To me, hardcore means that you are going to fail, and it is only a matter of time when that will happen. You are going to fail because you will enter a situation you are not entirely prepared for, mistakes are made, and death ensues. Hardcore pretty much garauntees that will happen, and more importantly, that you will learn from it.
I hate games that have these survivor achievements because to me, that's just someone running while rest of the party is trying to pull out of disaster they're making a break for it. I played a tank type character in the last MMO I played. I tried to retreat only after the very last member of my party was dead or already retreated. That was my job.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
How anyone in the MMO industry can be asking this question escapes me. Just compare MMO’s now to five years ago. It does not matter which MMO you pick they have all been dumbed down.
As to there being no consensus of what this means there is a consensus. It means you have to do less to achieve the same as we did in the past.
As to specific examples it is true one persons dumbing down is sometimes seen as an advance by some players. But overall achieving more by doing less is seen as bad by everyone. I know you guys like to paint a picture of a strong, vibrant, innovative industry but this is ridiculous.
Too expound a little more on your points. Things in MMOs now adays are spoon fed to everyone. There is no mystery anymore you have a Journal that gives you clear directions on where you should go and how you should go about completing your task. Quest givers now have little things floating above their heads and are now marked on a map. It makes the whole experience cumbersome in that you are no longer immersed in the world but now are just following the bread crumbs from place to place.
Back in the old days of EQ there really was immersion into the game, you had to either find out for yourself or learn from a verteran on the do's and dont's of the game. In some respects EVE is like this as well. But basically there are very few games out there that immerse the player. It's all finish NPC A quests then go find NPC B with the floaty above his head and complete his quests, wash rinse and repeat this cycle 100's of times over....
Then you take the models reskin them and repeat them into a whole host of variations of the same theme and wonder why us MMO players are such a bunch of sour pusses.
I agree 100%...while direction is nice the bread crumbs (hehe love that) really take from the experience.
Getting old is mandatory...growing up is optional.
I think its pretty easy to tell what people mean by hardcore, although its use is just a way of self appreciation. Hardcore games show the gamer no mercy when it comes to playing and figuring out a game. They will allow the gamer to be killed and lose all of their stuff from the very start, they will allow the gamer to travel the world by any means neccessary to complete a goal without exact location route tracing..
Hardcore games to me are basically games that do not forgive the player for being new and unfamiliar. Hardcore games tend to have a higher risk vs reward quality, because they force the player to risk so much more and be willing to deal with loss as much as be satisfied with gain.
It falls into the age old argument of why sports like rugby and MMA are considered hardcore compared to sports like golf and tennis.. The competitors are risking so much more in those sports..
Very well said and I agree with you 100% in relation to what a hardcore game is. I will add this, Perma Death. Perma death is the ultimate hardcore experience. You die, you re-roll a new character and start all over.
Now as for the perception of what makes a player hardcore, that will vary depending what "class" of gamer you ask the question to. Some will say a hardcore gamer is the one that only play on a PvP server and ganks endless newbs. Others will say it is the player that raids top end content 7 nights a week and has the best loot the game offers. There is the group that will say they are hardcore because they have every character class at max level and they have all the top end loot for their game.
I think the hardcore gamer is the one that works a full time job, spends time with their children and still finds time to go on raids or compete in PvP to gain the best loot and have the most fun.
Hardcore is synonymous with waste of time. It's just a play style in which the gamer spends an excessive amount of time to become the very best. You can see it in FPS games with the guys who are so good they almost seem to be hacking. The worst thing in an MMORPG is to allow players with excessive amounts of time to dominate at PvP by unrelated PvE "accomplishments", and by accomplishments I mean time wasted. Take Darkfall for example, you can win a lot of PvP fights just by grinding your ass off on monsters to get the best equipment and high skills which gives you an unsurmountable advantage over a player who spends most of their time PvPing rather than farming monsters.
A hardcore game rewards players who waste their time doing simple easy repetitive things over those who do the challenging things such as fighting other players.
well to me the hardcore means you care about the gameworld, meaning you want to learn every single thing this game have to offer, from story to combat mechanics to if try figure if there is a secret bonus to crafting without having a shirt on....over all just cares, and play the game like a hobby, and not just see this game as the number 100 in the row.
the good thing? I believe you will have more fun, if your mentality is fitted for this kind of fun..
Hardcore is synonymous with waste of time. It's just a play style in which the gamer spends an excessive amount of time to become the very best. You can see it in FPS games with the guys who are so good they almost seem to be hacking. The worst thing in an MMORPG is to allow players with excessive amounts of time to dominate at PvP by unrelated PvE "accomplishments", and by accomplishments I mean time wasted. Take Darkfall for example, you can win a lot of PvP fights just by grinding your ass off on monsters to get the best equipment and high skills which gives you an unsurmountable advantage over a player who spends most of their time PvPing rather than farming monsters.
Yes it's totally unfair that people who spend more time doing a specific activity are better at it than other players.
Those stinking doctors studying for years have an unfair advantage. They should let me become a doctor by just reading a medical book once.
well to me the hardcore means you care about the gameworld, meaning you want to learn every single thing this game have to offer, from story to combat mechanics to if try figure if there is a secret bonus to crafting without having a shirt on....over all just cares, and play the game like a hobby, and not just see this game as the number 100 in the row.
the good thing? I believe you will have more fun, if your mentality is fitted for this kind of fun..
I like how many of the so called casuals are called "lazy". Were this a job I would agree but as it is a recreational activity. I'm a father, husband, doctoral student, research assistant etc.. I am not lazy at all (wish I could be) rather my life limits my playtime. I think much of the issues is less with playstyle and more with a growing crowd of folks wanting instant gratification. I remember in EQ1, where in a long session I could gain maybe 20-25% of a level or maybe an AA point at higher levels. I feltmy character was progressing, But what is currently defined as "progression" is a lot more than it used to be. I think this need for gratification and progression inflation as it were are some of the key problems many older MMOers see with today's games.
Hardcore is synonymous with waste of time. It's just a play style in which the gamer spends an excessive amount of time to become the very best. You can see it in FPS games with the guys who are so good they almost seem to be hacking. The worst thing in an MMORPG is to allow players with excessive amounts of time to dominate at PvP by unrelated PvE "accomplishments", and by accomplishments I mean time wasted. Take Darkfall for example, you can win a lot of PvP fights just by grinding your ass off on monsters to get the best equipment and high skills which gives you an unsurmountable advantage over a player who spends most of their time PvPing rather than farming monsters.
Yes it's totally unfair that people who spend more time doing a specific activity are better at it than other players.
Those stinking doctors studying for years have an unfair advantage. They should let me become a doctor by just reading a medical book once.
/fail logic.
I think you should reread my post. If I play Darkfall and exclusively PvP for 2 months, a player who exclusively farms monsters for 2 months will stomp my shit in. The worst part is that farming monsters is an easy repetitive thing, whereas PvP is a learning experience. PvE experience should not be an "I win" card when it comes to PvP.
