I agree with some of the editorial but I don't agree with his comments as to casuals at 60. There is little non-raid non-pvp stuff to do. Blizzard has been slowly nudging the game to World of Raidcraft for many months now. Crafting at 60 requires items or recipes dropped from raid areas, essentially forcing the "casual" to raid if he wants to maximize his 300 skill in <whatever>. So the "will explore areas I couldn't before" argument really doesn't hold much weight.
I do agree that WoW did show that a more simplified relaxed game can be very profitable. Before the mentality was time sinks to keep them playing, raid mobs to kill them several times before they get anything and slower leveling curve.
This is actually a pretty "dumb" article that attempts to put one opinion against others.
Some like it....some love it...some hate it...some call it dumb. Such is what makes the world go around. This article would be accurate when read by the vast majority of WOW subscribers....however it would be inaccurate to those that played and quit because they want something different. It's like saying A western MMO is better than a fantasy MMO. Well...obviously that is completely subjective.
To quote the guy
"I'm glad WoW went with the more entertaining option."
To respond...in your opinion and probably about 4-5 million subscribers. However, many that quit and many that still play are looking forward to something else when it does eventually come out.
what makes WOW dumb are DUMB people who make articles about MMORPGS while have no idea what that really means and try to defened the "dumb" wow as a super cool new MMORPG.
"WoW has also appropriately done away with stat management, one of the most useless conventions carried over from pen and paper games."
I disagree with this opinion. I find stat management to be one of the best ways to give meaningful custimization to a character with the most interesting results. I agree that custimization on a cosmetic level is fairly overrated, but to say that stat management is useless makes no sense. It means the difference between offensive or defensive styles, it means choosing to make a glass-cannon or an off-beat hybrid just to see if it works. It means an increased sense of ownership and control over a playstyle, which results in more fun. The min/max crowd gets to tweek, the RP crowd gets to customize, the PvE and PvP crowds get to manage spec groups, and the casuals get to play. This generally means more fun, even WoW players enjoy it to the extent allowed through the talent trees(they didn't totally do away with it). As long as there are mechanisms in place to rectify mistakes fairly painlessly, I've found that stat management becomes at least a quarter of the fun of playing a game.
I personally feel WoW did a lot of things right, but just as many things wrong. Some of which I will not go over because they were talked about in the article, such as death penalty, and some are talked about all the time in forums, such as gear.
But the problem I find with WoW is the lack of depth. I have a level 60 of every character, most are at least outfitted with the dungeon 1 set, a couple with the dungeon 2 set, and 2 with tier 2, and 2 with tier 1. I quit for good when Naxx came out and I did not want to do another raid instance grind. The problem I had with WoW, is that there were so few classes, and with the classes so little depth. I made 1 of a class, I didnt want to do it again, even on the other side, why do it again? There was no real discernable difference between my undead mage and if I had rolled an alliance mage. So why?
Also there was no other way to make my character better than doing the raid instances. People like to talk about how getting the gear is work and they should be rewarded bla bla bla. Well I will tell you that when I got my rogue decked out in tier 2 and a couple of asinine daggers, which I forgot (I guess I could look up what I had but I am too lazy), PvP go so easy it got boring. I literally ran around stealthed 1 shotting clothies. I had a butt ton of health and it took almost as long to kill my rogue as it did my pally when she was still in dungeon 1 set. I literally lost any skill I had with the class because I no longer needed to be on the top of my game.
This really showed when I actually came up against a team that was as well geared as my guild. I couldnt believe how sloppy and pathetic I had gotten, it was really sad and I was actually ashamed of myself.
WoW 1 - 60 was a blast I will admit, the first couple of times through on each side that is. But doing the same instances for a .000000000001% chance of a drop then rolling on it, or bidding on it just got stupid. Then it wasnt fun anymore, the funny thing is Blizz spent all that time making BWL, Naxx, and AQ 40 and how much of the playerbase has actually seen it? What a waste of development time, time they could have spent making the game as a whole, especially the PvP better.
Edit - Also there is nothing good out for MMOs. Once we start seeing some of the newer "promising" MMOs come out we will see how well Blizz does. I am talking about the NA and European market, I think Blizz will keep big numbers because their end game grind leans heavily toward the asian style of play. So I think Blizz will keep millions of asians in the asian markets playing, but I am interested in seeing what happens with NA and Europe.
Kinda funny they stopped giving out the break ups of the numbers by regions a while back when people started to really complain about the end game grind.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
Different needs, different products. *shrug* I guess that's just a sign the MMO market is coming to maturation, which is just a good thing to any fan of the genre.
