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Cheating Highlights Fundamental Problem
lethys
Member UncommonPosts: 585
I was originally going to make a thread asking "why people cheat." As soon as I started writing, I realized that most of the time people only cheat enough so they can get to the "good" content at the endgame, skipping the parts they really have no desire in doing at all.
Doesn't the fact that people are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for level'd accounts make these developers realize that the traditional MMO format is stale and undesired? Do people really want to keep killing 100 wolves for hours upon hours in order to get the ten wolf paws to drop so they can, after 80 more hours, earn the right to enter the better made content?
MMO's need a fundamental change. There should not be a "bad part" of a game I pay $50 for on top of a $15 subscription fee. I shouldn't have to earn the right to play fun content by doing repetitive nonsensical tasks involving saving the empire by killing 500 boars. And I understand that there are people who somehow love the grind of killing fake animals over and over so they can hear that precious ding. There are people who think that long leveling is a necessary part of MMO's and that games without it are not the same genre.
But I am saying that there must be another way, at least an alternative. MMO stands for Massively Multiplayer Online. No where in that abbreviation does it say that we need to grind for levels. Why can't a developer think of a way to allow tons of people into the same world and just eliminate the fluff of grinding, or maybe even levels entirely? Why does no developer ever think outside the box for MMO's? I hear two camps of developers: the indy devs who insist on making underfunded sandbox games, and the major devs who insist on making the same game over and over again. Where is the third camp? Give me a new idea. Someone break away from the norm in more than just sandbox or theme park. I'm tired of both, frankly, and nobody ever gets either style right except for that monstrosity we call WoW.
MMO players are like a seven year old eating with his family, and the games are like meals. His mother (the dev) forces him to eat the nasty green peas before he gets to eat the pizza. He loves the pizza, but there are just so many green peas. Some people don't eat and leave entirely. Some (the cheaters) will scrape all of the peas away to be fed to the dog. Most will suck it up, eat the peas, and move on to pizza. They hated those damn peas, but they did it anyway, for the pizza. Why can't we just skip to the pizza in the first place? Then maybe I'd actually enjoy this meal. Instead, I hated the first part of the meal because I had to eat those stinky disgusting green peas.
The worst part of it all is that the same thing will happen tomorrow, whether the expansion comes out or it's a whole new game entirely. The pizza and peas run out, content runs out, now we get more peas and more pizza. The cycle continues, we always have to eat our gross peas before having any good pizza.
And to the people who inevitably will say, "Yea but sandbox games have all good contentz." No, you're wrong. While the endgame content is often better and lasts longer in a sandbox, there are also about 1000000 more hours you need to devote to leveling. That roughly translates to 10000000000000000000000000 green peas before the pizza. This is true in both EVE and Darkfall, and every other sandbox is so utterly beyond repair that they don't enter the conversation.
Comments
There is an endless amount of MMO's that could be made. But they only make 1 type. And if it is a different type, it's usually forced over, under or through 'standard' mechanics to it's own ruin. Some good games get ruined. Same problems over and over.
Hell, they could just as easily as quickly and cheaply add social aspects to these games to keep the people around for more than a month or two and they refuse to even do that. REFUSE. So i would say the way it is, is the way the makers want it. Can be no other explanation.
I wouldnt hope for any North American companies to step up. Almost all sell outs on this side of the pond it would seem.
Good news is, instead of paying 3rd parties to cheat, we can just pay the developers and now it's all cool. How convenient for them.
See you in the dream..
The Fires from heaven, now as cold as ice. A rapid ascension tolls a heavy price.
Cheating does highlight a fundamental problem, but grinding isn't really the root problem.
Grinding is a function of these games wanting to entertain you 300+ hours (which itself is a function of the subscription model.)
Cheating is a function of games offering players problems to solve (the fun of games is fundamentally problem-solving.) When cheating is any sort of a solution, players will do it (or at least the subset of players who don't perceive the limitations of the game rules as a boundary.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I just wanted to point out that grinding is also a function of the "free-to-play" model, maybe more so. If you look at Asian f2p games in particular, they are just about nothing but grind. If you look at even the newest "freemium" models, they have basically the same foundation of grinding as the filler UNLESS you pay for content either through a ingame "store" or a sub fee.
And, cheating is a lack of morale conviction on the part of some players to PLAY BY THE RULES. and nothing more. If players that felt some form of morale obligation to not cheat, they would not. Obviously, anyone could cheat but most do not. The reason people do not is primarily becasue they do not believe in cheating...period. So, unless you can give the "cheaters" some form of pill, they will always be there regardless of what physical roadblock you attempt to construct. It is part of the nature of man.
Let's party like it is 1863!
eliminate leveling...go straight to the end game...sounds like an FPS. I'll pass. I actually have more fun in the lower levels than end game. All end game is in most MMO's is endless repetitive dungeons these days, no real purpose. Make more dungeons in the lower levels, make some open world dungeons or something.
I don't think I'd want to play the game you want. So...maybe all those who pay for high level characters and cheat to get to the "end game" should just go play FPS games.
