This is the first question that needs to be asked. They are made to make money. When they were first developed the creators only thought they could make money from the market that is now refered to as the hard core gamers. With WOW, that concept has been destroyed. Now creators can go after the whole mass market. I will be surprised if another game will ever be produced to make the hard core gamers happy again. The money isn't there anymore. Why build a game for a mere 100,000 people when they can make a game for over a million people. It doesn't make economic sense. If creators go back and can get someone to finance a project to attract the hardcore gamers then it will be done again. Gamers and creators do not control those purse strings. those are controlled by those who only see the mighty dollar, yen, won, pound or maybe even the peso. Its time to face reality.
My wife has been playing EQ2 for a year now, she never thought she would get into a game like this. EQ2 "lowered" the bar too, but it has attracted her and 5 friends. The point is fun, and for most people fun is being able to get online socialize with friends and do some quests. Complicated MMOs will never be anything else but a niche, much like the turn-based war games I like to play.
Unfortunately those who feel that MMOs should be complicated, harsh and realistic seem to be an incredibly vocal minority. They have a tendency to taint the games they play with rudeness, and elitism. Not all do, some actually try to bring people up to a higher level of gameplay and I wish there were more people like that. Instead I keep running into the "Go back to WoW" crowd who seem to think this is the ultimate insult. Given the costs of these games, I doubt you'll see an old-school UO/AC/EQ game appearing anytime soon.
To Edmonal, Instead of actually making an argument against people's points you attack them directly and poision the wells. Stick to the issue at hand it will make your point stronger.
To Steve, I am a casual gamer 3-6 hours per week playing, I tried SWG as my first MMO and I really enjoyed the immersion factor, I could hang out in the Cantina or run some missions against storm troppers, even own a house. I never did PvP or own a SWG spreadsheet, but I was always immersed in the environment and many of my friends were as well. The key was I could do anything I wanted, it was a virtual reality and there was a sense of community and economy almost middle eastern in nature.
The issue I have with the games like WoW is that they really only put the polish and effort into a few things, level your character via quests and the world itself, while everything else is almost an after thought. I am experiencing this now with LOTRO, I see there are people around me but it is not immersive, and people come and go into groups so fast there is no time to actually talk with them, it's like they are on a real hamster wheel grind. So should all games be just like this, should companies change all their games mid stream to reflect this model? I don't think so, I don't see why you can't have nitche options, markets only grow so fast and once saturated you can make 20 WoW clones all of them will be nitche becaus enot every WoW player can afford to have 20 subscriptions, so common sense tells you go get different nitche. I guess to the OP that would not be acceptable and will resort to attacing the character flaws of "elite gamers" instead of the argument itself.
IMO, The next step for games is not that they need to be simpler or that you need spreadsheets, it is that you need to combine the elements of Grapics/Virtual reality/ RPG and webplaces. Games need to have a place for all playstyes not just a few. If you start to think about things in black and white, good and bad, then you miss the point becuase MMO's are certainly gonna change in the future, in 20 years Wow will be Pongesque and the ideals and pricipals the OP holds to a high level will be laughed at. It's only a matter of time.
Why are MMOs made? This is the first question that needs to be asked. They are made to make money. When they were first developed the creators only thought they could make money from the market that is now refered to as the hard core gamers. With WOW, that concept has been destroyed. Now creators can go after the whole mass market. I will be surprised if another game will ever be produced to make the hard core gamers happy again. The money isn't there anymore. Why build a game for a mere 100,000 people when they can make a game for over a million people. It doesn't make economic sense. If creators go back and can get someone to finance a project to attract the hardcore gamers then it will be done again. Gamers and creators do not control those purse strings. those are controlled by those who only see the mighty dollar, yen, won, pound or maybe even the peso. Its time to face reality.
Ever is a long time. WoW while the model now is the talk of the MMO community it's still a drop in the bucket when compared with the user base of Myspace. Think about it, as a business man why wouldn't you be migrating games with webplaces, the market for that could be a lot more impressive than 6 million Koreans and a few million Americans.
Even the way they make Star Wars now is different than before.
In 25 years we maybe walking as ourselves in games, who knows.
OP makes good points, and I definitely agree with him.
I find it funny how those that talk about wanting a 'hard' game, only ever seem to think of 'hard' as a 'long and pointless grind', because somehow it makes you feel better to know you've wasted more of your life than others clicking a couple buttons over and over. Times are changing, spending hours and hours grinding on mobs to level will soon be entirely obsolete (though I am sure those asians will try to keep it going forever).
Stop living in the past and look to the future. That's where the fun is.
A good article, though it misses one important point, I think.
"Accessible to the masses" and "Challenging to the hardcore" are not exclusive. It's the learning curve that needs to be looked at, if a game start off easy, so the less experienced players can get into it, then slowly ups the difficulty, there's no reason the game can't be challenging to hardcore gamers by the time they approach the level cap.
Taking WoW as an easy example, that game doesn't have a learning curve at all. If you can beat a lvl 1 mob as a lvl 1 toon, you can beat a lvl 70 mob as a lvl 70 toon. Instead, it imposes "artificial" blocks to progress, such as gear checks and raid sizes.
