Some players who experience the hard core guilds never want to join another because of all the bs. The guilds requiring this, that and the other thing can take the fun out of a game and make it seem like more of a job. Then there is the political side to a guild that really gets to me. You have to go through tons of red tape just to get an outing or something approved. There's too much stress and tension in those guilds.
Most people join a guild so they have people to hang out with and have fun. A casual guild is a lot of fun!
I recall having to constantly look out for a first time mother who would frequently go away without notice in the middle of a raid to tend to her child.
I'm sorry, but if you got anything going on that is going to distract you from your toon during a raid, or anything that MAY come up, then you shouldn't be raiding at that time. When you join a raid, you have to show the other players respect, and not being there 100% is disrespectful. It would be better that you just did something less demanding of your time if you have irl obligations that need to be attended to. Nothing wrong with having those irl responsibilities, but its also time to make some choices and some sacrifices in game. I'm sorry, but if we wipe during a raid cause you had to take care of your kid, you just wasted my time and the time I had planned to do other things..thats simply not acceptable.
Now, I know thats not the topic of the thread, but I just had to say that. I don't think I see what the issue is here...noone is twisting your arm to join a raiding guild. If you don't want to then don't. And please don't complain that you won't get to see the high end content. You can't excel in anything without putting the time and energy into it. Would you really want to visit this high end content if it was so easy to get to that a jury-rigged, slapped-together bunch of strangers could waltz in? No, you want to go there because its tough to get there. Welcome to real life, take a number and wait your turn.
Had to laugh when i read the article. The first respones to your article hit the nail right on the head. In any mmo u are going to find casual and laid back guilds. Dont mock the elitist just becuase they like to get it done in games. To them that is fun having all the end game gear. For me and my clan we arnt into end game raiding we play mmo's for the PvP aspect of the game. But like any sport i ever played growing up and in college i sure as hell dont like to lose. So we will not allow idiots in our clan that cant get it done in the BG or that know there role. What is the point of spending all that time (even casual gamers hit 60 eventually) to just get your ass handed to u in a BG? If your in a good pvp clan u wont. I think that is the good thing about so many diffrent guilds out there. Find one u feel u fit in and stick with em.
Steve Wilson's weekly column, Casual Play, follows the MMO thoughs of a non-hardcore player as he addresses the genre from that perspective. This week, he tackles Guilds in a column called "A Guild Too Far".
"Not bad back there, you know our guild is recruiting right now..."
I'll admit I was interested. It would be much better to have a pool of people to adventure with rather than always looking for pick up groups. It would also be a lot more fun in the battlegrounds to run with folks that saw it more as a team sport than a mob activity. The two players I'd hooked up with in order to venture through one of my rare forays into an instance seemed like decent guys. There'd been no arguing over loot or tactics, no berating of anyone in the pick up group, if their guild was the same it might not be a bad proposition. I'd be more than willing to help out when needed knowing there'd be a community to do the same for me. Guilds in online games are almost a requirement. I was plenty interested.
"Really? I've been sort of looking for a guild and would love to join the right one. I mostly enjoy the battlegrounds and would like to find a solid group to run with."
Hey Steve...I agree completely...I'm a casual player myself, and if I'm not having fun, I don't want to play...no matter how potentially powerful I could be. Is your casual guild going to be getting on WAR? If so, I'd love to join.
I completely understand where the columnist is coming from with this article. I work a 9 to 5, attend night classes three-to-four nights a week, and have four children. I have a mortgage. I have bills. I have taxes. My wife runs a business on the side, which I do a lot of work for. I've got a friggin' stressful life. I don't want to have to log in and adhere to some strict martial code, probably laid down by someone fifteen years younger than me. I'm a conscientious, good-natured gamer and I play well with others - I don't need the rules to tell me how to behave.
That said, I've also run guilds before - predominantly roleplaying guilds. And I've seen what one or two bad apples can do to the bunch, so I can understand the urge to regulate the applicants (by installing a few hoops to jump through. I guess the idea is to find that fine line and make sure you're either one the right side of it, or at the very least, straddling it.
And please don't complain that you won't get to see the high end content. You can't excel in anything without putting the time and energy into it. Would you really want to visit this high end content if it was so easy to get to that a jury-rigged, slapped-together bunch of strangers could waltz in? No, you want to go there because its tough to get there. Welcome to real life, take a number and wait your turn.
I don't ever post from work but this just left me gobsmacked.
I want to see the all the areas of the game because I PAY for it. ALL of it. I don't give a dingo's kidney how 'tough' you think it should be to get there, WoW is not a test of 'excelling' , it's an entertainment product. Just scale the bloody instances like they do in COH and allow people to access all portions of the game they're subscribing to. Do I need a group to see the end of a movie? Black Bloody Hell.
Perhaps I should ask for a discount for the percentage of game that is closed to me. OR maybe raiders should be paying extra for all the game content that only they can enjoy, and that has been designed specifically for them. I'd be curious to see what the percentage of the playerbase actually gets to go to these areas. Because they certainly get a lot of attention from the team.
I find it a tragedy that we consider 20 hours a week to be "casual." In fact I've been told (at 8-10 hours a week) that I am very casual. Somehow, people, we have really screwed up our priorities in life when we consider it a badge fo honor to claim that we are hardcore if we spend as much time in a game as we do at work. Personally, I consider it like this: Less than 8 hours a week: casual 8-16 hours a week: a hobbyist/gamer 16-24 hours a week: hardcore 24+ hours a week: obsessive compulsive, may have an addiction problem, could be affecting real life depending on circmustances 40+ hours a week: requiring therapy/reevaluating life goals; most likely failing at school/work/homelife. But alas, most MMORGers, especially the "hardcore" ones, consider it a badge of honor to claim that they play 30+ hours a week in these games. That is not a badge of honor: it is a cry for help. You need to look at your life more carefully if so much of it is being invested in a game like this.
Probably all to true.
To me someone who, as you say, wear their "hardcore" tag as a badge of honor is much like a guy walking around with a T-shirt saying "I have the worlds smallest penis", an be proud of it.
Being a hardcore MMO player is not an achievment, those who try to make it look lite as if it is, are generally the hardcore crowd themself by all probability due to a total lack of any other form of achievments in their lifes, ones that actually count for something in the grand scheme of things.
If you are a hardcore fire figther, doctor, stock broker, red cross volunteer etc.. then I will lift my hat to you, if you evaluate your life by how much time you can spend in a virtual world and what you accomplish therein then I and most people will look upon you with pity.
Not saying one can not be a hardcore gamer, each to their own I guess, but taking pride in it is delusional.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
If you dont like it... DONT JOIN ONE OF THOSE GUILDS!!!
I mean, seriously... what is so complicated about that? I dont join a baseball team because I only like to play baseball with my friends and I dont want to have scheduled practices and games. I joined the track team because I wanted to particpate in organized running...
It isnt exactly a complicated situation.
