The answer to what's your goal in Eve is, To make ISK. Thats it. Saying, I'll go mine today, or craft today, or PvP today, of kill pirates or rats today is just another way of making ISK. I can do similar things in WOW each time I log in, so constantly changing goals in Eve is NOTHING unique. I had constantly changing goals in WOW when I played.
Do I go collect flowers or mine some Ore to craft something or sell on the AH, or give to my guildy so he can go craft something?
Do I do a dungeon?
Do I just solo?
DO I do a quest?
DO I go to Wintergrasp?
Do I go to the arena?
Do I hit a battleground?
DO I gather some reputation with a faction?
DO I want to just go kill some Alliance just for the hell of it?
Do I want to collect another pet or a mount?
Do I want complete another acheivement?
DO I level up another character without paying another monthly fee?
Do I redesign the guild tabard?
As you can see, I have LOADS of choices in WOW. How am I forced down a path? PLEASE explain=)
You are forced down one path with all of those choices:
Do I grind, or logout?
So in Eve, do I try to earn ISK or logout? My bad, I can logout and train skills, tee hee=) But seriously, explain what you can do in Eve without earning the ISK to do it first? You can't PLAY without it since if you run out, you have to start from scratch!! If playing WOW is a grind according to you, how is earning ISK not the same thing? C'mon, lets hear it without just claiming, "Nya, nya, because I say it is!!" LOGICAL intelligent, civil answers is all I need.
The end result in WoW progression wise is gear, so how is WoW anymore superior?
That's a pretty simple answer, really.
The "goal" of gear progression may not change, but WoW offers more routes to that goal and caters to more different playstyles than most other MMOs on the market.
And people do like variety.
The person it was in response to claimed that all of the aspects of gameplay in Eve are all towards to end goal of making isk.
Which is why I responded that WoW's main end goal is for gear, because that is what people are aiming for when they play.
I'm not debating whether or not there are multiple routes towards the 'end goal'. I'm simply disagreeing with the other posters attempt to claim Eve's relevant gamepaly choices as being irrelevant because they are only towards one end goal, and then tout WoW's choices as being superior. Simply, WoW isn't any more diverse in it's "end driving goal" as Eve is, so it's hardly superior to Eve in that respect.
Ah, seems I misread. Apologies.
Yeah, I'd agree with your logic. WoW is all about the end-game and the gear grind.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
The end result in WoW progression wise is gear, so how is WoW anymore superior?
That's a pretty simple answer, really.
The "goal" of gear progression may not change, but WoW offers more routes to that goal and caters to more different playstyles than most other MMOs on the market.
And people do like variety.
No it doesn't. You can get Raid Gear or PVP Gear. They aren't the same thing and can't be used in the same way.
You can get crafted gear too.... but that's just a stepping stone to get Raid gear.
"Variety" means multiple things. If you want to PVE you can Raid, if you want to PVP you PVP. That's only one route to get to each goal.
There's more than one type of PVE and PVP.
PVE: Solo, 5 man, 10 man, 25 man.
PvP: World, Wintergrasp, Battlegrounds, Arena.
Can't argue with crafting; WoW pretty much sucks at that.
Have you had an 80 before? Cause, I've had like 4. Solo isn't going to get you crap. Heroics won't get you much. 10mans are barely worth it and 25mans is the only way to get the best gear.
You did throw me for a loop on the BGs and Arenas though. The Arena gear is better, but over my entire WoW career I accumulated a total of 0 Arena Tokens (or w/e they are called). lol
Originally posted by Josher So in Eve, do I try to earn ISK or logout? My bad, I can logout and train skills, tee hee=) But seriously, explain what you can do in Eve without earning the ISK to do it first? You can't PLAY without it since if you run out, you have to start from scratch!! If playing WOW is a grind according to you, how is earning ISK not the same thing? C'mon, lets hear it without just claiming, "Nya, nya, because I say it is!!" LOGICAL intelligent, civil answers is all I need.
How is WoW anymore superior to Eve in the 'reason' to play the game?
WoW's purpose is to grind for gear.
Eve's is to grind for isk.
Gear in WoW lets you... grind for more gear.
Isk in Eve lets you grind for more isk.
The main advantage Eve has though, is that at least your isk doesn't suddenly become devalued when the next patch with new content and better gear comes along.
If you want to PvE, you can go to dungeons, or do daily quests, or simply play the auction house and buy your gear. You must have stopped playing a while ago, because you can get high quality raid gear simply by doing 5 man dungeons if you want. You may grind for it, or do a couple dungeons a day, your choice. Or you can make enough gold to buy the high level craftables out of the dungeons and never worry about raiding.
PvP gear is the same way, you can buy most of it with emblems from 5 mans, unless you want the very best, highest quality gear. But that is a choice you can make.
Stopped right after 3.2. Nothing to do with 3.2.
You could get decent gear from doing dungeons. The Tier 9 was worse than some of the gear you could pull from Naxx, 9.5 wasn't much ahead of Uldar. ToC introduced some decent craftables, but you still had to raid for the mats or buy gold from goldsellers to buy the mats.... because a belt cost 4200g in orbs.
The point of a gear grind is to get the highest quality gear you can get. There is only 1 route to that. PVP or Raid, depending on the gear.
But, you are single minded in what you are saying -- you will see no alternative. Let me ask -- why are you obligated to bother with having the best gear? Why is it you feel that the only goal is to have the best gear all the time?
Also, there wasn't a single piece of t9 that was worse than Naxx gear.
You didn't have to raid for mats or buy gold from goldsellers. I don't know, you could do daily quests, or farm herbs/ore to sell, or play the AH for gems/glyphs/flasks, or fish for food to sell. I had over 40K gold when I left, they made it so easy to get. I even started a Paladin, from level 1-62 I earned over 3k selling ore and leather and any green items I didn't need. You could also, get orbs by running dungeons for emblems and buying them.
They also give you the choice of 10 and 25 man dungeons so you don't need a huge commitment to get gear.
But again, why do you feel that the only thing to do is to earn gear? Why didn't you bother trying to make the game more fun for yourself? You could have easily role played if you wanted to, but you decided not to.
