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Your life changed, why should the genre?
IfrianMMO
Member UncommonPosts: 252
This question is directed to all those older players that support the "casualization" of the genre because their lives changed and they no longer have as much time to dedicate to games and mmorpgs in particular.
I know not all older players and casuals support mmoprgs becoming easier, this question however, is directed to the ones that do believe and support it.
So the question is as follows :
Why do you insist, agree and celebrate on the casualization of the genre simply because you cannot fulfill it´s demands anymore?
You admit that you used to love the older games, and that you had many good memories and good times as you spent a lot of time, effort and dedication on your nostalgic mmo of choice, so why should the newer generations and those that still have the time, renounce to their turn to enjoy the genre as it was, simply because you can´t do it anymore?
Why should an entire genre adapt to your new and busy life instead of you finding a genre or type of game that you can actually afford and enjoy?
And if you really MUST play mmorpgs, why not accept that you will no longer be the big cheese and pursue a more casual and humble approach instead of demanding for the games to transform themselves into something you can play?
And as a side question, why is it that many of you insist on that anyone with the time, will and dedication to play mmos as you used to, is a basement dwelling, nolifer loser that is bad and should feel bad, and does not think of married players?
Were you thinking of your own generation of busy players when you played mmo´s "hardcore"?
Comments
Money talks. Casual mmo players didn't form a gang and demand at gunpoint that all future MMOs be casual. You fundamentally misunderstand the laws of supply and demand if you think that.
There was demand for more casual MMOs which developers exploited to make more money. Said developers can make more money because casual players require less resources to satisfy since they don't consume content at the same rate as hardcore players. This is on top of the market itself being at least an order of magnitude more populous (ie, millions of casual gamers compared to hundreds of thousands of hardcore).
Because people grew up, got real jobs, make more money and the game publishers want it.
I am apparently not precisely the audience you mean to address this to - I have a busy schedule and game casually, but I'm not going around disparaging anyone for playing more than me, nor do I seek to be the 'big cheese' of any game community, nor am I so nostalgic about the older games that I can't see their flaws now.
The simple causal answer is that no one 'demanded' it, at least not directly. The genre changed because the market changed, the market changed because consumer lifestyles changed - hence the genre changed because people's lifestyles changed.
But you asked why one might embrace this now. Why wouldn't they? I liked some things about some old-school games, but the fact that they necessitated larger per-session time investments was not necessarily among them. The sooner that myth is dispelled - the sooner we might find ourselves playing the same games, which are accessible to those with 'casual' play-time commitments.
Pretty much that.
OP,
Married people don't send encrypted emails to each other plotting the demise of hardcore gaming while supporting / lobbying for the 'casual game market'. Its much more simple than that
I don't have time to do 20 daily quests every day and 6 hour long raids twice a week. So I pick a game that I can play. Developers notice this and develop more games catered to us because we have more money than you, and they can live better / make more money catering to us.
I have bad news for you.
Its only going to get worse.
Back in the 90s the majority of people playing online games were young kids. Those kids grew up and gave their kids games, then those kids grew up and so on and so on. Every year you have more and more adults with jobs playing MMOs. Which means less 6 hour raids, and more insta join WvWvW type games.
Very true. While the market grows by adding newer young players, the market is sustained by those younger players getting older and remaining gamers.
It's the same reason advertisers seek 18-30 something market. If they can hook a young person on their product, they have a better chance of retaining that person for life. That is how one continually grows a brand.
There is a market for the types of games the OP desires, but it's a smaller market, and thus will only attract smaller development companies with smaller budgets.
+2
Right on!
I am a former "Hardcore" MMORPG player who grew up and doesn't have the time to be that anymore.
But I don't require that games become more casual for me.I'm happy to play them at my own pace and with people who have similar time and agendas.
All i require is that the game keeps me entertained and busy,I no longer have to get server firsts or the best gear before everyone else or access to everything as soon as possible.
Unfortunately even going at my casual pace I run out of interesting things to do in MMORPG's these days and get bored.
So I don't understand why others in my situation like the state of MMOPRGs these days or feel entitled to have everything instantly that people who can dedicate lots of time to a game earn.
Back in the 90s the majority of people playing online games were young kids. Those kids grew up and gave their kids games, then those kids grew up and so on and so on. Every year you have more and more adults with jobs playing MMOs. Which means less 6 hour raids, and more insta join WvWvW type games.
Very true. While the market grows by adding newer young players, the market is sustained by those younger players getting older and remaining gamers.
It's the same reason advertisers seek 18-30 something market. If they can hook a young person on their product, they have a better chance of retaining that person for life. That is how one continually grows a brand.
There is a market for the types of games the OP desires, but it's a smaller market, and thus will only attract smaller development companies with smaller budgets.
