The analogy isn't complete unless you point out how prone how often old mountaineers claim that the mountains back in the day used to be dozens of miles high, and the crisp air at the top of them could reverse aging and cure cancer, and nobody ever fell off of them and broke every bone in their body.
Exactly.
Plus old mountains tended to be moderately steep right at the start, whereas new (and obviously more popular) mountains are easy at the start and ramp up to being moderately steep.
Meanwhile the theoretical 'ideal mountain' offers players the choice of steepness at any point along the journey (and naturally you ascend faster the steeper path you choose.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The analogy isn't complete unless you point out how prone how often old mountaineers claim that the mountains back in the day used to be dozens of miles high, and the crisp air at the top of them could reverse aging and cure cancer, and nobody ever fell off of them and broke every bone in their body.
Exactly.
Plus old mountains tended to be moderately steep right at the start, whereas new (and obviously more popular) mountains are easy at the start and ramp up to being moderately steep.
Meanwhile the theoretical 'ideal mountain' offers players the choice of steepness at any point along the journey (and naturally you ascend faster the steeper path you choose.)
Then you mean a fake mountain not a real mountain. A mountain is a mountain, you deal with it. If you want a mountain tailored to your needs you have to go to a Theme Park.
Who said that? Do you see these "powergamers" running around these forums? Most of these powergamers have long gone; maybe an outspoken few are on these forums, but nothing more. You are afraid of shadows. They are all gone.
This whole thing about casual vs hardcore is ridiculous. Do you really think that there are many casual MMO players when MMO's require vast amounts of time and resources to play? How much of WoW's population do you really think is "casual" when by now, most of WoW requires you to be in a guild to get anywhere? Sure, you can play solo, but you're not really getting the "full experience"?
These "casuals" soon turn to being hardcore, whether you like it or not. So its a moot point, Casual/hardcore is really how you play the game, your dedication to it, etc.This thread is talking about styles of play here, which is completely different. I'll edit my previous post.
Veterans do not equal "hardcore" players. Hardcore players do not equal players that prefer a different playstyle than themepark.
Lets get that straight here. You have many veterans of many games, many elitists of many games. I think out of all the games, WoW is known infamously for its strict elitism. Give me a break.
Those exact words "true MMO's, true gamers" are spoken loud and often on these very forums. In this very thread they were talking about true MMO's and true gamers. Every week there are a half dozen threads cropping up regardin this exact same topic. They are easily the loudest voice in these forums.
and I didn't say just powergamers. And I deliberately did not include veterans because I don't consider veterans to be any title that implies any time, commitment or even game preference.
Casuals don't just turn into hardcore, just like hardcore don't just turn into casuals. They change depending on their interests and their RL responsibilities. To say casuals soon turn into hardcore whether you like it or not is rubbish.
I think most of WoW's population is casual playing either 10-15 hours a week and not putting a lot of research into it. I think most MMO gamers are just looking for entertainment. They don't care about the "Full Experience" as defined by someone else, they just care about their own entertainment.
Vast amounts of time is the issue. MMO's don't and shouldn't require vast amounts of time. If a quest takes 300 hours to complete why should that have to be done all at once? Why not half 600 half hour sections to it? I certainly don't put in hours and hours a day (except on some weekends). You can, and many do log in for an hour at a time and have fun.
I agree veterans do not equal hardcore players, and never implied it in any way shape or form. I said elite, I said power gamers - those are not casual. Veterans can be casual, hardcore or fluctuate in the middle just like everyone else. I've been gaming since Kunark EQ and am certainly not hardcore at all.
There is a lot of elitism in WoW however I think Wow is most known for being simple and easy to get into, catering to everyones style for the powergamer to the 80 year old grandma who wants to play with her 8 year old nephew. WoW can be played as hardcore or as simple as you want.
Venge
Where did the original poster talk about "true mmo's, true gamers?" All he used was an analogy that explains his feelings on the current state of the games that are being made by the industry. If you saw someone post that, then its 1 poster, and I dont see this entire thread centered around that idea. And even if thats the general sentiment, so what?
You think whats happening now is fascistic?
