I like the points you make, hate the title for this reason: Next time a MMO argument comes up? "God, you're such a MMOO-ER!" You've introduced a sheeple-like word to the MMO community.
I like the points you make, hate the title for this reason: Next time a MMO argument comes up? "God, you're such a MMOO-ER!" You've introduced a sheeple-like word to the MMO community.
At least sheeple rolls off the tongue and sounds pleasant to the ear, though.
I swear upon all that is holy, if anyone I know tries to use MMOO-ER IRL, the last thing they'll ever see is me shoving a keyboard down their trachea.
<YAWN> yep.... that was a pretty good parody of a typical macho-insecure, PKing asshat. Kudos Seriously though, if you really feel this way then you should make your own MMO. Pool your resources, buy an indie license for the Torque engine, download the MMOKit and some stock artwork, rent a server and run it off of donations. What was that? Torque sucks and looks like shit? I don't remember you saying anything about graphics quality.... I thought you were all about challenge. Graphics should take a back seat to challenge, right? What was that? It'll take millions of dollars to make an MMORPG? Pluh-leez!! They've been singing that "death of garage devs" song since 1982 at least! But MMOs require millions of dollars in server upkeep you say?
<Mod edit>
If you don't like what's on the market, make your own or STFU. Really, if PKers make up 10% of all MMORPG players, then a "boutique" game that supports 10,000 players tops will be more than sufficient. Get enough of those small games and you won't have to bitch about not having any games to play anymore...... Wait... Scratch that.... You aren't bitching about no games to play... You're bitching because nobody wants to play your games by your rules.... Well, enjoy your disappointment then.
One of the problems with MMO websites is that they assume MMO players are "gamers". In my experience, many, maybe most, MMO players I have met aren't particularly interested in computer gaming in general and certainly aren't looking for risk or challenge. For the last 8 years I've spent around 40+ hours a week in MMOs, along with my girlfriend. That's quite a lot of time, but mostly it just replaces the time we'd previously spent watching tv in the evenings and scavenging thrift shops, garage sales and markets in a 50 mile radius on weekends. All MMOs represent is a rather more interesting screen to watch and a more comfortable, convenient way to collect curios. Successful MMO gameplay generally replicates other unchallenging interactive activities, such as simple puzzle solving, word-matching, hunting and collecting and so on. It's just something mildly diverting to do while you chat to friends or let your mind wander, like playing cards or pool in the pub or knitting or whittling. If MMOs want to be truly mass-market, they don't need to be "challenging", nor do they need "risk vs reward". They "just" need to be attractive, entertaining, easy to learn and content-rich. They are competing for the same attention as tv, movies, hobbies, YouTube , MySpace and FaceBook, not free-climbing, dirt-biking or writing a PhD thesis.
Back when UO was new I thought it was great Pking .
For me and a lot of others PK is neither Fun nor Challenging, i don't even consider it part of the mmoRPG genre, however...
The people in the game are what really make the game worth playing. Giving players the choice to impact the economy or control an area of the map is also fun.
...THAT i agree with, and THAT is the Challenge that's missing in mmogs. Just tossing in PK is cheap and easy, but adding actual challenging content is difficult, partly because the developer / publisher is only interested in quick profit and partly because few devs can actually create professional content .
Just because you have the title "Designer" on your business card and can write elegant code in C++ and work miracles with Maya and 3DS Max doesn't mean you can Design a game that's worth a damn.Most developers writing mmogs today are just good Technicians. Like a great auto Mechanic they can rebuild an engine blindfolded but they're incapable of designing a Bugati or Excalibur (or whatever your fav car is)
I never saw player looting as a challenge. It is like playing poker for fun and playing it for money, adding money into the equation doesn't make the game any more challenging, it just makes people more competitive.
Like betting in poker, I don't find player looting to be a challenge, the game would still be just as hard/easy without it. It merely adds in a new wager (loot) that people like to exploit, so it may make a game more tense (which I find counterproductive) but it is certainly not harder.
Personally this situation is all risk for me with no reward, I find the practice of looting to be dishonest so I never loot anyone, which of course puts me at a disadvantage to all the thugs and muggers out there, so I am in the situation of everything to lose with nothing to gain. Which is annoying to say the least.
I have yet to play a challenging MMOG, they mostly rely on little player input and common sense tactics. The real lack of percieved challenge, in my opinion, is mainly due to two things. The first, lack of dynamic content and player influence on the world, building and destroying buildings would be a good simple example of this. But this could go as far as to set political policy and alter the future of a country, so to speak.
Second, an issue almost as tired as the hardcore debate itself, is everything is automated, the player takes a very passive role in the game, if MMOGs played more like action or adventure games I think that that would, for me, make the games vastly more interesting and engauging. I would rather fight, craft and everything myself.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
Perhaps I am the only one who sees the trolling nature of this piece?
That the OP is in essence mocking a good 90% of the MMORPG player base in order to get a "rise" out of the 10% of MMORPG gamers that enjoy the "hardcore" game model?