To me, the whole thing is an non-issue for now. If it ever comes to the point that every MMO is the same, or cater to the same (casual) audience, then I'll be worried. However, refering to the movie industry, while Hollywood is big and fat and all-emcompassing, there are still lots of independants and fringe producers giving us the movie diversity we need and crave for. Can both co-exist ? Definitely -- and the market has proven it.
As long as people will encourage/sustain alll those types of products, they will thrive.
Originally posted by FergRedbeard This is actually a pretty "dumb" article that attempts to put one opinion against others. Some like it....some love it...some hate it...some call it dumb. Such is what makes the world go around. This article would be accurate when read by the vast majority of WOW subscribers....however it would be inaccurate to those that played and quit because they want something different. It's like saying A western MMO is better than a fantasy MMO. Well...obviously that is completely subjective. To quote the guy "I'm glad WoW went with the more entertaining option." To respond...in your opinion and probably about 4-5 million subscribers. However, many that quit and many that still play are looking forward to something else when it does eventually come out.
Dude what cave did you just crawl out of??? All of these forums are basically debating gladatorial arenas to begin with...i.e. pitting one opinion against another. So, get over it already...not to mention it's the job of the one writing the editorial to spark controversy and discussion. Hence, why you and everyone else responded.
as a casual player i have to say that character customization and a good crafting system is very important for me. its complete wrong to say that we don't care about such things!!!
the wow gameplay is dump in my opinion but thats not a problem for me.
but the sad thing is, that the huge success of wow changed other complex games in to dumb games - like swg. well thats not the fault of blizzard its the money greed of $oe ....
its just cool to bash wow today, like its cool to brainlessly hype world of Warhammer, or some days ago Dark&Light (add any overhyped mmo failure you wish here).
doing anything else makes you an outcast heretic mmo carebear. if you wanna be pro, you have to hype with the best, or die like the rest. it was the same in 1942, and its the same today.
I played World of Warcraft for 8 months, about 10 hours/week, following release. I'm one of those players who likes to see everything the game has to offer before I decide on which class/race combination I'm going to pursue. After taking a number of characters into the late-teens or early twenties, I decided on my Orc Warrior. Played the character to 33, and realized that the game was dull. I was just running through a theme park whacking monsters and trying not to get myself sent back to the starting point.
So I left. Admittedly, I haven't found a decent game since, because every one I've played is just trying to copy World of Warcraft, and not doing it nearly as well.
In my opinion, the first thing that needs to go is the archetype/class system. It's dead. Please stop beating it, you won't get a reaction now that the flesh is sloughing off the bones. Skill based systems are better. Part of this is that I cut my MMO teeth on Asheron's Call, and I miss the customizability. Yes, there were levels, but you could raise your skills independently of those levels. Pumping my Run skill and my Quickness attribute and flying across the landscape are some of my fondest memories of AC.
Then, for me to be happy in a a game, there needs to be a world. I'd like it to exist, not just be a Disneyland or Six Flags ride where I go in, talk to some NPCs and go bash monsters, with a little crafting on the side. NPCs don't have to stand in one place, spouting the same drivel over and over like they have since Akalabeth or Final Fantasy (yes, I mean FF1!), do they? We must have better technology than that!
Also, something needs to be done about the "auto-attack-click-the-skill-whack-a-mole" combat, please. DDO tried, and their combat system is good. It's too bad the rest of the game is so miserably mediocre.
I'm not sure what it is, but honestly, the best MMO I've played in the past few months has been Final Fantasy 12. Yes, there are a few problems that still lined up with the problems I've mentioned here, but it's kept my attention the longest out of any Final Fantasy game for sure. Oh, and it's not an MMO.
I wish it was.
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"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
I got it! If you define casual as singles player (the one who likes to play singles, not MMO) the article will be true to the last word! And yes, WoW attracted exactly this type of people. This is just misusing common terminus casual that existed only in MMORPG and has a special meaning that has nothing to do with craft-hating or customisation insignificance.
A well enough written article, though a few of the key points made were somewhat incorrect:
A) Crafting, though a simple A+B=C process is indeed a grind to make items worth selling. The Weaponsmith subclass comes to mind here in that there are less than half-dozen items worth making, each of them requiring an extremely exhaustive amount of game time to acquire either first hand or via purchasing them from other players... and at the final cost of production there are better items more easily obtained. So a big *no* on crafting being necessarily 'easy'.
Though the death penalty may not be a direct sort, it is still one that forces players to re-play content. The better your gear, the higher the cost it is to repair it after a death. The only way to pay for those repairs is to go out and mindlessly kill more things to earn the coin to do so. So on the one hand you're not re-gaining experience, but on the other hand you're still forced to have a continual source of income to cover the 'cost' of the death penalty.
