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Haters explain your reasons!
Perpetuum
Member Posts: 15
Ok i've been puttering around these forums for a while and I have never actually heard any reasonable explanations for the following:
- Why instances are bad
- Why themeparks are bad
- Why casuals are bad
- Why "carebears" are bad
- What qualifies a game as "failed"?
Please, clarify on this is you can. I'm really curious.
Comments
None of what you've listed is inherently "bad", but they are a matter of opinion.
The more 'hardcore' and/or 'oldschool' gamer does not mesh well with these 'concepts' in the MMO realm...
Instances are counter intuitive in an MMO concept. The point of an MMO is to create a seamless virtual world in which players interact together. Instances greatly detract from an MMO being seamless, and hinders player interaction by segregating them.
Themeparks can be considered bad because they take away a great deal of freedom from the players, and place them on perverbial rails of content that they practically have to grind through. 'freedom' is a large part of what can make or break a player's MMO experience. Some might argue that a themepark design can allow for more epic encounters to be designed, but conversely, the fact that it is scripted, and that countless other players have experienced the exact same things, greatly detracts from the "epicness".
Casuals themselves are not bad. What can be considered bad, is when developers start catering to them, and only them. Again, it's perspective. There's nothing wrong with a game being designed for casuals. It gets to be a problem when the majority of games start catering to casuals, particularily when a game was previously 'hardcore' was neutered into catering to the casual playerbase.
The 'carebear' thing is pretty much the same as above.
As for what qualifies a game as fail... honestly from the most concrete perspective, any game that is inherently not much fun, to anyone. If an MMO is enjoyable even to a niche group, and is financially stable with the amount of players it has, then it is in my opinion a success.
We don't really "hate" these things, but do get annoyed as the market has evolved away from games that had mechanics we enjoyed to something we really don't care for.
Yeah, we're a minority, we know it, but won't stop us from weighing in on every title about its "deficiencies" from our point of view.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
The one I dislike the most is instances.
The less instances, the more it feels like a world.
The more instances, the more it feels like a lobby game, similar to Diablo or something like that.
I like lobby games, but that's not why I play an MMORPG. If I want a lobby game, I'll just play one.
It's bad because I say so.
Actually, if you've been hanging around here you should have seen explaination enough for why people hate (or support) anything and everything relating to MMORPGs. We've gone through all these debates about 10 to the 9th times now.
But whatever...
Instancing: Directly contradicts the idea of having a persistant world shared by a large number of players; which was the key founding principle of MMORPGs. The original idea on which these games were based was to create a persistant virtual world and put thousands of people in it together. The more instanced a game is the more it moves away from that concept and becomes more like a MO game and less like MMO game.
Themeparks: Not necessarily bad. The thing that gets on the nerves of some of us "haters" is when a game has highly directed content or what is commonly referred to as a game "on rails". The more a game guides you step by step through the content the more some people will dislike it. A game can be a themepark but still give a considerable degree of freedom to the players. The narrower the content path and the more people feel obligated to follow a pre-determined path the more bitching you'll see from a certain segment of MMORPG players.
Casuals: This is a strange one for me to try to answer because I used to be seen as a casual myself. Now? Now I think some people would classify me as an insane Nazi of the hardcore high command. I used to think casual simply meant people who didn't devote their lives to these games. I'm not really sure what it means now but it seems to have been linked to the ideas of "no risk", "no challenge", and "extremely rapid advancement". So basically I think that in many people's minds it encompasses things like no death penalty, weak mobs, instant travel and so on which a lot of "haters" dislike because it makes games so bland and boring.
Carebears: Again, the definition of this may have changed over the years. It used to mean people who didn't like PvP and wanted PvP to be purely consensual. By that definition I personally have no problem with carebears.
What qualifies a game as failed? I myself try to avoid making absolute declarations that a game failed. Generally, when people on this site say that a game failed it usually doesn't mean that the game didn't turn a profit (because they probably don't know if it did or not). Rather it means that the game failed to perform very well or at least not as well as the general public expected based on the level of pre-release hype and anticipation.
I don't think instances are bad. They allow players to have epic fights which could otherwise be trivialized. Example: a group of twelve fights its way to some badass boss. An epic battle of coordination ensues and the group manages to defeat the boss. Without instances, 200 guys could just zerg the boss and he would be dead in moments. Yawn. Overuse of instances, a la, Guild Wars, is bad imo, because it loses some of the feel of lots of ppl running around doing their thing. But for important encounters, instances is good.
I see nothing wrong with themeparks whatsoever.
There's nothing wrong with casuals either. A complaint often arises when people say 'casuals do not deserve the same rewards'. I think it is a flaw in design if it is not possible for a casual player to slowly, gradually, acquire the same rewards as any hardcore, albeit over a much longer time.