All these "casual" articles seem to be is "People who dont play exactly like me are losers" over and over again and it's starting to get irritating as it brings the other morons with this mindset out of the woodwork. I hate raiding... so I dont join raiding guilds. My girlfriend loves raiding so she joined a hardcore guild. We dont sit around and piss and moan about how the other one is playing their game wrong.
Also, just because I hate raiding doesnt mean I think we should get rid of it or that I should be able to solo every raid because Im "paying for the game". That's just stupid. The raid content is there for those who wish to raid. Period. If you dont like to do that... dont do it... and dont play games that make you do it. Once again... a very simple concept.
Just because you pay for a game doesnt mean you are entitled to craft it to your wishes and ruin it for those who DO enjoy the content that is there.
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
Just for the record... 30+ hours a week is, what, four or so hours a night. Young children generally go to bed at between 7-9. Older kids don't need a babysitter to entertain them.
Perhaps one should refrain from calling another person a dumb*** until one gains perspective... or a rudimentary knowledge of math.
Also, just because I hate raiding doesnt mean I think we should get rid of it or that I should be able to solo every raid because Im "paying for the game".
Scaleable (variable numbers) content does not automatically = 'Solo' content ...a very simple concept
That's just stupid. The raid content is there for those who wish to raid. Period. If you dont like to do that... dont do it... and dont play games that make you do it.
BUT to access all the game areas and content that you're paying for you MUST raid. No alternatives. And to raid you're required to get a third party Addon Meta-game called 'LEETGUILD', which many have no interest in. And WoW only 'makes' you do it at high levels. It's not a prerequisite to access content before then.
Just because you pay for a game doesnt mean you are entitled to craft it to your wishes and ruin it for those who DO enjoy the content that is there.
I don't want to craft the game to my wishes, I'm questioning the logic of me having to pay for raiding areas and content that I can't access. I'm seeing raids more as expansion/special material than as part of the regular game - material that currently only percentage of the players can enjoy, but everyone has to support. I'm not ruining your content, I'm subsidizing it. Maybe Blizz can add an "All Raid All the Time" expansion and then get on with on designing different high end content for the core game.
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
Just for the record... 30+ hours a week is, what, four or so hours a night. Young children generally go to bed at between 7-9. Older kids don't need a babysitter to entertain them.
Perhaps one should refrain from calling another person a dumb*** until one gains perspective... or a rudimentary knowledge of math.
100% agreed.
I log about that many hours as well. I'm a father of 2, and a happily married husband.
My wife plays too. So about 80% of the time I'm in game, I'm playing *with* her. The other 20% are times when she's in the bath, or she's tired and gone to bed, or she just wants to read or watch tv on the couch, about 10 feet away from me. One of the keys is not putting your computers in an isolated area - ours are part of our living room.
My son is 6 months old. He's asleep by 8:00 for the night. My daughter is 13. If she's not gaming with us, she's in her room watching movies, or in the living room (again, 10' away) doing her homework, or watching the same TV show we are.
But I still play 2-4 hours a night, and 4-6 on weekend days. Some days, I don't play at all. But I can easily hit 30 hours (especially since you can feed an infant a bottle and game at the same time pretty easily if you practice.)
Who am I? @Lorechaser on CoH Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner) Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry) ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO And many more.
And please don't complain that you won't get to see the high end content. You can't excel in anything without putting the time and energy into it. Would you really want to visit this high end content if it was so easy to get to that a jury-rigged, slapped-together bunch of strangers could waltz in? No, you want to go there because its tough to get there. Welcome to real life, take a number and wait your turn.
I don't ever post from work but this just left me gobsmacked.
I want to see the all the areas of the game because I PAY for it. ALL of it....
No you don't...you pay a token fee for access to a game server. You pay for the fair use of a game, but you don't own it's content. You have the right to do anything within the given boundaries and rules of the game, but you do NOT have the right for it to be given to you on a plate. I'd like to think that a vast majority would agree that achievement without some kind of challenge is shallow, totally meaningless and at the end of the day...pointless.
I barely play any MMO's anymore, to be honest I am sick to death of the current state of the genre, but I have been both a casual (few hrs a week) and a hardcore gamer (18 hrs a day) across a vast array of MMO's. In my opinion, a true casual gamer is not concerned about whether a hardcore gamer wants to spend ridiculous hours inside the game world or whether the hardcore gamer is level 200 while the casual gamer hasn't left newbie village yet. As long as both players can achieve goals and gain new experiences in game, I've never understood why there is any kind of problem for casual players as long as the game ensures this is possible with the bare minimum of grinding.
Some casual players play for social reasons, others just like to play in small chunks at their own pace and of course a lot of people cannot dedicate the amount of time required to reach the higher level content of most MMO's. It's all cool, I'm certainly not knocking anyone's playstyle or situation. However, in my experience a good deal of "casual" gamers have always had a chip on their shoulder that they cannot achieve the same in-game results as someone who is glued to their computer chair, playing ridiculous hours. My opinion is that if you are bothered by hardcore gamers having more in-game assets or levels than you, you are NOT a casual gamer...you have the attitude and mindset of a hardcore gamer with not enough time or motivation on his hands.
Being spoon fed rewards with little to no time or mental investment is never going to appeal to the hardcore players and those who choose not to/are not able to devote the same amount of time as their hardcore peers, dislike the fact that they are not achieving at the same pace relative to the hardcore crowd. The concept that these two groups of people want the same grand rewards but with totally different levels of commitment and challenge is completely incompatible with any kind of game design that I know of. Thus, in recent years game designers have diluted many of the concepts that made the old school MMO's good games and introduced "casual" MMO's.
Most "casual" MMO's now simply give people what they want, with little to no time or skill investment, a great way to create a successful MMO that appeals to the masses, but a completely shite way to make a game with substance and longevity. On the other hand most "hardcore" MMO's offer a similar level of content and substance as the "casual" MMO's just with vastly increased grindfests. Therein lies the problem, grinding and lootbased MMO's, of which both sides are guilty and 99% of the genre is populated.
When MMO's are developed which implement a higher level of thought and human skill into in-game actions it won't matter whether you play 18 hours a day or 3 hours a week, your avatar will be as good as you are and the retarded debate over whether "casual" is better than "hardcore" will finally end.
As for guilds...well there's nearly always a guild for everyone's playstyle, and if you can't find one that's right for you...play solo and build an extensive friends list
And please don't complain that you won't get to see the high end content. ... No, you want to go there because its tough to get there. Welcome to real life, take a number and wait your turn.
I don't ever post from work but this just left me gobsmacked.
I want to see the all the areas of the game because I PAY for it. ALL of it....
You have the right to do anything within the given boundaries and rules of the game, but you do NOT have the right for it to be given to you on a plate.
I don't ask for it "on a plate". (see 'Scaleable Instances' above). But even if I did, you don't have jurisdiction over what 'rights' I have to access game content, how much and under what conditions. Geez. What is this 'tougher than thou' stuff. (oh wait... this is a GUY thing isn't it?! )
Some casual players play for social reasons, others just like to play in small chunks at their own pace and of course a lot of people cannot dedicate the amount of time required to reach the higher level content of most MMO's.