Ideally, a game with a good learning curve would allow the two extremes to meet in the middle. If the game regularly throws new challenges at a player, (and, more importantly, "teaches" a player how to overcome these challenges) then any player who reaches the later levels will have a reasonable level of experience and competence. On the other side, would it be such a sacrifice for the hardcore to breeze through some easy content before they get to the hard stuff? Most players I've encountered who describe themselves as "hardcore", rush through content as quickly as possible anyway.
What I'd like to see, is a game which actually takes the time to teach the player what their abilities do, and how best to use them. Too many games (read, all of them) just throw you in and let you find out for yourself. Thing is, if you haven't played a mmorpg before, that's not as easy as it sounds. Take this from an ability description "lowers threat on the caster". Great, tells you what the skill does. But the game never told the new player what "threat" means in the first place.
My sister (12) has recently encountered this kind of problem in WoW. She had teamed with another player, and the pair of them were having difficulty with an elite quest. After a couple of deaths, the other player started insulting my sister with all the usual "learn to play" type stuff, which upset her. Thing is, she's actually a decent player. Her problem lay in her gear - she didn't know what stats benefitted her class most, so she just used the highest level stuff she could. Problem is, the reason she didn't know, is that the game never told her. It simply assumed she'd figure it out on her own. But how could she - the gear she had was enough to beat the regular quests, so naturally she assumed it was fine.
Would it be so hard to have the class trainer tell her "you need this stat and this stat, to get the most out of your gear"?
If the games educated their players, then the gap between new and experienced players could be lessened very quickly, allowing for content which would suit both better. Does nobody else think it's crazy how many games require you to check external websites to get the most out of them? Many new players would never even think to do so, they (understandably) assume the game will give them all the information they need, while playing. And it should, really.
You may spin things anyway you want to make a point but WoW was the first game of the absolutely lowest common demoninator that requires a grand total of zero skill or thought to advance in. 1 1/2 years ago a friend tried to coerce me into that pathetic excuse of a game by allowing me to create a character on his account, while working 50+ hours a week, taking night classes for another 18 hours a week AND running 3 kids to scout meetings, sports, family functions, school plays etc I still got my very first character to level 35 in 10 hours of play time entirely solo. IF you want a game that requires no thought or skill to level rapidly in then WoW is for you, if you want a challenge join the masses that are biding their time waiting for that holy grail to appear at long last (leave the game specific boards alone and look around there are FAR more of us waiting for that real challenge than the majority of you realize).
You may spin things anyway you want to make a point but WoW was the first game of the absolutely lowest common demoninator that requires a grand total of zero skill or thought to advance in. 1 1/2 years ago a friend tried to coerce me into that pathetic excuse of a game by allowing me to create a character on his account, while working 50+ hours a week, taking night classes for another 18 hours a week AND running 3 kids to scout meetings, sports, family functions, school plays etc I still got my very first character to level 35 in 10 hours of play time entirely solo. IF you want a game that requires no thought or skill to level rapidly in then WoW is for you, if you want a challenge join the masses that are biding their time waiting for that holy grail to appear at long last (leave the game specific boards alone and look around there are FAR more of us waiting for that real challenge than the majority of you realize).
Point taken. You know games and the rest of us are mindless sheep...and people wonder where elitists come from=) Isn't it sad that you're waiting around for a game that'll never come, because you're hopelessly bitter and the rest of us are happy gamers. Sucks for you doesn't it?
Congrats, you played WOW solo. Now try grouping a little and maybe you would've seen that it requires the same amount of skill and strategy as any MMOG out there. But, you're much too mature & smart to understand that, since you probably thought that UO or AC took skill. You soloed and RUSHED to lvl 35 in 10 hrs and think you actually understand what the game is about? In that amount of time, you were probably stuck in an old mindset of how MMORPGs used to be played. Everything must've been a mindless blur of spawn camping. Why are the most elitist MMOGers are always the most ignorant as well? Is it that surprising that so few people played MMORPGs 8 or 9 yrs ago when this kind of guy was the typical person you had to deal with?
If there was any doubt why the OP wrote the article, wykidwolf is our reason.
Steve is right only in the part that the game has large number of players for a U.S. base game.
But to say that the game is the best or has done a lot for MMORPG is simple not true and opinion.
WoW took what it felt was what people liked about games already out there. If you do not believe me simple go back to the prelauch press release. So nothing new or ground breaking was done with WoW. As for it being the best that is his simple opinion. Saying number make it the best would also be miss leading when games like Linage II has close to twice as many open accounts.
As for player base loving the game....I have to say Eve and it 500k player base..smaller yes but seems everone of them love that game to no end..where SWG player base left for the most part after being betrayed as many like to put it by LA/SOE so there once 500k players left and is believed to be less then 100k now...SOE stopped given the number out when it dropped below 250k.
I have to wonder if Steve is being paid by WoW/Blizzard or just missed the boat all together as this should have been wrote over 3 years ago.... and articles like this to think about it was wrote over 3 years ago.
This is like re-reporting that G. W. Bush just won re-election......most people know it by now or simple do not care. After all it was 3 years ago.