By the way all 10% of those "hardcore" gamers seem to be found on MMORPG.com so I guess the OP is just spinning his writing for his intended audience. I guess mission accomplished then. Objectivity and unbiased review has become subjective and biased staff writing. Awesome.
Apparently you do not understand the nature of editorials. They are meant to get a rise out of people. They are meant to offer opinions to encourage thought and dialogue.
An editorial is supposed to be biased, otherwise it would be called "news".
One of the problems with MMO websites is that they assume MMO players are "gamers". In my experience, many, maybe most, MMO players I have met aren't particularly interested in computer gaming in general and certainly aren't looking for risk or challenge. For the last 8 years I've spent around 40+ hours a week in MMOs, along with my girlfriend. That's quite a lot of time, but mostly it just replaces the time we'd previously spent watching tv in the evenings and scavenging thrift shops, garage sales and markets in a 50 mile radius on weekends. All MMOs represent is a rather more interesting screen to watch and a more comfortable, convenient way to collect curios. Successful MMO gameplay generally replicates other unchallenging interactive activities, such as simple puzzle solving, word-matching, hunting and collecting and so on. It's just something mildly diverting to do while you chat to friends or let your mind wander, like playing cards or pool in the pub or knitting or whittling. If MMOs want to be truly mass-market, they don't need to be "challenging", nor do they need "risk vs reward". They "just" need to be attractive, entertaining, easy to learn and content-rich. They are competing for the same attention as tv, movies, hobbies, YouTube , MySpace and FaceBook, not free-climbing, dirt-biking or writing a PhD thesis.
Thing is although in many parts correct, those 2 points you mentioned are the 2 sides of the spectrum. Thing is mmorpg's share some common features with some of those examples yet they are very different. What they offer is "gaming" entairtment which can be more or less customized so they are able to meet the demands of many customers.
MMO's should not be reduced to a near brainless activity but neither they need to be so harsh to someone that isn't looking for something more than a few hours of fun. A developer with a little planning could accomodate that and please a great deal most of the players by introducing activities for all.
Because let's face it if MMO's become as simplistic as TV, movies and what not why bother a) Keep an up to date PC b) Paying for a connection c) paying monthly fees when all the above are faster/cheaper/easier accesible?
And lastly since you mentioned hobbies, you are aware that some hobbies are more demanding or costly than others and they need the same dedication/time/investment if you are into them? MMO's keep true to that at least as a hobbyist activity. The more you spend as far as time/money on it the best things you can get.
A friend is not him who provides support during your failures.A friend is the one that cheers you during your successes.
The article loses a lot of the intended impact on the fact you fail to mention specific games... generalised rants are pointless. You might as well have made it about it there never being enough milk left in the fridge for a bowl of cereal...
The whole things reads as you simply not being able to appreciate simple systems as anything more than something that is easy-mode. Its rediculous and very short-sighted.
The only section you make a remotely valid point is the "player driven content" section.
The article loses a lot of the intended impact on the fact you fail to mention specific games... generalised rants are pointless. You might as well have made it about it there never being enough milk left in the fridge for a bowl of cereal... The whole things reads as you simply not being able to appreciate simple systems as anything more than something that is easy-mode. Its rediculous and very short-sighted. The only section you make a remotely valid point is the "player driven content" section.
He's talking about WoW. People who like to gank and grief hate WoW. Fortunately the market has already decided this argument. So-called hardcore gamers are a tiny, tiny fraction of the mmorpg player base. The vast majority of us are more interested in having fun than being punished in a game.
Brilliant article haha I need to save this thing off somewhere those of us that wants a challenge need to unite before all the whiney, spolied players out there ruin every last promosing MMO on the horizon
And lastly since you mentioned hobbies, you are aware that some hobbies are more demanding or costly than others and they need the same dedication/time/investment if you are into them? MMO's keep true to that at least as a hobbyist activity. The more you spend as far as time/money on it the best things you can get.
The REALLY BIG problem comparing hobbies to playing an MMO is that whatever you produce through your hobby, you get to keep. It's yours.
The MMO and everything in it - on the other hand - belongs to the company that produces it, so while you may spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours - as I once did - leveling a toon to 50 in CoH, the developers are (and were) completely free to come in and crap all over the time and money I spent on (what I thought) was MY toon. (CoH was my first MMO experience, and it soured me forever on pay-to-play games).
In that sense, hobbies are a lot more rewarding than MMOs, and can be as costly or cheap, time-consuming and/or as challenging as YOU want to make them.
if MMO's become as simplistic as TV, movies and what not why bother a) Keep an up to date PC b) Paying for a connection c) paying monthly fees when all the above are faster/cheaper/easier accesible?
Many, if not most people, use their computers for things other than playing games. That alone is worth the price of keeping them current.
Many, if not most people, use their internet connection for things other than playing MMOs. That alone is worth the price of keeping an IP.
MMOs represent a small fraction of the entertainment industry (I'd contend a small fraction of the gaming community) and MMO players - as a group - represent an infinitesimally small fraction of computer users overall.