Exactly! I want WoW lite. You can pay for access to special areas for bashing Onxyia and getting your sword of uber-peen. I just want to be able to access to what's on my game disks.. I'm not playing the WoWRaid game. I'm playing the core game that I wish developers would spend more time on instead of catering to raiders. EQ had special servers I believe - Blizz should look into it.
Anyway, it's been fun boys, but work's over and I'm signing off. (You don't think I post here on *my* time, do you?)
I don't ask for it "on a plate". (see 'Scaleable Instances' above). But even if I did, you don't have jurisdiction over what 'rights' I have to access game content, how much and under what conditions. Geez. What is this 'tougher than thou' stuff. (oh wait... this is a GUY thing isn't it?! )
Exactly! I want WoW lite. You can pay for access to special areas for bashing Onxyia and getting your sword of uber-peen. I just want to be able to access to what's on my game disks.. I'm not playing the WoWRaid game. I'm playing the core game that I wish developers would spend more time on instead of catering to raiders. EQ had special servers I believe - Blizz should look into it.
Anyway, it's been fun boys, but work's over and I'm signing off. (You don't think I post here on *my* time, do you?)
And they arent paying the 5 man dungeons or high level quest content that YOU are using. Oh, is that a little fact you forgot about? That YOU TOO use content that they dont?
I stopped playing WoW, partially because the game was too raid focused. If you dont like it... dont play it.
Scalable content makes getting together with a large group trivial. If someone can do the same thing with a couple of friends... why should anyone bother getting a large group together? You want to ruin the game for everyone else because you dont have the good sense to STOP PLAYING a game that isnt what you like. I dont hear raiders pissing and moaning about the 5 man dungeons they arent going to run or the endgame quests that they wont do.
And please don't complain that you won't get to see the high end content. ... No, you want to go there because its tough to get there. Welcome to real life, take a number and wait your turn.
I don't ever post from work but this just left me gobsmacked.
I want to see the all the areas of the game because I PAY for it. ALL of it....
You have the right to do anything within the given boundaries and rules of the game, but you do NOT have the right for it to be given to you on a plate.
I don't ask for it "on a plate". (see 'Scaleable Instances' above). But even if I did, you don't have jurisdiction over what 'rights' I have to access game content, how much and under what conditions. Geez. What is this 'tougher than thou' stuff. (oh wait... this is a GUY thing isn't it?! )
I never said I had jurisdiction over anything, I don't even play WoW...I'm simply stating a hard fact.
As a consumer you have certain rights given to you by the game owners, none of which include the right to experience all game content if you are not able or willing to invest the time set by inherent game mechanics to experience said content. As far as the "Scaleable Instancing", Instancing by it's very nature takes away a lot of the traditional PvP, conflict, competition and immersion qualities of MMORPG's. Filling a virtual world with instances, scaled or otherwise is a sure way to ruin the MMO aspect almost entirely....it's a pretty clear method for handing things to people on a plate, in my opinion.
Not sure what or why you are talking about any kind of "tougher than thou...GUY thing" doesn't seem at all relevant to be honest.
Some casual players play for social reasons, others just like to play in small chunks at their own pace and of course a lot of people cannot dedicate the amount of time required to reach the higher level content of most MMO's.
Exactly! I want WoW lite. You can pay for access to special areas for bashing Onxyia and getting your sword of uber-peen. I just want to be able to access to what's on my game disks.. I'm not playing the WoWRaid game. I'm playing the core game that I wish developers would spend more time on instead of catering to raiders. EQ had special servers I believe - Blizz should look into it.
Have you ever considered trying out another game, because it's highly unlikely Blizzard will ever introduce the kind of WoW lite servers you'd like to play, anymore than they would introduce 5x XP servers or reduced subs for people who don't want to raid . It sounds like you are basically disatisfied withWoW because the devs have decided to give it a strong raid bias (basically because this is an easy way to bulk out an item based game with no real substance), and yet you feel like you should be able to experience and access everything you want to, when you want to in game... because you pay a monthly fee and bought the CD's.
I certainly do not mean to patronise you, but that just isn't the way MMO's work...ever. You put in a certain amount of time or manpower, and you get rewarded with items, content, skills or sometimes nothing at all. I'm not saying I like this, but in a material sense that is undoubtedly the way it is. Of course, in a social sense MMO's can be evaluated in an entirely different way.
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment that players should be able to do as they wish, when they wish...because I agree with you to an extent. It's just not the way 99% of MMO's are designed. The vast majority of MMO's are loaded with invisible barriers, restrictions and unbalancing factors to the point where after a while they become a point of contention and eventually a joke. Players end up resenting the game they play and wait hopefully for the next game to come along and offer what they wanted in the first place. When games come along that offer substance over grinding to unsatisfying long term goals then perhaps this wish will become reality. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later, but I fear the success of WoW will deter big investors from anything groundbreaking for some time to come.
It's fantastic that Steve knows exactly what he wants in a guild, but I disagree with criticizing the way other guilds choose to operate. As plenty have stated in other words, people play the game with a different goal in mind. Some for raiding, some for alts, some for rp'ing, some for solo, some for group. I've seen people mock a toon who only wanted to play solo and never group - asking him why he played a mmorpg to play solo, when he could play an rpg. Really, was a guy playing solo really affecting the others mocking him?
I don't see raiding guilds affecting casual guilds and vice versa. I previously played in a casual family guild, and now play in a hardcore raiding guild. Both have their pros and cons I find - raiding takes a lot of time, sometimes more than I feel I should have, but I really missed having fun of beating zones in a family guild. But I didn't grumble about hardcore guilds, and don't grumble about casual guilds. Each to their own. There may few a few individual players who choose to mock others, but I don't judge entire guilds on single players. There's a few idiots wherever you go, in game and in real life. And the /ignore function exists in game.
Idea of a guild is generally to find people with the same goals and who enjoy the game the same way. Rather than criticizing other guilds that operate in a way that you don't approve of, why not just move on and find one that does suit you? Or start up your own guild which does have the same ideals?
********************************************************************************** ***4 out of 5 voices in my head agree--I'm ok. It's the fifth one the scares the hell out of me.***
Most companies go out of their way to get feedback from their patrons in order to better serve them. I find it rather odd that so many consumers and developers in the gaming industry are so antagonistic about feedback or criticisms from current or future customers. They are here to make money after all, it would only serve to make them even more money if they would actually pay attention to a large segment of the gaming community that is sick and tired of raiding paradigms.
We are sick and tired of funding game mechanics that discriminate against casual players. EverQuest had more than 2 million people try their game and never kept more than 450,000 of them at any given point. That has got to be the worst customer retention rate of any company throughout the history of business. World of Warcraft and other games out there had better step up and pay attention or it could happen to them too. How likely are companies to continue investing in MMO's if developers continue with this adversarial role with a significant portion of the player base?