Also like to point out Star Wars was the start to a new way to do special effects entire companies where made just to make that first film...there was no OLD tech in it......
one thing the analyst got right, WoW lowered the bar. how is that good? i am not sure. by winning 11 oscar, Titanic lowered the bar also. is that good? don know. but i know memento is a much better movie, or pulp fiction with its only oscar.
that was one of the false assumptions of the analyst. equaling suscriptions to quality. you must take into account marketing and IPs. look for example at SWG chapters 1, 2 and 3. poor poor poor movies, yet millions of people went to see them. why? because of marketing and a strong IP.
i agree with the example another poster gave. everybody can play monopoly or checkers. even 6 year old kids. but, chess is much more difficult, and not everybody can play it. even more, very few people can play it well.
there is no way anybody can play checkers or monopoly well. checkers is way to simple to reward skill or intellingence, and monopoly is all luck. meanwhile, chess requieres planning, skill, intelligence, decision, strategy. probably more thn 5 billion people would be able to play checkers, while chess can be played by much less people. still, to me, chess is the better, funnier and more entertaining game of them.
i dont want to play a game that doesnt reward intelligence, strategy, plannification or strategy. i have worms 2 and diablo for that. i want a game where by being smart and thinking ahead i can progress faster than those who dont care.
that is why even if it gets to 25 million players, WoW will be nothing more than Diablo Online, a simple h&s game.
i want a game where by being smart and thinking ahead i can progress faster than those who dont care.
This is Exhibit A ladies and gentlemen:
Here we see the crux of the 'hardcore' angst. Hardcore players often love to show off their success. They are peacocks, and take pride in flaunting their uberness across the interweb, or their current MMO. The more casual games have less ability to rub your fellow players' nose in their ineptitude. You can't prove how 'uber' you are when most everyone can achieve the same thing you have.
Well, sorry to tell you, but I'm too busy achieving things in real life than to pursue the false achievements offered in a video game. Yes, South Park made fun of "That which has no life" for a reason. Think about that reason for a moment, I'm sure you'll get it.
_____________________________ Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Once again, I agree with many of Steve Wilson's comments but thinks he jumps to conclusions on a few things. I agree that a poor user interface and clunky gameplay does not alone make a game "challenging," which unfortunately is the mindset of some self-proclaimed hardcore players. Their attitude is the equivalent of your grandpa talking about walking 3 miles in the snow to school in the Depression. Worse actually, because your grandpa had to do that to survive while the elitist snobs did so out of some warped masochistic sense of "fun." The world's changed and technology's improved, so stop pretending that you're so l33t just because you were stupid enough to camp a mob for 5 days straight without a bathroom break.
Where I disagree with Steve is the idea that games like SWG were made just for the spreadsheet crowd and WOW is this blissful playground. I'm not the first defender of the SWG franchise, but I will say that I did enjoy myself as a Bothan scout and fencer (not the best min-max role btw) and not once did I map everything out in spreadsheets. Also, I know plenty of hardcore WOW raiders at work who write every macro under the sun, create spreadsheets for gear and DPS, and run raid monitor programs to ensure everyone is performing at maximum efficiency. In fact, one could argue that WOW has a low level of entry but then many players hit the wall of end-level raiding and PVP. That game design is just as bad as games that have a high barrier of entry.
Anyhow, I think the chess metaphor is a good one for the perfect MMOG - relatively easy to learn but hard to master. I'd also like to see a challenging MMOG where it's not all about the min-maxxing and number crunching. For example, one of my favorite strategy series is the Total War series. The game requires a deal of number crunching, but even more important is being able to think strategically both on the battlefield and in the long range campaign. Figuring out what units to build, how to use terrain to your advantage, how to build a working army where every unit works together, are all part of what makes Medieval 2 fun. It's not just figuring out the unit with the most uber stats and then zerging. I can only hope that MMOGs will one day offer more strategy and reward good decision making, instead of being all about the new shiny trinket or maxxed out gear.
i want a game where by being smart and thinking ahead i can progress faster than those who dont care.
This is Exhibit A ladies and gentlemen:
Here we see the crux of the 'hardcore' angst. Hardcore players often love to show off their success. They are peacocks, and take pride in flaunting their uberness across the interweb, or their current MMO. The more casual games have less ability to rub your fellow players' nose in their ineptitude. You can't prove how 'uber' you are when most everyone can achieve the same thing you have.
Well, sorry to tell you, but I'm too busy achieving things in real life than to pursue the false achievements offered in a video game. Yes, South Park made fun of "That which has no life" for a reason. Think about that reason for a moment, I'm sure you'll get it.
well, that is up to you. i like to have fun, just like everybody, but it doesnt matter if i am playing poker, risk, monopoly or soccer, i like to win. i do not bet money or anything, but whenever i play something, i prefer winning to losing, and i am sure everybody does. having said that, i prefer to win because of my own achievements, and not because of luck. that is why i prefer sports to chance based games, or chess to monopoly.
if you are so busy achieving things in real life that when you play a soccer game with your friends you prefer to play bad and loose, that is your decision. if you prefer to play black jack cause it doesnt force to you think instead of chess, that is your decision also. i hope your real life is full of challenge and achievements.
I think the problem is that few MMOs are raising the bar... The bar per se hasn't been lowered, but as time passes you'd think they'd start raising the bar. No publishers are willing to invest in MMOs that break the mold, because... even though we whine and cry about how the genre isn't evolving, truth is... we keep playing the same garbage over and over, under different skins. Seriously, I've played Oblivion god knows how many times yet... It doesn't feel as repetitive as some of today's MMOs. Also, even though the NPCs sometimes don't reply in a... let's say natural manner, I still feel more inside the world of Oblivion, than in most MMOs.
Recent MMOs that have raised the bar, in my opinion, are EVE and CoX... Both in different ways. And while it's nice that some games break the mold, the retarded popularity of WoW will make publishers less likelly to support the games who break the mold.