The poster to whom you were referring is quite right: if MMO companies want MMOs to have more mass-market appeal, they need to give people a reason to stop watching TV and movies, doing MYspace and crosswords. Until they do, MMO developers will continue to make the same mistakes that keep MMOs niche products, and their customers feeling like "gamer-geeks" for playing them.
How about this for a simple risk vs. reward syetem: You want to play on easy mode, you can. You want to play on hard mode - you get better loot or more xp. Remember Diablo Hardcore mode?
How about this for a simple risk vs. reward syetem: You want to play on easy mode, you can. You want to play on hard mode - you get better loot or more xp. Remember Diablo Hardcore mode?
Most games already do this (at least 2 I know of directly: CoH/V and Guild Wars). It punishes casual players: players who have neither the time nor inclination to spend endless hours raiding, crafting, or doing missions.
This is where - I believe - most of the MMO community falls: under the category "casual". Many of us have families and kids with full-time jobs and/or school. For instance, Arenanet added uber hard mode missions in elite areas at the end of Nightfall. They've since had to take the edge off these areas, in part, because very few people - many of them what I would call "good gamers" were even bothering to go there. And, in part, because those who were going there were spending upwards of 4 or 5 hours on a specific raid! One guy even admitted his team of "uber players" took 9 hours to get through one of these missions!
Where Guild Wars doesn't punish casual players is that while the "skins" of these "elite" items are different, they are spec'd the same as any max damage sword, shield, staff or bow you can get in non-elite areas of the game. Hard mode in GW does reward with more loot, but qualitatively speaking, it's exactly the same as normal mode loot.
Furthermore, hard mode vs. normal mode creates a system of the "haves" vs. the "have nots". Besides punishing casual players for not having the time or wanting to be "l337-speak geeks" it rewards players who do with loot (in other games) that makes these "l337" players better in virtually every way! And then turns them loose on people who can't defend themselves???
Hey, I've got a great game idea! Let's produce an "uberl337" PK game called "club the baby fur seals!" (which is EXACTLY what "l33t" players would do to casual players if given half a chance.) Sound fun to you???
Come to think of it, I'm kinda' starting to tire of the whole "combat MMO" in general. An online game like Sim City might be a lot more fun, if done right.
'I’ll be merciful now and end my little rant. Take this chance and bash out an equally harsh retort on the forums. Keep fighting the good fight and I shall rejoin you in seven days. Farewell!'
From the original article.
The MMOWTF articles have been thin and this article is no different. The author isn't meeting his 'charter' as someone put it. He's begging for folks to come and fight the good fight to maintain the ever more precarious hold on his authorship position.
I'm not saying that some of his points aren't valid but generally speaking (as is the article in all of it's MMO-world defining wisdom) they are old, tired and re-hashed. 'Craptastic' ideas which have hit the floor and are being saved under a '5 Second Rule' versus being placed in the round receptacle of choice.
I loved the article, personally. What I love more is the discussion going on here. We've got people who are insisting this is just flame-bait meant to get everyone up in arms shouting, "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!" (South Park Style)
Likewise, we've got people who insist they've heard this a million times and replied with snarky commentary about how the author should make his own MMO instead of whining. Lemme just point out how retarded you are for thinking that's a superior counter-argument to a f***ing editorial. This site is dedicated to information about MMORPGs and the industry around them, making a few suggestions and pointing out the flaws is part of the Journalists' job here.
Oh, then we've got the insecure MMO players who suddenly feel a need to justify the countless hours they've spent on a game. Nice try, but seriously, it's escapism, if it makes you happy or if it made you forget the troubles tomorrow may bring then it's not a bad thing, even if it's a subpar game.
Everyone else who agreed, well, you should have. It's not sacreligious to dare ask for a better game or even think of the possibilities that could be. All games have flaws, both in gameplay mechanics and community player-interaction, so don't feel like you've become some sort of untouchable for saying, "Hey, the quest system for WoW sucks. They could do so much more with it."
And lastly since you mentioned hobbies, you are aware that some hobbies are more demanding or costly than others and they need the same dedication/time/investment if you are into them? MMO's keep true to that at least as a hobbyist activity. The more you spend as far as time/money on it the best things you can get.
The REALLY BIG problem comparing hobbies to playing an MMO is that whatever you produce through your hobby, you get to keep. It's yours.
The MMO and everything in it - on the other hand - belongs to the company that produces it, so while you may spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours - as I once did - leveling a toon to 50 in CoH, the developers are (and were) completely free to come in and crap all over the time and money I spent on (what I thought) was MY toon. (CoH was my first MMO experience, and it soured me forever on pay-to-play games).
In that sense, hobbies are a lot more rewarding than MMOs, and can be as costly or cheap, time-consuming and/or as challenging as YOU want to make them.
if MMO's become as simplistic as TV, movies and what not why bother a) Keep an up to date PC b) Paying for a connection c) paying monthly fees when all the above are faster/cheaper/easier accesible?
Many, if not most people, use their computers for things other than playing games. That alone is worth the price of keeping them current.