If a game is going to advertise itself as being casual friendly, it needs to be casual from beginning to end. This bait and switch game they play with casuals is not good for business. It also does not bode well for the future of the industry. If they're too arrogant to change, they'll never appeal to the mainstream. You know, those people who wouldn't normally play these kinds of games because they have a real life.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
"Most companies go out of their way to get feedback from their patrons in order to better serve them. I find it rather odd that so many consumers and developers in the gaming industry are so antagonistic about feedback or criticisms from current or future customers. They are here to make money after all, it would only serve to make them even more money if they would actually pay attention to a large segment of the gaming community that is sick and tired of raiding paradigms."
Most of this "feedback" is crap, that's why. It's people complaining that they dont want to have to work for anything in the game. This is akin to someone complaining that a game of baseball isnt fun becasue the pitcher is throwing the ball too fast for them and they dont have free time to get good enough at baseball to hit it.
Usually this is the point where someone comes in with their tired diatribe about how "games shouldnt be work" and blah blah blah. Tell that to anyone who has played in league sports or even someone who participates in organized video game tournaments. There is a certain work aspect to ANY hobby. Let me repeat that: ANY HOBBY REQUIRES SOME KIND OF WORK EFFORT PUT INTO IT. The fact that people think MMOs should exclude this rule are bordering on delusional.
Im a musician, that's one of my hobby's. I have to practice regularly to be good enough to write songs and play them with my band. Practice isnt fun, it's work... but it allows me access to the fun part of the hobby.
"We are sick and tired of funding game mechanics that discriminate against casual players."
SO... DONT... KEEP... PAYING... FOR.... THEM...
Nobody is holding a gun to your head.
"EverQuest had more than 2 million people try their game and never kept more than 450,000 of them at any given point. That has got to be the worst customer retention rate of any company throughout the history of business."
Apparently you havent heard of SWG. Everquest was a massive success from a business standpoint so your logic here is inane.
World of Warcraft and other games out there had better step up and pay attention or it could happen to them too. How likely are companies to continue investing in MMO's if developers continue with this adversarial role with a significant portion of the player base?
Because the only game which has a signifigant portion of their fanbase pissing and moaning like this is WoW. There are a few here and there in other games, but most people play EQII or Eve or any other MMO becasue they like the game. People seem to play WoW just to piss and moan about it.
If a game is going to advertise itself as being casual friendly, it needs to be casual from beginning to end. This bait and switch game they play with casuals is not good for business. It also does not bode well for the future of the industry. If they're too arrogant to change, they'll never appeal to the mainstream. You know, those people who wouldn't normally play these kinds of games because they have a real life.
The only MMO that ever advertised itself as "casual friendly" is WoW. I fully agree that they lied. The endgame of WoW is a boring raid grind. Boohoo. Stop paying for it. that's what I did. It takes one visit to their webpage.
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
OH..name calling.
Your opinions mean absolutely nothing once you throw in some name calling mate to most inteligent folks.
Perhaps my wife and kids play with me online? ever think of that? perhaps i go afk often ? Perhaps I am fortunate enough to get alot of time off work ? hmmmmm...see a pattern here mate?
Compare that to what? Todays typical family...mom and dad work 100 hr a week between the two of them so they can afford two expensive cars. Heaven forbid the neighbors have a better car...tools...house...what have ya. I see them all the time. They often look happy....but are burried in debt. ( we are dept free cept the house ..tyvm ) Our online time costs roughly 10 cents an hour. How about we go to a movie? Movies are anti-social..everyone sits in a dark room..they can't see eachother..can't talk..BUT that would be considered socialy acceptable " family time" for many folks. Perhaps veg out on the TV for a few hours...would THAT be quality family time? Seriously...compare what many folks consider quality family time to a family that games online together. Talking, laughing and helping eachother out..every single day! My son is 7 years old and reads at a 6th grade level because I make him do his own quests !! He plays Civilization 3 daily ( Japan is his favorite civ cause he loves the Samuri) and is currently beta testing Vangaurd !! at 7 years old !
So..i repeat
I am 35 years old...I DO have a happy marriage of 8 years now. My teenage daughter is not pregnant nor on drugs. My son gets A's in school and our toddler drinks lots of juice while she sits on my lap and helps me save the world on a daily basis. THAT very well may be the family of the future...I know dozens like that already. I suspect we are much happier and better grounded than many of the " traditional " family units seem to be...buried under thier massive credit card depts as they TRY to APPEAR successful. I know a few of them in my neighborhood where their kids only see thier dads for a few hours on the weekends..and of course " hes always tired ".
Bah...I see no need to defend myself further...your ignorance must be bliss.
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
Just for the record... 30+ hours a week is, what, four or so hours a night. Young children generally go to bed at between 7-9. Older kids don't need a babysitter to entertain them.
Perhaps one should refrain from calling another person a dumb*** until one gains perspective... or a rudimentary knowledge of math.
100% agreed.
I log about that many hours as well. I'm a father of 2, and a happily married husband.
My wife plays too. So about 80% of the time I'm in game, I'm playing *with* her. The other 20% are times when she's in the bath, or she's tired and gone to bed, or she just wants to read or watch tv on the couch, about 10 feet away from me. One of the keys is not putting your computers in an isolated area - ours are part of our living room.
My son is 6 months old. He's asleep by 8:00 for the night. My daughter is 13. If she's not gaming with us, she's in her room watching movies, or in the living room (again, 10' away) doing her homework, or watching the same TV show we are.
But I still play 2-4 hours a night, and 4-6 on weekend days. Some days, I don't play at all. But I can easily hit 30 hours (especially since you can feed an infant a bottle and game at the same time pretty easily if you practice.)You nailed it right on the head mate ! My computer room is in the center of my house...we are a computer gaming family. It's all LAN and we have a blast together !
There is a difference between a hobby or sport vs. a game or entertainment. One requires work and effort to become proficient, the other is there to amuse and "entertain" you. For you people to consistently make comparisons between the two is ludicrous. I stopped supporting MMO's a long time ago, but I'm still interested in the potential this venue of "entertainment" has to offer. I'd like to see it grow beyond the "geek who lives in mom's basement" genre into something that most normal people can actually enjoy. People like us are not interested in paying a company to make us work, we pay them to entertain us. If you want to turn a game into a job, that's your business, but when developing companies buy into this whole "time sink / second job" paradigm, then its the customer's responsibility to say we don't like it and if they want to keep our patronage, they're going to have to change the way they do business.
We're just asking for equal representation, especially considering we constitute a significant portion of the income of every MMO out on the market. When a company like Blizzard advertises a game as casual friendly, then uses the good ole bait and switch and screws people over with a hardcore end game, that is not only bad business, its false advertising.
One other thing, SWG may have been a bigger flop than EQ, but the loss of over 1.5 Million customers is not a business success by any stretch of the imagination. Sure they made money, but they really screwed themselves over when they refused to add any casual content and still continue to this day to stubbornly stick with the very outdated raiding paradigm.