I've always thought of hardcore as risk vs reward and softcore as reward vs slightly less reward. WoW is softcore through and through; you risk nothing because if you screw up and get killed, by game or player, you lose nothing. You don't get pinged for XP, your body never disappears and nobody can take your stuff. The worst than can happen is res sickness. Even worse, every area is controlled in terms of the foes you will find; here is a certain level and, when you finish that one, we'll push you down the wholly linear track to the next level-suitable area. Yeah you can go off the beaten track but you don't get punished by the game for stuffing up or taking on a fight you can't win or going to places you're not ready for yet. As long as you don't mind a corpse run (from an ever closer graveyard) you're fine. No harm no foul.
The game I always compare to is UO, and I didn't start playing that until PvE and PvP were seperated by Trammel/Felluca. And even then you could walk round a corner and find something that could utterly spank you, the left over spawn of a high end treasure chest perhaps, wandering amidst the mongbats. And if you snuffed it, but you made it back to your corpse before it vanished, and if the thing that killed you with such nonchalant ease had moved on, then you considered yourself very fortunate.
And going to Felluca, to PvP land? It felt like a mission, like a bloody covert op. I had a bunch of shops in Fell that I used to buy from to sell in Trammel and one of them was always stuffed full of ultra-cheap goodies? Why? Because the owner and his mates were waiting to butcher any buyers. And after he did, your corpse would be stripped. Unlucky.
Players who wanted that or were prepared to risk it went to Felluca. Those who weren't, didn't.
What it comes down to, I guess, is how readily the game is prepared to piss you off. When WoW kills you, you get a hug and a sincere apology for any inconvenience caused. I always got the feeling WoW regrets, greatly, that you died and if there's anything it can change in order to make sure such a terrible thing doesn't happen again, you only have to ask.
Games like UO basically shrug and say 'tough'.
The ruptured capillaries in your nose belie the clarity of your wisdom.
I agree that "hardcore" or even "casual" is based largely upon perception, but I also think that you can narrow these types of MMOs down to specifics. I won't try to do that however, as it will lead to unholy rage and flaming.
For me though, a hardcore MMO is one where the player is left to discover things and develop their own story, which usually requires a deep time investment. I don't like the developer's hand guiding me through everything I do in the game, which is what most people refer to as "being on rails". I like having options for everything I do in the game, and I want to explore and figure things out on my own. I do think that MMOs which support customization and freedom foster a kinder and more tight-knit community, because player cooperation is more often than not, a point of survival.
Also and personally, I find it difficult to pair cartoonish and childish graphics with a hardcore MMO. This almost always feels strange to me.
Lastly, any MMO that you can pick up and play for 15 minutes before bedtime and accomplish something worthwhile, is not hardcore. In my estimation, a hardcore MMO should require at least a couple of years of dedication to achieve a high status, advanced character development, and a deep understanding of how the game works and the things in it (Eve is a good example of this).
I don't disparage those who don't like this kind of game, and if one doesn't like that type of game don't play it. But to say that hardcore games are "lesser", "inferior", or only for basement dwelling nerdophiles living off welfare is a bit rediculous. We all have different things we like.
I like how many of the so called casuals are called "lazy". Were this a job I would agree but as it is a recreational activity. I'm a father, husband, doctoral student, research assistant etc.. I am not lazy at all (wish I could be) rather my life limits my playtime. I think much of the issues is less with playstyle and more with a growing crowd of folks wanting instant gratification. I remember in EQ1, where in a long session I could gain maybe 20-25% of a level or maybe an AA point at higher levels. I feltmy character was progressing, But what is currently defined as "progression" is a lot more than it used to be. I think this need for gratification and progression inflation as it were are some of the key problems many older MMOers see with today's games.
While I agree with the 2nd part, you missed that it comes from what I call "frustrated power-gamers". One of the main reasons games have been "dumbed down" and "sped up" is so that 'casuals' like you can reach max level faster. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is a direct consequence of Devs trying to 'equalize' the play experience between players who devote widely varying amounts of time to the game...which is ultimately doomed to fail or produce a so-so experience for everyone. Everything has been made faster and easier so that casuals can reach "level caps" in a reasonable amount of time, which makes the game feel "shallow" and lacking content to anyone with more time...and often feels like a repititve theme-park to the casual who is basically roped to a levelling machine and pulled through to the "end game".
Far too many 'casuals' whined about not being able to keep up or reach max level for far too long and this is what we get.
Which is why we need different types of games that offer differing options. I think there should be lots of games with quick levelling, instant gratification and ment for casual players...but there should also be intensive games where you simply will not be able accomplish much without a lot of time invested.
While I have not read all the comments and I am almost certain that I am repeating the statments of some, I will venture my answer to your quarry.
Hardcore is and always will be a relative term used to define a players perception of the games that they play. To elaborate I will utillize games out side of the Genre. Let us look at the differances as seen by relative players, A 5 year old child will advance from Candy Land thinking that the game is no longer a challenge so they start playing Snakes and Ladders. The latter would be, in comparison, "hardcore." However after a time they desire more challenge and venture into other games that present both a greater challenge and risk. We can watch this same trend as players move from one MMO to another looking to find that 'perfect challenge.'
While the question in and of it's self is an important insite into the Industry, My self along with many others apparently have the same responce. Aks the same questions 10 times and you will get 10 different answers. What compounds the complexity of the question is that you are asking for personal oppinion. While "Oppinions are like ..." (you know the rest) you will also find that they are never and can never be wrong as they are unique to each person. Perhaps a better questions would be to ask " Why do you see yourself as a Hardcore Gamer?" Yet again we venture into the area of personal oppinion and there you will find a myriad of answers, few of wich you are actually looking for.
I wish you well on your quest for answers.
Post Scriptum; Why is it out of all the buttons above is there no Spell Check?
If you build it, let others tear it apart so you can make it better.
It is simple, like many other said here already. Hardcore player is the one, who spends a lot of time in the game - productively spend! (this is important). It means he takes more from the game then any casual player. And it also means he knows the game better. Hence, his characters are better geared and more efficient in any area. Now, who would you prefer to have in your group - a casual, who barely remembers how to play and under-geared, or a hardcore player?
"Productively spent." I'd like to know what the definition of this is, right alongside "hardcore".
While I'll agree that my concept of a hardcore player is one that knows the game inside and out, I'd disagree this is because the time they spent in it more "productive" than that of a casual player. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that the reason that a true hardcore player is able to become so well versed in the ins and outs of the game is because they've stopped treating it as a game, and instead treat it as a problem that must be solved. This can be done by doing extensive calculations to unravel the mechanics on a microspcopic level, or repeating the same content over and over and over to test and optimize builds, or even pouring over the theorycrafting of others of a like-mind to glean from it some fresh revelation that they can incorporate into their attempt to conquer the game.
This to me, is a hardcore player. And I should say that I think there's nothing invalid about this approach either. I've often been the beneficiary of all the hard work of others in figuring out how a game works.
But to say this is a more productive use of a player's in-game time, I think is misguided. I mean, if your goal in the game is spend a little leisure downtime and have a few laughs, then turning the game into a research project becomes a total waste of time, isn't it? And as for who I'd rather group with, generally speaking, it would be with someone who hasn't minimaximazed their character builds to the nth degree. I find these types of people (again, in general) to be exceedingly anal retentive, obnoxious, arrogant and irritating to be around.
