The few true casual gamers that play WoW, although they have less time in their hand, they still need to go through the same "end game" as the others, Raiding, BG grinding and Arena.
The only difference is they will take longer to achieve the same results as the hardcore ones.
Of course, it is well known that it takes a couple of months to level from 1 to 70, but that is the only true casual element in the entire game.
Everything else is designed for hardcore gamers.
It takes months of raiding in order to get the best PvE gear and some more months of BG+Arena to get the best PvP gear.
And before this you need to spend months grinding instances for gear in order to even get the chance to take part in raids.
My theory has been reinforced by the WoW Game Director Jeffrey Kaplan who recently said about MMOs: "The secret of success is to tailor a game both for the hardcore player and making it accessible to a broad audiance"
If you think about it, WoW does exactly what he says.
From 1 to 70 is a fairly casual game, you can solo easily by just doing only solo quest and nothing else.
Of course if you want better equipment you have to group and do dungeons but that is not necessary for the sake of leveling.
Once you reach 70 though, the game change completely nature.
The end game of WoW is tailored expressively for hardcore players.
Everything take long to achieve and it is not easy either.
What recent games are doing is coping WoW only for the first part, which means the fast leveling.
But when you reach the end game of those games, there is nothing really that keeps your interest, since you got already everything you needed from the game, because they are easy to play and you can achieve everything really fast.
WAR, AoC created ultra easy games, and they managed to keep good number of subs for few weeks only, before people grew tired of it.
EQ2 and SWG have been transformed in "casual" games with worse results than before.
SWTOR looks going the same ultra-casual direction (I might be wrong, but that's the feeling i get from interviews all over the net).
Is it possible that Blizzard is the only developer which understood that the MMORPGs need to retain a certain hardcore element in it in order to keep players hooked to a game?
OK, I agree with most of what you say, up until the end. Wow is exactly as you've described it, casual until the max level, and then it's raid, pvp or give up.
But, when you said that MMO's need to retain a hardcore element to keep players hooked is where I disagree. In fact, after 4 years of Wow, off and on, it is solely because of the hardcore element that I left. Don't get me wrong, let the hardcore raiders have their 10/25 man dungeons, and scripted boss encounters where if (god forbid) one person makes one error during a 10 minute fight, it's a wipe.
Wow, which let me advance my character in abilities, stats and gear all the way up to the top level without forcing me to solo or pvp, then does a bait and switch and requires me to play in a complete different manner in order to continue to advance.
All I'm asking is: 'Give me a way to advance my character at max level in a meaningful way without forcing me to group or pvp, just like the game did all way up to the max level'.
City of Heroes does this nicely, and I've been subbed to them since day 1. I tried LOTRO when it came out, but increasing amounts of 'elite' mobs and forced grouping chased me away, the same way many MMOs do.
If a game wants to focus on forced grouping, fine. But FFS, don't bait and switch me at endgame, make the whole game like that.
Comments
OK, I agree with most of what you say, up until the end. Wow is exactly as you've described it, casual until the max level, and then it's raid, pvp or give up.
But, when you said that MMO's need to retain a hardcore element to keep players hooked is where I disagree. In fact, after 4 years of Wow, off and on, it is solely because of the hardcore element that I left. Don't get me wrong, let the hardcore raiders have their 10/25 man dungeons, and scripted boss encounters where if (god forbid) one person makes one error during a 10 minute fight, it's a wipe.
Wow, which let me advance my character in abilities, stats and gear all the way up to the top level without forcing me to solo or pvp, then does a bait and switch and requires me to play in a complete different manner in order to continue to advance.
All I'm asking is: 'Give me a way to advance my character at max level in a meaningful way without forcing me to group or pvp, just like the game did all way up to the max level'.
City of Heroes does this nicely, and I've been subbed to them since day 1. I tried LOTRO when it came out, but increasing amounts of 'elite' mobs and forced grouping chased me away, the same way many MMOs do.
If a game wants to focus on forced grouping, fine. But FFS, don't bait and switch me at endgame, make the whole game like that.