Not really, a person that has a family and doesn't play games doesn't buy the top tier PC with every thing there is on it. If he only uses the PC to make texts or surf a bit the internet when he has time then he spends his major part of his "hobby" budget elsewhere.
Many, if not most people, use their internet connection for things other than playing MMOs. That alone is worth the price of keeping an IP.
MMOs represent a small fraction of the entertainment industry (I'd contend a small fraction of the gaming community) and MMO players - as a group - represent an infinitesimally small fraction of computer users overall.
Was there a statistic about that, that I missed? MMO's and MMO players are not a small part of the of the entairtment community. As for the part of the "computer users", well it may be that someone because he uses Word and Excel to make spreadsheets for his groceries can be a "computer user" that doesn't mean though that he is a possible candidate to make a MMO based on what he does.
The poster to whom you were referring is quite right: if MMO companies want MMOs to have more mass-market appeal, they need to give people a reason to stop watching TV and movies, doing MYspace and crosswords. Until they do, MMO developers will continue to make the same mistakes that keep MMOs niche products, and their customers feeling like "gamer-geeks" for playing them.
Thing is the MMO companies don't have to do anything really. TV and movies are a passive form of entairtment. If the persons that are in to those prefer passive forms of entairtment they won't prefer an MMO which requires a more active, so to speak, approach. Mass market appeal is a tricky concept since usually you have to be aware of the demographic you are going to apply a game.
4
A friend is not him who provides support during your failures.A friend is the one that cheers you during your successes.
I remember a time when text games were awesome and tons of people were into them. As technology advances so does our taste. Risk or reward. I love people to go pking and bring expensive stuff only ot lose them to me someone who has devised a less expensive way to pk but more effecent. The challage for me is straticgy. Bruth force is great but when you combain the two it great.
I for one hate moos they are so repetitive like grinding but once you used up all your turns and what now you can't do anymore.
I truely love a game that will put my name up on the screen as a top player. When i think about it AOA the game i look forward to has a horrible story line but i like it because i can supress other players brutely and strategicly.
Risk vs Reward: I see your point, no permadeath MMO so far although more and more ppl are interested in one
- Emergent Systems: We have it in Guildwars
- Player Driven Content: We have this in Shadowbane
and I mentioned freetoplay games. i could assume that among pay2play are more that have two of the above features
Anyway, I agree that 95% MMO, including most popular, are for dumb people. I myself play some of free2play MMO just to PK those annoying nolife losers without balls. Am I mad?
Playing: Rohan Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
I agree, butI disagree that this is a PvP vs Everyone else as some people have commented. In some MMOs some people like to take the role ofthe people who fill out the rest of the world, not as by standers, but those who specialize in manufacturing, or resoucing, or running a ingame busness like a form of ingame PvE (I guess you could say its Player vs Economy instead of enviroment in this case).
They play games they know there is a riskof being pkd or robbed, and tend to hole up in the safer locations, but they would like to do even more than the current games allow, going from a sandbox economy to a full fledged, minimally GM manged system where players supply nearly all equipment and items ingame and that there be some qualitative way to rate them and take credit for their design and manufacture.
These people don't want esay games they just might not enjoy the kill, die, kill, die, die, die, kill, kill, kill, and die of many PVP only or hightly PvP centric games.
Perhaps I am the only one who sees the trolling nature of this piece?
That the OP is in essence mocking a good 90% of the MMORPG player base in order to get a "rise" out of the 10% of MMORPG gamers that enjoy the "hardcore" game model?
By the way all 10% of those "hardcore" gamers seem to be found on MMORPG.com so I guess the OP is just spinning his writing for his intended audience. I guess mission accomplished then. Objectivity and unbiased review has become subjective and biased staff writing. Awesome.
I think the correct term would be "Perhaps I am the only one who creates the illusion of what isn't there in this piece?"
You are the only one, because no one else wants to see something that isn't there.
No.
Just No.
No to what you said before.
No to what you are saying.
No to what you will say.
No to what you are thinking.
Objectivity? Unbiased review? Subjective? SUBJECTIVE? These are words of someone who wants to sound intelligent........... i.e. A Psuedo-Intellectual
Sorry to be so cynical, but your posts really annoyed me.
Few things annoy me more than pessimistic views on something that would otherwise be a fine piece.
I'm not sure that I would go so far as some of these thread responses have but I'll say this. The VAST magority of the mmo subscriber world is comprised of Carebears. Perhaps 20 percent at the very most are those who would be described as hardcore.
Hello Vangaurd fanbois unite...I thought this discussion would have ended when the idiots who said VSoH would kill WoW and unite everyone under the banner of better gaming...please what a load of crap. It was crap then, it's still crap now.
When the flamers tell me I'm wrong...guess what, it will still be crap then.
One simple rules applies to games. Have fun. If you have fun it doesn't bloody matter how hard or challenging or monotonous the game is to those who do not enjoy it. If you find it fun then bingo it succeeds.