I myself tend to sit on the fence between casual and hardcore. I put in a lot of time. I read the information outside of the game and put it into practice when I play. But I refuse to do the work for myself because, quite simply, it's boring. I'd rather be fooling around in the game than dissecting, but I also like to be moving forward so I refuse to be ignorant. But no matter what I'm doing, it's productive so long as I log off afterwards in a more content frame of mind than when I logged on.
As far as I have seen, there are four main camps of people on these forums who use the term 'hardcore' frequently. While I have encountered many people who fall under two or more of these categories, the people I ordinarily encounter on these forums are usually just one of the three.
1) One of these groups is comprised of PvPers who enjoy games with severe consequences such as full loot. These are the players who like to call games like Darkfall and Mortal Online home. All other games are just too easy and provide no real consequences for failure in PvP combat, so they are not deemed as 'hardcore' enough.
2) Another group is comprised of players who enjoy sandbox games over themeparks. For them, the fact that many games like WoW make questing easy and are always telling the player where they should go and what they should do is insulting. These players want things like deep and intricate questing systems and skill-based advancement rather than classes and levels. They don't like the idea of anything being defined for them and generally enjoy aspects of gaming that the majority find cumbersome. They look at the sheer complexity of a good sandbox game as the aspect which is 'hardcore' and they consider any game that simplifies the formula as 'dumbed down' or 'watered down'.
3) The third group are comprised of players who only enjoy MMOs with severe grinds. These players prefer to continue advancing characters for years and never reach the 'end game'. These games are all about the journey for them and they don't actually want to reach the end of the level treadmill. For them, only games that take an incredible time commitment are 'hardcore'.
4) The fourth group are those players who only enjoy MMOs with highly organized PVE raiding. These players are in it for the gear that drops in raid dungeons and derive their enjoyment from the social and competitive aspects of organized dungeon raiding.
The differences between these three groups and what their players consider to be the perfect game end up causing the majority of the conflicts on these forums. All four groups consider their game of choice to be 'hardcore' and the others to be 'watered/dumbed down'.
Take Darkfall for example. Because it is a very PvP-oriented game that is also technically a sandbox and has what many people consider to be a severe grind, it attracts all three of the above groups. The PvPers (group 1) want to PvP with severe consequences, but they don't want to grind for years and they don't care much about crafting, etc. As a result, many of them complain that the game takes too long to advance in. The players in group 3 take offense to the suggestion that the grind should be reduced and object to any proposed changes that will reduce the time commitment required to advance. The players in group 2 complain that the game has too few sandbox elements and needs more non-combat activities to truly equal old sandbox greats like UO and SWG. The players in group 4 generally find nothing enjoyable to do in games like Darkfall since, for the most part, there is very little PvE raiding.
Or another example... the ever popular (or unpopular HERE) World of Warcraft. Group 1 finds the game to be too 'dumbed down' because it does not provide any meaningful consequences for PvP combat. Group 2 doesn't like the game because it is the definition of a themepark and does not have any of their desired sandbox features. Group 3 doesn't like the game because it takes far too little time to advance to the end game. Group 4 generally LOVES the game because it provides a huge number of raids to complete.
Anymore, hardcore to me means grade A asshats abound. It used to be that hardcore was the norm. You had to go out of your way to learn the game. The only way your hand was ever held was if another player was kind enough to do so. There were stiff penalties for death but nothing that would deter your average player of that time to keep from playing. Now it seems too many people want hardcore to be some game where 'noobs' would never stay for more than a month as any act of douchebaggery you can imagine will definitely happen to you on a regular basis.
Financially these games will never succeed. Who wants to spend months working on a character to have a full group of players roll you two minutes after you step onto the battlefield and lose all that gear? Even on vanilla rules pvp I have never died to a worthy victor. At level 20 I'm killed by level 40's and at level cap, expect to be rolled by a enough people that you never have a chance. If that's how people act when the only reward is them knowing that they pissed you off, its exponentially worse when there are real rewards for your suffering.
because its not a waste of time but something you could consider fun perhaps?
I am sure alot would agree one should spend alot more thought and energy into their response, and with reasoning, when someone else ask you to define something that isnt easily defined....yes Im not hardcore, but sure am good at wasting time, now and then.
alone that we would sit and waste time on a site talking abit about MMORPGs, would for alot of ppl be the very definition of waste of time.
and yes I do believe if you point at someone that are "hardcore" you can be certain almost every single of them will be having fun, maybe not by the means they have to use to reach their goal, but for them being able to reach their goals....making it not a waste of time for that person, when it comes to games, most likely the family will disagree....since its not socially accepted.
The only thing that I think of when I see hardcore used as a gaming term, is Diablo II.
Hardcore characters died for good, no resurrection. You'd only ever get your gear back IF you had a good friend in there with you. Now, I realize it's not an MMO. But that doesn't change the fact that Diablo II just did it right in my eyes. Big risk with big rewards(pride mostly).
First of all, the term "hardcore" has been used a lot and, in my opinion, wrongly. Also, it's very hard to make a game with no "hardcore" aspects and still make it a challenge to play. First let me define hardcore... then I will go into what aspects found in many mmos are “hardcore”.
Definition of hardcore from dictionary.com (definitions 2 and 3):
(2)an unyielding or intransigent element in a social ororganizational structure, as that part of a group consisting of long time adherents or those resistant to change.
(3)those whose condition seems to be without hope of remedyof change.
Definitions of hardcore from urban dictionary are too many and not credible. Wikipedia definitions are also not credible. This is because the true definition of the word is what matters. People try to change the word into something that it is not. So I will not say hardcore, but I will refer to it as “hardcore”.
By the above definitions, the “hardcore” player might take offense. Also note that not every person who believes in what these gaming aspects are, tote around the label that they are “hardcore”. The ones who do use it are the ones that aren’t as credible and probably fit the true definition more than the made up one.
DISCLAIMER : IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ALL OF THIS YOU CAN SKIP TO THE BOTTOM LINE AT THE END (STOP).
The User Interface:
Contrary to what some people believe, the user interface can actually be a learning curve of its own. That’s fine, in my opinion, as long as the curve is pretty small. The only thing I have to say about this between the past and the present is that it was easy to navigate the UI in Lineage 1 and I’ve had no trouble having to navigate any other UI in any mmo. This includes Darkfall’s, which I liked better than Mortal’s. This portion of the mmo doesn’t really matter in terms of “hardcore”-ness. I just wanted to clarify that.
Character Progression:
This is one of the main sub-categories of the genre that is always found in the “hardcore” discussion. Also, there are words like “Korean Grind Fest” and “How long until the level cap”. In my opinion, none of these phrases should even matter, and I really don’t feel like they did until the mass flux of new players came in to try out a bunch of the games.