Originally posted by TheHatter Have you had an 80 before? Cause, I've had like 4. Solo isn't going to get you crap. Heroics won't get you much. 10mans are barely worth it and 25mans is the only way to get the best gear. You did throw me for a loop on the BGs and Arenas though. The Arena gear is better, but over my entire WoW career I accumulated a total of 0 Arena Tokens (or w/e they are called). lol
I have 13. I'm a serial alt-o-holic.
But when did we stray into the realm of "best gear" .. ? .. that's never been my focus. I've never cared about not being able get the "best" gear; I'm just happy to have achievable goals within my reach and obtainable in the way I like to play the game.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Originally posted by TheDarzin But again, why do you feel that the only thing to do is to earn gear? Why didn't you bother trying to make the game more fun for yourself? You could have easily role played if you wanted to, but you decided not to.
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious.
In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose.
And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as 'content' the game offers.
An alternate theory: Blizzard could be making a themepark inside a sandbox. Doesn't have to be such a black and white choice between the two.
This is one of the best opinions I've been privy to in a while on this subject because I for one could care less if my particular game of choice pulls in WOW numbers and I in fact like quest based games much more than I prefer the "sandbox" games that are offered up to me at this time. I'm not big on pvp and are faced with enough "choices" in my day to day life to not want to be bothered with being forced to find something to do in a video game which is what many posts like ops' suggest. It's one thing to want freedom but many of you seem to blame the fact that quests and other content is really a bad thing.
I for one have played many theme park games and don't feel the restrictions that others seem to feel the genre is plagued with. I have characters that craft who have rarely if ever been in battle I have other toons that have fought but have spent much more time in parties and other RP events than exploring dungeons.
Again I'm not against sandboxes that design element is very desirable to me but what I do think is it is short sighted for we as a community to push for the abolishment of something that works for no real reason. In my opinion if DF offered half the themepark content that WOW does in addition to what it already has in game (which is not much) they would only be better off.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
But again, why do you feel that the only thing to do is to earn gear? Why didn't you bother trying to make the game more fun for yourself? You could have easily role played if you wanted to, but you decided not to.
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious.
In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose.
And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as a 'content' the game offers.
Didn't pass roleplaying off as content, so you must have missed the point. I was simply stating that if you play a mmoRPG, and choose to make it a gear grind, then that is your choice. Second, gear doesn't prevent you from participating in end game content. Perhaps 25 man, but certainly not 10 man.
Again, gear is what you make of it. You could find a guild doing 10 mans that will take you, it is the person that plays the game that decides his or her goals. YOU WANT TO PLAY END GAME. Some people don't care either way. Some people play to have fun, or do 5 mans, or run 10 mans. Not everyone wants to be the best.
You can say Eve has many options all leading to Isk making and I could say WoW has options all leading to Item gathering.
It's a useless argument that will make the thread 10 pages long and its completely off topic. Make your own god damn thread if you want a eve vs wow discussion.
True, and both games have all sorts of different ways to go about getting items(WOW) or making ISK(Eve). Neither is any more a grind than the other if you're enjoying it. Saying one is a grind but the other isn't is just hypocritical. Saying one is linear and other isn't is also hypocritical. Saying one game has choices and the other doesn't is just ignorant. WOW certainly doesn't have LESS choices in how you want to play than Eve does and thats the whole point. If a sandbox is just giving you lots of things to do, WOW certainly gives you lots to do. I certainly wouldn't call WOW a sandbox, but it has sandbox elements wrapped in a themepark. When you really break it down, its quite obvious. So its not so useless to discuss it=)
Blizzard's next game will still be a themepark because thats REALLY what most people want. We all know it. But it will have more and more sandboxy elements to it that allow players to create or have an impact. What it won't do is allow players to seriously ruin other player's enjoyment like UO, DF or Eve allows. And please don't say the ability to piss someone off is what makes a MMO a sandbox, because if thats the case, its no wonder most people don't get into them=) But for whatever reason every game that is considered a sandbox has lots of ways to piss people off.
Originally posted by TheDarzin Originally posted by Ceridith
Originally posted by TheDarzin But again, why do you feel that the only thing to do is to earn gear? Why didn't you bother trying to make the game more fun for yourself? You could have easily role played if you wanted to, but you decided not to.
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious. In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose. And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as a 'content' the game offers. Didn't pass roleplaying off as content, so you must have missed the point. I was simply stating that if you play a mmoRPG, and choose to make it a gear grind, then that is your choice. Second, gear doesn't prevent you from participating in end game content. Perhaps 25 man, but certainly not 10 man. Again, gear is what you make of it. You could find a guild doing 10 mans that will take you, it is the person that plays the game that decides his or her goals. YOU WANT TO PLAY END GAME. Some people don't care either way. Some people play to have fun, or do 5 mans, or run 10 mans. Not everyone wants to be the best.
Uh... if you're doing 10 man content in greens, then the rest of the raid is carrying you, and I'm sure they weren't thrilled about it.
If an entire 10 man raid was in greens, they wouldn't get through the higher end raids unless they were exceptionally good, and even in this case it would be an extremely miniscule amount of players capable of doing so, let alone being willnig to.
But again, why do you feel that the only thing to do is to earn gear? Why didn't you bother trying to make the game more fun for yourself? You could have easily role played if you wanted to, but you decided not to.
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious.
In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose.
And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as a 'content' the game offers.
Didn't pass roleplaying off as content, so you must have missed the point. I was simply stating that if you play a mmoRPG, and choose to make it a gear grind, then that is your choice. Second, gear doesn't prevent you from participating in end game content. Perhaps 25 man, but certainly not 10 man.
Again, gear is what you make of it. You could find a guild doing 10 mans that will take you, it is the person that plays the game that decides his or her goals. YOU WANT TO PLAY END GAME. Some people don't care either way. Some people play to have fun, or do 5 mans, or run 10 mans. Not everyone wants to be the best.
Uh... if you're doing 10 man content in greens, then the rest of the raid is carrying you, and I'm sure they weren't thrilled about it.
If an entire 10 man raid was in greens, they wouldn't get through the higher end raids unless they were exceptionally good, and even in this case it would be an extremely miniscule amount of players capable of doing so, let alone being willnig to.