Point taken. You know games and the rest of us are mindless sheep...and people wonder where elitists come from=) Isn't it sad that you're waiting around for a game that'll never come, because you're hopelessly bitter and the rest of us are happy gamers. Sucks for you doesn't it?
Congrats, you played WOW solo. Now try grouping a little and maybe you would've seen that it requires the same amount of skill and strategy as any MMOG out there. But, you're much too mature & smart to understand that, since you probably thought that UO or AC took skill. You soloed and RUSHED to lvl 35 in 10 hrs and think you actually understand what the game is about? In that amount of time, you were probably stuck in an old mindset of how MMORPGs used to be played. Everything must've been a mindless blur of spawn camping. Why are the most elitist MMOGers are always the most ignorant as well? Is it that surprising that so few people played MMORPGs 8 or 9 yrs ago when this kind of guy was the typical person you had to deal with?
If there was any doubt why the OP wrote the article, wykidwolf is our reason.
now that's funny, how does anything 8 or 9 years ago have anything to do with me or what I said? I never touched any MMORPG until 2 years ago. I rushed to level 35? I played maybe an hour a day just goofing off with lame quests and killing whatever attacked me in the process, there was no rush involved I wasn't even trying to level merely learn my way around which just shows how mind numbingly easy WoW is. I have never maxed out in any mmo because quite honestly none out there can keep me from being bored long enough to consider maxing out as an option. Bitter? not quite, just looking for an enjoyable game that requires a greater attention span than hitting a couple buttons while looking in another direction. The fact that you become defensive so easily over a difference in opinion (and that's all any of these posts are) shows who the mindless sheep are and why the genre cannot possibly evolve into a challenge when people like yourself get so upset when others don't bow down and agree with your opinion.
Before you go off attacking someone you consider "an elitist" perhaps you should hope for some facts to base your attacks on otherwise you just make yourself look angry and uninformed.
I think the reason WoW is so popular is because of the learning curve. Yeah, the game is really, really easy to pick up and start playing. And for people who only play a few hours here and there, the experience lasts a long time, progressively becoming more challenging. Only us "hardcore" fools who spend the time/effort to rush up to max level really get a taste of the difficult content. Raids, heroic instances, PVP... all these things are but whispers to the casual player, they'll probably never experience these challenges the same way we do. I don't think the bar has been lowered. At least not the bar for difficulty/immersion/gameplay. The only bar that has been lowered is that of "barrier to entry" and lowering this bar is one of the genius steps that has led Blizzard to have over 8.5 million subscribers world wide.
spending X amount of hours/days/weeks farming instances does not mean a "higher bar"; it only means that you have nothing better to do than repeat the same farmable crap over and over. farmable = easy. if it were NOT farmable, then it would be difficult.
so please don't confuse having too much time on your hands + being easily entertained with doing the same thing 100 times as equalling something difficult and challenging.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I think the reason WoW is so popular is because of the learning curve. Yeah, the game is really, really easy to pick up and start playing. And for people who only play a few hours here and there, the experience lasts a long time, progressively becoming more challenging. Only us "hardcore" fools who spend the time/effort to rush up to max level really get a taste of the difficult content. Raids, heroic instances, PVP... all these things are but whispers to the casual player, they'll probably never experience these challenges the same way we do. I don't think the bar has been lowered. At least not the bar for difficulty/immersion/gameplay. The only bar that has been lowered is that of "barrier to entry" and lowering this bar is one of the genius steps that has led Blizzard to have over 8.5 million subscribers world wide.
I so, so, so, so, so agree with this! Yeah, almost anybody can just grind through the levels and get to the cap. But it really does take a lot more effort to play your class effectively. How many times have you gone on a PuG to Tempest Keep and found that your tank couldn't hold aggro to save your life? Your rogue barely did any damage, your priest didn't get a single battle heal off throughout the entire run. I've had all of those things happen. I've also gone on those runs with a tank from whom you couldn't pull aggro no matter how hard you tried, rogues who could solo most of the elite mobs, priests with whom you never even had to look at your health bar because you just knew it would be full...no matter how many times you lifetapped. Anyone can START playing WoW, but it takes the craz...umm...hardcore and dedicated players to really experience a lot of the content. But then...i was introduced to the game about a year ago by a friend who had three capped out toons and basically said "Get to the cap and then we'll start really playing." Mediocrity or casual playing was never accepted.
Just my .02
Revis, level 70 warlock and girl...yes really a girl...yes in real life...yes I'm an adult...and yes, I've had that conversation...a lot
brostyn, as a father of 3 children, 2 of them daughters, I'm gonna check your ass, young man, and check it HARD. Your single sentence remark was totally uncalled for and out of line to an extreme. It did NOTHING worthwhile for the debated topic. Your sig says 'Cynical?' in it. You aren't cynical, you are an abusive and aberrant p.o.s. who should be banned from posting any further, for the disgusting nature of your comment. You are viler than excrement, for excrement at least has a worthwhile use: to fertilize soil and create healthy new growth. You need some serious therapy, boy.
um, you're taking offense at his "i don't want to play with 6 year old children" comment?
most people would think that's a good thing.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
brostyn, as a father of 3 children, 2 of them daughters, I'm gonna check your ass, young man, and check it HARD. Your single sentence remark was totally uncalled for and out of line to an extreme. It did NOTHING worthwhile for the debated topic. Your sig says 'Cynical?' in it. You aren't cynical, you are an abusive and aberrant p.o.s. who should be banned from posting any further, for the disgusting nature of your comment. You are viler than excrement, for excrement at least has a worthwhile use: to fertilize soil and create healthy new growth. You need some serious therapy, boy.