Lineage 1&2, SWG (PCU), DAoC were the only old school games I played. DAoC I played the least. People would say that L2 was a Korean Grind Fest, but I could get to 40 way faster on that then I can in WoW. I could not max out before wow though. But the time it took to reach max level wasn’t the point. The point was that whatever I was doing in those games was fun. Exploring, pve, pvp, raids, castle sieges, dueling, sitting around and talking, selling/buying gear, and crafting was all fun. I didn’t care that I could only get 1% in 5 hours at whatever level that was. I’d get that % and then i'd go do the other fun things. I confess that I couldn’t ever max out in L2. I had a bunch of 60s. The economy was very inflated and drop rates were low. In WoW, however, it’s almost a race to max level. You can do it by yourself if you wanted to, or you can sit in town and dungeon finder all day (casual), which leaves me to the next point…
Immersion:
There are really only two reasons for an instance: 1) it separates the server loads and 2) it makes it easy to have repeatable story driven content of varying casualness and/or difficulties. Since AoC pioneered the next gen graphics for mmos, I agree that they should make the areas instanced. There still are pretty large maps, but to preserve the environment of the mmo being a gaming world (immersion), having fewer instances is better. I would have to say that I do not play mmos for story driven content, I play them to be involved in a massive community. If I wanted to play a story, I’d play a console RPG. The whole reason why I moved to play mmos back in 99 is because I wanted to play in a world.
After experiencing castle wars in lineage 1 and then moving to lineage 2, I was set on playing in a game where the world was actually involved. Politics were there… you needed friends… you were NOT a hero… you were just a member of the world. There were quests, but you didn’t really need them. They gave you items/money, but the level experience to raise your combat prowess was given to you by winning in combat. There was a good lore, but it wasn’t what was directly controlling the world. The players were. When you had to travel to a different town to buy something directly from a person, it could take an hour or a week, but when you got it, it was like Christmas. Waiting 20 minutes for a shuttle ride on SWG let you sit down and chill out for a little bit with the other people waiting in the cantina. It didn’t make sense for a shuttle to arrive every minute. Just like it doesn’t make sense for me to get 1million experience after just talking to someone and walking to a different town just to talk to someone else.
I can talk all day about how more worldly some mmos felt than others, and I’m pretty sure the only people who know what I’m talking about are the people who were involved with those games. WoW does have a pretty immersive game, but many people don’t really take advantage of it. It’s too hard to see it when there’s so many mechanics and add-ons that allow players with the “I just want to kill things” mentality to get a quickie in.
Add-ons:
This should only be allowed as a UI perk… add-ons that do other things like quest guides/ DPS/HPS/ counting and tracking end up ruining the game. People play directly to the goals set by the meter/guide and indirectly to the goals set by the top player. If you think that Blizzard does not take into account these add-ons before making content, you are mistaken. This is why the raids are actually pretty challenging, but also a little empty because of the “playing by numbers” mentality. I have just as much fun with tank and spank as I do with the other style of raid. Why? The act of killing a foe many times more powerful than you should be the achievement and the fun no matter how it dies.
Raid-Bosses:
I remember logging on L2 one day and the guild leader saying that they are going to bring the whole alliance to fight a boss. It wasn’t restricted by level, your damage, or the like. Everyone was welcome. Level 40s through 60s were there because if you were too high you’d be silenced and paralyzed. There were 30 maybe 40 people and there were a bunch of tanks, healers, nukers, and DD (damage dealers makes more sense than damage per seconders). It was quite a spectacular showing and actually was a slightly random event. It wasn’t planned. Everyone was just on-line and the raid was still alive. It wasn’t an instance, so if it died it wouldn’t have been resurrected for a number of hours. People still got killed because there’s a little more to it than merely “tank and spank”. When it died everyone got a little xp and the 3 drops of loot was for the alliance, but it was still fun and it took an hour or so to kill. There was even rebuffing in the middle of the fight.
PvE and PvP:
Ok… I firmly believe that a mmo need not contain both and can have one or the other if it wants to. The developers just must state this. Whatever they choose should contain content that includes any range of players with few constraints.
For instance, the PvE raid mentioned above on L2 would be impossible if it was (1) instanced (2) forced player amount (3) had a level constraint on who could attempt to fight it (if you were too high you could fight, you just get silenced) and (4) had a score associated with one’s eligibility to fight it. If you wanted to zerg with 100s of level 80s… you should be able to. If you wanted to fight it by yourself… you can try.
For PvP, the constraints should be set so that a realistic morality is forced upon the players. (1) The player should not be able to choose if it wants pvp on or off. Choices ruin mmos in some ways, but I’ll disucss that later. (2) You shouldn’t be allowed to kill so much without dire consequences, and (3) there should be a larger incentive to be “good” than to be “bad”. Darkfall is not a bad game, it just got two large things wrong: the soft cap and there’s really no morale control. Still, you need more player skill to win in that than most mmos.
Items:
Simply, the bind on account/equip/loot doesn’t make sense and lessens the extent of the economy. It’s also forcing people to do content they might not want to do to get something they want. Everything should be freely tradeable and usable. The economy should adjust accordingly.
Choices:
Some people like a death penalty harsh enough to make them really loathe dying (immersion). Some people don’t think a death penalty is needed at all (just wanna play a game). Some people think that if you don’t want a death penalty, then don’t include an actual death (immersion). And some people think that you should choose what you want in game (casual since choosing a style of death in a world doesn’t make sense). This would work if the “harder” choice gave additional perks, but those who want choices don’t want that either. To spell out the problem with this take the following: who would choose the permadeath and receive no character bonus against choosing the no-penalty who receives the same 0 bonus. No one would unless it was a single-player game. SWG-PCU did this well. A Jedi could suffer from permadeath. This limited the amount of Jedi and made them aim to be a lot more skillful and secretive. Currently, anyone can choose to be a Jedi if they want to. That doesn’t even fit the star wars lore. Shaiya also did this well… yes… its f2p, but just because it’s f2p doesn’t mean it’s crappy.
Bottom line:
So what has been my thought on what the wrongly used label, “hardcore”, is? The “hardcore” player wants an immersive game with as much freedom as possible. Immersion and Freedom constitutes as open-pvp, player housing, massive battles (massively multiplayer), meaningful deaths (open-loot for some), little or no instances, a player driven world, and skill-based progressions (it makes the most sense). They want things that make them feel anger, uneasiness, and happiness. The more human emotions that the player can feel, the more immersive the game is. The more people involved, the more massive the experience.
In my opinion… casual players only want to get straight into action. WoW has some casual mechanics that ruin most of the game for me and the fact that the massively involved in it is pretty small. The fact that most of the community hasn’t experienced the earlier days is the reason why they do not understand them…. And because of the people that label themselves as “hardcore”.
Get a job you hardcore bumms then you will know the side of the casual gamer's life style you bumms. hehe
I separate my life style from my gaming experience. I don't have the time to play mmos like i used to, yet I don't want a casual game. This is because my gaming experience is much more deserving if it were not casual. Time is not what I play for. I do not care how much time it takes. I just put life first. I don't expect to be playing ANY mmos if I had a family to worry about.. seems like the mature thing to do.
"Hardcore" games are ones with a depth of attainable proficiency.
I personally would not generally use the label "hardcore" for two reasons: because some time ago I surpassed adolescent mentality and because when I pour over a new game I'm so O/C that anything less than increasing productivity and efficiency amounts to completely wasted time. But since you asked...