I have about 10-12 hours a week to play WoW. I have been playing since release and will agree that the end game punishes anyone who has a job or a family. If you can solo or 5man 1-60 requiring 20 or 40 for level 60 is the worst idea thay have had. They need to realize some of us work and have families and toss in some more 5man and at most 10man options. Though if not for trials of Atlantis I would most likely still be in DAoC since WoW has the worst community I have ever seen and if not for my guild I would have left long ago.
Well WoW is doing something right. After LU 29 in EQ2 im about ready to pack my bags and go someplace else and WoW might just be that place.
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own" - Thomas Jefferson
The only good thing WoW has done is bring more people into this genre, therefore creating more customers for big and small gaming companies. This really is a terrible article, and the overall quality of this site has gone to utter shit. With the EvEbois running wild, basically taking the entire site over, and now this horseshit from a staff member?
Well im out of here, gonna delete this pisspoor site from my favorites and find another gaming site that isnt partial to one or two games
Originally posted by Giana The only good thing WoW has done is bring more people into this genre, therefore creating more customers for big and small gaming companies. This really is a terrible article, and the overall quality of this site has gone to utter shit. With the EvEbois running wild, basically taking the entire site over, and now this horseshit from a staff member? Well im out of here, gonna delete this pisspoor site from my favorites and find another gaming site that isnt partial to one or two games /Good riddance
i hear ya dude, people can be a bit annoying and frustrating and make you realize how some people justify murder lol. but you gotta have a "i dont give a fu** attitude" say your peace, keep it constructive and based on facts, and a bit colorful here and there. There will always be "fanbois" whether it is EVE or wow, or whatever.
Realize that your opinion matters, no matter what fanboi likes or dislikes it, for me I tell them hey you dont like my opinion? theres the door! it opens and closes the same way you came in.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
I think the author has "hardcore" and "casual" mixed up. As an extremely casual player, I couldn't possibly disagree more with virtually every point made.
1) Character customization: For me, and many other people, playing dress-up is half the fun. I also like being able to create a unique character by customizing abilities, and since I neither raid nor even do a straight grind, I don't feel like I have to jump on the winning template. I have a vision for my character that is pretty much along the lines of playing pretend and that's what I do. It's the HARDCORE players who see their characters as mere tools: "Guild needs more healers? Sure, I'll run up a healer. Guild needs more tanks? I'll run up a tank and be at the raid on Saturday. In fact, I'll box the healer and the tank and bring both. How are we doing on mages?" And, of course, they'll find an optimal build and go with that.
An example: if you ask a hardcore player of EQ1 what race to be if you're going to play a warrior, they'll likely say "ogre" across the board. Is that because ogres are better looking and represent them better in the game world? Hell NO. It's because ogres start with high stats in the areas a warrior needs and are immune to frontal stun from the start. The latter is too big an advantage to pass up, if you really care about having advantages over what you look like. And I can almost guarantee you that none of those people who would advise you to play an ogre would do any customization at all-- they'd likely take whatever random facial configuration they got in character creation.
2). Stat management: For some people, both casual and hardcore, this is part of the FUN. Maybe you think it is useless and don't enjoy it, but that doesn't mean that other people aren't deriving a lot of their fun from running the numbers. Look at it this way: I am not into sports, but sometimes I watch baseball with my husband. I sit and comment on the action currently happening on the field, and he talks back to me about a lot of statistics that I don't understand or need to know. If you took the numbers out of baseball for him, he'd probably think it was shallow and lame, the way some people feel about WoW. It's just another thing that can be put into a game that some people will enjoy.
3) The point of a death penalty is to give you a reason to avoid death. If there's not going to be any penalty for it, why include death at all? Why not just knock you out for 20 seconds and then let you get up and get back into it? Some people, again, both hardcore and casual, enjoy a balance of rewards and punishments in their fun. It doesn't mean that death penalties are good or bad. It means that they are people out there who find that losing the death penalty means losing some of the fun.
4.) Crafting? I don't get crafting. I don't see where it is particularly "hardcore" in any game... But, personally, I don't even see why it is included in any game, so I am not qualified to speak to that.
It's easy to assume that "hardcore" people are a bunch of losers with their ego and self-worth tied up in a game, when, in fact, they may just be people who enjoy different aspects of gaming, and that maybe those aspects were eliminated to appeal to the mass market. Maybe they are bashing WoW because it's just not fun to them. I tried WoW too, but even as a casual player, I got bored fast. I attribute that to not being new to playing MMORPGs, and expecting more from the game, even as a slacker. I don't think WoW is dumb. I don't think people who play WoW are dumb. I just think the game has limits too low even for me, and I think as the genre matures, the millions playing WoW will move on to other games and expand their horizons too.