These posts make me wonder if you two were even there in the late 90s and early 2000s for the first MMOS. They were predominately played by working adults, primarily because they ran on expensive PC hardware that was more complicated to operate. Children were actually quite rare and those people raiding for 6 hours were in there 20s and 30s, usually pre-children actually.Wasn't until WOW came along and would run on lower end PCs that were more often than not their parents "old" hardware that we saw the entry of not only children, but the casual console players who also typically did not invest on high end gaming hardware.
I was in my 40s when I started,always managed to fit gaming in my schedule, but its true, I didn't do high end, long hour raid content, but the games I favored (L1,L2, DAOC,Shadowbane etc) did not require it to have fun in the game.
For some reason many of todays gamers feel they are entitled to experience all of the game content. They are not, wasn't true when I first started playing, isn't true today though game develops sure seem to bend over backwards to accommodate them.
Can't even understand why as most of them show no loyalty and are gone in a short time complaining about a lack of content, but hey they got exactly what they asked for, not sure why they complain.
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For me the pendulum swung the other way. Back in the early days of MMOs my kids were really little and OMG the WAGRO i'd pull when I tried to play my games. HAHA. Now they are in high school. I have a lot more time. (And money)
Could be many reasons...
-Budgets of games have become insanely inflated and thus require more people than ever before to even break even. EQ had fewer players than SWToR, yet also needed far fewer players to survive and flourish.
-Perception of success has changed. People used to see 200k players as a successful MMO, now MMOs can have a million and be seen as a failure because people (and the companies producing the titles) deep down expect WoW level numbers and nobody wants to play a 'failing' game in much the same way that there are people whose taste in music is determined by the top 10 charts.
-New games just aren't always that good.
There are lots more too. It isn't a simple issue, moreso when tastes are so varied.
It also doesn't help that people can't really agree on what is hardcore and casual.
And casual doesn't mean easier.
This is true. The kids didnt learn that much about PC and Windows, many schools still had old equipment. In addition to that a k56 modem Internet connection was expensive in this time and there were no Internet Flats for a certain time. You did pay per minute plus a monthly base fee. The Internet was very new and it was not natural to have Internet in your house.
To say that in this time the majority of online gamers were kids/teenagers is just bullshit, they did not have the money to go online to play games.
The market did actually change and there is an influence towards the youngsters, especially the teenagers up to the mid twens. Those which are the most manipulable and uncritical consumers.
Drakephire already gave the short summary right in the 2nd post: You fundamentally misunderstand the laws of supply and demand...
Former players have only a little influence onto the course of the industry, simply because they're just the minority among the playerbase. And there are no veteran player lobbyists at the publishers to urge them making shorter, more casual games
People seem to be under the impression that there is this massive horde of spammers going after devs to make less hard core games.
This is probably not true.
Some people also equate stupid old mechanics, that we didn't even like back in the day, with hard core...and that also isn't true.
Heck, I am a full on PvP, full equipment durability decay over time, sandbox, player housing, main city invasion kind of player... I just had my mining barge shot out from under me in Eve and had to crawl back to my warehouse which was 20 minutes away on autopilot to grab another one just to go back out and potentially have it done again, while you were writing junk about how easy things are on this forum.....but that does not mean I agree with a lot of what you people call hard core... I do not agree that having 16 versions of the same skill on seperate cool downs...or one more slightly powerful than the other, is hard core...in fact it is stupid, it always has been stupid.
You want hard core? Go play gemstone IV and get your experience knocked down by WEEKS if you die several times in a row, and wait a month between levels..and then MAYBE get a skill because you only get one every 5 levels or so...ONE..and then try and get one of three epic bows in the entire game world, from the hands of a player who isn't going to give it up for less than $1000 dollars.
But I don't agree that you being level 50 makes you immune to lower level mobs or players is hard core, it isn't it is asinine. Defeats the whole purpose of an army if one guy is functionally immune to a thousand. Those stupid little dungeons that you can replay over and over and over again until you get it right? Not hard core, the fact that once you figure it out you have to run it again and again and again to get tokens or "gear sets" or some random chance at some loot...also not hard core it is just a time sink plain and simple by the time you are farming it the dungeon represents no more of a problem to you than a level 1 kobold back in goldshire...it just take 100 times the investment in your time. Hard Core is the NPC disarming you taking your tier six sword and beating you upside the head with it, then running away after you die.
I think what I am trying to say is, I do not have a problem with hard core, I just have a problem with a lot of peoples definition of it.
More accurately, WoW talks. Almost all the other casual AAA games were huge failures and barely anyone played them for long.
Maybe because the games weren't that good? Not being "hardcore" enough had nothing to do with it. "Hardcore" doesn't automatically equal being good.
Is a man not entitled to the herp of his derp?
Remember, I live in a world where juggalos and yugioh players are real things.