If I can mash my face on a keyboard and accomplish something, the game is probably not hardcore. If there are a particularly limited number of races/classes/power sets (whatever) which defeat game balance utterly, the game is probably not hardcore. If my penalty for failing seems, or literally is, next to nothing, the game is probably not hardcore. If my 60 year old dad talks about playing at work, the game is probably not hardcore.
If a game is considered hardcore, there will be a consistantly forming echelon of elitists who strive for achievement and garner some status of online hero or cult phenom. This is better for a game overall unless the preliminary progression in a "toon's life" is too hard, and your average, drooling, 19yo co-ed with an IQ of 90 (typical girl gamer) doesn't get her instant gratification.
So there inlies the rub. Making a game hard enough to interest people whose, quite likely, only real success in life will be their bad-ass level 50 billion cartoon man adorned with server-side pixels in their super uber duper guild of indignant turds who are all eyeing character sales sites for the best value on their 3 month time investment, while simultaneously allowing game play potential for chimps who enjoy banging on a monitor with a femur because hey, someone has to participate in the hero-worship.
Anymore, hardcore to me means grade A asshats abound. It used to be that hardcore was the norm. You had to go out of your way to learn the game. The only way your hand was ever held was if another player was kind enough to do so. There were stiff penalties for death but nothing that would deter your average player of that time to keep from playing. Now it seems too many people want hardcore to be some game where 'noobs' would never stay for more than a month as any act of douchebaggery you can imagine will definitely happen to you on a regular basis.
Financially these games will never succeed. Who wants to spend months working on a character to have a full group of players roll you two minutes after you step onto the battlefield and lose all that gear? Even on vanilla rules pvp I have never died to a worthy victor. At level 20 I'm killed by level 40's and at level cap, expect to be rolled by a enough people that you never have a chance. If that's how people act when the only reward is them knowing that they pissed you off, its exponentially worse when there are real rewards for your suffering.
Well said Hogscaper.
Unfortunatly, this is what to many people think hardcore is. You are correct that these game never do as well financialy as they might have. Make no mistake, ALL games are produced in the hope they will be profitable.
Imo, if a game allows full loot for instance there is nothing preventing a good player from getting raped by a small hoard of lesser players. There are just so many time that player will start all over again.
I played a small mud in the early 90s that allowed full looting. A fair sizes fgroup of friends that were playing the game formed a Guild called Balance. We hunted the hunters and were so effective that many started to complain and many left the game. To HC??? We were disbanded by the mud owner...in no small part because he was one of the gankers. Point is most sppossedly HC looters were only feeling good if they were able to easily overcome and oppossition...kinda sucked when this was not possible.
I avoid any game or guild claiming to be hardcore. This type of player kills any storyline and for the producer its a huge money saver because content is not important and will not be high quality because of this.
For me, a game is a story I get to be part of, not a free for all that prevents any story connected from being realized.
Comments
To me, hardcore means that you are going to fail, and it is only a matter of time when that will happen. You are going to fail because you will enter a situation you are not entirely prepared for, mistakes are made, and death ensues. Hardcore pretty much garauntees that will happen, and more importantly, that you will learn from it.
I hate games that have these survivor achievements because to me, that's just someone running while rest of the party is trying to pull out of disaster they're making a break for it. I played a tank type character in the last MMO I played. I tried to retreat only after the very last member of my party was dead or already retreated. That was my job.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
How anyone in the MMO industry can be asking this question escapes me. Just compare MMO’s now to five years ago. It does not matter which MMO you pick they have all been dumbed down.
As to there being no consensus of what this means there is a consensus. It means you have to do less to achieve the same as we did in the past.
As to specific examples it is true one persons dumbing down is sometimes seen as an advance by some players. But overall achieving more by doing less is seen as bad by everyone. I know you guys like to paint a picture of a strong, vibrant, innovative industry but this is ridiculous.
I agree 100%...while direction is nice the bread crumbs (hehe love that) really take from the experience.
Getting old is mandatory...growing up is optional.
Very well said and I agree with you 100% in relation to what a hardcore game is. I will add this, Perma Death. Perma death is the ultimate hardcore experience. You die, you re-roll a new character and start all over.
Now as for the perception of what makes a player hardcore, that will vary depending what "class" of gamer you ask the question to. Some will say a hardcore gamer is the one that only play on a PvP server and ganks endless newbs. Others will say it is the player that raids top end content 7 nights a week and has the best loot the game offers. There is the group that will say they are hardcore because they have every character class at max level and they have all the top end loot for their game.
I think the hardcore gamer is the one that works a full time job, spends time with their children and still finds time to go on raids or compete in PvP to gain the best loot and have the most fun.
Hardcore is synonymous with waste of time. It's just a play style in which the gamer spends an excessive amount of time to become the very best. You can see it in FPS games with the guys who are so good they almost seem to be hacking. The worst thing in an MMORPG is to allow players with excessive amounts of time to dominate at PvP by unrelated PvE "accomplishments", and by accomplishments I mean time wasted. Take Darkfall for example, you can win a lot of PvP fights just by grinding your ass off on monsters to get the best equipment and high skills which gives you an unsurmountable advantage over a player who spends most of their time PvPing rather than farming monsters.
A hardcore game rewards players who waste their time doing simple easy repetitive things over those who do the challenging things such as fighting other players.
well to me the hardcore means you care about the gameworld, meaning you want to learn every single thing this game have to offer, from story to combat mechanics to if try figure if there is a secret bonus to crafting without having a shirt on....over all just cares, and play the game like a hobby, and not just see this game as the number 100 in the row.
the good thing? I believe you will have more fun, if your mentality is fitted for this kind of fun..
Yes it's totally unfair that people who spend more time doing a specific activity are better at it than other players.
Those stinking doctors studying for years have an unfair advantage. They should let me become a doctor by just reading a medical book once.
/fail logic.
The Official God FAQ
That's quite far from hardcore.
I like how many of the so called casuals are called "lazy". Were this a job I would agree but as it is a recreational activity. I'm a father, husband, doctoral student, research assistant etc.. I am not lazy at all (wish I could be) rather my life limits my playtime. I think much of the issues is less with playstyle and more with a growing crowd of folks wanting instant gratification. I remember in EQ1, where in a long session I could gain maybe 20-25% of a level or maybe an AA point at higher levels. I feltmy character was progressing, But what is currently defined as "progression" is a lot more than it used to be. I think this need for gratification and progression inflation as it were are some of the key problems many older MMOers see with today's games.
I think you should reread my post. If I play Darkfall and exclusively PvP for 2 months, a player who exclusively farms monsters for 2 months will stomp my shit in. The worst part is that farming monsters is an easy repetitive thing, whereas PvP is a learning experience. PvE experience should not be an "I win" card when it comes to PvP.
I've always thought of hardcore as risk vs reward and softcore as reward vs slightly less reward. WoW is softcore through and through; you risk nothing because if you screw up and get killed, by game or player, you lose nothing. You don't get pinged for XP, your body never disappears and nobody can take your stuff. The worst than can happen is res sickness. Even worse, every area is controlled in terms of the foes you will find; here is a certain level and, when you finish that one, we'll push you down the wholly linear track to the next level-suitable area. Yeah you can go off the beaten track but you don't get punished by the game for stuffing up or taking on a fight you can't win or going to places you're not ready for yet. As long as you don't mind a corpse run (from an ever closer graveyard) you're fine. No harm no foul.