... This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I actually had to laugh at the OP. Sorry, I am not going to read the 70 comments already posted, am at work. All I can say is that I hope Steve Wilson is being paid well for his fanboi editorials in favor of WoW. This is the second in a series of ridiculous and pathetic attempts to justify WoW as the greatest game. I find it truly unfortunate that a mmorpg.com employee would so blatantly push a game in this manner.
Every argument I saw there just spoke of laziness for the most part for me.
I DO agree with the titanic/Star Wars comparison, and that big does not necessarily mean good.
Still, when it came to trade skills, WoW screwed up big time. Yes, they may have taken TSing out of the hands of the hardcore players, but rather than make it an interesting and useful skill for all, they took just about all importance of TSing out of the game, besides alchemy and enchanting. They may have taken the "chance" factor out as well, but they replaced it with a grind that I found to be the most annoying of any game I have played. Add to this the fact that in LW, my elemental-specced rogue was able to use maybe 10-15 pieces in 60 levels, and the rest were just the same time/money/resource sinks that Wilson blames on other games. TSing does not make much that is useful. In fact, even though I leveled up my LW along with adv. levels, I usually found better gear off of mobs in dungeons or through quests than I could make. I usually had the next tier of gear finished and waiting for me in the bank, and 9 times out of 10, by the time I could equip it, I had better from loot. I did not use the auction house to buy, preferring on my first character to experience the drops.
Character customization: I dont think any game besides CoH has allowed toons much customization. Wilson certainly places himself as a casual player, and has a different mentality. One of the pertinent issues here is that as a casual player, it seems WoW is the only game he has played for any extended period of time, and 2 years I dont find to be extended really at all. I myself played EQ1 for 6 years, and most of the people I know in gaming stuck with a game they enjoyed for 4+ years. If a game pretty much requires you to play multiple toons, I definitely find this as a negative. The reason means there is a lack of depth to a game. One of the keys to long-term health of a game, besides community, is the ability to see a toon as an extension of the player. My EQ1 ranger was certainly an extension of myself. I had a few alts, but for the vast majority of my time in Norrath, my ranger was roaming the world. My ranger had a known reputation on the server, and was greeted by players I had never grouped with. This is what I find attractive in a game and what kept me logging in year after year. Other games with less depth and immersion such as WoW are good in short bursts for brief extensions, but the longtime survivability is going to be hampered by the lack of this depth. When one is able to max levels in 5-6 weeks, and then move on to another toon, there is little reason to log in every day. It truly becomes a matter of just seeing everything and then moving on to the next game. When one identifies with a particular character, one wants to enter the world. This is how I believe the term avatar came to be. I could not juggle 4 toons for 6 years and still enjoy it. I could certainly play a main, in my case a ranger, for 6 years and watch my character grow and improve over time. This does not mean only by stats, though I am one who enjoys number crunching.
As for Wilsons WoW has also appropriately done away with stat management, one of the most useless conventions carried over from pen and paper games. That is purely an opinion and should NOT be stated as fact. Stat crunching is purely subjective, and many others and myself rather enjoy this part of the game. Again, it goes along the lines of immersion and depth, something with which Wilson is apparently unable to identify or appreciate. Again, Wilsons definition of casual equates with lazy in my dictionary
Impact on the world: yet again, another example of Wilsons blatant disregard and incapability to appreciate immersion. What is wrong with houses? What is wrong with going into a building and seeing items one has earned hanging on a wall? It is not as if the rent or whatever is going to hurt the bank that badly. Again, this is just another pathetic example of Wilsons inability to comprehend immersion.
Death Penalty: Yet another example of Wilsons poor comprehension. Also, another example of some lazy player that wants mmorpgs to be the same thing as some console action game. Why? Arent there enough of those to go around between all the consoles out there? What is wrong with having a game be different? Still, even in those games, death means something. Many games allow you 4-5 lives. After those, game over and you have to start again. With memory cards, console games allow you to save at predefined spots in a game level. If you die, you can go back to that saved point and replay up to where you died. That is a death penalty right there.
Death Penalties teach one a respect for the game. If there is no hardship, then there is little reason to be careful. A lot of the immersion is taken out of the game, as well as a lot of the strategy.
Ex. The next room in a dungeon has 7 mobs, including a named.