These companies can no longer get away with replacing real content with repeatable raiding ad nauseum. They spend millions of dollars making these games and they still can't hire anyone imaginative enough to think outside of the raiding box? Now that is pathetic.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
"There is a difference between a hobby or sport vs. a game or entertainment. One requires work and effort to become proficient, the other is there to amuse and "entertain" you. For you people to consistently make comparisons between the two is ludicrous. I stopped supporting MMO's a long time ago, but I'm still interested in the potential this venue of "entertainment" has to offer. I'd like to see it grow beyond the "geek who lives in mom's basement" genre into something that most normal people can actually enjoy. People like us are not interested in paying a company to make us work, we pay them to entertain us. If you want to turn a game into a job, that's your business, but when developing companies buy into this whole "time sink / second job" paradigm, then its the customer's responsibility to say we don't like it and if they want to keep our patronage, they're going to have to change the way they do business."
If you dont consider gaming a hobby... then all hope of your ability to understand logic is lost. I still fail to see how sitting around and whining on a message board is convincing these companies to change the business practices that are making them millions.
You want a game with no challenge where everything is just as hard as it has to be for you to pass it. You are a MINORITY and you seem to fail to realize that. The majority of gamers want their game to have some kind of challenge and they dont want to blow through the content in a couple of weeks. Easy games are BORING.
"We're just asking for equal representation, especially considering we constitute a significant portion of the income of every MMO out on the market. When a company like Blizzard advertises a game as casual friendly, then uses the good ole bait and switch and screws people over with a hardcore end game, that is not only bad business, its false advertising."
Equal representation? You want the content to be dumbed down to the point where those currently enjoying it wont like it anymore. You want content that takes no effort to get to. You do NOT constitute a signifigant portion of the income of every MMO. Where do you get these insane delusions? Most people with your insane mindset stick to single player games are just multiplayer games. They dont go invading a genre they OBVIOUSLY DONT LIKE and try to ruin it for everyone else by pissing and moaning on message boards.
One other thing, SWG may have been a bigger flop than EQ, but the loss of over 1.5 Million customers is not a business success by any stretch of the imagination. Sure they made money, but they really screwed themselves over when they refused to add any casual content and still continue to this day to stubbornly stick with the very outdated raiding paradigm.
That's not a loss. They made money on every copy of Everquest sold. If they were losing money on the copies, then that would be a loss. You cant have a business loss if you continue making plenty of money, which they are doing. I dont know what bizarre business school you went to. A retention rate of 25% given how long EQ has been out is a massive and groundbreaking success.
These companies can no longer get away with replacing real content with repeatable raiding ad nauseum. They spend millions of dollars making these games and they still can't hire anyone imaginative enough to think outside of the raiding box? Now that is pathetic.
They cant? WoW has a massive playerbase and that's all their game boils down to.
These games arent failing simply because YOU dont like it. They are doing fine. You seem to be convinced that because you and me dont like raiding, these games are failing. I dont like sports games, and I despise racing games... but Im not screaming about how they are going to fail because they are boring. People buy them. Period. And people are buying MMOs in greater numbers than ever before.
Being a casual player, and very choosey about guilds, I largely agree with the OP. I don't care for pickup groups either. It's why I mostly solo or duo and take my time finding the guild that looks like a good fit for me. He wasn't saying the guild he was referring to wasn't a viable guild, just that those kinds of guild members shouldn't take it personally if you prefer not to join them. To each his/her own.
Comments
This is an article I totally agree with!
Some players who experience the hard core guilds never want to join another because of all the bs. The guilds requiring this, that and the other thing can take the fun out of a game and make it seem like more of a job. Then there is the political side to a guild that really gets to me. You have to go through tons of red tape just to get an outing or something approved. There's too much stress and tension in those guilds.
Most people join a guild so they have people to hang out with and have fun. A casual guild is a lot of fun!
I'm sorry, but if you got anything going on that is going to distract you from your toon during a raid, or anything that MAY come up, then you shouldn't be raiding at that time. When you join a raid, you have to show the other players respect, and not being there 100% is disrespectful. It would be better that you just did something less demanding of your time if you have irl obligations that need to be attended to. Nothing wrong with having those irl responsibilities, but its also time to make some choices and some sacrifices in game. I'm sorry, but if we wipe during a raid cause you had to take care of your kid, you just wasted my time and the time I had planned to do other things..thats simply not acceptable.
Now, I know thats not the topic of the thread, but I just had to say that. I don't think I see what the issue is here...noone is twisting your arm to join a raiding guild. If you don't want to then don't. And please don't complain that you won't get to see the high end content. You can't excel in anything without putting the time and energy into it. Would you really want to visit this high end content if it was so easy to get to that a jury-rigged, slapped-together bunch of strangers could waltz in? No, you want to go there because its tough to get there. Welcome to real life, take a number and wait your turn.
Had to laugh when i read the article. The first respones to your article hit the nail right on the head. In any mmo u are going to find casual and laid back guilds. Dont mock the elitist just becuase they like to get it done in games. To them that is fun having all the end game gear. For me and my clan we arnt into end game raiding we play mmo's for the PvP aspect of the game. But like any sport i ever played growing up and in college i sure as hell dont like to lose. So we will not allow idiots in our clan that cant get it done in the BG or that know there role. What is the point of spending all that time (even casual gamers hit 60 eventually) to just get your ass handed to u in a BG? If your in a good pvp clan u wont. I think that is the good thing about so many diffrent guilds out there. Find one u feel u fit in and stick with em.
D-Boy,
I completely understand where the columnist is coming from with this article. I work a 9 to 5, attend night classes three-to-four nights a week, and have four children. I have a mortgage. I have bills. I have taxes. My wife runs a business on the side, which I do a lot of work for. I've got a friggin' stressful life. I don't want to have to log in and adhere to some strict martial code, probably laid down by someone fifteen years younger than me. I'm a conscientious, good-natured gamer and I play well with others - I don't need the rules to tell me how to behave.
That said, I've also run guilds before - predominantly roleplaying guilds. And I've seen what one or two bad apples can do to the bunch, so I can understand the urge to regulate the applicants (by installing a few hoops to jump through. I guess the idea is to find that fine line and make sure you're either one the right side of it, or at the very least, straddling it.
I don't ever post from work but this just left me gobsmacked.
I want to see the all the areas of the game because I PAY for it. ALL of it. I don't give a dingo's kidney how 'tough' you think it should be to get there, WoW is not a test of 'excelling' , it's an entertainment product. Just scale the bloody instances like they do in COH and allow people to access all portions of the game they're subscribing to. Do I need a group to see the end of a movie? Black Bloody Hell.
Perhaps I should ask for a discount for the percentage of game that is closed to me. OR maybe raiders should be paying extra for all the game content that only they can enjoy, and that has been designed specifically for them. I'd be curious to see what the percentage of the playerbase actually gets to go to these areas. Because they certainly get a lot of attention from the team.
Oh, and WoW is not 'Real Life'. Go outside.
mab
Old and Cranky
Probably all to true.
To me someone who, as you say, wear their "hardcore" tag as a badge of honor is much like a guy walking around with a T-shirt saying "I have the worlds smallest penis", an be proud of it.
Being a hardcore MMO player is not an achievment, those who try to make it look lite as if it is, are generally the hardcore crowd themself by all probability due to a total lack of any other form of achievments in their lifes, ones that actually count for something in the grand scheme of things.