Making a game the appeals to the hardcore mindset fails. It has always failed, and it will continue to fail. The games that have come out over the last 2 years are proof of this. The games coming out show this also to be true. Most of them are copying much of what has PROVEN itself to work simply because the MONEY determines where the games are going, not the loudest opinions of the gaming elitists.
I'm a carebear and my brother and sister carebears outnumber all of you by a stupidly rediculous factor. Keep playing your Archlord and Vanguard games and we'll enjoy our WoW and War and AoC games.
We can meet and shoot each other in Halo 3 when we're not grinding. And when I get bored I'll mindlessly enjoy some DR and walk through town showing off my uber axe of bloodthirsty l337ness.
Perhaps I am the only one who sees the trolling nature of this piece?
That the OP is in essence mocking a good 90% of the MMORPG player base in order to get a "rise" out of the 10% of MMORPG gamers that enjoy the "hardcore" game model?
By the way all 10% of those "hardcore" gamers seem to be found on MMORPG.com so I guess the OP is just spinning his writing for his intended audience. I guess mission accomplished then. Objectivity and unbiased review has become subjective and biased staff writing. Awesome.
I think the correct term would be "Perhaps I am the only one who creates the illusion of what isn't there in this piece?"
You are the only one, because no one else wants to see something that isn't there.
No.
Just No.
No to what you said before.
No to what you are saying.
No to what you will say.
No to what you are thinking.
Objectivity? Unbiased review? Subjective? SUBJECTIVE? These are words of someone who wants to sound intelligent........... i.e. A Pseudo-Intellectual
Sorry to be so cynical, but your posts really annoyed me.
Few things annoy me more than pessimistic views on something that would otherwise be a fine piece.
You're funny. That's all I'm going to see. Don't want to get a ban....
If you can't see the obvious bias of this piece toward the "uber" gamer or the "hardcore" then.. well... you're funny.
I really like the comparison between sheep / cattle being led toward the slaughter and players of MMORPGs like WoW.
I find that offensive. I've been playing MMOs since Pre-Trammel UO, and I like the fact that MMOs are trying to remove pointless time sinks and the griefing/ganking and other immature player behavior that was abundant back in those days.
But, like I said to the forum moderators, this piece was written to cater to a certain audience. The kind of audience that is all too prevalent on this website. And that's fine, what journalist/entertainer doesn't "spin" their work to fit the audience?
However, by creating such an article, I feel that the OP (staff writer) is purposefully "egging on" the WoW/care-bear crowd into a conflict with the "hardcore" crowd on this site. Which, by it's definition, is trolling. But, I've already argued this enough.
Comments
I like the points you make, hate the title for this reason: Next time a MMO argument comes up? "God, you're such a MMOO-ER!" You've introduced a sheeple-like word to the MMO community.
At least sheeple rolls off the tongue and sounds pleasant to the ear, though.
I swear upon all that is holy, if anyone I know tries to use MMOO-ER IRL, the last thing they'll ever see is me shoving a keyboard down their trachea.
<YAWN> yep.... that was a pretty good parody of a typical macho-insecure, PKing asshat. Kudos
Seriously though, if you really feel this way then you should make your own MMO. Pool your resources, buy an indie license for the Torque engine, download the MMOKit and some stock artwork, rent a server and run it off of donations.
What was that? Torque sucks and looks like shit?
I don't remember you saying anything about graphics quality.... I thought you were all about challenge. Graphics should take a back seat to challenge, right?
What was that? It'll take millions of dollars to make an MMORPG?
Pluh-leez!! They've been singing that "death of garage devs" song since 1982 at least!
But MMOs require millions of dollars in server upkeep you say?
<Mod edit>
If you don't like what's on the market, make your own or STFU. Really, if PKers make up 10% of all MMORPG players, then a "boutique" game that supports 10,000 players tops will be more than sufficient. Get enough of those small games and you won't have to bitch about not having any games to play anymore......
Wait... Scratch that.... You aren't bitching about no games to play... You're bitching because nobody wants to play your games by your rules.... Well, enjoy your disappointment then.
This guy speaks the truth.
yeah MMO's should be like porn.. entertaining with an easy to follow plot
For me and a lot of others PK is neither Fun nor Challenging, i don't even consider it part of the mmoRPG genre, however...
The people in the game are what really make the game worth playing. Giving players the choice to impact the economy or control an area of the map is also fun.
...THAT i agree with, and THAT is the Challenge that's missing in mmogs. Just tossing in PK is cheap and easy, but adding actual challenging content is difficult, partly because the developer / publisher is only interested in quick profit and partly because few devs can actually create professional content .
Just because you have the title "Designer" on your business card and can write elegant code in C++ and work miracles with Maya and 3DS Max doesn't mean you can Design a game that's worth a damn. Most developers writing mmogs today are just good Technicians. Like a great auto Mechanic they can rebuild an engine blindfolded but they're incapable of designing a Bugati or Excalibur (or whatever your fav car is)
I never saw player looting as a challenge. It is like playing poker for fun and playing it for money, adding money into the equation doesn't make the game any more challenging, it just makes people more competitive.