You are avoiding my point though, if you want to grind for gear you can. If you want to participate in 10 man you can. There is no need to walk around in green gear if you are doing 5 man dungeons. And if you plan to do 10 mans, you probably have some gear that is epic quality. The issue is that, what you call a "grind" isn't really a grind. I don't consider doing a 10 man dungeon 3 times a week for 2-3 hours a night a grind. Do you? Nor do I consider earning gold via quest/tradeskill/Auction house grinding. Nor do I consider doing a couple 20-30 minute 5 man dungeons a day grinding.
What you are talking about is the hardcore 3-5% that play 8 hours a day, grinding for gear in 5, 10 and 25 man dungeons every single night. Again, that is their choice. CHOICE. Can you understand that? You have the choice to do that, you have the choice not to. You can do 5 mans and get your high end gear eventually, or you can do 10 mans and get better gear. Or PvP for gear, or 5 man for PvP gear.
You can form a 5 man PvE guild, run 5 man instances, and then find 5 more people to pick up and do 10 mans with. You have choices.
From what you are saying you can only choose to grind for gear, and we both know that is a lie. You can do whatever you want in WoW. You are not stuck grinding gear, but again if you CHOOSE to, that is your CHOICE.
Pointless arguement. Almost every MMO has an open world and lots of game play "options". That's a given. The reall questions are: How much depth do those game play options have? How many advancement paths are there? How much can players create, change, and affect the game world?
And how much fun is it all? Because without fun, nothing else matters. Thats the problem with sandboxes. They concentrate on "stuff" but not on "is that stuff actually fun". For the vast majority, they just aren't fun to play. Make a FUN sandbox and people will come a runnin=)
Originally posted by uquipu In WoW, at end game a lot of people just socialize. Many other's RP. Most of these people could care less about gear progression.You can get some good pvp gear through pvp now so if you want to pvp you don't have to raid much.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Originally posted by Josher Originally posted by Tatum Pointless arguement. Almost every MMO has an open world and lots of game play "options". That's a given. The reall questions are: How much depth do those game play options have? How many advancement paths are there? How much can players create, change, and affect the game world?
And how much fun is it all? Because without fun, nothing else matters. Thats the problem with sandboxes. They concentrate on "stuff" but not on "is that stuff actually fun". For the vast majority, they just aren't fun to play. Make a FUN sandbox and people will come a runnin=)
Because obviously, being spoon-fed tasks and content is the only way to enjoy an MMO.
The main difference between Themepark and Sandbox MMOs:
Themepark MMOs: The game 'world' exists to influence players. Sandbox MMOs: The game 'world' exists for players to influence it. WoW is a static game world, where anything and everything a player does has no lasting impact on the game world. There are very infrequent and slight exceptions to this, such as the AQ gate event, but even that was predetermined with only a single outcome, which was forced to occur if players took to long to do it themselves. WoW is by no means a sandbox MMO, because it's entirely too static.
Only Second Life fits your definition. The thing about MMOs is that everyone wants to be the hero, everyone wants to kill the dragon or defeat the evil empire. And if everyone wants to do it, the event or quest has to reset to get ready for the next person.
In Second Life, if you stop paying, even your changes will be removed from the world.
Except if you let everyone be the hero, suddenly being the hero is completely meaningless and pointless. This is another things that leads to people becoming bored of themepark games.
In WoW, at end game a lot of people just socialize. Many other's RP. Most of these people could care less about gear progression.
You can get some good pvp gear through pvp now so if you want to pvp you don't have to raid much.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Let me fix this for you, just so you can understand how it actually reads.
"I don't care if you can do other things in WoW that don't involve gear grinding. The only thing that matters to me is whether my gear is better than yours, and therefore the only thing anyone is able to do is get gear, period. If you try to do anything different in the game than getting gear, you are simply playing it wrong."
The main difference between Themepark and Sandbox MMOs:
Themepark MMOs: The game 'world' exists to influence players. Sandbox MMOs: The game 'world' exists for players to influence it. WoW is a static game world, where anything and everything a player does has no lasting impact on the game world. There are very infrequent and slight exceptions to this, such as the AQ gate event, but even that was predetermined with only a single outcome, which was forced to occur if players took to long to do it themselves. WoW is by no means a sandbox MMO, because it's entirely too static.
Only Second Life fits your definition. The thing about MMOs is that everyone wants to be the hero, everyone wants to kill the dragon or defeat the evil empire. And if everyone wants to do it, the event or quest has to reset to get ready for the next person.
In Second Life, if you stop paying, even your changes will be removed from the world.
Except if you let everyone be the hero, suddenly being the hero is completely meaningless and pointless. This is another things that leads to people becoming bored of themepark games.
As opposed to Sandbox games where no one is a hero because everyone can do everything and there is no goal? So your choice is either you want to be a hero, in which everyone can be a hero and therefore no one is unique and different. Or -- no one can be a hero because everyone is exactly the same and there isn't anyone to actually fight, but other non-heroes? Tit for tat!
My bet is definitely that Blizzard's working on a sandbox mmo that is themed with their new IP and that is more massive than wow, they gonna release it in 2012 imo. I'll be surprised if this game has quests I think they will make it a kind of game that the player can do everything like building houses/castles/ crafting that isn't limited to recipes or anything like that.. massive battles in the open world ( a thing that was in wow for a real short time and they decided to end it). There won't be player levels but skill levels. In short it will probably anything isn't in wow.
I doubt that Blizzard is going to create a game without questing, look, as much as we want to believe people want freedom, the truth is they crave structure. Countless studies prove that people work better when they have a schedule and goals to meet rather than the freedom to do whatever they wish.
With that being said, I fully expect that the next Blizzard MMO will fully incorporate a themepark inside an open world. There will not be full world battles anymore than there are now. The problem isn't that Blizzard eliminated open world combat, the players did. You can still flag PvP or play on a PvP server and go to Crossroads, South Shore, or Taren Mill and start killing NPCs. People just don't care, because they would rather focus on goal driven, structured PvP combat.
Now, Blizzard will create a half-sandbox game, and probably implement a way to level separate professions as you would level a class. I hope they consider Blacksmith as important as Warrior. I do fully expect level caps to reach though, because people love goals. It keeps them motivated, and in a true sandbox game, you still set goals for yourself, the game just doesn't guide you along.
I will agree though, I do hope they add housing and so on, give players far more options, and maybe even a way to level that doesn't involve questing/mob grinding -- but somehow, I think it will play an important role in the game either way. Player freedom is great, as long as you give the player a goal at the end of the day.
