons, that you will read in a game's forums, will be written by this type; and said letters will generally go entirely ignored.
The suits are unwise to ignore this demographic, and his cousins the Roleplayers, however; and the reason why is that these two are the kinds who will keep paying and playing, month in and month out, for decades, until the servers are turned off if they like the game. The above two mainstream demographics are fickle, and will come and go; but Sheldon and Legolas represent a long term investment.
Legolas, AKA The PvE Roleplayer.
Bartle Equivalent:- Socialiser/Limited Achiever.
Finally we come to the smallest, loneliest, and least mainstream MMORPG demographic of them all. While World of Warcraft had a few roleplaying servers, seeing an actual roleplayer was about as rare as seeing a koala during the day in Australia.
I have always considered it lamentable that this type are as uncommon as Tolkien's Elves, because while often deeply strange, in many ways they are the most desirable of these four groups, for many of the same reasons that said Elves were.
Few in number, shy, and generally only communicating in private messages, they are hard to find; but the experience of discovering and interacting with a group of them, brings to mind the wonder of Diane Fossey, when interacting with the Lowland Gorilla.
Once one of the most prolific of MMORPG demographics, now this is a group that is extremely fragile, and needs preserving; but sadly, they tend to be attacked whenever they are found, primarily by the FPS gamer type listed above. They are an even smaller group than the Sheldon type; less than 5% of the overall gaming population at best guess, and so the developers of any given game do not care about them at all. If roleplaying servers are set aside for them, they will still tend to be attacked and mocked by the FPS demographic, and these acts will go unpoliced by the game's development staff. As Bartle himself documented, when the FPS gamer arrives, the Roleplayer heads for the Grey Havens.
It goes without saying, then, that these latter two groups tend to need and prefer a gaming environment which is the opposite of the first two, as mentioned.
* PvE. The Legolas/Roleplayer type in particular is very largely pacifistic. He will take part in instances and raids, yes; but he doesn't engage in much PvP at all, for the most part. They are also usually much less aggressive than the FPS demographic, which is why they tend to get forced out by them. Sheldon does want *some* PvP, but usually a much slower paced kind; think WoW's battlegrounds, not the Arena.
* An environment which supports rich online social interaction, such as World of Warcraft's was in its' beginning, and Ultima Online originally was to an even greater extent.
* Strong support for player accountability, trust, and reputation, ideally within an intimate, single-server setting. This allows for cohesive community to be built and to thrive, which these two types love.
* Instances which are not constrained by time. As previously mentioned, Blackrock Depths originally could take 4-8 hours to complete, before Blizzard cut it up. These latter two demographics need and want these types of environments.
* RP servers need to be regarded by developers as the in-game equivalent of offline national parks, and policed accordingly, with FPS gamers (the equivalent of poachers, in this case) being kept out.
One example I Wanted to add was back in EQ,
I was played a LOT, but I never even got to SEE Veeshans Peak. I never once stepped foot in the zone. Did I complain? No. I actually think it added a lot of wonder and awe to the game. I dreamed of the day I might set foot in the zone. I never did, but just having them types of zones was amazing. Seeing someone in armor from that zone was like, man, you must really know your shit. It was the types of zones that if people could even step foot in, they were considered pretty awesome.
This brings me to difficulty sliders. Thank GOD they didnt have them in EQ. Could you imagine working your ass off to get to Vex Thal, and it turns out that someone else barely spent any time and is seeing the same zone/content that you are seeing? Its not always about being able to fight the mobs and get the loot. Sometimes its about the scenery, certain zones that are things of legend, that only a few people ever saw. Zones where there was immense risk and immense reward.
Quick offshoot - Risk and reward is something that they need to bring back, but until a meaningful death penalty gets implemented in a modern game, people will continue to use death as a means of travel, necessity, and not something that makes them pucker their butthole worrying if you're going to die, but then come out on top and feel like you just survived ww2.
By not being able to make it to certain zones due to difficulty, by not even being able to step foot in them, is a GOOD thing. It separates the good players from the not so good players. It gives people something to wonder about, and work towards. I remember the first time I set foot in Plane of Fear in classic EQ. This was a zone that you didnt just go in nonchalantly. Hell, some people never even saw the inside of the planes during the classic period. And it was better that way.
People who complain that they should be able to see everything, do everything, get everything that the people who put in 5 to 10 times the amount of work should realize that some things in life need to be earned. And thats what MMOs have lost. They hand everything to everyone, with barely any effort. With no risk, they get the same rewards. This system needs to change.
