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General: MMOWTF: MMOO! The Cry of Gamer Cattle
Szark
News ManagerMember Posts: 4,420
This week Dan Fortier takes aim at the lack of complex game mechanics and challenging tasks in today's MMOs and the people wouldn't have these games any other way.
I took last week off in order to power up for this weeks massive textual carnage. The rants were getting a little too thin for my taste so I thought it might be time to bring back the old days. This weeks article (As always, I use the word loosely) is dedicated to all the gamers that love MMORPGs on easy mode. You can’t be bothered with complex game mechanics or challenging tasks and you can’t bear the thought of losing something once you’ve acquired it. You, my friends, get all my love this week. Enjoy.
In case you were never a fan of farm animals, the first word in the title is pronounced “MOO!” and has always been a popular phrase among mindless animals led to the slaughter. Sometime early in history we figured out that these animals were slow, dumb and really tasty. Not only were they really stupid, but would also eat all kinds of cheap grass while they stood around in pens waiting to be killed and eaten. Sheep also fit into this category and like cows also serve a useful purpose besides food. Most MMO gamers would also fit quite nicely into this pigeonhole as they prefer to simply follow the path of least resistance along a gradual path to l33tness. All the while throwing their money into the rotten cesspool of companies who did nothing but make a game a six year old could play with graphics to match. When was the last time someone made a nice sweater or jacket from your skin?
Read more here.
Comments
I thought I'd bring up that your concept of Risk vs Reward and being able to really leave a mark on the world are great ideas... and nothing more than great ideas. Throw people into the mix and anyone would quickly realize why games don't utilize these features.
For Risk v Reward, when you're playing all alone against the AI, if you mess up and die, it's your fault (unless the game sucks, but then it's still your fault for buying/playing it). In MMOs, to take down the big bosses, if even one person, say, gets an emergency phone call in the middle of a raid, everyone dies/fails/etc. This is true if one person makes a bad pull, griefs a group, etc etc. The Risk vs Reward concept is ultimately compromised by the fact that you have to work with others and everyone has real life stuff going on.
And I'm not going to even go into the MMOs that are no longer bringing in new players because all of the hardcore older players have nothing better to do than camp newbies as they first log in, or the player 40 levels above another who ganks someone just to steal their stuff and spit on their bodies.
Having meaningful interactions with an MMO world falls prey to the same thing: stupid people act even stupider in MMOs where there are no "real" concequences. Would you really want to enter an MMO and learn that the city you're in, since it's being controled by someone else, is Yousuck City (but add vulgarity).
That's why most games don't utilize these two functions... and I'm glad for it. I steer clear of games that really punish people for things like death. There's nothing fun about being punished for deciding to play a game that another idiot also wants to play.
ah the good old hardcore vs. care-bear debate...
but this time, brought forth for all the world to troll by a MMORPG.com staff writer.
it's like you are asking us to break the terms of service!
sorry, i'm not falling for it.
Ya'll can troll and flame all you want.
I just want to say I expected more from a staff piece.
I agree with this article. I started playing MMOs ...hell I can't remember back that far. I will play for a while and then get bored because it is the same tedious quests over and over again in every game. Nothing seems to be original amymore.
Back when UO was new I thought it was great Pking and having your buddies around to shoot the Sh!t. Now PKing is an after thought in most MMOs and you have to get a certain server or a certain setting just fight someone else.
Everything out there now is click..fight..click loot..click run...click fight..click loot. It is boring. I just want something that will challenge gamers. I enjoy a good story but the story is only part of the game. The people in the game are what really make the game worth playing. Giving players the choice to impact the economy or control an area of the map is also fun. Not just grinding to the highest level.
It seems that all the MMOs want is people to play.(I know that is simplistic) but to retain players you have to keep them interested. Just adding new content to a game is not really keeping people interest if the content is doing more of the same (see click..fight part from above).
I am not saying I have the answers to my questions but I am looking for something that will challenge me and hold my intrest more then what is out there now. I am holding out hope that some of the new games coming soon will try and look outside the box when creating what ever the universe will be for their game.
I remeber how much fun I had back when UO was new and then later SWG. These games had a certain feel to them that was different. I have a soft spot for UO because it was one of the first and SWG because it was different then anything else out there. But they are not what they used to be. PLEASE let something coming out buck the the tend of (Again see click..fight rant from above).