Like betting in poker, I don't find player looting to be a challenge, the game would still be just as hard/easy without it. It merely adds in a new wager (loot) that people like to exploit, so it may make a game more tense (which I find counterproductive) but it is certainly not harder.
Personally this situation is all risk for me with no reward, I find the practice of looting to be dishonest so I never loot anyone, which of course puts me at a disadvantage to all the thugs and muggers out there, so I am in the situation of everything to lose with nothing to gain. Which is annoying to say the least.
I have yet to play a challenging MMOG, they mostly rely on little player input and common sense tactics. The real lack of percieved challenge, in my opinion, is mainly due to two things. The first, lack of dynamic content and player influence on the world, building and destroying buildings would be a good simple example of this. But this could go as far as to set political policy and alter the future of a country, so to speak.
Second, an issue almost as tired as the hardcore debate itself, is everything is automated, the player takes a very passive role in the game, if MMOGs played more like action or adventure games I think that that would, for me, make the games vastly more interesting and engauging. I would rather fight, craft and everything myself.
Don't you worry little buddy. You're dealing with a man of honor. However, honor requires a higher percentage of profit
An editorial is supposed to be biased, otherwise it would be called "news".
Thing is although in many parts correct, those 2 points you mentioned are the 2 sides of the spectrum. Thing is mmorpg's share some common features with some of those examples yet they are very different. What they offer is "gaming" entairtment which can be more or less customized so they are able to meet the demands of many customers.
MMO's should not be reduced to a near brainless activity but neither they need to be so harsh to someone that isn't looking for something more than a few hours of fun. A developer with a little planning could accomodate that and please a great deal most of the players by introducing activities for all.
Because let's face it if MMO's become as simplistic as TV, movies and what not why bother a) Keep an up to date PC b) Paying for a connection c) paying monthly fees when all the above are faster/cheaper/easier accesible?
And lastly since you mentioned hobbies, you are aware that some hobbies are more demanding or costly than others and they need the same dedication/time/investment if you are into them? MMO's keep true to that at least as a hobbyist activity. The more you spend as far as time/money on it the best things you can get.
A friend is not him who provides support during your failures.A friend is the one that cheers you during your successes.
The article loses a lot of the intended impact on the fact you fail to mention specific games... generalised rants are pointless. You might as well have made it about it there never being enough milk left in the fridge for a bowl of cereal...
The whole things reads as you simply not being able to appreciate simple systems as anything more than something that is easy-mode. Its rediculous and very short-sighted.
The only section you make a remotely valid point is the "player driven content" section.
Pssh, having fun is so overrated.
Brilliant article haha I need to save this thing off somewhere those of us that wants a challenge need to unite before all the whiney, spolied players out there ruin every last promosing MMO on the horizon
The REALLY BIG problem comparing hobbies to playing an MMO is that whatever you produce through your hobby, you get to keep. It's yours.
The MMO and everything in it - on the other hand - belongs to the company that produces it, so while you may spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours - as I once did - leveling a toon to 50 in CoH, the developers are (and were) completely free to come in and crap all over the time and money I spent on (what I thought) was MY toon. (CoH was my first MMO experience, and it soured me forever on pay-to-play games).
In that sense, hobbies are a lot more rewarding than MMOs, and can be as costly or cheap, time-consuming and/or as challenging as YOU want to make them.
Many, if not most people, use their computers for things other than playing games. That alone is worth the price of keeping them current.
Many, if not most people, use their internet connection for things other than playing MMOs. That alone is worth the price of keeping an IP.
MMOs represent a small fraction of the entertainment industry (I'd contend a small fraction of the gaming community) and MMO players - as a group - represent an infinitesimally small fraction of computer users overall.
The poster to whom you were referring is quite right: if MMO companies want MMOs to have more mass-market appeal, they need to give people a reason to stop watching TV and movies, doing MYspace and crosswords. Until they do, MMO developers will continue to make the same mistakes that keep MMOs niche products, and their customers feeling like "gamer-geeks" for playing them.
How about this for a simple risk vs. reward syetem: You want to play on easy mode, you can. You want to play on hard mode - you get better loot or more xp. Remember Diablo Hardcore mode?
Most games already do this (at least 2 I know of directly: CoH/V and Guild Wars). It punishes casual players: players who have neither the time nor inclination to spend endless hours raiding, crafting, or doing missions.
This is where - I believe - most of the MMO community falls: under the category "casual". Many of us have families and kids with full-time jobs and/or school. For instance, Arenanet added uber hard mode missions in elite areas at the end of Nightfall. They've since had to take the edge off these areas, in part, because very few people - many of them what I would call "good gamers" were even bothering to go there. And, in part, because those who were going there were spending upwards of 4 or 5 hours on a specific raid! One guy even admitted his team of "uber players" took 9 hours to get through one of these missions!
Where Guild Wars doesn't punish casual players is that while the "skins" of these "elite" items are different, they are spec'd the same as any max damage sword, shield, staff or bow you can get in non-elite areas of the game. Hard mode in GW does reward with more loot, but qualitatively speaking, it's exactly the same as normal mode loot.