Here is a question: what is the goal of Eve?
IMO giving players goals to achieve is just as bad as giving them quests to complete and leading them through the game with it. It's the exact same thing, and many of us are sick of it. Your goal in EVE online is whatever you want to make it, and that goal probably changes constantly.
The answer to what's your goal in Eve is, To make ISK. Thats it. Saying, I'll go mine today, or craft today, or PvP today, of kill pirates or rats today is just another way of making ISK. I can do similar things in WOW each time I log in, so constantly changing goals in Eve is NOTHING unique. I had constantly changing goals in WOW when I played.
Do I go collect flowers or mine some Ore to craft something or sell on the AH, or give to my guildy so he can go craft something?
Do I do a dungeon?
Do I just solo?
DO I do a quest?
DO I go to Wintergrasp?
Do I go to the arena?
Do I hit a battleground?
DO I gather some reputation with a faction?
DO I want to just go kill some Alliance just for the hell of it?
Do I want to collect another pet or a mount?
Do I want complete another acheivement?
DO I level up another character without paying another monthly fee?
Do I redesign the guild tabard?
As you can see, I have LOADS of choices in WOW. How am I forced down a path? PLEASE explain=)
Many of the choices you wrote either barely are very small bits of bluff or through bad wording you've re-used the same feature multiple times.
Do I just solo? You're praising the fact that players have the option to group in WoW? What mmo doesn't have that?
Do I do a quest? Actually, if you're leveling from 1 to 80 you don't have much of a choice in this, you'll severely put yourself at a handicap if you choose to ignore quest chains so doing them is not a choice unless you're some kind of hardcore fanatic set out to level without questing.
Do I do Wintergrasp? Arena? Battleground? Do I kill alliance? You turn reduce these 4 to just 1, what you really mean to say is "Do I go pvp"? If we're going to seperate each and every type of PVP into sub categories based on god knows what then i'm sure games like EVE will have a much bigger list than this.
Do I want to collect a new pet or mount? I'm not decided on this, it's one very small thing you can do and i'm sure most players won't be doing it often.
Do I want to complete an achivement? Pointless fluff, it has no effect on gameplay.
Do I want to level up another character? Erm, this isn't exactly a unique feature to WoW, and this isn't all about EVE vs WoW, but from this comment, it's obvious now that you're just trying to compare the 2 against each other.
Do I re-design the guild tabard? lol?
As for being forced down a path, you're forced down it from the moment you create your character, many people will follow the quickest route to max level and that is to do quests, these quests are designed to point you to where the next area to go is all throughout the game.
Originally posted by TheDarzin Originally posted by Ceridith
Originally posted by uquipu In WoW, at end game a lot of people just socialize. Many other's RP. Most of these people could care less about gear progression.
You can get some good pvp gear through pvp now so if you want to pvp you don't have to raid much.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear. Let me fix this for you, just so you can understand how it actually reads. "I don't care if you can do other things in WoW that don't involve gear grinding. The only thing that matters to me is whether my gear is better than yours, and therefore the only thing anyone is able to do is get gear, period. If you try to do anything different in the game than getting gear, you are simply playing it wrong." That is exactly what you just said.
No, I'm saying that you can't use RP/social related activities as 'something to do' in the game, because they transcend any single game, and even gaming as a whole. You aren't required to be in-game to socialize, but you're required to be in WoW to progress your WoW character's gear. Socializing isn't part of the game in WoW in the sense that it's content, it's just possible to do through WoW because it has an ingame chat.
Sitting around in WoW chatting isn't anymore playing the game than a bunch of baseball players sitting around the field and chatting is playing a game of baseball.
In WoW, at end game a lot of people just socialize. Many other's RP. Most of these people could care less about gear progression.
You can get some good pvp gear through pvp now so if you want to pvp you don't have to raid much.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Let me fix this for you, just so you can understand how it actually reads.
"I don't care if you can do other things in WoW that don't involve gear grinding. The only thing that matters to me is whether my gear is better than yours, and therefore the only thing anyone is able to do is get gear, period. If you try to do anything different in the game than getting gear, you are simply playing it wrong."
That is exactly what you just said.
No, I'm saying that you can't use RP/social related activities as 'something to do' in the game, because they transcend any single game, and even gaming as a whole. You aren't required to be in-game to socialize, but you're required to be in WoW to progress your WoW character's gear. Socializing isn't part of the game in WoW in the sense that it's content, it's just possible to do through WoW because it has an ingame chat.
Sitting around in WoW chatting isn't anymore playing the game than a bunch of baseball players sitting around the field and chatting is playing a game of baseball.
Again, you just reiterated what I already said you wrote, which is amazing because you are ignoring the entire point of choice. What is stopping you from going and picking herbs, to earn money so you can buy 115 mounts? It is as much a goal as getting gear is, is it not? What about doing all the BG PvP achievements? That doesn't require a lot of gear, but they are a goal you can choose to do.
You have taken the game, boiled it down to one goal, and said that doing anything else is not playing. So, leveling alts, pvping, questing, going to 5 mans with friends, working on achievements, or crafting/gathering none of that counts as playing the game if the person doesn't simply aim to get better gear?
When will you admit the fact that you simply see the game as a gear grind, and that while others don't, you simply think they aren't really playing the game.
The main difference between Themepark and Sandbox MMOs:
Themepark MMOs: The game 'world' exists to influence players. Sandbox MMOs: The game 'world' exists for players to influence it. WoW is a static game world, where anything and everything a player does has no lasting impact on the game world. There are very infrequent and slight exceptions to this, such as the AQ gate event, but even that was predetermined with only a single outcome, which was forced to occur if players took to long to do it themselves. WoW is by no means a sandbox MMO, because it's entirely too static.
Only Second Life fits your definition. The thing about MMOs is that everyone wants to be the hero, everyone wants to kill the dragon or defeat the evil empire. And if everyone wants to do it, the event or quest has to reset to get ready for the next person.
In Second Life, if you stop paying, even your changes will be removed from the world.
Except if you let everyone be the hero, suddenly being the hero is completely meaningless and pointless. This is another things that leads to people becoming bored of themepark games.