Option A, lazy players in a WoW-type game: Charge! If we wipe we just do it again in 3 mins
Option B, classic mmorpg with a death penalty: Ok, our puller, the one who has dedicated a lot of time to the art of pulling, will grab 1-2 at a time and we will whittle them down. If more come, our crowd crontroller, who has also demonstrated his/her commitment to the class, will take care of the adds and we will survive. If we dont, then we will have learned something.
Commitment is important in an mmorpg. Again, this is something that Wilson and the average WoW-player cannot comprehend. As I said in Wilsons last debate, I am happy that WOW does well. The better it does, the more of Wilson and his type of player I will NOT have to deal with in whichever game I play. The more WoWbois of Wilsons ilk the better. Just stay with WoW and out of my games plskthx.
Well to define WoW as "dumb", you'd have to use the context of "dumbing down", in the sense that WoW is easier to play and get into than other MMO's, such as EVE Online. So in that context, yes, it is dumb, but it's not stupid.
Comments
I agree with some of the editorial but I don't agree with his comments as to casuals at 60. There is little non-raid non-pvp stuff to do. Blizzard has been slowly nudging the game to World of Raidcraft for many months now. Crafting at 60 requires items or recipes dropped from raid areas, essentially forcing the "casual" to raid if he wants to maximize his 300 skill in <whatever>. So the "will explore areas I couldn't before" argument really doesn't hold much weight.
I do agree that WoW did show that a more simplified relaxed game can be very profitable. Before the mentality was time sinks to keep them playing, raid mobs to kill them several times before they get anything and slower leveling curve.
Well written regardless.
This is actually a pretty "dumb" article that attempts to put one opinion against others.
Some like it....some love it...some hate it...some call it dumb. Such is what makes the world go around. This article would be accurate when read by the vast majority of WOW subscribers....however it would be inaccurate to those that played and quit because they want something different. It's like saying A western MMO is better than a fantasy MMO. Well...obviously that is completely subjective.
To quote the guy
"I'm glad WoW went with the more entertaining option."
To respond...in your opinion and probably about 4-5 million subscribers. However, many that quit and many that still play are looking forward to something else when it does eventually come out.
P.S. Some people think Tetris is a dumb game.
Spiritglow
most useless conventions carried over from pen and paper games."
I disagree with this opinion.
I find stat management to be one of the best ways to give meaningful custimization to a character with the most interesting results. I agree that custimization on a cosmetic level is fairly overrated, but to say that stat management is useless makes no sense. It means the difference between offensive or defensive styles, it means choosing to make a glass-cannon or an off-beat hybrid just to see if it works. It means an increased sense of ownership and control over a playstyle, which results in more fun. The min/max crowd gets to tweek, the RP crowd gets to customize, the PvE and PvP crowds get to manage spec groups, and the casuals get to play. This generally means more fun, even WoW players enjoy it to the extent allowed through the talent trees(they didn't totally do away with it). As long as there are mechanisms in place to rectify mistakes fairly painlessly, I've found that stat management becomes at least a quarter of the fun of playing a game.
I personally feel WoW did a lot of things right, but just as many things wrong. Some of which I will not go over because they were talked about in the article, such as death penalty, and some are talked about all the time in forums, such as gear.
But the problem I find with WoW is the lack of depth. I have a level 60 of every character, most are at least outfitted with the dungeon 1 set, a couple with the dungeon 2 set, and 2 with tier 2, and 2 with tier 1. I quit for good when Naxx came out and I did not want to do another raid instance grind. The problem I had with WoW, is that there were so few classes, and with the classes so little depth. I made 1 of a class, I didnt want to do it again, even on the other side, why do it again? There was no real discernable difference between my undead mage and if I had rolled an alliance mage. So why?
Also there was no other way to make my character better than doing the raid instances. People like to talk about how getting the gear is work and they should be rewarded bla bla bla. Well I will tell you that when I got my rogue decked out in tier 2 and a couple of asinine daggers, which I forgot (I guess I could look up what I had but I am too lazy), PvP go so easy it got boring. I literally ran around stealthed 1 shotting clothies. I had a butt ton of health and it took almost as long to kill my rogue as it did my pally when she was still in dungeon 1 set. I literally lost any skill I had with the class because I no longer needed to be on the top of my game.
This really showed when I actually came up against a team that was as well geared as my guild. I couldnt believe how sloppy and pathetic I had gotten, it was really sad and I was actually ashamed of myself.
WoW 1 - 60 was a blast I will admit, the first couple of times through on each side that is. But doing the same instances for a .000000000001% chance of a drop then rolling on it, or bidding on it just got stupid. Then it wasnt fun anymore, the funny thing is Blizz spent all that time making BWL, Naxx, and AQ 40 and how much of the playerbase has actually seen it? What a waste of development time, time they could have spent making the game as a whole, especially the PvP better.