The game I always compare to is UO, and I didn't start playing that until PvE and PvP were seperated by Trammel/Felluca. And even then you could walk round a corner and find something that could utterly spank you, the left over spawn of a high end treasure chest perhaps, wandering amidst the mongbats. And if you snuffed it, but you made it back to your corpse before it vanished, and if the thing that killed you with such nonchalant ease had moved on, then you considered yourself very fortunate.
And going to Felluca, to PvP land? It felt like a mission, like a bloody covert op. I had a bunch of shops in Fell that I used to buy from to sell in Trammel and one of them was always stuffed full of ultra-cheap goodies? Why? Because the owner and his mates were waiting to butcher any buyers. And after he did, your corpse would be stripped. Unlucky.
Players who wanted that or were prepared to risk it went to Felluca. Those who weren't, didn't.
What it comes down to, I guess, is how readily the game is prepared to piss you off. When WoW kills you, you get a hug and a sincere apology for any inconvenience caused. I always got the feeling WoW regrets, greatly, that you died and if there's anything it can change in order to make sure such a terrible thing doesn't happen again, you only have to ask.
Games like UO basically shrug and say 'tough'.
The ruptured capillaries in your nose belie the clarity of your wisdom.
I agree that "hardcore" or even "casual" is based largely upon perception, but I also think that you can narrow these types of MMOs down to specifics. I won't try to do that however, as it will lead to unholy rage and flaming.
For me though, a hardcore MMO is one where the player is left to discover things and develop their own story, which usually requires a deep time investment. I don't like the developer's hand guiding me through everything I do in the game, which is what most people refer to as "being on rails". I like having options for everything I do in the game, and I want to explore and figure things out on my own. I do think that MMOs which support customization and freedom foster a kinder and more tight-knit community, because player cooperation is more often than not, a point of survival.
Also and personally, I find it difficult to pair cartoonish and childish graphics with a hardcore MMO. This almost always feels strange to me.
Lastly, any MMO that you can pick up and play for 15 minutes before bedtime and accomplish something worthwhile, is not hardcore. In my estimation, a hardcore MMO should require at least a couple of years of dedication to achieve a high status, advanced character development, and a deep understanding of how the game works and the things in it (Eve is a good example of this).
I don't disparage those who don't like this kind of game, and if one doesn't like that type of game don't play it. But to say that hardcore games are "lesser", "inferior", or only for basement dwelling nerdophiles living off welfare is a bit rediculous. We all have different things we like.
While I agree with the 2nd part, you missed that it comes from what I call "frustrated power-gamers". One of the main reasons games have been "dumbed down" and "sped up" is so that 'casuals' like you can reach max level faster. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is a direct consequence of Devs trying to 'equalize' the play experience between players who devote widely varying amounts of time to the game...which is ultimately doomed to fail or produce a so-so experience for everyone. Everything has been made faster and easier so that casuals can reach "level caps" in a reasonable amount of time, which makes the game feel "shallow" and lacking content to anyone with more time...and often feels like a repititve theme-park to the casual who is basically roped to a levelling machine and pulled through to the "end game".
Far too many 'casuals' whined about not being able to keep up or reach max level for far too long and this is what we get.
Which is why we need different types of games that offer differing options. I think there should be lots of games with quick levelling, instant gratification and ment for casual players...but there should also be intensive games where you simply will not be able accomplish much without a lot of time invested.
While I have not read all the comments and I am almost certain that I am repeating the statments of some, I will venture my answer to your quarry.
Hardcore is and always will be a relative term used to define a players perception of the games that they play. To elaborate I will utillize games out side of the Genre. Let us look at the differances as seen by relative players, A 5 year old child will advance from Candy Land thinking that the game is no longer a challenge so they start playing Snakes and Ladders. The latter would be, in comparison, "hardcore." However after a time they desire more challenge and venture into other games that present both a greater challenge and risk. We can watch this same trend as players move from one MMO to another looking to find that 'perfect challenge.'
While the question in and of it's self is an important insite into the Industry, My self along with many others apparently have the same responce. Aks the same questions 10 times and you will get 10 different answers. What compounds the complexity of the question is that you are asking for personal oppinion. While "Oppinions are like ..." (you know the rest) you will also find that they are never and can never be wrong as they are unique to each person. Perhaps a better questions would be to ask " Why do you see yourself as a Hardcore Gamer?" Yet again we venture into the area of personal oppinion and there you will find a myriad of answers, few of wich you are actually looking for.
I wish you well on your quest for answers.
Post Scriptum; Why is it out of all the buttons above is there no Spell Check?
If you build it, let others tear it apart so you can make it better.
"Productively spent." I'd like to know what the definition of this is, right alongside "hardcore".
While I'll agree that my concept of a hardcore player is one that knows the game inside and out, I'd disagree this is because the time they spent in it more "productive" than that of a casual player. In fact, I'd hazard a guess that the reason that a true hardcore player is able to become so well versed in the ins and outs of the game is because they've stopped treating it as a game, and instead treat it as a problem that must be solved. This can be done by doing extensive calculations to unravel the mechanics on a microspcopic level, or repeating the same content over and over and over to test and optimize builds, or even pouring over the theorycrafting of others of a like-mind to glean from it some fresh revelation that they can incorporate into their attempt to conquer the game.
This to me, is a hardcore player. And I should say that I think there's nothing invalid about this approach either. I've often been the beneficiary of all the hard work of others in figuring out how a game works.
But to say this is a more productive use of a player's in-game time, I think is misguided. I mean, if your goal in the game is spend a little leisure downtime and have a few laughs, then turning the game into a research project becomes a total waste of time, isn't it? And as for who I'd rather group with, generally speaking, it would be with someone who hasn't minimaximazed their character builds to the nth degree. I find these types of people (again, in general) to be exceedingly anal retentive, obnoxious, arrogant and irritating to be around.
I myself tend to sit on the fence between casual and hardcore. I put in a lot of time. I read the information outside of the game and put it into practice when I play. But I refuse to do the work for myself because, quite simply, it's boring. I'd rather be fooling around in the game than dissecting, but I also like to be moving forward so I refuse to be ignorant. But no matter what I'm doing, it's productive so long as I log off afterwards in a more content frame of mind than when I logged on.
As far as I have seen, there are four main camps of people on these forums who use the term 'hardcore' frequently. While I have encountered many people who fall under two or more of these categories, the people I ordinarily encounter on these forums are usually just one of the three.
1) One of these groups is comprised of PvPers who enjoy games with severe consequences such as full loot. These are the players who like to call games like Darkfall and Mortal Online home. All other games are just too easy and provide no real consequences for failure in PvP combat, so they are not deemed as 'hardcore' enough.
2) Another group is comprised of players who enjoy sandbox games over themeparks. For them, the fact that many games like WoW make questing easy and are always telling the player where they should go and what they should do is insulting. These players want things like deep and intricate questing systems and skill-based advancement rather than classes and levels. They don't like the idea of anything being defined for them and generally enjoy aspects of gaming that the majority find cumbersome. They look at the sheer complexity of a good sandbox game as the aspect which is 'hardcore' and they consider any game that simplifies the formula as 'dumbed down' or 'watered down'.