If you are a hardcore fire figther, doctor, stock broker, red cross volunteer etc.. then I will lift my hat to you, if you evaluate your life by how much time you can spend in a virtual world and what you accomplish therein then I and most people will look upon you with pity.
Not saying one can not be a hardcore gamer, each to their own I guess, but taking pride in it is delusional.
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Originally posted by Jerek_
I wonder if you honestly even believe what you type, or if you live in a made up world of facts.
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I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
If you dont like it... DONT JOIN ONE OF THOSE GUILDS!!!
I mean, seriously... what is so complicated about that? I dont join a baseball team because I only like to play baseball with my friends and I dont want to have scheduled practices and games. I joined the track team because I wanted to particpate in organized running...
It isnt exactly a complicated situation.
All these "casual" articles seem to be is "People who dont play exactly like me are losers" over and over again and it's starting to get irritating as it brings the other morons with this mindset out of the woodwork. I hate raiding... so I dont join raiding guilds. My girlfriend loves raiding so she joined a hardcore guild. We dont sit around and piss and moan about how the other one is playing their game wrong.
Also, just because I hate raiding doesnt mean I think we should get rid of it or that I should be able to solo every raid because Im "paying for the game". That's just stupid. The raid content is there for those who wish to raid. Period. If you dont like to do that... dont do it... and dont play games that make you do it. Once again... a very simple concept.
Just because you pay for a game doesnt mean you are entitled to craft it to your wishes and ruin it for those who DO enjoy the content that is there.
There's a name for that.... it's called SWG.
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
Just for the record... 30+ hours a week is, what, four or so hours a night. Young children generally go to bed at between 7-9. Older kids don't need a babysitter to entertain them.
Perhaps one should refrain from calling another person a dumb*** until one gains perspective... or a rudimentary knowledge of math.
mab
Older and Crankier
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
Just for the record... 30+ hours a week is, what, four or so hours a night. Young children generally go to bed at between 7-9. Older kids don't need a babysitter to entertain them.
Perhaps one should refrain from calling another person a dumb*** until one gains perspective... or a rudimentary knowledge of math.
100% agreed.I log about that many hours as well. I'm a father of 2, and a happily married husband.
My wife plays too. So about 80% of the time I'm in game, I'm playing *with* her. The other 20% are times when she's in the bath, or she's tired and gone to bed, or she just wants to read or watch tv on the couch, about 10 feet away from me. One of the keys is not putting your computers in an isolated area - ours are part of our living room.
My son is 6 months old. He's asleep by 8:00 for the night. My daughter is 13. If she's not gaming with us, she's in her room watching movies, or in the living room (again, 10' away) doing her homework, or watching the same TV show we are.
But I still play 2-4 hours a night, and 4-6 on weekend days. Some days, I don't play at all. But I can easily hit 30 hours (especially since you can feed an infant a bottle and game at the same time pretty easily if you practice.)
Who am I?
@Lorechaser on CoH
Badjuju, Splinterhoof, Plainsrunner on WoW (Moonrunner)
Shyy'rissk on SWG (Flurry)
ClockworkSoldier, HE Pierce, Letnev on Planetside
Gyshe, Crucible, Terrakal on DDO
And many more.
I don't ever post from work but this just left me gobsmacked.
I want to see the all the areas of the game because I PAY for it. ALL of it....
No you don't...you pay a token fee for access to a game server. You pay for the fair use of a game, but you don't own it's content. You have the right to do anything within the given boundaries and rules of the game, but you do NOT have the right for it to be given to you on a plate. I'd like to think that a vast majority would agree that achievement without some kind of challenge is shallow, totally meaningless and at the end of the day...pointless.
I barely play any MMO's anymore, to be honest I am sick to death of the current state of the genre, but I have been both a casual (few hrs a week) and a hardcore gamer (18 hrs a day) across a vast array of MMO's. In my opinion, a true casual gamer is not concerned about whether a hardcore gamer wants to spend ridiculous hours inside the game world or whether the hardcore gamer is level 200 while the casual gamer hasn't left newbie village yet. As long as both players can achieve goals and gain new experiences in game, I've never understood why there is any kind of problem for casual players as long as the game ensures this is possible with the bare minimum of grinding.
Some casual players play for social reasons, others just like to play in small chunks at their own pace and of course a lot of people cannot dedicate the amount of time required to reach the higher level content of most MMO's. It's all cool, I'm certainly not knocking anyone's playstyle or situation. However, in my experience a good deal of "casual" gamers have always had a chip on their shoulder that they cannot achieve the same in-game results as someone who is glued to their computer chair, playing ridiculous hours. My opinion is that if you are bothered by hardcore gamers having more in-game assets or levels than you, you are NOT a casual gamer...you have the attitude and mindset of a hardcore gamer with not enough time or motivation on his hands.
Being spoon fed rewards with little to no time or mental investment is never going to appeal to the hardcore players and those who choose not to/are not able to devote the same amount of time as their hardcore peers, dislike the fact that they are not achieving at the same pace relative to the hardcore crowd. The concept that these two groups of people want the same grand rewards but with totally different levels of commitment and challenge is completely incompatible with any kind of game design that I know of. Thus, in recent years game designers have diluted many of the concepts that made the old school MMO's good games and introduced "casual" MMO's.
Most "casual" MMO's now simply give people what they want, with little to no time or skill investment, a great way to create a successful MMO that appeals to the masses, but a completely shite way to make a game with substance and longevity. On the other hand most "hardcore" MMO's offer a similar level of content and substance as the "casual" MMO's just with vastly increased grindfests. Therein lies the problem, grinding and lootbased MMO's, of which both sides are guilty and 99% of the genre is populated.
When MMO's are developed which implement a higher level of thought and human skill into in-game actions it won't matter whether you play 18 hours a day or 3 hours a week, your avatar will be as good as you are and the retarded debate over whether "casual" is better than "hardcore" will finally end.
As for guilds...well there's nearly always a guild for everyone's playstyle, and if you can't find one that's right for you...play solo and build an extensive friends list
Exactly! I want WoW lite. You can pay for access to special areas for bashing Onxyia and getting your sword of uber-peen. I just want to be able to access to what's on my game disks.. I'm not playing the WoWRaid game. I'm playing the core game that I wish developers would spend more time on instead of catering to raiders. EQ had special servers I believe - Blizz should look into it.
Anyway, it's been fun boys, but work's over and I'm signing off. (You don't think I post here on *my* time, do you?)
And they arent paying the 5 man dungeons or high level quest content that YOU are using. Oh, is that a little fact you forgot about? That YOU TOO use content that they dont?I stopped playing WoW, partially because the game was too raid focused. If you dont like it... dont play it.
Scalable content makes getting together with a large group trivial. If someone can do the same thing with a couple of friends... why should anyone bother getting a large group together? You want to ruin the game for everyone else because you dont have the good sense to STOP PLAYING a game that isnt what you like. I dont hear raiders pissing and moaning about the 5 man dungeons they arent going to run or the endgame quests that they wont do.