As opposed to Sandbox games where no one is a hero because everyone can do everything and there is no goal? So your choice is either you want to be a hero, in which everyone can be a hero and therefore no one is unique and different. Or -- no one can be a hero because everyone is exactly the same and there isn't anyone to actually fight, but other non-heroes? Tit for tat!
I take it you've never played a sandbox game before then? One of the freedoms for player choice in sandboxes is usually the choice to kill other players. Bad guys and good guys emerge, you end up with some really bad guys who mass murder everyone, but at the same time you get the anti-pks, the protectors who hunt the murderers, you get exceptionally great players on both sides, so not only in a sandbox can you have heroes, but you can also have villains, aswell as average players and everything in between. In themepark games you just have a game full of average players, if you want to call them all heroes, that's fine, but since they're all heroes, they're really nothing more than average.
Originally posted by uquipu In WoW, at end game a lot of people just socialize. Many other's RP. Most of these people could care less about gear progression.
You can get some good pvp gear through pvp now so if you want to pvp you don't have to raid much.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Let me fix this for you, just so you can understand how it actually reads. "I don't care if you can do other things in WoW that don't involve gear grinding. The only thing that matters to me is whether my gear is better than yours, and therefore the only thing anyone is able to do is get gear, period. If you try to do anything different in the game than getting gear, you are simply playing it wrong." That is exactly what you just said.
No, I'm saying that you can't use RP/social related activities as 'something to do' in the game, because they transcend any single game, and even gaming as a whole. You aren't required to be in-game to socialize, but you're required to be in WoW to progress your WoW character's gear. Socializing isn't part of the game in WoW in the sense that it's content, it's just possible to do through WoW because it has an ingame chat. Sitting around in WoW chatting isn't anymore playing the game than a bunch of baseball players sitting around the field and chatting is playing a game of baseball.
Again, you just reiterated what I already said you wrote, which is amazing because you are ignoring the entire point of choice. What is stopping you from going and picking herbs, to earn money so you can buy 115 mounts? It is as much a goal as getting gear is, is it not? What about doing all the BG PvP achievements? That doesn't require a lot of gear, but they are a goal you can choose to do. You have taken the game, boiled it down to one goal, and said that doing anything else is not playing. So, leveling alts, pvping, questing, going to 5 mans with friends, working on achievements, or crafting/gathering none of that counts as playing the game if the person doesn't simply aim to get better gear? When will you admit the fact that you simply see the game as a gear grind, and that while others don't, you simply think they aren't really playing the game.
I have 10 80s, have gotten tons of achievements, all of the dungeons, most of the raids, played with friends, RPd, PvPd, gathered, crafted, quested, etc, and I've been playing since 1 month after it was first released. I used to feel there was a lot more to the game, but seeing patch after content patch, and each expansion, the focus on content is mostly about gear, because that's the only way to progress your character.
Different mounts, achievements, they mean little in the grand scheme because it's just fluff. Yes I'm jaded, but that's what 5+ years of a gear treadmill and watering down of gameplay will do to someone who previously loved the game.
Comments
The answer to what's your goal in Eve is, To make ISK. Thats it. Saying, I'll go mine today, or craft today, or PvP today, of kill pirates or rats today is just another way of making ISK. I can do similar things in WOW each time I log in, so constantly changing goals in Eve is NOTHING unique. I had constantly changing goals in WOW when I played.
Do I go collect flowers or mine some Ore to craft something or sell on the AH, or give to my guildy so he can go craft something?
Do I do a dungeon?
Do I just solo?
DO I do a quest?
DO I go to Wintergrasp?
Do I go to the arena?
Do I hit a battleground?
DO I gather some reputation with a faction?
DO I want to just go kill some Alliance just for the hell of it?
Do I want to collect another pet or a mount?
Do I want complete another acheivement?
DO I level up another character without paying another monthly fee?
Do I redesign the guild tabard?
As you can see, I have LOADS of choices in WOW. How am I forced down a path? PLEASE explain=)
You are forced down one path with all of those choices:
Do I grind, or logout?
So in Eve, do I try to earn ISK or logout? My bad, I can logout and train skills, tee hee=) But seriously, explain what you can do in Eve without earning the ISK to do it first? You can't PLAY without it since if you run out, you have to start from scratch!! If playing WOW is a grind according to you, how is earning ISK not the same thing? C'mon, lets hear it without just claiming, "Nya, nya, because I say it is!!" LOGICAL intelligent, civil answers is all I need.
The "goal" of gear progression may not change, but WoW offers more routes to that goal and caters to more different playstyles than most other MMOs on the market.
And people do like variety.
The person it was in response to claimed that all of the aspects of gameplay in Eve are all towards to end goal of making isk.
Which is why I responded that WoW's main end goal is for gear, because that is what people are aiming for when they play.
I'm not debating whether or not there are multiple routes towards the 'end goal'. I'm simply disagreeing with the other posters attempt to claim Eve's relevant gamepaly choices as being irrelevant because they are only towards one end goal, and then tout WoW's choices as being superior. Simply, WoW isn't any more diverse in it's "end driving goal" as Eve is, so it's hardly superior to Eve in that respect.
Ah, seems I misread. Apologies.
Yeah, I'd agree with your logic. WoW is all about the end-game and the gear grind.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
That's a pretty simple answer, really.
The "goal" of gear progression may not change, but WoW offers more routes to that goal and caters to more different playstyles than most other MMOs on the market.
And people do like variety.
No it doesn't. You can get Raid Gear or PVP Gear. They aren't the same thing and can't be used in the same way.
You can get crafted gear too.... but that's just a stepping stone to get Raid gear.
"Variety" means multiple things. If you want to PVE you can Raid, if you want to PVP you PVP. That's only one route to get to each goal.
There's more than one type of PVE and PVP.
PVE: Solo, 5 man, 10 man, 25 man.
PvP: World, Wintergrasp, Battlegrounds, Arena.
Can't argue with crafting; WoW pretty much sucks at that.
Have you had an 80 before? Cause, I've had like 4. Solo isn't going to get you crap. Heroics won't get you much. 10mans are barely worth it and 25mans is the only way to get the best gear.
You did throw me for a loop on the BGs and Arenas though. The Arena gear is better, but over my entire WoW career I accumulated a total of 0 Arena Tokens (or w/e they are called). lol
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How is WoW anymore superior to Eve in the 'reason' to play the game?
WoW's purpose is to grind for gear.