Edit - Also there is nothing good out for MMOs. Once we start seeing some of the newer "promising" MMOs come out we will see how well Blizz does. I am talking about the NA and European market, I think Blizz will keep big numbers because their end game grind leans heavily toward the asian style of play. So I think Blizz will keep millions of asians in the asian markets playing, but I am interested in seeing what happens with NA and Europe.
Kinda funny they stopped giving out the break ups of the numbers by regions a while back when people started to really complain about the end game grind.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.
To me, the whole thing is an non-issue for now. If it ever comes to the point that every MMO is the same, or cater to the same (casual) audience, then I'll be worried. However, refering to the movie industry, while Hollywood is big and fat and all-emcompassing, there are still lots of independants and fringe producers giving us the movie diversity we need and crave for. Can both co-exist ? Definitely -- and the market has proven it.
As long as people will encourage/sustain alll those types of products, they will thrive.
Dude what cave did you just crawl out of??? All of these forums are basically debating gladatorial arenas to begin with...i.e. pitting one opinion against another. So, get over it already...not to mention it's the job of the one writing the editorial to spark controversy and discussion. Hence, why you and everyone else responded.
This article is either one of the most bitingly sarcastic things I've ever read or not as smart as I give it credit for.
do it by yourself and it's weird. . .
do it with others and it's a club.
as a casual player i have to say that character customization and a good crafting system is very important for me.
its complete wrong to say that we don't care about such things!!!
the wow gameplay is dump in my opinion but thats not a problem for me.
but the sad thing is, that the huge success of wow changed other complex games in to dumb games - like swg.
well thats not the fault of blizzard its the money greed of $oe
its just cool to bash wow today, like its cool to brainlessly hype world of Warhammer, or some days ago Dark&Light
(add any overhyped mmo failure you wish here).
doing anything else makes you an outcast heretic mmo carebear. if you wanna be pro, you have to hype with the best, or die like the rest. it was the same in 1942, and its the same today.
So I left. Admittedly, I haven't found a decent game since, because every one I've played is just trying to copy World of Warcraft, and not doing it nearly as well.
In my opinion, the first thing that needs to go is the archetype/class system. It's dead. Please stop beating it, you won't get a reaction now that the flesh is sloughing off the bones. Skill based systems are better. Part of this is that I cut my MMO teeth on Asheron's Call, and I miss the customizability. Yes, there were levels, but you could raise your skills independently of those levels. Pumping my Run skill and my Quickness attribute and flying across the landscape are some of my fondest memories of AC.
Then, for me to be happy in a a game, there needs to be a world. I'd like it to exist, not just be a Disneyland or Six Flags ride where I go in, talk to some NPCs and go bash monsters, with a little crafting on the side. NPCs don't have to stand in one place, spouting the same drivel over and over like they have since Akalabeth or Final Fantasy (yes, I mean FF1!), do they? We must have better technology than that!
Also, something needs to be done about the "auto-attack-click-the-skill-whack-a-mole" combat, please. DDO tried, and their combat system is good. It's too bad the rest of the game is so miserably mediocre.
I'm not sure what it is, but honestly, the best MMO I've played in the past few months has been Final Fantasy 12. Yes, there are a few problems that still lined up with the problems I've mentioned here, but it's kept my attention the longest out of any Final Fantasy game for sure. Oh, and it's not an MMO.
I wish it was.
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"Give a man a fire, and he is warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he is warm for the rest of his life."
I got it! If you define casual as singles player (the one who likes to play singles, not MMO) the article will be true to the last word! And yes, WoW attracted exactly this type of people. This is just misusing common terminus casual that existed only in MMORPG and has a special meaning that has nothing to do with craft-hating or customisation insignificance.
A) Crafting, though a simple A+B=C process is indeed a grind to make items worth selling. The Weaponsmith subclass comes to mind here in that there are less than half-dozen items worth making, each of them requiring an extremely exhaustive amount of game time to acquire either first hand or via purchasing them from other players... and at the final cost of production there are better items more easily obtained. So a big *no* on crafting being necessarily 'easy'.
"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own" - Thomas Jefferson
The only good thing WoW has done is bring more people into this genre, therefore creating more customers for big and small gaming companies. This really is a terrible article, and the overall quality of this site has gone to utter shit. With the EvEbois running wild, basically taking the entire site over, and now this horseshit from a staff member?