One of the things i was very dissapointed when i bought Darkfall(at launch) was that again we needed to kill hundreds of mobs for quests to get better stuffs not only boring, but its been done already in last 12 years in almost every other game:(
But i never cheat even in Darkfall and ive played for 2 years, many exploited afk skilled up or macro everthing even hacked and then go afk, result devs dumb down Darkfall as solution bah:(
Cheating is for losers!
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Sure, all pay-as-you-go models tend to be this way.
And in regards to cheating, yes you're basically reiterating what I described :P
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You didn't play EVE if you think there's any "leveling to end-game"
You didn't play EVE if you think there's any grind required. (the only mob grinding in EVE is purely optional and never forced)
I'm not trying to insult, just gotta defend the most misunderstood game in the genre, since so many people let so much disinformation shoot off their tongues when they mention EVE.
Other than that, I agree with a lot of what you're saying. At least, what I "think" you're saying. I don't want MMO's to get rid of progression, because they would no longer feel like an RPG. But the typical format of grinding levels from killing thousands of pigs crabs spiders and lizards (quest given objectives or otherwise, it's the same thing...) is getting stale and starting to show. 'Endgame' itself is a stale concept, and it was only really overdone once WoW set the standard of letting an entire server all easily reach the cap level, and all easily have access to raids, arenas, battlegrounds, dungeons... [in my opinion and many other's,]hitting the last level is supposed to be a gratifying feat, and is supposed to make the achieving players standout amongst their community as a well practiced and skilled player. But now, everyone is at the top. Everyone has the same gear, and everyone is in the same raid, chasing the next set of gear, and that's what endgame is. Pretty dull and mindless.
Horizontal progression is not a "fresh" idea since EVE has been doing it since 2003, but it's definitely not overused. Horizontal progression can, if implimented correctly, take care of the mindless grind, the mindless endgame gear chase, and the stale "catch up" mechanic that seems to have been a big negative effect on community.
It's obvious that the flavor-of-the-month mentality rules all now. No matter how many talent trees MMOs now come out with, no matter how many gear sets, there's always that "best" choice that everyone goes to, because it's the most overpowered, or gives the best edge, or causes the highest DPS, etc... *yawn* sorry.. I get sleepy when I think of how linear things got in the MMO world. Anyways, with horizontal progression, there would rarely, if ever be a "best" of anything. Just more options to customize playstyle and appearence. example: Tier 1 doesn't need to be weaker than tier 2. Tier 1 could just have stats A and B, while Tier 2 could have stats C and D, thus making both sets viable, but in different ways for different situations. This also keeps economy fresh as it makes no gear "useless" or "outdated" just because it's lowlevel, or something "better" came out in a patch/expansion. FFXI had this aspect with it's gear as well.. low level items still were very lucrative to craft/hunt/sell/collect as characters switching jobs meant they may need low level equipment again, on top of the fact that most gear didn't bind so it was reusable and resellable.
/end-wall-for-now
This is not a troll, flame, or anything else worth banning me over. It is simply my pure opinion, and I have a right to share it.
"MMO's need a fundamental change. There should not be a "bad part" of a game I pay $50 for on top of a $15 subscription fee. "
So how would you design a game that does not have any bad parts for all the people playing it?
Venge
Games are like sports, people cheat because they want to be better and more successfull than others. To take cheating out of the game, you'd have to take all challenge, achievement and possibility to be better than other players away from the game. It wouldn't be a game any more.
so, that makes cheating acceptable?
I don't think so. I do, however, agree that as long as challenge and achievement is involved, you will always have people who "try" to cheat. That doesn't mean ignore it, accept it, and move on.. it means development should take it more into consideration that this will always be an avenue that players try to take so it should be handled more efficiently and publicly to show how unwelcomed it is, how punishable, and how successful the host/company/dev team are in stopping it.
2.1 cents
This is not a troll, flame, or anything else worth banning me over. It is simply my pure opinion, and I have a right to share it.
Actually, there's several different forms of cheating.
Some folks cheat for a competitive advantage, using speed hacks, or RMT to power up their characters vs other folks.
The OP is talking about a different sort of cheating, (not any better) where players are trying to avoid portions of the gameplay hence the powerleveled characters. (for pay).
So the fundamental problem is no one wants to level a charcter before getting to the real end game. I remember in DAOC there were 50 levels to grind through before you got to the RVR end game. Sure, it was annoying at times (really only the first time) but it didn't seem so onerous because DAOC was a very social game and it was pretty fun to level up characters (for some of us) and we didn't mind.
Today's MMO's are lonely solo fests, small wonder people hate it so much and are dying to get to the traditional end game which normally relys heavily on team play and social contact. (but hey, powerleveling was rampant in DAOC, so it isn't a new phenomenon, though that was caused mostly by the inflexiblity of the spec/respec system, people wanted multiple builds of the same class and didn't want to level them up 2 times.)
So I agree, perhaps the issue is lets make the entire game fun, get rid of the end game concept, and encourage players to group throughout the entire game for great rewards, and stop with the mindless filler of endless quest grinds.
Oh wait, that's forced grouping, can't have that, I want to solo.!!!!!!
Players say they want something different besides the same old treadmill, but you know what, most of them are lying.
"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
*clicks -like- and gives a thumbs up*
This is not a troll, flame, or anything else worth banning me over. It is simply my pure opinion, and I have a right to share it.