Eve's is to grind for isk.
Gear in WoW lets you... grind for more gear.
Isk in Eve lets you grind for more isk.
The main advantage Eve has though, is that at least your isk doesn't suddenly become devalued when the next patch with new content and better gear comes along.
If you want to PvE, you can go to dungeons, or do daily quests, or simply play the auction house and buy your gear. You must have stopped playing a while ago, because you can get high quality raid gear simply by doing 5 man dungeons if you want. You may grind for it, or do a couple dungeons a day, your choice. Or you can make enough gold to buy the high level craftables out of the dungeons and never worry about raiding.
PvP gear is the same way, you can buy most of it with emblems from 5 mans, unless you want the very best, highest quality gear. But that is a choice you can make.
Stopped right after 3.2. Nothing to do with 3.2.
You could get decent gear from doing dungeons. The Tier 9 was worse than some of the gear you could pull from Naxx, 9.5 wasn't much ahead of Uldar. ToC introduced some decent craftables, but you still had to raid for the mats or buy gold from goldsellers to buy the mats.... because a belt cost 4200g in orbs.
The point of a gear grind is to get the highest quality gear you can get. There is only 1 route to that. PVP or Raid, depending on the gear.
But, you are single minded in what you are saying -- you will see no alternative. Let me ask -- why are you obligated to bother with having the best gear? Why is it you feel that the only goal is to have the best gear all the time?
Also, there wasn't a single piece of t9 that was worse than Naxx gear.
You didn't have to raid for mats or buy gold from goldsellers. I don't know, you could do daily quests, or farm herbs/ore to sell, or play the AH for gems/glyphs/flasks, or fish for food to sell. I had over 40K gold when I left, they made it so easy to get. I even started a Paladin, from level 1-62 I earned over 3k selling ore and leather and any green items I didn't need. You could also, get orbs by running dungeons for emblems and buying them.
They also give you the choice of 10 and 25 man dungeons so you don't need a huge commitment to get gear.
But again, why do you feel that the only thing to do is to earn gear? Why didn't you bother trying to make the game more fun for yourself? You could have easily role played if you wanted to, but you decided not to.
Darzin -- A Gnome in a Night Elf World
I have 13. I'm a serial alt-o-holic.
But when did we stray into the realm of "best gear" .. ? .. that's never been my focus. I've never cared about not being able get the "best" gear; I'm just happy to have achievable goals within my reach and obtainable in the way I like to play the game.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious.
In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose.
And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as 'content' the game offers.
This is one of the best opinions I've been privy to in a while on this subject because I for one could care less if my particular game of choice pulls in WOW numbers and I in fact like quest based games much more than I prefer the "sandbox" games that are offered up to me at this time. I'm not big on pvp and are faced with enough "choices" in my day to day life to not want to be bothered with being forced to find something to do in a video game which is what many posts like ops' suggest. It's one thing to want freedom but many of you seem to blame the fact that quests and other content is really a bad thing.
I for one have played many theme park games and don't feel the restrictions that others seem to feel the genre is plagued with. I have characters that craft who have rarely if ever been in battle I have other toons that have fought but have spent much more time in parties and other RP events than exploring dungeons.
Again I'm not against sandboxes that design element is very desirable to me but what I do think is it is short sighted for we as a community to push for the abolishment of something that works for no real reason. In my opinion if DF offered half the themepark content that WOW does in addition to what it already has in game (which is not much) they would only be better off.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious.
In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose.
And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as a 'content' the game offers.
Didn't pass roleplaying off as content, so you must have missed the point. I was simply stating that if you play a mmoRPG, and choose to make it a gear grind, then that is your choice. Second, gear doesn't prevent you from participating in end game content. Perhaps 25 man, but certainly not 10 man.
Again, gear is what you make of it. You could find a guild doing 10 mans that will take you, it is the person that plays the game that decides his or her goals. YOU WANT TO PLAY END GAME. Some people don't care either way. Some people play to have fun, or do 5 mans, or run 10 mans. Not everyone wants to be the best.
Darzin -- A Gnome in a Night Elf World
True, and both games have all sorts of different ways to go about getting items(WOW) or making ISK(Eve). Neither is any more a grind than the other if you're enjoying it. Saying one is a grind but the other isn't is just hypocritical. Saying one is linear and other isn't is also hypocritical. Saying one game has choices and the other doesn't is just ignorant. WOW certainly doesn't have LESS choices in how you want to play than Eve does and thats the whole point. If a sandbox is just giving you lots of things to do, WOW certainly gives you lots to do. I certainly wouldn't call WOW a sandbox, but it has sandbox elements wrapped in a themepark. When you really break it down, its quite obvious. So its not so useless to discuss it=)
Blizzard's next game will still be a themepark because thats REALLY what most people want. We all know it. But it will have more and more sandboxy elements to it that allow players to create or have an impact. What it won't do is allow players to seriously ruin other player's enjoyment like UO, DF or Eve allows. And please don't say the ability to piss someone off is what makes a MMO a sandbox, because if thats the case, its no wonder most people don't get into them=) But for whatever reason every game that is considered a sandbox has lots of ways to piss people off.
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious.
In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose.
And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as a 'content' the game offers.
Didn't pass roleplaying off as content, so you must have missed the point. I was simply stating that if you play a mmoRPG, and choose to make it a gear grind, then that is your choice. Second, gear doesn't prevent you from participating in end game content. Perhaps 25 man, but certainly not 10 man.
Again, gear is what you make of it. You could find a guild doing 10 mans that will take you, it is the person that plays the game that decides his or her goals. YOU WANT TO PLAY END GAME. Some people don't care either way. Some people play to have fun, or do 5 mans, or run 10 mans. Not everyone wants to be the best.
Uh... if you're doing 10 man content in greens, then the rest of the raid is carrying you, and I'm sure they weren't thrilled about it.
If an entire 10 man raid was in greens, they wouldn't get through the higher end raids unless they were exceptionally good, and even in this case it would be an extremely miniscule amount of players capable of doing so, let alone being willnig to.
In WoW, at end game a lot of people just socialize. Many other's RP. Most of these people could care less about gear progression.
You can get some good pvp gear through pvp now so if you want to pvp you don't have to raid much.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
The question wasn't directed to me, but the answer is fairly obvious.