Hmm if this is an example how you raise your kids they better are taken away fast from the crap they have to endure. But then again maybe you like playing with 6 year olds...who knows....
Ok, now that I've read Steve's post and everyone's responses, I'll try to weigh in without rehashing everyone else.
Steve, you should read Shava's two posts (on page 2 & page 4). She sums the whole situation up perfectly. Honestly, Shava should prolly be writing your column.
Mordacai, good point with the checkers and chess analogy. If the MMO market struck more of a balance between chess and checkers sort of games, everyone would be happy.
Moving on, I'm surprised no one else has looked at the history of the gaming industry (aside from ASUDevil's amusing Pong reference). Everyone remember First Person Shooter games? Remember how they were *The New Big Thing* in the game industry a handful of years ago? Yeah, there are still some being made, but they're not even half as popular as they were. Every game released was essentially a copy of Quake or Unreal Tournament. Now most games released seem to be distancing themselves from this tired genre - with good reason. When the market is flooded with copies of the same thing over and over again, the consumer gets sick of it.
The MMO genre is the new FPS genre. The MMOs being released now are all derivative of WoW - in order to please the financial backers. If a general game mechanic makes money, it *will* become the standard. This is likely why SWG was NGE'd. It has nothing to do with hard or easy1 gameplay and everything to do with profit. When WoW becomes outdated or all its subscribers get bored with it, the genre will have to change. It's likely that non-linear, non-item-acquiration-based games will become more popular (ya know, being the polar opposite of WoW). Additionally, there are companies working on transforming the MMO genre into the gaming equivalent of Cable television (like Sun Microsystems suggests in this article from oct 2005). I don't know about anyone else, but I would appreciate that sort of diversity.
So, if you don't like WoW (I don't either), fine - don't play it. Let your lack of subscription speak for you. Instead, support a game that's closer to what you enjoy and work with the devs to make it better. If other people do like WoW, good - be glad they've found something they enjoy. Perhaps their money will help create some MMOs that everyone else will enjoy.
- mrbeleth
1i use hard and easy here instead of hardcore and casual, as it is more the difficulty of the game than the type of gamer being discussed in this thread. ultimately, hardcore and casual gamers differ primarily in the amount of time they can or are willing to devote to any given game.
This article was very well thought. I like your point. I think it always comes down to what you think is fun. Obviously Wow is very popular, so they're doing something right. If it gets people playing, then it's doing the gaming world a favor. A gateway drug for lifelong addiction. I think it will help broaden the selection of MMO's in the future.
(\_/) (O.o) (> <) This is Bunny. Copy Bunny into your signature to help him on his way to world domination!
in the newest copy of game informer there is also a large article about casual gaming ruining what hardcoregamers or marathon gamers get out of new games as well as mmo's, and i agree, seems like a lot of games have become bland and easily ranthrough, which is fine for people whom play once inawhile but for me it is like a hotdog yogurt smoothie runs very fast and it goes through me even faster, boring and bland.
My biggest problem with WoW is that it lacks character uniqueness. You can't custom tailor your look much or your class. Maybe for some stat management is a pain, which is why you have a setting to make it manual or auto. What made SWG last as long as it did and have the numbers it did, even though it was a big pile of crap was being able to make so many adjustments to yourself and class. And look at some of the new games. LotR goes even further in cutting back a players choice with his character. If LotR is a big hit it will only encorage more clones. How long before there is 1 avatar and 1 class with no adjustments that everyone plays. There is nothing wrong with needing to think a little.
Comments
Why are MMOs made?
This is the first question that needs to be asked. They are made to make money. When they were first developed the creators only thought they could make money from the market that is now refered to as the hard core gamers. With WOW, that concept has been destroyed. Now creators can go after the whole mass market. I will be surprised if another game will ever be produced to make the hard core gamers happy again. The money isn't there anymore. Why build a game for a mere 100,000 people when they can make a game for over a million people. It doesn't make economic sense. If creators go back and can get someone to finance a project to attract the hardcore gamers then it will be done again. Gamers and creators do not control those purse strings. those are controlled by those who only see the mighty dollar, yen, won, pound or maybe even the peso. Its time to face reality.
To Edmonal, Instead of actually making an argument against people's points you attack them directly and poision the wells. Stick to the issue at hand it will make your point stronger.
To Steve, I am a casual gamer 3-6 hours per week playing, I tried SWG as my first MMO and I really enjoyed the immersion factor, I could hang out in the Cantina or run some missions against storm troppers, even own a house. I never did PvP or own a SWG spreadsheet, but I was always immersed in the environment and many of my friends were as well. The key was I could do anything I wanted, it was a virtual reality and there was a sense of community and economy almost middle eastern in nature.