The journey is more important then the outcome
Challenge means set goals you have to achieve. It's not about losing it's about meeting those goals. So beating in a PVE game the ultra mega boss in 10mins or under it's a challenge and it's fun for all since you can constantly compete to that to reach the mark. In a PvP challenge comes for winning over goals. Sorry just killing another player and looting him isn't "winning" or "challenging" if there is no goal to that.
MMO's in my opinion lack in the factor that they don't add any meaningfull goals that by achieving them you earn something so players usually make their own.
And yes some players don't want a "challenge" or "goals" or to "win" and "lose", they have that in real life and when they log they just want to play without much hussle and escape from everyday situations and just be the great guys without griding like they do irl.
A successful MMO should give options to many gamestyles not only PvP or PvE style, but also to accomodate a great deal of people with many different goals.
A friend is not him who provides support during your failures.A friend is the one that cheers you during your successes.
I still feel like the majority of players DO want a challenging game where things aren't handed to them and there IS a balanced sense of risk vs. reward. At the same time, I think many veteran gamers overly romanticize the old days. "Depth and challenge" just aren't going to come in this day and age through monotonous grinds and catastrophic experience loss.
Players are willing as ever to jump through hoops as long as it's presented in a fresh, challenging way. Instead, many developers fall back on the same old crap, be it tedious, unengaging faction grinds or overcrowded, time consuming raid scenarios. It's the game designers' job to make MMORPGs that are compelling and entertaining.
It's funny how "hardcore" and "risk," 10 years into the genre being around, still is generally seen only factored in-game by designers in terms of time sink (raids, corpse runs, experience loss). Not the best way to translate "risk" or meaningful play in a genre where it's core players are getting older and can't spend the 5+ hours a day they may have spent in front of their comps during their college days or pre-family/job days.
Great topic had me crying in my car reading it. Carebears are the people who messed up my beloved SWG. A year and a half of grinding just so some ten year old can be a Jedi day one complete garbage.
Lead all the lambs to the slaughter!!!!!!!!!!!!
Play WOW instead!!!
One of the problems with MMO websites is that they assume MMO players are "gamers". In my experience, many, maybe most, MMO players I have met aren't particularly interested in computer gaming in general and certainly aren't looking for risk or challenge.
For the last 8 years I've spent around 40+ hours a week in MMOs, along with my girlfriend. That's quite a lot of time, but mostly it just replaces the time we'd previously spent watching tv in the evenings and scavenging thrift shops, garage sales and markets in a 50 mile radius on weekends. All MMOs represent is a rather more interesting screen to watch and a more comfortable, convenient way to collect curios.
Successful MMO gameplay generally replicates other unchallenging interactive activities, such as simple puzzle solving, word-matching, hunting and collecting and so on. It's just something mildly diverting to do while you chat to friends or let your mind wander, like playing cards or pool in the pub or knitting or whittling.
If MMOs want to be truly mass-market, they don't need to be "challenging", nor do they need "risk vs reward". They "just" need to be attractive, entertaining, easy to learn and content-rich. They are competing for the same attention as tv, movies, hobbies, YouTube , MySpace and FaceBook, not free-climbing, dirt-biking or writing a PhD thesis.
Some part of the game has to be relatively easy.So you go off to lick your wounds to come back fresh and strong for the next ganking.No argument here I think it can be done .Just not until some maverick with money and a great Ideal does it ,no matter the hell or high water.
Endeavor to Persevere
My personal feeling for risk vrs reward is that the ones complaining about loosing something in a game and not willing to do something about it are all just loot whores anyway's. All they do all day long is go out looking for the uber gear. Now don't get me wrong im sure some arn't like that but the majority is im sure.(they are the ones who don't implore any type of comunity to these games)
If you complain about getting pk'ed by a high lvl your a moron and shouldent be playing an MMORPG in the first place go back to console or single player games.
Why do I say that cause the first time I got into a pvp engagement in UO I got the smackdown but I didnt quit the game and yes I lost items and was kind of pissed about it. BUT it also made me want to get better at pvp so I could take my own revenge on the person. (creating a desire to become better)even though I got some friends to gank him that had already been playing a while.
On a more newbish scale if you get ganked by higher lvls find like minded people that are higher then you or a guild and play with them like you should on an MMO. And get them to help you.
Now that last statment make more of a discussion IMO.