In WoW, the only way to progress your character in endgame is gear, and only gear. Gear will limit your participation in content as well, since if it's not good enough you won't be able to effectively participate. Without progression, the RPG aspect dissapears, so without gear progression in WoW endgame, the game loses a lot of it's purpose.
And while I am an advocate and participant of RP myself... come on, roleplaying is not a 'feature' exclusive to WoW, or any MMO or even game, so don't try to pass it off as a 'content' the game offers.
Didn't pass roleplaying off as content, so you must have missed the point. I was simply stating that if you play a mmoRPG, and choose to make it a gear grind, then that is your choice. Second, gear doesn't prevent you from participating in end game content. Perhaps 25 man, but certainly not 10 man.
Again, gear is what you make of it. You could find a guild doing 10 mans that will take you, it is the person that plays the game that decides his or her goals. YOU WANT TO PLAY END GAME. Some people don't care either way. Some people play to have fun, or do 5 mans, or run 10 mans. Not everyone wants to be the best.
Uh... if you're doing 10 man content in greens, then the rest of the raid is carrying you, and I'm sure they weren't thrilled about it.
If an entire 10 man raid was in greens, they wouldn't get through the higher end raids unless they were exceptionally good, and even in this case it would be an extremely miniscule amount of players capable of doing so, let alone being willnig to.
You are avoiding my point though, if you want to grind for gear you can. If you want to participate in 10 man you can. There is no need to walk around in green gear if you are doing 5 man dungeons. And if you plan to do 10 mans, you probably have some gear that is epic quality. The issue is that, what you call a "grind" isn't really a grind. I don't consider doing a 10 man dungeon 3 times a week for 2-3 hours a night a grind. Do you? Nor do I consider earning gold via quest/tradeskill/Auction house grinding. Nor do I consider doing a couple 20-30 minute 5 man dungeons a day grinding.
What you are talking about is the hardcore 3-5% that play 8 hours a day, grinding for gear in 5, 10 and 25 man dungeons every single night. Again, that is their choice. CHOICE. Can you understand that? You have the choice to do that, you have the choice not to. You can do 5 mans and get your high end gear eventually, or you can do 10 mans and get better gear. Or PvP for gear, or 5 man for PvP gear.
You can form a 5 man PvE guild, run 5 man instances, and then find 5 more people to pick up and do 10 mans with. You have choices.
From what you are saying you can only choose to grind for gear, and we both know that is a lie. You can do whatever you want in WoW. You are not stuck grinding gear, but again if you CHOOSE to, that is your CHOICE.
Darzin -- A Gnome in a Night Elf World
Pointless arguement. Almost every MMO has an open world and lots of game play "options". That's a given. The reall questions are:
How much depth do those game play options have?
How many advancement paths are there?
How much can players create, change, and affect the game world?
And how much fun is it all? Because without fun, nothing else matters. Thats the problem with sandboxes. They concentrate on "stuff" but not on "is that stuff actually fun". For the vast majority, they just aren't fun to play. Make a FUN sandbox and people will come a runnin=)
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Because obviously, being spoon-fed tasks and content is the only way to enjoy an MMO.
Only Second Life fits your definition. The thing about MMOs is that everyone wants to be the hero, everyone wants to kill the dragon or defeat the evil empire. And if everyone wants to do it, the event or quest has to reset to get ready for the next person.
In Second Life, if you stop paying, even your changes will be removed from the world.
Except if you let everyone be the hero, suddenly being the hero is completely meaningless and pointless. This is another things that leads to people becoming bored of themepark games.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Let me fix this for you, just so you can understand how it actually reads.
"I don't care if you can do other things in WoW that don't involve gear grinding. The only thing that matters to me is whether my gear is better than yours, and therefore the only thing anyone is able to do is get gear, period. If you try to do anything different in the game than getting gear, you are simply playing it wrong."
That is exactly what you just said.
Darzin -- A Gnome in a Night Elf World
Only Second Life fits your definition. The thing about MMOs is that everyone wants to be the hero, everyone wants to kill the dragon or defeat the evil empire. And if everyone wants to do it, the event or quest has to reset to get ready for the next person.
In Second Life, if you stop paying, even your changes will be removed from the world.
Except if you let everyone be the hero, suddenly being the hero is completely meaningless and pointless. This is another things that leads to people becoming bored of themepark games.
As opposed to Sandbox games where no one is a hero because everyone can do everything and there is no goal? So your choice is either you want to be a hero, in which everyone can be a hero and therefore no one is unique and different. Or -- no one can be a hero because everyone is exactly the same and there isn't anyone to actually fight, but other non-heroes? Tit for tat!
Darzin -- A Gnome in a Night Elf World
I doubt that Blizzard is going to create a game without questing, look, as much as we want to believe people want freedom, the truth is they crave structure. Countless studies prove that people work better when they have a schedule and goals to meet rather than the freedom to do whatever they wish.
With that being said, I fully expect that the next Blizzard MMO will fully incorporate a themepark inside an open world. There will not be full world battles anymore than there are now. The problem isn't that Blizzard eliminated open world combat, the players did. You can still flag PvP or play on a PvP server and go to Crossroads, South Shore, or Taren Mill and start killing NPCs. People just don't care, because they would rather focus on goal driven, structured PvP combat.
Now, Blizzard will create a half-sandbox game, and probably implement a way to level separate professions as you would level a class. I hope they consider Blacksmith as important as Warrior. I do fully expect level caps to reach though, because people love goals. It keeps them motivated, and in a true sandbox game, you still set goals for yourself, the game just doesn't guide you along.
I will agree though, I do hope they add housing and so on, give players far more options, and maybe even a way to level that doesn't involve questing/mob grinding -- but somehow, I think it will play an important role in the game either way. Player freedom is great, as long as you give the player a goal at the end of the day.
Here is a question: what is the goal of Eve?
IMO giving players goals to achieve is just as bad as giving them quests to complete and leading them through the game with it. It's the exact same thing, and many of us are sick of it. Your goal in EVE online is whatever you want to make it, and that goal probably changes constantly.
The answer to what's your goal in Eve is, To make ISK. Thats it. Saying, I'll go mine today, or craft today, or PvP today, of kill pirates or rats today is just another way of making ISK. I can do similar things in WOW each time I log in, so constantly changing goals in Eve is NOTHING unique. I had constantly changing goals in WOW when I played.