Furthermore, hard mode vs. normal mode creates a system of the "haves" vs. the "have nots". Besides punishing casual players for not having the time or wanting to be "l337-speak geeks" it rewards players who do with loot (in other games) that makes these "l337" players better in virtually every way! And then turns them loose on people who can't defend themselves???
Hey, I've got a great game idea! Let's produce an "uberl337" PK game called "club the baby fur seals!" (which is EXACTLY what "l33t" players would do to casual players if given half a chance.) Sound fun to you???
Come to think of it, I'm kinda' starting to tire of the whole "combat MMO" in general. An online game like Sim City might be a lot more fun, if done right.
'I’ll be merciful now and end my little rant. Take this chance and bash out an equally harsh retort on the forums. Keep fighting the good fight and I shall rejoin you in seven days. Farewell!'
From the original article.
The MMOWTF articles have been thin and this article is no different. The author isn't meeting his 'charter' as someone put it. He's begging for folks to come and fight the good fight to maintain the ever more precarious hold on his authorship position.
I'm not saying that some of his points aren't valid but generally speaking (as is the article in all of it's MMO-world defining wisdom) they are old, tired and re-hashed. 'Craptastic' ideas which have hit the floor and are being saved under a '5 Second Rule' versus being placed in the round receptacle of choice.
I loved the article, personally. What I love more is the discussion going on here. We've got people who are insisting this is just flame-bait meant to get everyone up in arms shouting, "RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE!" (South Park Style)
Likewise, we've got people who insist they've heard this a million times and replied with snarky commentary about how the author should make his own MMO instead of whining. Lemme just point out how retarded you are for thinking that's a superior counter-argument to a f***ing editorial. This site is dedicated to information about MMORPGs and the industry around them, making a few suggestions and pointing out the flaws is part of the Journalists' job here.
Oh, then we've got the insecure MMO players who suddenly feel a need to justify the countless hours they've spent on a game. Nice try, but seriously, it's escapism, if it makes you happy or if it made you forget the troubles tomorrow may bring then it's not a bad thing, even if it's a subpar game.
Everyone else who agreed, well, you should have. It's not sacreligious to dare ask for a better game or even think of the possibilities that could be. All games have flaws, both in gameplay mechanics and community player-interaction, so don't feel like you've become some sort of untouchable for saying, "Hey, the quest system for WoW sucks. They could do so much more with it."
The REALLY BIG problem comparing hobbies to playing an MMO is that whatever you produce through your hobby, you get to keep. It's yours.
The MMO and everything in it - on the other hand - belongs to the company that produces it, so while you may spend hundreds of dollars and hundreds of hours - as I once did - leveling a toon to 50 in CoH, the developers are (and were) completely free to come in and crap all over the time and money I spent on (what I thought) was MY toon. (CoH was my first MMO experience, and it soured me forever on pay-to-play games).
In that sense, hobbies are a lot more rewarding than MMOs, and can be as costly or cheap, time-consuming and/or as challenging as YOU want to make them.
Many, if not most people, use their computers for things other than playing games. That alone is worth the price of keeping them current.
Not really, a person that has a family and doesn't play games doesn't buy the top tier PC with every thing there is on it. If he only uses the PC to make texts or surf a bit the internet when he has time then he spends his major part of his "hobby" budget elsewhere.
Many, if not most people, use their internet connection for things other than playing MMOs. That alone is worth the price of keeping an IP.
MMOs represent a small fraction of the entertainment industry (I'd contend a small fraction of the gaming community) and MMO players - as a group - represent an infinitesimally small fraction of computer users overall.
Was there a statistic about that, that I missed? MMO's and MMO players are not a small part of the of the entairtment community. As for the part of the "computer users", well it may be that someone because he uses Word and Excel to make spreadsheets for his groceries can be a "computer user" that doesn't mean though that he is a possible candidate to make a MMO based on what he does.
The poster to whom you were referring is quite right: if MMO companies want MMOs to have more mass-market appeal, they need to give people a reason to stop watching TV and movies, doing MYspace and crosswords. Until they do, MMO developers will continue to make the same mistakes that keep MMOs niche products, and their customers feeling like "gamer-geeks" for playing them.
Thing is the MMO companies don't have to do anything really. TV and movies are a passive form of entairtment. If the persons that are in to those prefer passive forms of entairtment they won't prefer an MMO which requires a more active, so to speak, approach. Mass market appeal is a tricky concept since usually you have to be aware of the demographic you are going to apply a game.
4
A friend is not him who provides support during your failures.A friend is the one that cheers you during your successes.
I remember a time when text games were awesome and tons of people were into them. As technology advances so does our taste. Risk or reward. I love people to go pking and bring expensive stuff only ot lose them to me someone who has devised a less expensive way to pk but more effecent. The challage for me is straticgy. Bruth force is great but when you combain the two it great.
I for one hate moos they are so repetitive like grinding but once you used up all your turns and what now you can't do anymore.