The issue I have with the games like WoW is that they really only put the polish and effort into a few things, level your character via quests and the world itself, while everything else is almost an after thought. I am experiencing this now with LOTRO, I see there are people around me but it is not immersive, and people come and go into groups so fast there is no time to actually talk with them, it's like they are on a real hamster wheel grind. So should all games be just like this, should companies change all their games mid stream to reflect this model? I don't think so, I don't see why you can't have nitche options, markets only grow so fast and once saturated you can make 20 WoW clones all of them will be nitche becaus enot every WoW player can afford to have 20 subscriptions, so common sense tells you go get different nitche. I guess to the OP that would not be acceptable and will resort to attacing the character flaws of "elite gamers" instead of the argument itself.
IMO, The next step for games is not that they need to be simpler or that you need spreadsheets, it is that you need to combine the elements of Grapics/Virtual reality/ RPG and webplaces. Games need to have a place for all playstyes not just a few. If you start to think about things in black and white, good and bad, then you miss the point becuase MMO's are certainly gonna change in the future, in 20 years Wow will be Pongesque and the ideals and pricipals the OP holds to a high level will be laughed at. It's only a matter of time.
Ever is a long time. WoW while the model now is the talk of the MMO community it's still a drop in the bucket when compared with the user base of Myspace. Think about it, as a business man why wouldn't you be migrating games with webplaces, the market for that could be a lot more impressive than 6 million Koreans and a few million Americans.
Even the way they make Star Wars now is different than before.
In 25 years we maybe walking as ourselves in games, who knows.
Some very good points by the OP. It's one reason why WOW is so successful.
People vote with there subs, and apparently a lot of folks are voting for WOW.
OP makes good points, and I definitely agree with him.
I find it funny how those that talk about wanting a 'hard' game, only ever seem to think of 'hard' as a 'long and pointless grind', because somehow it makes you feel better to know you've wasted more of your life than others clicking a couple buttons over and over. Times are changing, spending hours and hours grinding on mobs to level will soon be entirely obsolete (though I am sure those asians will try to keep it going forever).
Stop living in the past and look to the future. That's where the fun is.
A good article, though it misses one important point, I think.
"Accessible to the masses" and "Challenging to the hardcore" are not exclusive. It's the learning curve that needs to be looked at, if a game start off easy, so the less experienced players can get into it, then slowly ups the difficulty, there's no reason the game can't be challenging to hardcore gamers by the time they approach the level cap.
Taking WoW as an easy example, that game doesn't have a learning curve at all. If you can beat a lvl 1 mob as a lvl 1 toon, you can beat a lvl 70 mob as a lvl 70 toon. Instead, it imposes "artificial" blocks to progress, such as gear checks and raid sizes.
Ideally, a game with a good learning curve would allow the two extremes to meet in the middle. If the game regularly throws new challenges at a player, (and, more importantly, "teaches" a player how to overcome these challenges) then any player who reaches the later levels will have a reasonable level of experience and competence. On the other side, would it be such a sacrifice for the hardcore to breeze through some easy content before they get to the hard stuff? Most players I've encountered who describe themselves as "hardcore", rush through content as quickly as possible anyway.
What I'd like to see, is a game which actually takes the time to teach the player what their abilities do, and how best to use them. Too many games (read, all of them) just throw you in and let you find out for yourself. Thing is, if you haven't played a mmorpg before, that's not as easy as it sounds. Take this from an ability description "lowers threat on the caster". Great, tells you what the skill does. But the game never told the new player what "threat" means in the first place.
My sister (12) has recently encountered this kind of problem in WoW. She had teamed with another player, and the pair of them were having difficulty with an elite quest. After a couple of deaths, the other player started insulting my sister with all the usual "learn to play" type stuff, which upset her. Thing is, she's actually a decent player. Her problem lay in her gear - she didn't know what stats benefitted her class most, so she just used the highest level stuff she could. Problem is, the reason she didn't know, is that the game never told her. It simply assumed she'd figure it out on her own. But how could she - the gear she had was enough to beat the regular quests, so naturally she assumed it was fine.
Would it be so hard to have the class trainer tell her "you need this stat and this stat, to get the most out of your gear"?
If the games educated their players, then the gap between new and experienced players could be lessened very quickly, allowing for content which would suit both better. Does nobody else think it's crazy how many games require you to check external websites to get the most out of them? Many new players would never even think to do so, they (understandably) assume the game will give them all the information they need, while playing. And it should, really.
Congrats, you played WOW solo. Now try grouping a little and maybe you would've seen that it requires the same amount of skill and strategy as any MMOG out there. But, you're much too mature & smart to understand that, since you probably thought that UO or AC took skill. You soloed and RUSHED to lvl 35 in 10 hrs and think you actually understand what the game is about? In that amount of time, you were probably stuck in an old mindset of how MMORPGs used to be played. Everything must've been a mindless blur of spawn camping. Why are the most elitist MMOGers are always the most ignorant as well? Is it that surprising that so few people played MMORPGs 8 or 9 yrs ago when this kind of guy was the typical person you had to deal with?
If there was any doubt why the OP wrote the article, wykidwolf is our reason.
Steve is right only in the part that the game has large number of players for a U.S. base game.
But to say that the game is the best or has done a lot for MMORPG is simple not true and opinion.
WoW took what it felt was what people liked about games already out there. If you do not believe me simple go back to the prelauch press release. So nothing new or ground breaking was done with WoW. As for it being the best that is his simple opinion. Saying number make it the best would also be miss leading when games like Linage II has close to twice as many open accounts.