Bring back RISK. Bring back REAL rewards. Call it elitism or whatever you want to call it, but if I am a better at a game then you, then it should show. If you suck at a game, then dont expect to be able to get the best gear or see the best content. It gives you a reason to LEARN, to get better. I miss the days when people would recognize people by their skill as a player, and built a community around helping others, teaching others, and striving to be the best in order to get what others cant get, and see what others cant see.
I actually do think I should see everything.
I don't go to MC donalds and pay a full price for a hamburger to only get half of it.
I don't spend 20 dollars (which is how much it costs in California for each person) to watch the movie and not see the end.
I don't spend 60 dollars on a game (RTS/RPG/FPS etc), only to not see how it ends or be locked out of content that I paid a lot of money for.
Pretty simple really.
My Skyrim, Fallout 4, Starbound and WoW + other game mods at MODDB:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/skyrim-anime-overhaul
Well thought out and welcome to the site. But I am not sure how you would achieve the segregation you mention. MMO companies loathe to split the player base for any reason. In fact they are trying via 'looking for grouping' systems to create a player pool that stretches across server names. I love the idea of RP servers being the equivalent of a national park, but I just cannot see anything remotely like that happening.
Thank you. I'm curious as to why MMORPG companies want to put the entire playerbase in one place? Is it because they're scared of new people logging in and finding few people present?
I think this can't be said enough. Now what follows is a long explanation, but I think it ought to be said. Because I, like Quizzical, think the question the OP posts doesn't quite get to the heart of the concern.
Because there are, and always have been, people who do pay $15 and "see everything," due to a relentless and ruthless drive to über out as quickly as possible.
And there are others who, because of a desire to place other things ahead of their own überness, can pay $1,500 in fees (over eight years of fees), and never see everything, because they are doing other things--important things--and aren't spending time consuming content by hook or crook. I saw these people in games like CoH. I saw these people in games like SWG. They were the base builders, the fanfic writers, the GMs, the Architect Entertainment writers and the roleplayers. And when the game shut down, these are the folks that payed more, got less, and were utterly unrewarded for their efforts.
From my experience, this genre typically doesn't reward people who pay in a lot of money. It rewards people who can consume the content rapidly. People who pay in a lot of money? Well, they may get some temporary satisfaction, but will always be "keeping up with the Jones's," so to say. And the more a player plays in the spirit of the game by roleplaying, slow playing, taking time out to help friends, run or participate in community events or do anciliary functions (websites, guild creation, fanfiction, etc.), the less likely that player is to be rewarded in the games they play.
So, I think we ought to rephrase the question a different way. The question isn't "I pay $15/mo like everyone, I should see everything," because powergamers like xXDEATHDEALERXx and his überposse counterstrike clan are always going to "see everything" really quickly.
The question is, "I pay $1,500 over a series of years, doing important things for everyone else and the game, why shouldn't I see everything?"
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Why don't they? It's real simple. The ones who powergame through the grind and min/max are always one step ahead of the nerfs, the rebalances and the inevitable service cancellation. I think of SWG and the whole "grind to Jedi" that awarded the coveted class to the ones who could power through the professions as quickly and unrepentently as possible. It rewarded the people who didn't care if they cluttered up the cantinas with AFK. It rewarded the people who didn't care if they were camping places with high XP mobs. It rewarded the spammers, the hoarders, the inconsiderate and the antisocial. But at least they got a Jedi...
...Those who actually cared about playing the professions the way they were meant to be played had enough respect for the game, and the environment, to put other things ahead of Jedi grinding. While all the powergamers were busy doing the Jedi grind, the real players entertained, made the weapons, formed the groups, fought the GCW and told the stories, completing professions when they could. They said :"I'll always have time to do Jedi, but right now, some things are more important." And what was their reward for putting the good of the game ahead of the good for themselves? The whole Jedi system was nerfed, and they had to relearn a new system.
The new system rewarded the powergamers even more than the old system. It was only accessable to combat characters, and involved a whole series of massive combat grinds in the village. And, if you were a powergamer who didn't care about anything but getting what you wanted quickly, you had no trouble with parking yourself at "the village" to be fed by your alts. But if you actually cared about making the rest of the server run, you wouldn't be at the village so much. You'd complete it when you could, after you did the things that mattered (entertain, build weapons, do GCW things, etc.). You'd say, "I'll have time to do the village, but it's best to do more important things now, like a player event or GCW things." But, as we all know, time was short.