I don't ever post from work but this just left me gobsmacked.
I want to see the all the areas of the game because I PAY for it. ALL of it....
You have the right to do anything within the given boundaries and rules of the game, but you do NOT have the right for it to be given to you on a plate.
I don't ask for it "on a plate". (see 'Scaleable Instances' above). But even if I did, you don't have jurisdiction over what 'rights' I have to access game content, how much and under what conditions. Geez. What is this 'tougher than thou' stuff. (oh wait... this is a GUY thing isn't it?! )
I never said I had jurisdiction over anything, I don't even play WoW...I'm simply stating a hard fact.
As a consumer you have certain rights given to you by the game owners, none of which include the right to experience all game content if you are not able or willing to invest the time set by inherent game mechanics to experience said content. As far as the "Scaleable Instancing", Instancing by it's very nature takes away a lot of the traditional PvP, conflict, competition and immersion qualities of MMORPG's. Filling a virtual world with instances, scaled or otherwise is a sure way to ruin the MMO aspect almost entirely....it's a pretty clear method for handing things to people on a plate, in my opinion.
Not sure what or why you are talking about any kind of "tougher than thou...GUY thing" doesn't seem at all relevant to be honest.
Some casual players play for social reasons, others just like to play in small chunks at their own pace and of course a lot of people cannot dedicate the amount of time required to reach the higher level content of most MMO's.
Exactly! I want WoW lite. You can pay for access to special areas for bashing Onxyia and getting your sword of uber-peen. I just want to be able to access to what's on my game disks.. I'm not playing the WoWRaid game. I'm playing the core game that I wish developers would spend more time on instead of catering to raiders. EQ had special servers I believe - Blizz should look into it.
Have you ever considered trying out another game, because it's highly unlikely Blizzard will ever introduce the kind of WoW lite servers you'd like to play, anymore than they would introduce 5x XP servers or reduced subs for people who don't want to raid
. It sounds like you are basically disatisfied with WoW because the devs have decided to give it a strong raid bias (basically because this is an easy way to bulk out an item based game with no real substance), and yet you feel like you should be able to experience and access everything you want to, when you want to in game... because you pay a monthly fee and bought the CD's.
I certainly do not mean to patronise you, but that just isn't the way MMO's work...ever. You put in a certain amount of time or manpower, and you get rewarded with items, content, skills or sometimes nothing at all. I'm not saying I like this, but in a material sense that is undoubtedly the way it is. Of course, in a social sense MMO's can be evaluated in an entirely different way.
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiment that players should be able to do as they wish, when they wish...because I agree with you to an extent. It's just not the way 99% of MMO's are designed. The vast majority of MMO's are loaded with invisible barriers, restrictions and unbalancing factors to the point where after a while they become a point of contention and eventually a joke. Players end up resenting the game they play and wait hopefully for the next game to come along and offer what they wanted in the first place. When games come along that offer substance over grinding to unsatisfying long term goals then perhaps this wish will become reality. Hopefully that will happen sooner rather than later, but I fear the success of WoW will deter big investors from anything groundbreaking for some time to come.
I don't see raiding guilds affecting casual guilds and vice versa. I previously played in a casual family guild, and now play in a hardcore raiding guild. Both have their pros and cons I find - raiding takes a lot of time, sometimes more than I feel I should have, but I really missed having fun of beating zones in a family guild. But I didn't grumble about hardcore guilds, and don't grumble about casual guilds. Each to their own. There may few a few individual players who choose to mock others, but I don't judge entire guilds on single players. There's a few idiots wherever you go, in game and in real life. And the /ignore function exists in game.
Idea of a guild is generally to find people with the same goals and who enjoy the game the same way. Rather than criticizing other guilds that operate in a way that you don't approve of, why not just move on and find one that does suit you? Or start up your own guild which does have the same ideals?
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***4 out of 5 voices in my head agree--I'm ok. It's the fifth one the scares the hell out of me.***
Most companies go out of their way to get feedback from their patrons in order to better serve them. I find it rather odd that so many consumers and developers in the gaming industry are so antagonistic about feedback or criticisms from current or future customers. They are here to make money after all, it would only serve to make them even more money if they would actually pay attention to a large segment of the gaming community that is sick and tired of raiding paradigms.
We are sick and tired of funding game mechanics that discriminate against casual players. EverQuest had more than 2 million people try their game and never kept more than 450,000 of them at any given point. That has got to be the worst customer retention rate of any company throughout the history of business. World of Warcraft and other games out there had better step up and pay attention or it could happen to them too. How likely are companies to continue investing in MMO's if developers continue with this adversarial role with a significant portion of the player base?
If a game is going to advertise itself as being casual friendly, it needs to be casual from beginning to end. This bait and switch game they play with casuals is not good for business. It also does not bode well for the future of the industry. If they're too arrogant to change, they'll never appeal to the mainstream. You know, those people who wouldn't normally play these kinds of games because they have a real life.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Most of this "feedback" is crap, that's why. It's people complaining that they dont want to have to work for anything in the game. This is akin to someone complaining that a game of baseball isnt fun becasue the pitcher is throwing the ball too fast for them and they dont have free time to get good enough at baseball to hit it.
Usually this is the point where someone comes in with their tired diatribe about how "games shouldnt be work" and blah blah blah. Tell that to anyone who has played in league sports or even someone who participates in organized video game tournaments. There is a certain work aspect to ANY hobby. Let me repeat that: ANY HOBBY REQUIRES SOME KIND OF WORK EFFORT PUT INTO IT. The fact that people think MMOs should exclude this rule are bordering on delusional.
Im a musician, that's one of my hobby's. I have to practice regularly to be good enough to write songs and play them with my band. Practice isnt fun, it's work... but it allows me access to the fun part of the hobby.
"We are sick and tired of funding game mechanics that discriminate against casual players."
SO... DONT... KEEP... PAYING... FOR.... THEM...
Nobody is holding a gun to your head.
"EverQuest had more than 2 million people try their game and never kept more than 450,000 of them at any given point. That has got to be the worst customer retention rate of any company throughout the history of business."
Apparently you havent heard of SWG. Everquest was a massive success from a business standpoint so your logic here is inane.
World of Warcraft and other games out there had better step up and pay attention or it could happen to them too. How likely are companies to continue investing in MMO's if developers continue with this adversarial role with a significant portion of the player base?
Because the only game which has a signifigant portion of their fanbase pissing and moaning like this is WoW. There are a few here and there in other games, but most people play EQII or Eve or any other MMO becasue they like the game. People seem to play WoW just to piss and moan about it.
If a game is going to advertise itself as being casual friendly, it needs to be casual from beginning to end. This bait and switch game they play with casuals is not good for business. It also does not bode well for the future of the industry. If they're too arrogant to change, they'll never appeal to the mainstream. You know, those people who wouldn't normally play these kinds of games because they have a real life.
The only MMO that ever advertised itself as "casual friendly" is WoW. I fully agree that they lied. The endgame of WoW is a boring raid grind. Boohoo. Stop paying for it. that's what I did. It takes one visit to their webpage.