EXP... person Y gets ganked by X and V sees this. Y if he is a smart person will try to friend V and crerate a kinship in a sense. In turn pissing off X and creating possible turmoil between factions/guilds/friends/. Making for a more player driven world.
This is something I think lvls and such made ten times worse in MMO's why you may ask because running up on someone that is 20 lvls higher you KNOW you are no match and he know this as well and will auto gank you cause of it.
For those of us and you that have played UO we know that if you go to Yew gate and yes maybee by gear you know they are well off but you still have no clue what skill lvl they have. ( and I don't mean lvl's per say) I other words just cause someone was whearing uber gear they could still be the worst pvp in game. I knew people that where merchants and had all the best gear but couldent kill a mage with 60 magery.(Ultima vrs my new mage/necro at the time) for those who know ULT if you still talk to him say hi for me
The no risk IMO like WOW and all its clones is a crap way to do things and those who complain have never felt the real rush a good RPG can give for such a system. I still remember the day's of my heart beating a mile a minute cause I just got killed in Destard Dragons and had no clue if I was going to get my stuff back(and sometimes didn't) or having to call friends to come help me get it in a hurry. (again the kinship/guild feel) OR throughing my keyboard accross the room cause I just got downed by a Dark Father and the only other one there to help couldn't res me. Thats risk thats what it should all be about IMO.
Could you imagine a movie where the Dragon slayer walks in the dongeon and try's to kill the dragon but when it Stomps on him he just intantly poped outside the dongeon and got all his stuff back in order. TBH I personally think it would SUCK ARSE but according to most of the playerbase out there that would top the movie sales for months it seems.(excluding all who are FOR The hardcore)
Anywhoo I'm going home to get blasted TGIF huh
"The most important thing is to have the design support the players in setting their own goals in both cooperative and competitive interaction with one another." - Ironore -
Dan Fortier....
You are my hero.
Perhaps I am the only one who sees the trolling nature of this piece?
That the OP is in essence mocking a good 90% of the MMORPG player base in order to get a "rise" out of the 10% of MMORPG gamers that enjoy the "hardcore" game model?
By the way all 10% of those "hardcore" gamers seem to be found on MMORPG.com so I guess the OP is just spinning his writing for his intended audience.
I guess mission accomplished then.
Objectivity and unbiased review has become subjective and biased staff writing. Awesome.
"If everyone is an idiot, im the smartest guy in the world"
Not the worst thing iv read in MMORPG, far from interesting tho.
Opinion pieces like MMOWTF are, by their nature, not intended nor expected to be objective and unbiased. Pure news stories, yes, but commentary and opinion, absolutely not.
Not a bad piece, but nothing that I haven't read/said/argued about before, so its a rather dead (and smelly?) horse.
"If everyone is an idiot, im the smartest guy in the world"
Not the worst thing iv read in MMORPG, far from interesting tho.
I second that comment. The article isn't worth a response...I've heard the same thing many times before and seems like a cheap way of getting a rise out of people.
I'll take a shot at this one. As someone who works in a high-stress industry, I prefer my play time to be just that: play. And play should be fun, not work. I get plenty of drama, stress, and frustration in real life. What I want from a game - any game - is a few minutes mindless escapism. If I wanted an additional 4 hours of stress a day, I could stay at work!
That's not to say I don't enjoy an occasional challenge, but c'mon: real life is challenging enough. And when I want real challenge from a game, I don't waste time on any MMO: I play chess against the computer at its hardest setting, or play against another player online.
So lighten up and don't worry about whether a game is too easy. You can always find even greater and more rewarding challenges in real life anyway. Put another way, try to keep some perspective here.
QFT.
Dead-on target! More developers need to understand this: I believe the average MMO player does so in lieu of watching TV (and sometimes while watching TV).
I completely agree with Dan Fortier on this article. 100%, so nothing to add.
What deserves to be done, deserves to be "well" done...
That's a great bitch session and all, but what you gonna do about it?
Unless you got 50mil sitting around, your gonna need to convince a giant gaming company to give you the money to make the game. Inevitably, they will only agree to this if your proposing to make WoW 2 within whatever timeframe thier stockholders demand.
You can bitch all day, but that's all you can do. MMOs are going to go for the lowest common denominator for many years to come, and your going to see fewer and fewer experimental independent games because the cost of developing a new game increase rapidly every year.