3) The third group are comprised of players who only enjoy MMOs with severe grinds. These players prefer to continue advancing characters for years and never reach the 'end game'. These games are all about the journey for them and they don't actually want to reach the end of the level treadmill. For them, only games that take an incredible time commitment are 'hardcore'.
4) The fourth group are those players who only enjoy MMOs with highly organized PVE raiding. These players are in it for the gear that drops in raid dungeons and derive their enjoyment from the social and competitive aspects of organized dungeon raiding.
The differences between these three groups and what their players consider to be the perfect game end up causing the majority of the conflicts on these forums. All four groups consider their game of choice to be 'hardcore' and the others to be 'watered/dumbed down'.
Take Darkfall for example. Because it is a very PvP-oriented game that is also technically a sandbox and has what many people consider to be a severe grind, it attracts all three of the above groups. The PvPers (group 1) want to PvP with severe consequences, but they don't want to grind for years and they don't care much about crafting, etc. As a result, many of them complain that the game takes too long to advance in. The players in group 3 take offense to the suggestion that the grind should be reduced and object to any proposed changes that will reduce the time commitment required to advance. The players in group 2 complain that the game has too few sandbox elements and needs more non-combat activities to truly equal old sandbox greats like UO and SWG. The players in group 4 generally find nothing enjoyable to do in games like Darkfall since, for the most part, there is very little PvE raiding.
Or another example... the ever popular (or unpopular HERE) World of Warcraft. Group 1 finds the game to be too 'dumbed down' because it does not provide any meaningful consequences for PvP combat. Group 2 doesn't like the game because it is the definition of a themepark and does not have any of their desired sandbox features. Group 3 doesn't like the game because it takes far too little time to advance to the end game. Group 4 generally LOVES the game because it provides a huge number of raids to complete.
Anymore, hardcore to me means grade A asshats abound. It used to be that hardcore was the norm. You had to go out of your way to learn the game. The only way your hand was ever held was if another player was kind enough to do so. There were stiff penalties for death but nothing that would deter your average player of that time to keep from playing. Now it seems too many people want hardcore to be some game where 'noobs' would never stay for more than a month as any act of douchebaggery you can imagine will definitely happen to you on a regular basis.
Financially these games will never succeed. Who wants to spend months working on a character to have a full group of players roll you two minutes after you step onto the battlefield and lose all that gear? Even on vanilla rules pvp I have never died to a worthy victor. At level 20 I'm killed by level 40's and at level cap, expect to be rolled by a enough people that you never have a chance. If that's how people act when the only reward is them knowing that they pissed you off, its exponentially worse when there are real rewards for your suffering.
because its not a waste of time but something you could consider fun perhaps?
I am sure alot would agree one should spend alot more thought and energy into their response, and with reasoning, when someone else ask you to define something that isnt easily defined....yes Im not hardcore, but sure am good at wasting time, now and then.
alone that we would sit and waste time on a site talking abit about MMORPGs, would for alot of ppl be the very definition of waste of time.
and yes I do believe if you point at someone that are "hardcore" you can be certain almost every single of them will be having fun, maybe not by the means they have to use to reach their goal, but for them being able to reach their goals....making it not a waste of time for that person, when it comes to games, most likely the family will disagree....since its not socially accepted.
The only thing that I think of when I see hardcore used as a gaming term, is Diablo II.
Hardcore characters died for good, no resurrection. You'd only ever get your gear back IF you had a good friend in there with you. Now, I realize it's not an MMO. But that doesn't change the fact that Diablo II just did it right in my eyes. Big risk with big rewards(pride mostly).
Gamer by nature,
poet by heart.
First of all, the term "hardcore" has been used a lot and, in my opinion, wrongly. Also, it's very hard to make a game with no "hardcore" aspects and still make it a challenge to play. First let me define hardcore... then I will go into what aspects found in many mmos are “hardcore”.
Definition of hardcore from dictionary.com (definitions 2 and 3):
(2)an unyielding or intransigent element in a social ororganizational structure, as that part of a group consisting of long time adherents or those resistant to change.
(3)those whose condition seems to be without hope of remedyof change.
Definitions of hardcore from urban dictionary are too many and not credible. Wikipedia definitions are also not credible. This is because the true definition of the word is what matters. People try to change the word into something that it is not. So I will not say hardcore, but I will refer to it as “hardcore”.
By the above definitions, the “hardcore” player might take offense. Also note that not every person who believes in what these gaming aspects are, tote around the label that they are “hardcore”. The ones who do use it are the ones that aren’t as credible and probably fit the true definition more than the made up one.
DISCLAIMER : IF YOU DON’T WANT TO READ ALL OF THIS YOU CAN SKIP TO THE BOTTOM LINE AT THE END (STOP).
The User Interface:
Contrary to what some people believe, the user interface can actually be a learning curve of its own. That’s fine, in my opinion, as long as the curve is pretty small. The only thing I have to say about this between the past and the present is that it was easy to navigate the UI in Lineage 1 and I’ve had no trouble having to navigate any other UI in any mmo. This includes Darkfall’s, which I liked better than Mortal’s. This portion of the mmo doesn’t really matter in terms of “hardcore”-ness. I just wanted to clarify that.
Character Progression:
This is one of the main sub-categories of the genre that is always found in the “hardcore” discussion. Also, there are words like “Korean Grind Fest” and “How long until the level cap”. In my opinion, none of these phrases should even matter, and I really don’t feel like they did until the mass flux of new players came in to try out a bunch of the games.
Lineage 1&2, SWG (PCU), DAoC were the only old school games I played. DAoC I played the least. People would say that L2 was a Korean Grind Fest, but I could get to 40 way faster on that then I can in WoW. I could not max out before wow though. But the time it took to reach max level wasn’t the point. The point was that whatever I was doing in those games was fun. Exploring, pve, pvp, raids, castle sieges, dueling, sitting around and talking, selling/buying gear, and crafting was all fun. I didn’t care that I could only get 1% in 5 hours at whatever level that was. I’d get that % and then i'd go do the other fun things. I confess that I couldn’t ever max out in L2. I had a bunch of 60s. The economy was very inflated and drop rates were low. In WoW, however, it’s almost a race to max level. You can do it by yourself if you wanted to, or you can sit in town and dungeon finder all day (casual), which leaves me to the next point…
Immersion:
There are really only two reasons for an instance: 1) it separates the server loads and 2) it makes it easy to have repeatable story driven content of varying casualness and/or difficulties. Since AoC pioneered the next gen graphics for mmos, I agree that they should make the areas instanced. There still are pretty large maps, but to preserve the environment of the mmo being a gaming world (immersion), having fewer instances is better. I would have to say that I do not play mmos for story driven content, I play them to be involved in a massive community. If I wanted to play a story, I’d play a console RPG. The whole reason why I moved to play mmos back in 99 is because I wanted to play in a world.