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
OH..name calling.
Your opinions mean absolutely nothing once you throw in some name calling mate to most inteligent folks.
Perhaps my wife and kids play with me online? ever think of that? perhaps i go afk often ? Perhaps I am fortunate enough to get alot of time off work ? hmmmmm...see a pattern here mate?
Compare that to what? Todays typical family...mom and dad work 100 hr a week between the two of them so they can afford two expensive cars. Heaven forbid the neighbors have a better car...tools...house...what have ya. I see them all the time. They often look happy....but are burried in debt. ( we are dept free cept the house ..tyvm ) Our online time costs roughly 10 cents an hour. How about we go to a movie? Movies are anti-social..everyone sits in a dark room..they can't see eachother..can't talk..BUT that would be considered socialy acceptable " family time" for many folks. Perhaps veg out on the TV for a few hours...would THAT be quality family time? Seriously...compare what many folks consider quality family time to a family that games online together. Talking, laughing and helping eachother out..every single day! My son is 7 years old and reads at a 6th grade level because I make him do his own quests !! He plays Civilization 3 daily ( Japan is his favorite civ cause he loves the Samuri) and is currently beta testing Vangaurd !! at 7 years old !
So..i repeat
I am 35 years old...I DO have a happy marriage of 8 years now. My teenage daughter is not pregnant nor on drugs. My son gets A's in school and our toddler drinks lots of juice while she sits on my lap and helps me save the world on a daily basis. THAT very well may be the family of the future...I know dozens like that already. I suspect we are much happier and better grounded than many of the " traditional " family units seem to be...buried under thier massive credit card depts as they TRY to APPEAR successful. I know a few of them in my neighborhood where their kids only see thier dads for a few hours on the weekends..and of course " hes always tired ".
Bah...I see no need to defend myself further...your ignorance must be bliss.
Log in and spend some time with your family!
I am 35yrs old, a father of 3, have a full time job, have happy marriage, own a house, and consider myself casual even though I play 30+ hours a week and lead a guild with over 100 active members.
This is one of the saddest examples of screwed up priorities I've ever seen. You might want to confirm that "happy marriage" theory if you're leaving your wife alone to take care of those 3 kids every night while you play games 30+ hours a week.
Log off and go see your family dumb***.
Just for the record... 30+ hours a week is, what, four or so hours a night. Young children generally go to bed at between 7-9. Older kids don't need a babysitter to entertain them.
Perhaps one should refrain from calling another person a dumb*** until one gains perspective... or a rudimentary knowledge of math.
100% agreed.I log about that many hours as well. I'm a father of 2, and a happily married husband.
My wife plays too. So about 80% of the time I'm in game, I'm playing *with* her. The other 20% are times when she's in the bath, or she's tired and gone to bed, or she just wants to read or watch tv on the couch, about 10 feet away from me. One of the keys is not putting your computers in an isolated area - ours are part of our living room.
My son is 6 months old. He's asleep by 8:00 for the night. My daughter is 13. If she's not gaming with us, she's in her room watching movies, or in the living room (again, 10' away) doing her homework, or watching the same TV show we are.
But I still play 2-4 hours a night, and 4-6 on weekend days. Some days, I don't play at all. But I can easily hit 30 hours (especially since you can feed an infant a bottle and game at the same time pretty easily if you practice.)You nailed it right on the head mate ! My computer room is in the center of my house...we are a computer gaming family. It's all LAN and we have a blast together !
There is a difference between a hobby or sport vs. a game or entertainment. One requires work and effort to become proficient, the other is there to amuse and "entertain" you. For you people to consistently make comparisons between the two is ludicrous. I stopped supporting MMO's a long time ago, but I'm still interested in the potential this venue of "entertainment" has to offer. I'd like to see it grow beyond the "geek who lives in mom's basement" genre into something that most normal people can actually enjoy. People like us are not interested in paying a company to make us work, we pay them to entertain us. If you want to turn a game into a job, that's your business, but when developing companies buy into this whole "time sink / second job" paradigm, then its the customer's responsibility to say we don't like it and if they want to keep our patronage, they're going to have to change the way they do business.
We're just asking for equal representation, especially considering we constitute a significant portion of the income of every MMO out on the market. When a company like Blizzard advertises a game as casual friendly, then uses the good ole bait and switch and screws people over with a hardcore end game, that is not only bad business, its false advertising.
One other thing, SWG may have been a bigger flop than EQ, but the loss of over 1.5 Million customers is not a business success by any stretch of the imagination. Sure they made money, but they really screwed themselves over when they refused to add any casual content and still continue to this day to stubbornly stick with the very outdated raiding paradigm.
These companies can no longer get away with replacing real content with repeatable raiding ad nauseum. They spend millions of dollars making these games and they still can't hire anyone imaginative enough to think outside of the raiding box? Now that is pathetic.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
If you dont consider gaming a hobby... then all hope of your ability to understand logic is lost. I still fail to see how sitting around and whining on a message board is convincing these companies to change the business practices that are making them millions.
You want a game with no challenge where everything is just as hard as it has to be for you to pass it. You are a MINORITY and you seem to fail to realize that. The majority of gamers want their game to have some kind of challenge and they dont want to blow through the content in a couple of weeks. Easy games are BORING.
"We're just asking for equal representation, especially considering we constitute a significant portion of the income of every MMO out on the market. When a company like Blizzard advertises a game as casual friendly, then uses the good ole bait and switch and screws people over with a hardcore end game, that is not only bad business, its false advertising."
Equal representation? You want the content to be dumbed down to the point where those currently enjoying it wont like it anymore. You want content that takes no effort to get to. You do NOT constitute a signifigant portion of the income of every MMO. Where do you get these insane delusions? Most people with your insane mindset stick to single player games are just multiplayer games. They dont go invading a genre they OBVIOUSLY DONT LIKE and try to ruin it for everyone else by pissing and moaning on message boards.
One other thing, SWG may have been a bigger flop than EQ, but the loss of over 1.5 Million customers is not a business success by any stretch of the imagination. Sure they made money, but they really screwed themselves over when they refused to add any casual content and still continue to this day to stubbornly stick with the very outdated raiding paradigm.
That's not a loss. They made money on every copy of Everquest sold. If they were losing money on the copies, then that would be a loss. You cant have a business loss if you continue making plenty of money, which they are doing. I dont know what bizarre business school you went to. A retention rate of 25% given how long EQ has been out is a massive and groundbreaking success.
These companies can no longer get away with replacing real content with repeatable raiding ad nauseum. They spend millions of dollars making these games and they still can't hire anyone imaginative enough to think outside of the raiding box? Now that is pathetic.
They cant? WoW has a massive playerbase and that's all their game boils down to.
These games arent failing simply because YOU dont like it. They are doing fine. You seem to be convinced that because you and me dont like raiding, these games are failing. I dont like sports games, and I despise racing games... but Im not screaming about how they are going to fail because they are boring. People buy them. Period. And people are buying MMOs in greater numbers than ever before.