I truely love a game that will put my name up on the screen as a top player. When i think about it AOA the game i look forward to has a horrible story line but i like it because i can supress other players brutely and strategicly.
Risk vs Reward: I see your point, no permadeath MMO so far although more and more ppl are interested in one
- Emergent Systems: We have it in Guildwars
- Player Driven Content: We have this in Shadowbane
and I mentioned freetoplay games. i could assume that among pay2play are more that have two of the above features
Anyway, I agree that 95% MMO, including most popular, are for dumb people. I myself play some of free2play MMO just to PK those annoying nolife losers without balls. Am I mad?
Playing: Rohan
Played (from best to worst): Shadowbane, Guild Wars, Shayia, Age of Conan, Warhammer, Runes of Magic, Rappelz, Archlord, Knight online, King of Kings, Kal online, Last chaos
I agree, butI disagree that this is a PvP vs Everyone else as some people have commented. In some MMOs some people like to take the role ofthe people who fill out the rest of the world, not as by standers, but those who specialize in manufacturing, or resoucing, or running a ingame busness like a form of ingame PvE (I guess you could say its Player vs Economy instead of enviroment in this case).
They play games they know there is a riskof being pkd or robbed, and tend to hole up in the safer locations, but they would like to do even more than the current games allow, going from a sandbox economy to a full fledged, minimally GM manged system where players supply nearly all equipment and items ingame and that there be some qualitative way to rate them and take credit for their design and manufacture.
These people don't want esay games they just might not enjoy the kill, die, kill, die, die, die, kill, kill, kill, and die of many PVP only or hightly PvP centric games.
I think the correct term would be "Perhaps I am the only one who creates the illusion of what isn't there in this piece?"
You are the only one, because no one else wants to see something that isn't there.
No.
Just No.
No to what you said before.
No to what you are saying.
No to what you will say.
No to what you are thinking.
Objectivity? Unbiased review? Subjective? SUBJECTIVE? These are words of someone who wants to sound intelligent........... i.e. A Psuedo-Intellectual
Sorry to be so cynical, but your posts really annoyed me.
Few things annoy me more than pessimistic views on something that would otherwise be a fine piece.
I'm not sure that I would go so far as some of these thread responses have but I'll say this. The VAST magority of the mmo subscriber world is comprised of Carebears. Perhaps 20 percent at the very most are those who would be described as hardcore.
Hello Vangaurd fanbois unite...I thought this discussion would have ended when the idiots who said VSoH would kill WoW and unite everyone under the banner of better gaming...please what a load of crap. It was crap then, it's still crap now.
When the flamers tell me I'm wrong...guess what, it will still be crap then.
One simple rules applies to games. Have fun. If you have fun it doesn't bloody matter how hard or challenging or monotonous the game is to those who do not enjoy it. If you find it fun then bingo it succeeds.
Making a game the appeals to the hardcore mindset fails. It has always failed, and it will continue to fail. The games that have come out over the last 2 years are proof of this. The games coming out show this also to be true. Most of them are copying much of what has PROVEN itself to work simply because the MONEY determines where the games are going, not the loudest opinions of the gaming elitists.
I'm a carebear and my brother and sister carebears outnumber all of you by a stupidly rediculous factor. Keep playing your Archlord and Vanguard games and we'll enjoy our WoW and War and AoC games.
We can meet and shoot each other in Halo 3 when we're not grinding. And when I get bored I'll mindlessly enjoy some DR and walk through town showing off my uber axe of bloodthirsty l337ness.
I think the correct term would be "Perhaps I am the only one who creates the illusion of what isn't there in this piece?"
You are the only one, because no one else wants to see something that isn't there.
No.
Just No.
No to what you said before.
No to what you are saying.
No to what you will say.
No to what you are thinking.
Objectivity? Unbiased review? Subjective? SUBJECTIVE? These are words of someone who wants to sound intelligent........... i.e. A Pseudo-Intellectual
Sorry to be so cynical, but your posts really annoyed me.
Few things annoy me more than pessimistic views on something that would otherwise be a fine piece.
You're funny. That's all I'm going to see. Don't want to get a ban....
If you can't see the obvious bias of this piece toward the "uber" gamer or the "hardcore" then.. well... you're funny.
I really like the comparison between sheep / cattle being led toward the slaughter and players of MMORPGs like WoW.
I find that offensive. I've been playing MMOs since Pre-Trammel UO, and I like the fact that MMOs are trying to remove pointless time sinks and the griefing/ganking and other immature player behavior that was abundant back in those days.
But, like I said to the forum moderators, this piece was written to cater to a certain audience. The kind of audience that is all too prevalent on this website. And that's fine, what journalist/entertainer doesn't "spin" their work to fit the audience?
However, by creating such an article, I feel that the OP (staff writer) is purposefully "egging on" the WoW/care-bear crowd into a conflict with the "hardcore" crowd on this site. Which, by it's definition, is trolling. But, I've already argued this enough.
Enjoy the "debate."
Before you mock me, think.