When this system was nerfed in favor of NGE, a lot of people--powergamers and slow players--quit. But it seems that those who powered through the Corellian Corvette, the Jedi Village, the Warren, Kashyyk, etc. were able to quit a whole lot easier than the ones like the ATK dancer who never saw those things, or the weaponsmith and guild leader who spent his time making sure everyone else could grind to Jedi. Because at least the powergamer saw it all and did it all. The slow player who did things the right way? He got the shaft.
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The ones who slow down, play the right way, take some time to do player made events, help friends and enjoy themselves in a normal way are always the ones who are always playing a much more difficult game. A lot of what we throw out around here, things like "just because you pay $15 doesn't mean you're entitled to everything the game has to offer," are probably people who think nothing of speed throughs, powerlevelling, min/maxing and staying up for days on end after an expansion comes out to consume the content before anyone else.
But one ought to look at this issue a different way. There are people like xXDEATHDEALERXx and his powergaming clan who can, because of powergaming guides and a relentless drive to be über, "see everything" in one month of $15 or a few months of $15. In fact, his time is a lot easier, because he's always one step ahead of the nefs and wholesale redesigns that make it more difficult for the next guy.
The problem is what to do with those folks who are always doing the helpful things and the necessary things, slow playing the game, playing realistically and advancing when and if they can, who always tend to get the shaft when the game closes, and they didn't experience much of the "cool stuff." Because, as history shows, that kind of player always tends to come off worse than the guy who just doesn't care about anything but consuming content.
And then we wonder why our communities are bad, or we don't RP or socialize, or we don't have much of an interest in player-made content...
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"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
First, I agree developers have been dumbing down their games. As for why? I don't accept your assumption that it is due to casual players complaining, what information, data, evidence exactly do have to make that assumption. Does every segment of the MMO community complain? YES, emphatically yes, even your original post is a complaint OP. So what, did a casual player put a gun to the head of the developers and force them to change games. Not that I am aware of.
As for your complaint, "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 to every bit of content in the mmo is both absurd, and heavily contributed to the current state of the genre" is pure nonsense. Of course they should have ACCESS. They are paying their way. Access does not mean that they have a right to finish or complete the quest, dungeon, event or whatever other content there is but there is no question they should have the right to try.
Before you condemn a huge portion of the MMO community you ought to show what facts you have to support your assumptions.
So here is my take on the topic. I understand the mentality of hey I paid so much for this I should get to see everything, I would feel that way myself. However back in the day when I played old school games, I paid that sub and never said such things. Why? Well its because I was busy enjoying myself. Often times I never raided because I had so many other things to do or never got to the point in a game. Today though I wipe through the content in a couple of weeks on most games. It is strange that I play less today then ever and yet I get further, faster then ever. So is that because I have become more of a content locus or because the games have become smaller. I'd say the former. So what ends up happening in smaller worlds/games is that people finish up fairly quickly then start getting bored. That is where this idea hey how come they are making content for this group and not for me comes from. They feel that they are paying and want some value for money. I don't think that's unfair to think that way. But my opinion is that the root of the problem is smaller games, shorter games, quicker progression. Not people eating through things to quickly or being entitled. People just want to have fun with the games that they pay for, when that ends, that is where discontent comes from. Something like 'idle hands are the devils tools'. If they are having fun but don't enjoy dungeons, I doubt most would complain if they added a new dungeon as long as they got their thing as well. This also falls a bit to game companies who constantly string along people with this 'it will all change in the next patch just you wait and see' bs.
Now I understand there are reasons for developers making smaller games, budget issues, time, etc. I believe that is a bit of a different topic so I wont debate that much here, but I really personally feel that is the root problem. And I'll add that I don't think any of this has anything to do with casuals either. People played, longer and harder games casually, in fact I still do sometimes. So I don't think they have been asking for smaller or simpler games. I have never heard someone say, 'god I wish this game had less stuff to do so I could keep up'.
Yes, they want the population to be as big as possible. This is also the reason they try to shoehorn players into a MMO design that supposedly pleases us all. They try to provide something for everyone, but in the process have to restrict each element because they have to please us all. The only distinction you see today in servers is PvP and PvE, having a RP server is a thing of the past.
I can absolutely relate to this.
Within probably three months of the end of my period playing World of Warcraft, I was approached by someone who wanted to pay me to write a class guide for the Hunter. Yet I was consistently mocked and made fun of on the forums, because those who had access to my Armoury profile, could see that I had hardly raided at all. There were three reasons for that.
a} I spent a lot of my time doing battleground (not Arena, which I hated for the most part) PvP.
b} I spent even more of my time giving much lower level players runs through various instances; Blackrock Depths was probably the main one which comes to mind.
c} I spent the rest of my time in solitary training; usually in instances fairly close (within ten levels) of my own level, that had been originally designed for five person groups.