After experiencing castle wars in lineage 1 and then moving to lineage 2, I was set on playing in a game where the world was actually involved. Politics were there… you needed friends… you were NOT a hero… you were just a member of the world. There were quests, but you didn’t really need them. They gave you items/money, but the level experience to raise your combat prowess was given to you by winning in combat. There was a good lore, but it wasn’t what was directly controlling the world. The players were. When you had to travel to a different town to buy something directly from a person, it could take an hour or a week, but when you got it, it was like Christmas. Waiting 20 minutes for a shuttle ride on SWG let you sit down and chill out for a little bit with the other people waiting in the cantina. It didn’t make sense for a shuttle to arrive every minute. Just like it doesn’t make sense for me to get 1million experience after just talking to someone and walking to a different town just to talk to someone else.
I can talk all day about how more worldly some mmos felt than others, and I’m pretty sure the only people who know what I’m talking about are the people who were involved with those games. WoW does have a pretty immersive game, but many people don’t really take advantage of it. It’s too hard to see it when there’s so many mechanics and add-ons that allow players with the “I just want to kill things” mentality to get a quickie in.
Add-ons:
This should only be allowed as a UI perk… add-ons that do other things like quest guides/ DPS/HPS/ counting and tracking end up ruining the game. People play directly to the goals set by the meter/guide and indirectly to the goals set by the top player. If you think that Blizzard does not take into account these add-ons before making content, you are mistaken. This is why the raids are actually pretty challenging, but also a little empty because of the “playing by numbers” mentality. I have just as much fun with tank and spank as I do with the other style of raid. Why? The act of killing a foe many times more powerful than you should be the achievement and the fun no matter how it dies.
Raid-Bosses:
I remember logging on L2 one day and the guild leader saying that they are going to bring the whole alliance to fight a boss. It wasn’t restricted by level, your damage, or the like. Everyone was welcome. Level 40s through 60s were there because if you were too high you’d be silenced and paralyzed. There were 30 maybe 40 people and there were a bunch of tanks, healers, nukers, and DD (damage dealers makes more sense than damage per seconders). It was quite a spectacular showing and actually was a slightly random event. It wasn’t planned. Everyone was just on-line and the raid was still alive. It wasn’t an instance, so if it died it wouldn’t have been resurrected for a number of hours. People still got killed because there’s a little more to it than merely “tank and spank”. When it died everyone got a little xp and the 3 drops of loot was for the alliance, but it was still fun and it took an hour or so to kill. There was even rebuffing in the middle of the fight.
PvE and PvP:
Ok… I firmly believe that a mmo need not contain both and can have one or the other if it wants to. The developers just must state this. Whatever they choose should contain content that includes any range of players with few constraints.
For instance, the PvE raid mentioned above on L2 would be impossible if it was (1) instanced (2) forced player amount (3) had a level constraint on who could attempt to fight it (if you were too high you could fight, you just get silenced) and (4) had a score associated with one’s eligibility to fight it. If you wanted to zerg with 100s of level 80s… you should be able to. If you wanted to fight it by yourself… you can try.
For PvP, the constraints should be set so that a realistic morality is forced upon the players. (1) The player should not be able to choose if it wants pvp on or off. Choices ruin mmos in some ways, but I’ll disucss that later. (2) You shouldn’t be allowed to kill so much without dire consequences, and (3) there should be a larger incentive to be “good” than to be “bad”. Darkfall is not a bad game, it just got two large things wrong: the soft cap and there’s really no morale control. Still, you need more player skill to win in that than most mmos.
Items:
Simply, the bind on account/equip/loot doesn’t make sense and lessens the extent of the economy. It’s also forcing people to do content they might not want to do to get something they want. Everything should be freely tradeable and usable. The economy should adjust accordingly.
Choices:
Some people like a death penalty harsh enough to make them really loathe dying (immersion). Some people don’t think a death penalty is needed at all (just wanna play a game). Some people think that if you don’t want a death penalty, then don’t include an actual death (immersion). And some people think that you should choose what you want in game (casual since choosing a style of death in a world doesn’t make sense). This would work if the “harder” choice gave additional perks, but those who want choices don’t want that either. To spell out the problem with this take the following: who would choose the permadeath and receive no character bonus against choosing the no-penalty who receives the same 0 bonus. No one would unless it was a single-player game. SWG-PCU did this well. A Jedi could suffer from permadeath. This limited the amount of Jedi and made them aim to be a lot more skillful and secretive. Currently, anyone can choose to be a Jedi if they want to. That doesn’t even fit the star wars lore. Shaiya also did this well… yes… its f2p, but just because it’s f2p doesn’t mean it’s crappy.
Bottom line:
So what has been my thought on what the wrongly used label, “hardcore”, is? The “hardcore” player wants an immersive game with as much freedom as possible. Immersion and Freedom constitutes as open-pvp, player housing, massive battles (massively multiplayer), meaningful deaths (open-loot for some), little or no instances, a player driven world, and skill-based progressions (it makes the most sense). They want things that make them feel anger, uneasiness, and happiness. The more human emotions that the player can feel, the more immersive the game is. The more people involved, the more massive the experience.
In my opinion… casual players only want to get straight into action. WoW has some casual mechanics that ruin most of the game for me and the fact that the massively involved in it is pretty small. The fact that most of the community hasn’t experienced the earlier days is the reason why they do not understand them…. And because of the people that label themselves as “hardcore”.
Get a job you hardcore bumms then you will know the side of the casual gamer's life style you bumms. hehe
I separate my life style from my gaming experience. I don't have the time to play mmos like i used to, yet I don't want a casual game. This is because my gaming experience is much more deserving if it were not casual. Time is not what I play for. I do not care how much time it takes. I just put life first. I don't expect to be playing ANY mmos if I had a family to worry about.. seems like the mature thing to do.
"Hardcore" games are ones with a depth of attainable proficiency.
I personally would not generally use the label "hardcore" for two reasons: because some time ago I surpassed adolescent mentality and because when I pour over a new game I'm so O/C that anything less than increasing productivity and efficiency amounts to completely wasted time. But since you asked...
If I can mash my face on a keyboard and accomplish something, the game is probably not hardcore. If there are a particularly limited number of races/classes/power sets (whatever) which defeat game balance utterly, the game is probably not hardcore. If my penalty for failing seems, or literally is, next to nothing, the game is probably not hardcore. If my 60 year old dad talks about playing at work, the game is probably not hardcore.
If a game is considered hardcore, there will be a consistantly forming echelon of elitists who strive for achievement and garner some status of online hero or cult phenom. This is better for a game overall unless the preliminary progression in a "toon's life" is too hard, and your average, drooling, 19yo co-ed with an IQ of 90 (typical girl gamer) doesn't get her instant gratification.
So there inlies the rub. Making a game hard enough to interest people whose, quite likely, only real success in life will be their bad-ass level 50 billion cartoon man adorned with server-side pixels in their super uber duper guild of indignant turds who are all eyeing character sales sites for the best value on their 3 month time investment, while simultaneously allowing game play potential for chimps who enjoy banging on a monitor with a femur because hey, someone has to participate in the hero-worship.
Because the legend of the rent was way hardcore.
Playing | GW2
Wanting | Pantheon
Watching | Crowfall
Retired | WAR, Cabal, MO, CO, SHK, WoW, FFXIV: ARR