Well im out of here, gonna delete this pisspoor site from my favorites and find another gaming site that isnt partial to one or two games
/Good riddance
i hear ya dude, people can be a bit annoying and frustrating and make you realize how some people justify murder lol. but you gotta have a "i dont give a fu** attitude" say your peace, keep it constructive and based on facts, and a bit colorful here and there. There will always be "fanbois" whether it is EVE or wow, or whatever.
Realize that your opinion matters, no matter what fanboi likes or dislikes it, for me I tell them hey you dont like my opinion? theres the door! it opens and closes the same way you came in.
3.4ghz Phenom II X4 965, 8GB PC12800 DDR3 GSKILL, EVGA 560GTX 2GB OC, 640GB HD SATA II, BFG 1000WATT PSU. MSI NF980-G65 TRI-SLI MOBO.
Hi all,
Im so glad the writer has dumbed down everyone to his level.
Go, go, the lowest common denominator, why no do away with level all together
and remove combat and... Lets just have a chat room.
Simplification of ideas is fine, simple ideas for simple minds. Just please
dont try and convince me that Im simple just because you are.
Who are the two biggest players in wow....
A guy who was so dumb he wiped a raid while yelling a dumbarse name.
and
The guy who got banned for bombing the auction house.
Above are the greatest levels of achievement attained within wow, I vote we
rename wow, Rednecks, retards and kids.
,
Oglem
I think the author has "hardcore" and "casual" mixed up. As an extremely casual player, I couldn't possibly disagree more with virtually every point made.
1) Character customization: For me, and many other people, playing dress-up is half the fun. I also like being able to create a unique character by customizing abilities, and since I neither raid nor even do a straight grind, I don't feel like I have to jump on the winning template. I have a vision for my character that is pretty much along the lines of playing pretend and that's what I do. It's the HARDCORE players who see their characters as mere tools: "Guild needs more healers? Sure, I'll run up a healer. Guild needs more tanks? I'll run up a tank and be at the raid on Saturday. In fact, I'll box the healer and the tank and bring both. How are we doing on mages?" And, of course, they'll find an optimal build and go with that.
An example: if you ask a hardcore player of EQ1 what race to be if you're going to play a warrior, they'll likely say "ogre" across the board. Is that because ogres are better looking and represent them better in the game world? Hell NO. It's because ogres start with high stats in the areas a warrior needs and are immune to frontal stun from the start. The latter is too big an advantage to pass up, if you really care about having advantages over what you look like. And I can almost guarantee you that none of those people who would advise you to play an ogre would do any customization at all-- they'd likely take whatever random facial configuration they got in character creation.
2). Stat management: For some people, both casual and hardcore, this is part of the FUN. Maybe you think it is useless and don't enjoy it, but that doesn't mean that other people aren't deriving a lot of their fun from running the numbers. Look at it this way: I am not into sports, but sometimes I watch baseball with my husband. I sit and comment on the action currently happening on the field, and he talks back to me about a lot of statistics that I don't understand or need to know. If you took the numbers out of baseball for him, he'd probably think it was shallow and lame, the way some people feel about WoW. It's just another thing that can be put into a game that some people will enjoy.
3) The point of a death penalty is to give you a reason to avoid death. If there's not going to be any penalty for it, why include death at all? Why not just knock you out for 20 seconds and then let you get up and get back into it? Some people, again, both hardcore and casual, enjoy a balance of rewards and punishments in their fun. It doesn't mean that death penalties are good or bad. It means that they are people out there who find that losing the death penalty means losing some of the fun.
4.) Crafting? I don't get crafting. I don't see where it is particularly "hardcore" in any game... But, personally, I don't even see why it is included in any game, so I am not qualified to speak to that.
It's easy to assume that "hardcore" people are a bunch of losers with their ego and self-worth tied up in a game, when, in fact, they may just be people who enjoy different aspects of gaming, and that maybe those aspects were eliminated to appeal to the mass market. Maybe they are bashing WoW because it's just not fun to them. I tried WoW too, but even as a casual player, I got bored fast. I attribute that to not being new to playing MMORPGs, and expecting more from the game, even as a slacker. I don't think WoW is dumb. I don't think people who play WoW are dumb. I just think the game has limits too low even for me, and I think as the genre matures, the millions playing WoW will move on to other games and expand their horizons too.
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This is where I draw the line: __________________.
I actually had to laugh at the OP. Sorry, I am not going to read the 70 comments already posted, am at work. All I can say is that I hope Steve Wilson is being paid well for his fanboi editorials in favor of WoW. This is the second in a series of ridiculous and pathetic attempts to justify WoW as the greatest game. I find it truly unfortunate that a mmorpg.com employee would so blatantly push a game in this manner.
Every argument I saw there just spoke of laziness for the most part for me.