Yeah, I have read this same article on multiple websites through the years...basically bashing all the people that don't want insane grind fests, or games that dont take 20 hrs to figure out a quest, as beneath their level. And how it was so much better when the hardcore gamers had something to keep then "interested"
This is just the same player posting under a "writer" tag now. People play games and enjoy games for all sorts of different reasons, and this writer simply fails to grasp that and just calls people who don't play like he does stupid, lazy or cattle. Weak!
I agree mmorpg are very nearly arcade game simple and having a rat with 1500 hitpoints isnt "chalanging"
I also noticed that gamed dont get better as you advance you get the same quests from 10-15 as you do at 45-55
for a long time now ive been looking for a game that is an "idealized alternate universe " where combat is not the center of the universe and the dissfunctional economy.
first things i look for in a new game is the importance of food and water and resources in the economy most shallow games have little more than armor, weaponsmiths and maby a alchemist.
to me a game should strike a good balance and feel organic and with as few narrow restrictions as possible such as not beng able to swim jump or climb.
i really hate vending machine merchants that sit in the middle of empty buildings
homoginized resource nuggets no economy or caravans
AIs that only have percieve,advace,kill mentalities
no public works projects like bridges, walls, aquaducts
charactors and classes that are wattery and politicly correct and not unique basicly just templates where all mages have the same spells where rogues are just backstabing warriors,
and lastly where players cant make a difference where there are no good "war stories" of epic heroism or sacrafice or glory
games rob you of the facts of life because they think that only killing brainless monsters can be entertaining but its as false as a crack high
Im not talking raw realism im talking idealized reality where crossing a blazing desert takes some prepardness and forethought many times in a novel charactors will have many many quests while on the journey to the actual quest they started out on,, things like finding or hunting food on a desolate tundra can be every bit as rewarding sometimes much more memorable overcoming the adversity
even famines or blights or disease can be their own epic quest to find a cure
having a wheat and bread shortage for instance may change life or even trigger riots or a war.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
Great article
I just wouldnt be so extreme and alienate all mmorpgs that are pve orientated or stupidified.
People are different and have different tastes. Ofc that at the moment we have a deficit in mmorpgs for chalenging and player driven games.
Immortals [EU] - Darkfall Clan: http://immortals-online.eu/
Read my "funny" DF1 blog: http://casualdarkfall.blogspot.com
Really now, I don't see anything "hardcore" about his suggestions. WoW is the same exact game as EQ, it just takes less time and people to accomplish things. Nothing about the core model changed, it is still just a linear grind. He's not arguing for a new grindfest, he's argueing to a fulfilling sandbox MMO.
Dan's charter at this site is to get a rise out of people from the articles he writes.... and I think he accomplishes that task. I'd recommend folks don't read his columns if its going to upset you.
That's not to say I agree with his viewpoint, and while I do play EVE atm for the risk vs reward aspect of it...truthfully it is quite easy in EVE to minimize your risk to an acceptable level. (called the utility function in the risk world)
What I think most MMORPG gamers really want is to achieve "something" for their time spent in the game. Be it increasing levels or skills, gaining new gear or gold, or making new friends .....but they expect to be rewarded for their actions.
Trouble with risk vs reward and hardcore, full looting, FFA, PVP model is there is no guarentees of success.... if you suck at PVP, you pretty much can plan at going home with less than nothing. Since one could argue that PVP is dominated by perhaps less than 20% (pulling numbers out of my arse) of the playerbase in most games, that means that 80% would find themselves on the losing end more often than not...and they're not interested in playing that sort of game.
Which is why PVE games prevail on the marketplace....
Although I play PVP oriented games, truth is, I suck at killing people (I'm old and slow) so I tend to focus on leveling up under adverse conditions and consider successfully escaping a gank as a win for me. I frequently play support characters such as healers since I'm not much good at killing stuff. I never kill players who are engaged in PVE or who are more than 3 levels below me.... just not my style....
But not everyone has a tolerance for pain like I seem to.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
They are games. Enjoy them, hate them, whatever. Play the game, if u don't like it find one you like, if you do enjoy it, keep on keeping on. The debate will go on longer than civilization,..............is that possible? Oh well, who cares?
Someone obviously needs to RE-read the article, he doesn't want a grind fest either.
Gratz Dralon, you're a fail.