Do I go collect flowers or mine some Ore to craft something or sell on the AH, or give to my guildy so he can go craft something?
Do I do a dungeon?
Do I just solo?
DO I do a quest?
DO I go to Wintergrasp?
Do I go to the arena?
Do I hit a battleground?
DO I gather some reputation with a faction?
DO I want to just go kill some Alliance just for the hell of it?
Do I want to collect another pet or a mount?
Do I want complete another acheivement?
DO I level up another character without paying another monthly fee?
Do I redesign the guild tabard?
As you can see, I have LOADS of choices in WOW. How am I forced down a path? PLEASE explain=)
Many of the choices you wrote either barely are very small bits of bluff or through bad wording you've re-used the same feature multiple times.
Do I just solo? You're praising the fact that players have the option to group in WoW? What mmo doesn't have that?
Do I do a quest? Actually, if you're leveling from 1 to 80 you don't have much of a choice in this, you'll severely put yourself at a handicap if you choose to ignore quest chains so doing them is not a choice unless you're some kind of hardcore fanatic set out to level without questing.
Do I do Wintergrasp? Arena? Battleground? Do I kill alliance? You turn reduce these 4 to just 1, what you really mean to say is "Do I go pvp"? If we're going to seperate each and every type of PVP into sub categories based on god knows what then i'm sure games like EVE will have a much bigger list than this.
Do I want to collect a new pet or mount? I'm not decided on this, it's one very small thing you can do and i'm sure most players won't be doing it often.
Do I want to complete an achivement? Pointless fluff, it has no effect on gameplay.
Do I want to level up another character? Erm, this isn't exactly a unique feature to WoW, and this isn't all about EVE vs WoW, but from this comment, it's obvious now that you're just trying to compare the 2 against each other.
Do I re-design the guild tabard? lol?
As for being forced down a path, you're forced down it from the moment you create your character, many people will follow the quickest route to max level and that is to do quests, these quests are designed to point you to where the next area to go is all throughout the game.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Let me fix this for you, just so you can understand how it actually reads.
"I don't care if you can do other things in WoW that don't involve gear grinding. The only thing that matters to me is whether my gear is better than yours, and therefore the only thing anyone is able to do is get gear, period. If you try to do anything different in the game than getting gear, you are simply playing it wrong."
That is exactly what you just said.
No, I'm saying that you can't use RP/social related activities as 'something to do' in the game, because they transcend any single game, and even gaming as a whole. You aren't required to be in-game to socialize, but you're required to be in WoW to progress your WoW character's gear. Socializing isn't part of the game in WoW in the sense that it's content, it's just possible to do through WoW because it has an ingame chat.
Sitting around in WoW chatting isn't anymore playing the game than a bunch of baseball players sitting around the field and chatting is playing a game of baseball.
Socializing and RPing aren't exclusive to WoW, and therefore arguably cannot be considered as participating in gameplay for the game in question. So that doesn't change the fact that the main thing to do in the game that is explicitly part of the game, is to progress in gear.
Let me fix this for you, just so you can understand how it actually reads.
"I don't care if you can do other things in WoW that don't involve gear grinding. The only thing that matters to me is whether my gear is better than yours, and therefore the only thing anyone is able to do is get gear, period. If you try to do anything different in the game than getting gear, you are simply playing it wrong."
That is exactly what you just said.
No, I'm saying that you can't use RP/social related activities as 'something to do' in the game, because they transcend any single game, and even gaming as a whole. You aren't required to be in-game to socialize, but you're required to be in WoW to progress your WoW character's gear. Socializing isn't part of the game in WoW in the sense that it's content, it's just possible to do through WoW because it has an ingame chat.
Sitting around in WoW chatting isn't anymore playing the game than a bunch of baseball players sitting around the field and chatting is playing a game of baseball.
Again, you just reiterated what I already said you wrote, which is amazing because you are ignoring the entire point of choice. What is stopping you from going and picking herbs, to earn money so you can buy 115 mounts? It is as much a goal as getting gear is, is it not? What about doing all the BG PvP achievements? That doesn't require a lot of gear, but they are a goal you can choose to do.
You have taken the game, boiled it down to one goal, and said that doing anything else is not playing. So, leveling alts, pvping, questing, going to 5 mans with friends, working on achievements, or crafting/gathering none of that counts as playing the game if the person doesn't simply aim to get better gear?
When will you admit the fact that you simply see the game as a gear grind, and that while others don't, you simply think they aren't really playing the game.
Darzin -- A Gnome in a Night Elf World
Only Second Life fits your definition. The thing about MMOs is that everyone wants to be the hero, everyone wants to kill the dragon or defeat the evil empire. And if everyone wants to do it, the event or quest has to reset to get ready for the next person.
In Second Life, if you stop paying, even your changes will be removed from the world.
Except if you let everyone be the hero, suddenly being the hero is completely meaningless and pointless. This is another things that leads to people becoming bored of themepark games.
As opposed to Sandbox games where no one is a hero because everyone can do everything and there is no goal? So your choice is either you want to be a hero, in which everyone can be a hero and therefore no one is unique and different. Or -- no one can be a hero because everyone is exactly the same and there isn't anyone to actually fight, but other non-heroes? Tit for tat!
I take it you've never played a sandbox game before then? One of the freedoms for player choice in sandboxes is usually the choice to kill other players. Bad guys and good guys emerge, you end up with some really bad guys who mass murder everyone, but at the same time you get the anti-pks, the protectors who hunt the murderers, you get exceptionally great players on both sides, so not only in a sandbox can you have heroes, but you can also have villains, aswell as average players and everything in between. In themepark games you just have a game full of average players, if you want to call them all heroes, that's fine, but since they're all heroes, they're really nothing more than average.
I have 10 80s, have gotten tons of achievements, all of the dungeons, most of the raids, played with friends, RPd, PvPd, gathered, crafted, quested, etc, and I've been playing since 1 month after it was first released. I used to feel there was a lot more to the game, but seeing patch after content patch, and each expansion, the focus on content is mostly about gear, because that's the only way to progress your character.
Different mounts, achievements, they mean little in the grand scheme because it's just fluff. Yes I'm jaded, but that's what 5+ years of a gear treadmill and watering down of gameplay will do to someone who previously loved the game.