The raid game was never the most important thing to me, in WoW. Technique always was, first and foremost; and the main reason why, was simply because I loved it to the degree that I did. TBC was a time before the game was dumbed down to the extent that it later was; I would buy various different damage grades of arrows, and use them like golf clubs in order to regulate my threat.
This is an important distinction to make, because the speed racers did the opposite. Sure, they had the server first boss kills, and the epic flying mounts before anyone else, and they'd get to the cap within 2-3 weeks of the expansion's first release; but the thing that I realised about such people, was that they did not really enjoy the game. It was all for epeen; it was all so that they could get the points on the board and brag to other people about how quickly they had done everything.
When I missed out on raid progression because of taking the umpteenth group of 15 year olds through BRD, I would also tell myself that I could raid later; there'd be time. And although I saw a tiny bit of it, for the most part, there never actually was time, in the end; but for me, that was ok.
Yep. WoW was the same. It never rewarded altruistic behaviour. Some of the classes were designed for altruistic roles (the Paladin, the healers, the Hunter to a degree) but nobody wanted to tank or heal; there was a shortage of them throughout the history of the game. I tanked and healed at times; they were always my alts, but I still found it fun...and it helped people.
The answer is epeen. It's all because of epeen. I saw a very large number of people on the WoW forums who were largely sociopathic, yet for various real world reasons weren't able to join their fellow sociopaths in climbing the proverbial corporate ladder. So they tried to use doing the same thing, vicariously within an MMORPG, as a means of psychologically compensating for that, and having a group of people who they could still tell themselves that they were superior to.
Most people these days (particularly in America) seem to have extremely unhappy, restricted, non-free, and disempowering offline lives. Because of this, they are miserable, and feel helpless and unfulfilled. So they see MMORPGs as a means, again, of trying to emotionally fill the void that is left as a result of that. They hope desperately that the server first kills or whatever else, will impress other people sufficiently that maybe for just five minutes, they'll be able to stop focusing on how worthless they consider themselves to be.
The only real reason why the F2P/cash shop model exists that I can see, is to cope with two issues:-
a} Players not wanting to put down sub money for a game that actually sucks, when the suits still try and tell themselves that it doesn't.
b} Players being immature, entitled, spoiled, Generation Y brats with close to zero discipline or integrity, who think that they should get everything they want, immediately, for no investment of any kind whatsoever; whether it be money, effort, or time, and who then complain later that they don't understand why they are bored.
Given that I am old school when it comes to this particular topic, my attitude concerning it is roughly this:-
If an MMORPG dev company wants to have a cash shop for their MMORPG, then as far as I am concerned, that is perfectly fine. However, if they don't have a scenario where I can still pay a monthly sub, then they shouldn't expect me to be interested. I want the monthly sub more than I want F2P, because I want the inherent agreement that exists between me and the company as a result of that. I understand that the development company needs a steady income in order to keep the lights on, the servers running, and people getting paid etc etc. I am not a 14 year old with unrealistic entitlement issues.
I will pause here to explain something important, in case people who read this don't understand it.
Free to Play is actually a misleading term.
MMORPG development companies are not in the business of making truly free games. They're there to make money. What a supposedly "free to play," game is, is one where you get to download the client and enter the game environment, without any money down up front, and go through a certain, variable amount of introductory content.
However, don't fool yourselves about the fact that the company are always expecting you to eventually go to the cash shop and pay to unlock the really good stuff. DDO, from memory, gave F2P players 3 out of 5 of the playable races, but if you wanted the last two, you had to pay. They also made most of the newbie instances in the first hub free, but if you wanted to get the good stuff in Stormreach, then again, you had to pay.
So I don't want that. I don't want to be incrementally drip fed content which I have to go back and pay additionally for, over and over again, because the irony is, that by doing so, I will ultimately end up paying more in the long term, than I will with a monthly sub.
A monthly sub, particularly if a lot of people are paying for it, is potentially MUCH cheaper for you as a customer in the long term, than the "Free to Play," model could ever hope to be. The suits are probably hoping that you never figure that out; and I'm guessing that most of you haven't, yet.
Hence, I absolutely want my monthly sub, because I want the contract that goes with it. Said contract is this; that if I pay my monthly sub, I get access to every single thing that said dev company produces for the game. Notice that I said access. I'm very likely not going to use every possible race/class combo in a large game, and nor, given the way I usually play, am I likely to see more than 50-75% of the overall content.
Let me explain another point to you here, so that we can clean up the controversy surrounding it. A lot of people cried oceans of tears over the fact that during the original World of Warcraft, well under 5% of the playing population ever got to see inside Naxxramas. I never had a problem with that; and I want to tell you why.