I DO agree with the titanic/Star Wars comparison, and that big does not necessarily mean good.
Still, when it came to trade skills, WoW screwed up big time. Yes, they may have taken TSing out of the hands of the hardcore players, but rather than make it an interesting and useful skill for all, they took just about all importance of TSing out of the game, besides alchemy and enchanting. They may have taken the "chance" factor out as well, but they replaced it with a grind that I found to be the most annoying of any game I have played. Add to this the fact that in LW, my elemental-specced rogue was able to use maybe 10-15 pieces in 60 levels, and the rest were just the same time/money/resource sinks that Wilson blames on other games. TSing does not make much that is useful. In fact, even though I leveled up my LW along with adv. levels, I usually found better gear off of mobs in dungeons or through quests than I could make. I usually had the next tier of gear finished and waiting for me in the bank, and 9 times out of 10, by the time I could equip it, I had better from loot. I did not use the auction house to buy, preferring on my first character to experience the drops.
Character customization: I dont think any game besides CoH has allowed toons much customization. Wilson certainly places himself as a casual player, and has a different mentality. One of the pertinent issues here is that as a casual player, it seems WoW is the only game he has played for any extended period of time, and 2 years I dont find to be extended really at all. I myself played EQ1 for 6 years, and most of the people I know in gaming stuck with a game they enjoyed for 4+ years. If a game pretty much requires you to play multiple toons, I definitely find this as a negative. The reason means there is a lack of depth to a game. One of the keys to long-term health of a game, besides community, is the ability to see a toon as an extension of the player. My EQ1 ranger was certainly an extension of myself. I had a few alts, but for the vast majority of my time in Norrath, my ranger was roaming the world. My ranger had a known reputation on the server, and was greeted by players I had never grouped with. This is what I find attractive in a game and what kept me logging in year after year. Other games with less depth and immersion such as WoW are good in short bursts for brief extensions, but the longtime survivability is going to be hampered by the lack of this depth. When one is able to max levels in 5-6 weeks, and then move on to another toon, there is little reason to log in every day. It truly becomes a matter of just seeing everything and then moving on to the next game. When one identifies with a particular character, one wants to enter the world. This is how I believe the term avatar came to be. I could not juggle 4 toons for 6 years and still enjoy it. I could certainly play a main, in my case a ranger, for 6 years and watch my character grow and improve over time. This does not mean only by stats, though I am one who enjoys number crunching.
As for Wilsons WoW has also appropriately done away with stat management, one of the most useless conventions carried over from pen and paper games. That is purely an opinion and should NOT be stated as fact. Stat crunching is purely subjective, and many others and myself rather enjoy this part of the game. Again, it goes along the lines of immersion and depth, something with which Wilson is apparently unable to identify or appreciate. Again, Wilsons definition of casual equates with lazy in my dictionary
Impact on the world: yet again, another example of Wilsons blatant disregard and incapability to appreciate immersion. What is wrong with houses? What is wrong with going into a building and seeing items one has earned hanging on a wall? It is not as if the rent or whatever is going to hurt the bank that badly. Again, this is just another pathetic example of Wilsons inability to comprehend immersion.
Death Penalty: Yet another example of Wilsons poor comprehension. Also, another example of some lazy player that wants mmorpgs to be the same thing as some console action game. Why? Arent there enough of those to go around between all the consoles out there? What is wrong with having a game be different? Still, even in those games, death means something. Many games allow you 4-5 lives. After those, game over and you have to start again. With memory cards, console games allow you to save at predefined spots in a game level. If you die, you can go back to that saved point and replay up to where you died. That is a death penalty right there.
Death Penalties teach one a respect for the game. If there is no hardship, then there is little reason to be careful. A lot of the immersion is taken out of the game, as well as a lot of the strategy.
Ex. The next room in a dungeon has 7 mobs, including a named.
Option A, lazy players in a WoW-type game: Charge! If we wipe we just do it again in 3 mins
Option B, classic mmorpg with a death penalty: Ok, our puller, the one who has dedicated a lot of time to the art of pulling, will grab 1-2 at a time and we will whittle them down. If more come, our crowd crontroller, who has also demonstrated his/her commitment to the class, will take care of the adds and we will survive. If we dont, then we will have learned something.
Commitment is important in an mmorpg. Again, this is something that Wilson and the average WoW-player cannot comprehend. As I said in Wilsons last debate, I am happy that WOW does well. The better it does, the more of Wilson and his type of player I will NOT have to deal with in whichever game I play. The more WoWbois of Wilsons ilk the better. Just stay with WoW and out of my games plskthx.