As for player base loving the game....I have to say Eve and it 500k player base..smaller yes but seems everone of them love that game to no end..where SWG player base left for the most part after being betrayed as many like to put it by LA/SOE so there once 500k players left and is believed to be less then 100k now...SOE stopped given the number out when it dropped below 250k.
I have to wonder if Steve is being paid by WoW/Blizzard or just missed the boat all together as this should have been wrote over 3 years ago.... and articles like this to think about it was wrote over 3 years ago.
This is like re-reporting that G. W. Bush just won re-election......most people know it by now or simple do not care. After all it was 3 years ago.
Also like to point out Star Wars was the start to a new way to do special effects entire companies where made just to make that first film...there was no OLD tech in it......
one thing the analyst got right, WoW lowered the bar. how is that good? i am not sure. by winning 11 oscar, Titanic lowered the bar also. is that good? don know. but i know memento is a much better movie, or pulp fiction with its only oscar.
that was one of the false assumptions of the analyst. equaling suscriptions to quality. you must take into account marketing and IPs. look for example at SWG chapters 1, 2 and 3. poor poor poor movies, yet millions of people went to see them. why? because of marketing and a strong IP.
i agree with the example another poster gave. everybody can play monopoly or checkers. even 6 year old kids. but, chess is much more difficult, and not everybody can play it. even more, very few people can play it well.
there is no way anybody can play checkers or monopoly well. checkers is way to simple to reward skill or intellingence, and monopoly is all luck. meanwhile, chess requieres planning, skill, intelligence, decision, strategy. probably more thn 5 billion people would be able to play checkers, while chess can be played by much less people. still, to me, chess is the better, funnier and more entertaining game of them.
i dont want to play a game that doesnt reward intelligence, strategy, plannification or strategy. i have worms 2 and diablo for that. i want a game where by being smart and thinking ahead i can progress faster than those who dont care.
that is why even if it gets to 25 million players, WoW will be nothing more than Diablo Online, a simple h&s game.
This is Exhibit A ladies and gentlemen:
Here we see the crux of the 'hardcore' angst. Hardcore players often love to show off their success. They are peacocks, and take pride in flaunting their uberness across the interweb, or their current MMO. The more casual games have less ability to rub your fellow players' nose in their ineptitude. You can't prove how 'uber' you are when most everyone can achieve the same thing you have.
Well, sorry to tell you, but I'm too busy achieving things in real life than to pursue the false achievements offered in a video game. Yes, South Park made fun of "That which has no life" for a reason. Think about that reason for a moment, I'm sure you'll get it.
_____________________________
Currently Playing: LOTRO; DDO
Played: AC2, AO, Auto Assault, CoX, DAoC, DDO, Earth&Beyond, EQ1, EQ2, EVE, Fallen Earth, Jumpgate, Roma Victor, Second Life, SWG, V:SoH, WoW, World War II Online.
Games I'm watching: Infinity: The Quest for Earth, Force of Arms.
Find the Truth: http://www.factcheck.org/
Once again, I agree with many of Steve Wilson's comments but thinks he jumps to conclusions on a few things. I agree that a poor user interface and clunky gameplay does not alone make a game "challenging," which unfortunately is the mindset of some self-proclaimed hardcore players. Their attitude is the equivalent of your grandpa talking about walking 3 miles in the snow to school in the Depression. Worse actually, because your grandpa had to do that to survive while the elitist snobs did so out of some warped masochistic sense of "fun." The world's changed and technology's improved, so stop pretending that you're so l33t just because you were stupid enough to camp a mob for 5 days straight without a bathroom break.
Where I disagree with Steve is the idea that games like SWG were made just for the spreadsheet crowd and WOW is this blissful playground. I'm not the first defender of the SWG franchise, but I will say that I did enjoy myself as a Bothan scout and fencer (not the best min-max role btw) and not once did I map everything out in spreadsheets. Also, I know plenty of hardcore WOW raiders at work who write every macro under the sun, create spreadsheets for gear and DPS, and run raid monitor programs to ensure everyone is performing at maximum efficiency. In fact, one could argue that WOW has a low level of entry but then many players hit the wall of end-level raiding and PVP. That game design is just as bad as games that have a high barrier of entry.
Anyhow, I think the chess metaphor is a good one for the perfect MMOG - relatively easy to learn but hard to master. I'd also like to see a challenging MMOG where it's not all about the min-maxxing and number crunching. For example, one of my favorite strategy series is the Total War series. The game requires a deal of number crunching, but even more important is being able to think strategically both on the battlefield and in the long range campaign. Figuring out what units to build, how to use terrain to your advantage, how to build a working army where every unit works together, are all part of what makes Medieval 2 fun. It's not just figuring out the unit with the most uber stats and then zerging. I can only hope that MMOGs will one day offer more strategy and reward good decision making, instead of being all about the new shiny trinket or maxxed out gear.
D&D Home Page - What Class Are You? - Build A Character - D&D Compendium
This is Exhibit A ladies and gentlemen:
Here we see the crux of the 'hardcore' angst. Hardcore players often love to show off their success. They are peacocks, and take pride in flaunting their uberness across the interweb, or their current MMO. The more casual games have less ability to rub your fellow players' nose in their ineptitude. You can't prove how 'uber' you are when most everyone can achieve the same thing you have.