Although I never saw the original Naxx myself, when TBC first came out, I was level 58, which meant that technically I was able to go through the Dark Portal into Outland, even though it wasn't a good idea, as it turned out. So I went through and queued up for a Hellfire Ramparts 5 man, and also assumed, in my hubris, that I was going to be able to lead the group, and we'd blitz through it.
I got absolutely destroyed, and so did the rest of the group I was with. The group disbanded very rapidly. I then went and tried some of the initial questing around Thrallmar. Although the mobs there were non-elites, the same thing happened. I wasn't up to it yet.
So I went back to the Scarlet Monastery and trained by soloing it for another six weeks, as well as doing the quests I needed to get to 60, farming BRD for other gear, and playing Warsong Gulch enough that I got the epic shotgun from there, to use as my weapon when I went back to HFP.
The result? When I got back, I no longer had a problem, and also had a ranged weapon which lasted me almost into Zangarmarsh.
The point is, that while other people have used the analogy of McDonald's for an MMORPG, I'm going to use the analogy of a gymnasium. Gyms have a monthly sub, but if you expect that after paying that, you're going to instantly get fit without having to do any work whatsoever, you're in for a very rude awakening. If you try and lift a certain weight without having developed the necessary strength first, you will either simply be unable to do it, or you will risk injuring yourself very severely.
This isn't the gym owners being unfair, either; the weights and different settings are there for anyone to use. They don't restrict access. If you're paying the money, you can try...but you have to have worked up to it as well, first.
So it is here. Richard Bartle has written a lot about the relationship between MMORPGs and the developmental process he refers to as, "The Hero's Journey." It's a funny idea, that gaming can actually help you develop positively as a person; but it's also true. My time in WoW taught me a lot.
To close, if you think that you ought to be able to go into literally any content in the game, from your first day there, and effortlessly burn through it, I'd invite you to invest some serious thought into what sort of game that would likely end up being. I'll give you a hint; it's the sort of game that WoW has ended up being, with Mists of Pandaria.
Ultimately, I think I'll allow His Majesty to explain my point, here; because he can do it a lot more eloquently than I can, anyway.
You aren't using the correct analogy. Think more like paying for entrance to a national wilderness park.Sure, your 10.00 fee gets you in, and you are free to walk around, hike the trails, take pictures etc. But, if you want to zip line, or white water raft you'll probably have to pay extra, sometimes quite a bit more than the entrance fee to partake.
Some activities, such as mountain climbing or rock wall rappelling are just going to be unavailable to you either due to physical limitations or the fact you don't have the time to climb to 14k foot mark on the mountain.
So think of a MMO environment as one where there are multiple options for fun, however you might not get to experience all of it without some additional investments of either time or money, which you actually may never have.
And that's OK, games do not have to be designed so that everyone may experience everything.
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Several Unlocks and a few days game time to make the F2P considerably easier
That is only because RP is not that popular. People log onto MMO to play games, not to RP.
Agreed 100% with this post. People pay for access to the game, so they should have an equal opportunity to see the content, but as you said, this doesn't mean they get to complete everything.
The original 40 man Naxx in WoW is a good example. The entry to this raid instance was so gated that roughly 3% of the total population ever got to see it, let alone complete it. Hence when they re-released it for WotLK with 10 and 25 man versions, it was new content to the majority. The original gated raiding mechanics in WoW were completely ridiculous, because the general paying audience had little to no opportunity to see the actual content they were paying for. MMOs are games, and shouldn't have to be treated as a second job.
I have no problem having to learn fights, wipe on bosses, having to do some prep work for raids (potions, foods, enchants, etc). I have a huge problem when content is artificially blocked though. Vanilla and TBC WoW raiding is something I will never go back to, nor support a game that attempts such a raiding model.
Additionally, I believe more developers need to look at expanding what they offer for PvE endgames as well. Smaller group content needs to be given as much importance and large group content. Player created content is something more developers will need to embrace as well.
This ^^^
Naxx and Sunwell were ridiculous. But Blizz learned. They won't just develop for the two-percenters anymore.
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That line is absurd. In any other area if you did not get all that you payed for you would lose your shit, but no not in the MMO genre? Why not? And the entire complaint about people that do not have enough time to devote as opposed to say a student or someone who may be unemployed, whatever, that is just as absurd.
I don't know but for some reason this post totally pisses me off. Just the sheer fact that you think that even though I pay my money each month to play the game of my choice that I should be limited in what content I can take part of is assinine.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!