Carebears is a stupid term imo. In reality, it simply refers to a preferred playstyle, one which doesn't involve pvp. There is no logical reason for denigrating someone who doesn't like pvp, unless perhaps they are playing a heavy pvp game and asking that the game be modified to accomodate non-pvp. Of course, the reverse is true in a non-pvp game.
Failed? Simple. The game is not fun to play, or is only fun to a very, very few. Games must be fun.
How am I supposed to post my opinion when ya already give it? Absolutely, 100% agree...
Instances are bad because my dead or dying game that I love didn't have instances.
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Theme parks are bad because I play sandbox. What's a sandbox? I don't know really but a sandbox is a 1337 game while a theme parks is an un1337 game.
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Casuals are bad because WoW has casuals. Anything WoW has is bad. WoW is too popular and popular stuff can't be 1337.
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Carebears. See above.
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A failed game is a game that isn't a clone, but maybe with better graphics, of the dead or dying game that I love.
Well shave my back and call me an elf! -- Oghren
Allthough I don't consider myself a hater and had fun playing all kind of games regardless of it having instances or being themeparks here's something to adress these two points.
- Why instances are bad?
Instances are bad, as it destroys the immersion of a gaming-world. There shouldn't be places where you can go and lock yourself away from the rest of the world. Easy as that imho.
Another problem of instances is, that there shouldn't be multiple instances of the same part of a gaming-world... again... this destroys immersion.
- Why themeparks are bad?
Themeparks aren't bad to begin with. Themeparks can be fun, if you've got lot's of options. Where the themeparks get bad tho is, if there's only black and white and no shades of grey inbetween.
A themeparks with only two sides for example is pretty boring. You join Faction A or Faction B and that's it... it'll automatically become very shallow.
Have a themepark with atleast 3 options in that regard and you'll get somewhere. Nothing more exciting then a 3-way-match, where there's the possibility of backstabbing one or the other side etc.
That's bascially the reason why I prefer games without instances and games that are not themeparks, as they're lacking immersion and are getting boring pretty fast.
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The rest of your points there isn't anything to seriously think about, as it's very subjective POV, what qualifies a player as a carebear or casual player.
Crafters for example might be considered carebears, but a game like EvE wouldn't work without it for example... you basically need "carebears" to make the whole system working.
And casuals? Well.... can you imagine a MMO where there's only people who can spend atleast 4 hours every day playing the game? Casuals are no problem in any MMORPG.
- Why instances are bad
Heavy Instancing takes people out of the game world and into thier seperate Universe, where no other player can effect them. You are away from everyone ells, by yourself doing your own thing that wont effect anyone but YOU, and the friends you bring with you. It resets over and over again and takes away the Realism that I think should be a part of MMOs. And its gets really gamebreaking when you have multipal instances of the same zone like in AGE of Conan, so people can be at the same spot at the same time but not be able to see one another. Its suposed to be an MMO, Massive multiplayer online game Not an MMI massive Multiplayer Instanced game. If I wanted to play Solo I go play a single player game or if I wanted to play with friends I could play Co op on some consol game. You see where im going with this. MMOs should be about comunity. Interaction with others, and living togheter in an online world. If you Instance the hell out of it no longer becomes about this and you might aswell go play COD, Gears of WaR, Red dead redemption or some other consol game that is a lot better looking grafic vise and has a better story then the go get X things for X NPC type quests. MMO should be about impacting the other players around you not going SOLO in some INSTANCE.
- Why themeparks are bad
Its not that ThemeParks are bad its more what they take away. Most ThemeParks are designed to bring instant gratification. And they Put you into a premade Class like a healer, Tank, DPSer etc. Also most ThemeParks has Fraction PvP of some sort. Often you cant speak with the oposing side and you cant have mush of an Impact on the World. Your are forced to sitt in your rollecoster a special way with your belt on or you will not be allowed to ride it. In a Themepark your choises as a player gets limited to what the game developers have desinged for you and there is little room for creativite or freedom for you as an individual. There is not mush to do in a Themepark environemnt Exept getting more gear for your Charecter. And those of us that have played games that offer alot more feel restrained and limited by what the game has to offer. So to mush THemeparking is a bad thing Because it just become about the Ride and instant gratification then building a comunity and socializing with others.
- Why casuals are bad
When games start to focus on Casuals, the game play become fast paced and rewards become insignificant. Often SOLO gameplay becomes the Focus and with that, all sense of comunity and multiplayer interaction goes out the door. Casual gamplay translate into loging in doing a few things for instant gratification and loging out. No longer is it necessary to work for something or have a long term goal. But the worst thing about catering to the casuals is that it takes away from progression and destroyes competetive gameplay. just like in Real life not everyone can be a millionare same goes for MMOs, We cant have a world where everyone is Equal, the human mind rejects it. So having people who are better then others or richer then others actully makes the game more exiting. Even of you are just starting out because you have something to work for. But with Casual gamplay you dont have to do mush or even interact with other players to get everything you want. This is a bad thing because even if it sounds nice on paper, people soon find nothing to strive for and nobody to look up to. We need heroes and we need people that strive to be the best both in IRL and in games, that is how we ourself strive to become better, if you take this away all we are left with is a bland and boring game.
- Why "carebears" are bad
I personaly dont mind Carebears. But people who do most often think that they are to affriad to commit to PvP. In PvP games where you actually lose things. EVE for example, you lose ships, Liange2 you lose gear and lvl and carebears tend to avoid these types of games because they just cant handle it. Before WoW MMOs where mush more about PvP, it was thier main focus. We had zero quest, and almost no scripted content, like Raid encounters, Instance dungeones etc. We just had the world and to get by in it you had to fight other players for grindspots, castles and Raid bosses. For many those times where the best they brought exitment and realism and a sense of real danger. But in comes the Carebear, casuals and out goes any form of competetive gamplay. Instead it gets replaced with Solo orientated easy content that everyone given enough time can achieve.
- What qualifies a game as "failed"?
It hasent lived up to its Potential. Or it dident work as promised. And often enough it lost alot of subscribers after the first months. Games that have been effected by this are WAR and AOC for example. Both got hyped and dident live up to it, Both dident work as they said they would and they both lost alot of subscribers.
Please, clarify on this is you can. I'm really curious.
Hope this clears things up for you.
This poster pretty much sums up the usual responses to those issues. Well played.
I have seen you post alot of stuff before but this must be your best shit to date. You really dont get it do you?? If you had read half of the post that you answer you might actually learn something, and saying that people hate instances because older games dident have them or that we like sandbox games over Themeparks "just because" isent productive. Or that we hate casuals because WOW has them lol lol lol...
What you need to ask yourself instead is:
1. Do you like to lose your gear, your levels and your time when you die. The answer I think you would give is NO. But think a bit deeper how would you feel if you actually had something to lose, would your puls go up? or your adrenaline start pumping? And how good would it not feel if you beat that other player and made him lose his stuff instead of you? Now you might not be able to handle the stress but for those of us that can the exitment when you actually have something on the line is what makes games fun. Be it Poker. backgammon or an MMO. We want the added danger. And when new develpers keep taking this away from us because some people just cant handle it, it makes us upset. I dont like people Crying and bitching and moaning IRL and I sure dont like it in games. PUT UP OR SHUT UP is my moto...
2. If you like the above how would you feel if people suddenly could escape to thier own cosy little world where nobody could touch them? Istancing would be a bad thing now wouldent it??
3. If you like statment 1 how would you feel if people could get the same things as you by just playing 5 hours a week and risk nothing playing in a safe zone? Casual gamplay would not be something you would suport now would it??
Hope you start to understand Now. Its not that we Hate Themeparks and casuals , its that we like risks. And new games have no risk and only handholding and casual gamplay. Its boring and pointless. And I think many people agree with me that we need the good old days back. When bad shit whent down and little boys whent running home to mommy after you stole his Bucket in the Sandbox.
- Instances are a double edge sword. I would say instances are bad because they destory the immersion element of a persistent world. It makes you feel detached to the world it self, but rather you in a "lobby" waiting to get in deal.
- Themeparks are not bad, neither are sandboxes. It's just a different style of game design.
- Casuals are not bad; its the attitude of the casuals have for mmos. They want instant gratification most of the times. They don't realize you can be long term and still be casual.
- Carebears are not bad either. That is a dumb wow term that players use who play on PVE servers. Stupid to stereotype based off that. If one does not enjoy pvp why should they be slandered for it and wants to play on a PVE server?
- I think the qualities as a game as failed, is actually in the eye of the beholder. WoW is a very successful mmorpg and I think its a "failed" mmorpg versus EQ is a successful mmo because it brought out the true elements of what the genre is suppose to be. (That's another argument for another time)
These are just my opinions, I wonder if many share the same.
Games are like ice cream flavors, or music.
Vanilla isn't a bad flavor.
Metallica isn't bad music.
But you may like Chocolate better than Vanilla.
Or you may like Willie Nelson better than Metallica.
Games are fun, or they are not fun.
And not everyone will agree on what is fun, which is why developers make different sorts of games for different sorts of players.
If you want to post why you like a certain game, that's fine.
But it's really not constructive to tell other players they aren't allowed to have fun playing something you dont' like, and this goes for both sides of the argument.
FFA PvP is bad, it's for gankers!
Carebear games are bad, they are for pussies!
Grouping games are bad! because I like solo games!
Solo games are bad, because I like grouping games!
Take out the "bad" part.
Everyone is entitled to enjoy different kinds of game play. You will never argue someone into what they enjoy. Would you spend time trying to convince someone that Vanilla is a bad flavor of ice cream, and they should only like Chocolate?
Why would you spend time trying to convince someone they don't really like grouping games, FFA PvP games, solo games, instanced games, casual games, hardcore games, or whatever else it is they like?
Failed game = lost money.
Successful game = made money.
Above.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
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Currently Playing: ESO