Well, sorry to tell you, but I'm too busy achieving things in real life than to pursue the false achievements offered in a video game. Yes, South Park made fun of "That which has no life" for a reason. Think about that reason for a moment, I'm sure you'll get it.
well, that is up to you. i like to have fun, just like everybody, but it doesnt matter if i am playing poker, risk, monopoly or soccer, i like to win. i do not bet money or anything, but whenever i play something, i prefer winning to losing, and i am sure everybody does. having said that, i prefer to win because of my own achievements, and not because of luck. that is why i prefer sports to chance based games, or chess to monopoly.
if you are so busy achieving things in real life that when you play a soccer game with your friends you prefer to play bad and loose, that is your decision. if you prefer to play black jack cause it doesnt force to you think instead of chess, that is your decision also. i hope your real life is full of challenge and achievements.
I think the problem is that few MMOs are raising the bar... The bar per se hasn't been lowered, but as time passes you'd think they'd start raising the bar. No publishers are willing to invest in MMOs that break the mold, because... even though we whine and cry about how the genre isn't evolving, truth is... we keep playing the same garbage over and over, under different skins. Seriously, I've played Oblivion god knows how many times yet... It doesn't feel as repetitive as some of today's MMOs. Also, even though the NPCs sometimes don't reply in a... let's say natural manner, I still feel more inside the world of Oblivion, than in most MMOs.
Recent MMOs that have raised the bar, in my opinion, are EVE and CoX... Both in different ways. And while it's nice that some games break the mold, the retarded popularity of WoW will make publishers less likelly to support the games who break the mold.
The Anti Social Gamer
Before you go off attacking someone you consider "an elitist" perhaps you should hope for some facts to base your attacks on otherwise you just make yourself look angry and uninformed.
so please don't confuse having too much time on your hands + being easily entertained with doing the same thing 100 times as equalling something difficult and challenging.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
I so, so, so, so, so agree with this! Yeah, almost anybody can just grind through the levels and get to the cap. But it really does take a lot more effort to play your class effectively. How many times have you gone on a PuG to Tempest Keep and found that your tank couldn't hold aggro to save your life? Your rogue barely did any damage, your priest didn't get a single battle heal off throughout the entire run. I've had all of those things happen. I've also gone on those runs with a tank from whom you couldn't pull aggro no matter how hard you tried, rogues who could solo most of the elite mobs, priests with whom you never even had to look at your health bar because you just knew it would be full...no matter how many times you lifetapped. Anyone can START playing WoW, but it takes the craz...umm...hardcore and dedicated players to really experience a lot of the content. But then...i was introduced to the game about a year ago by a friend who had three capped out toons and basically said "Get to the cap and then we'll start really playing." Mediocrity or casual playing was never accepted.
Just my .02
Revis, level 70 warlock and girl...yes really a girl...yes in real life...yes I'm an adult...and yes, I've had that conversation...a lot
most people would think that's a good thing.
could we please get correspondent writers and moderators, on the eve forum at mmorpg.com, who are well-versed on eve-online and aren't just passersby pushing buttons? pretty please?
Ok, now that I've read Steve's post and everyone's responses, I'll try to weigh in without rehashing everyone else.
Steve, you should read Shava's two posts (on page 2 & page 4). She sums the whole situation up perfectly. Honestly, Shava should prolly be writing your column.
Mordacai, good point with the checkers and chess analogy. If the MMO market struck more of a balance between chess and checkers sort of games, everyone would be happy.
Moving on, I'm surprised no one else has looked at the history of the gaming industry (aside from ASUDevil's amusing Pong reference). Everyone remember First Person Shooter games? Remember how they were *The New Big Thing* in the game industry a handful of years ago? Yeah, there are still some being made, but they're not even half as popular as they were. Every game released was essentially a copy of Quake or Unreal Tournament. Now most games released seem to be distancing themselves from this tired genre - with good reason. When the market is flooded with copies of the same thing over and over again, the consumer gets sick of it.
The MMO genre is the new FPS genre. The MMOs being released now are all derivative of WoW - in order to please the financial backers. If a general game mechanic makes money, it *will* become the standard. This is likely why SWG was NGE'd. It has nothing to do with hard or easy1 gameplay and everything to do with profit. When WoW becomes outdated or all its subscribers get bored with it, the genre will have to change. It's likely that non-linear, non-item-acquiration-based games will become more popular (ya know, being the polar opposite of WoW). Additionally, there are companies working on transforming the MMO genre into the gaming equivalent of Cable television (like Sun Microsystems suggests in this article from oct 2005). I don't know about anyone else, but I would appreciate that sort of diversity.
So, if you don't like WoW (I don't either), fine - don't play it. Let your lack of subscription speak for you. Instead, support a game that's closer to what you enjoy and work with the devs to make it better. If other people do like WoW, good - be glad they've found something they enjoy. Perhaps their money will help create some MMOs that everyone else will enjoy.
- mrbeleth
1 i use hard and easy here instead of hardcore and casual, as it is more the difficulty of the game than the type of gamer being discussed in this thread. ultimately, hardcore and casual gamers differ primarily in the amount of time they can or are willing to devote to any given game.
This article was very well thought. I like your point. I think it always comes down to what you think is fun. Obviously Wow is very popular, so they're doing something right. If it gets people playing, then it's doing the gaming world a favor. A gateway drug for lifelong addiction. I think it will help broaden the selection of MMO's in the future.
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playing eq2 and two worlds
Very well said, OP! Indeed, the argument that things are dumbed down are as old as snobbish.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert