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When will people realize that casual mmos have no staying power?
supertouchme
Member Posts: 68
The people who clamor for accessibility and style over substance are the same ones holding their d**** after a month, wondering why these games aren't sustaining interest.
Developers are simply doing a disservice by targeting casual players because casual players aren't the ones driving the market and they never have.
They're going to lure people in with novelties, but I can guarantee this will be a completely neutered mmo experience. Forget any real sense of danger. You can run through this group of mobs unscathed or just steamroll them with your cool aoe axe attack! Don't worry about interdependent gameplay. You can be the jack of all trades because we don't want you to spend 5 minutes looking for a utility class!
Yeah, this game will pique people's interest and the IP alone will sell copies, but it will lack all the elements that keep people playing mmos.
Comments
i don't agree mostly, i think it has far more to do with being more of the same than anything.
what you are saying is a factor yes, but i can list quite a few online games that had staying power that were very casual friendly, not just wow either.
I too disagree that "casualness" is the exact dividing line between a game having staying power or not.
I feel it is more about content and progression.
The most played MMO since release is a casual MMO, how on Earth did you come to this conclusion. Casual will always be more popular because casuals out number hardcore players 1000:1. You can even look at another genre, the MOBA. LoL easily the more casual out of any of them is the most popular and is only getting more popular while HoN and DOTA are struggling to keep up.
Hardcore MMOS will always have their strong and dedicated group of niche players, but those games on a good day will never come close to the staying power or numbers of casual MMOs on their worst day. While it would be awesome id the gaming world was more accepting of hardcore games, it won't happen. Ever.
WoW is a casual MMO and it has sustained a lot of interest for almost a decade.
Perhaps there are more factors to sustaining than just casual or hardcore.
But, that must be impossible because that would be reasonable and level headed.
^^^
This.
"Youre in our world now!"
While people who compare WoW to FFXI or EQ1 will continue to say it was a casual MMO. Eventually the truth will be revealed that it was not. It is a game that took (and still to some degree at least) takes long term progression and commitment to your character, your communities, and both knowledge of your class and the encounters you face (or at least the right mods to download). People who complained about WoW being "casual" just probably didn't expect mainstream MMORPG to go in the direction it would after the failure of games like Rift/LotRO/etc.
Games like GW2 and EQ Next are casual MMORPGs. They have no subscription, they are centered around a cash shop model, they boast no progression as a selling point, they boast no reliance on others in grouping (and little reliance ON grouping) as a selling point. But they will always be successful too.
Angry Birds is very successful, not everyone these days wants an MMORPG like the "old days" or even like WoW, they want something they can get on for 20 minutes with their kid and have some fun like minecraft, or whatever "action" game you can think of that requires little time investment to get an "enjoyable" experience out of.
Casual gamers are finally getting the ultimate casual game in EQ Next (GW2 with its leveling, and now maybe even some minor progression at endgame can't even compete on the same level of casualness)
http://xivpads.com/?1595680
http://guildwork.com/users/murugan
EQ is hardcore and has existed for 14 years.
Anyway, the original poster is correct, but it's a lesson that will probably take another generation for the industry to figure out.
A very tiny (~1/100 of a percent) percentage of players ever see the highest level content while its current. Most of them... if they raid that content at all, do so long after the encounter is somewhat trivialized.
Most players who play WoW, play casually... even those that raid regularly.
I remember playing WoW in beta and thinking "no way will anyone play this longer than 6 months"...It is way too easy and simplistic for gamers to stick with it......My error too was thinking of gamers as "hardcore" gamers who want a challenge out of every game.....We have to realize this isnt the year 2000 anymore.....People no longer want a difficult game, they want to sit for an hour and be entertained....Like someone said earlier, the casual gamer is 1000X more abundant than the hardcore gamer.....That will msot likely be the norm from here on out.
Tetris is casual and has existed for 29 years.
EQ hasnt been "hardcore" for a long time.
Uh, no.By Blizzard's own admission serious raiding(ie the people that spend countless hours preparing and organizing raids) is a small minority.
The vast majority of WoWs playerbase from the beginning has been casual.
That is because you don't play it or only have a lowbee character. EQ has the most hardcore raids of all, some of the Underfoot raids were mucfh more hardcore than GoD. 200 wipes for each win on average.
Play the game, then comment! And longer than a few months.
I don't believe the OP's point was that casual games have more or less players but rather, the fact that people get tired of them after a month or two.
This game is so easy to read from maketing that here what your PILE OF EVERCRAP NEXT came from:
1. Guidlwars 2 Game world art (2 years ago when this started development GW2 was the big hype)
2. Minecraft game mechanics (#1 app downloaded, Minecrafter will love this game)
3. Free Realms 2.0 (free realms players are now teens and will love this game)
4. AoE red ares on ground (Neverwinter Nights by Perfect World)
5. Yes... WOW. (The Exact Level of cartoon detail in characters, Shoulder pads, Orcs) and yes the wow kids who are now teens will love this game.
If your an adult that started on EQ1 or EQOA, your going to have to swallow all this crap to start to like this game....
Remember when the Simpsons use to make fun of boy bands like NSYNC, then they actually had a video of NSYNC in thier show and you looked at your friend all wierd like, because you knew it just jumped the shark... sold out, switched sides.
Remember when Fonzi was cool, and then he decided he would JUMP THE SHARK?
EVERQUEST HAS JUMPED THE SHARK.... And all the old school players are left in the water with all the wow loving, minecraft loving, guild wars 2 loving, free realms loving SHARKS!!!!!!
That about sum it up for you SON.
I haven't played WoW since WotLK, but even entry-level raiding at that time took quite a bit of dedication. The endgame content by its very nature wasn't "casual-friendly" and it's what has kept the game afloat for all these years.
daddy? why you treat mommy so bad?
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Set up your own set of rules like if you die, you have to delete your character and start over.
Devs should stop catering to the casuals. If they're casual gamers because they have a 'life' (whatever reason) that little bit of time they play everyday needs to work toward a larger goal. If it take 5 hours to gather 5 carrots, let the casual spend their 1 hours per day gather 1 carrot and finishing the quest in 5 days. Thats why they are casuals.
I believe that if a developer made a hardcore game and did it well.(As far as polish and content and end game go) it could have a very high player base. The problem is, look at the hardcore mmorpgs that have been released in the past 10 years.
Well I will say this about the game, it has gathered a majority of the trolls and made them enter into a state of pure outcry over less than 10 minutes of video, not even a screen shot of the majority of races, and without even mentioning crafting or pvp or how big or open the world will be.
Based off of a demo video with the AI clearly not implemented and the devs stating the characters were overpowered for the enemy we now know for a fact that this game involves facerolling everything in the game with an axe. Thank you move along.
Why should they stop catering to casuals? Why should they neglect a portion of the player base if they intend on making a name for their company as well as profit?
Better question is, why type of job do you have in real life?
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
Life support you mean.
Velika: City of Wheels: Among the mortal races, the humans were the only one that never built cities or great empires; a curse laid upon them by their creator, Gidd, forced them to wander as nomads for twenty centuries...