I spoke about this crap back in 2006. I got the OPPOSITE sentiment than what is being posted on these forums, and a whole thread of people disagreeing with me. I made another post about this 2 years ago, 2009, and it got deleted for "trolling" because that said person didnt agree with what I had to say. (I pm'd an admin and got it back)
There are many threads like this popping up because these forums reflects the sorry state of the MMO gaming industry. Read Wolfhead's Blog, "Why the MMO industry needs a real cataclysm" and you'll see what I'm talking about : http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=4221#4ef49
Maybe you dont agree, and thats fine, but theres a reason why so many threads like this are popping up. But to many people, theres a lack of innovation and blatant exploitation of the carrot on a stick system by the likes we've never, ever seen before. The "Pay to win" cash shop models are uglier than ever. Until the industry starts producing games which this camp of people want, you are going to continue to hear them on these forums, because this is probably the best and only way they will have their voices heard.
The "majority" (themepark) lovers have their wishes fuffilled by countless themepark games so they dont need to post. The sandboxers do.
Well there are mountains like Mt. Everest, and Yosemite that require climbing equipment. And there are mountains like Mt. Robson or The Chief in Squamish where you can go up the face for a vertical climb or up the back for a hike. Then there are mountains that don't require any climbing but you can hike up them.
Which ones are you talking about?
Incidentally I looked up the definition of mountain Merriam-Websters. I was curious about what it was actually defined in words as and it said, "a landmass that projects conspicuously above its surroundings and is higher than a hill "
So I looked up the definition of hill. It said, "a usually rounded natural elevation of land lower than a mountain."
A little circular no haha.
Venge
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The analogy isn't complete unless you point out how prone how often old mountaineers claim that the mountains back in the day used to be dozens of miles high, and the crisp air at the top of them could reverse aging and cure cancer, and nobody ever fell off of them and broke every bone in their body.
Exactly.
Plus old mountains tended to be moderately steep right at the start, whereas new (and obviously more popular) mountains are easy at the start and ramp up to being moderately steep.
Meanwhile the theoretical 'ideal mountain' offers players the choice of steepness at any point along the journey (and naturally you ascend faster the steeper path you choose.)
Then you mean a fake mountain not a real mountain. A mountain is a mountain, you deal with it. If you want a mountain tailored to your needs you have to go to a Theme Park.
Apparently you've never been to a real mountain.
Straight up the cliff = hard, but fast if you're skilled.
Switchback trail = easy, but a lot longer.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
1. I need ten ingredients for my pie... what kind of pie? What kind of ingredients? Where do they come from? Fuck off.
2. I need ten kidneys for my pie. What animal? Fuck off.
3. I need ten kidneys from boars. Where are they? Fuck off.
4. I need ten kidneys, you can find them by heading north from here in the forest? Which way is north? Fuck off.
5. I need ten kidneys, the area is indicated on your map as a colored zone. How do you read a map? Fuck off.
6. I need ten kidneys, follow this glowing trail from animal to animal.
I prefer the "Fuck off, I have orcs to kill. Make your own pie!" approach.
This is a very good point.
I'm an experienced human warrior. I have come from far away and had fought many difficult battles. I see a camp of orcs near a human village. I'm not stupid, I know that these orcs threaten the human village (LORE!!!!!!!). So I go and clear the camp. I succeed. There's satisfaction in it. I protected the village and I killed some orcs. I really hate them, because they slaughtered my whole family.
I don't need a quest to kill the orcs! And absolutely I don't need a quest to find ingredients for a stupid pie.
The mountain analogy is very adroit here, because it's an excellent analogy combining 2 things:
1. A journey
2. A strong challenge
You could say the difference without the challenge is a bit like comparing climbing a mountain and sailing around in a cruise-liner, both take you on a journey but both are very different experiences.
Perhaps part of the problem with challenge is a lot of mmorpgs wish to build around an easy starter experience and then set the challenge as it goes along. However perhaps a lot of mmorpgs have allowed the starter experience to extend up through the game and realized this makes it more profitable?
Perhaps just like Werner Herzog's film Fizcarrildo, developers are trying to drag a cruise ship up a mountain/hill?
I get a good chuckle when people say WoW and original EQ are equally as difficult. UO was even worse.
nethervoid - Est. '97 [UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1 20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
1. I need ten ingredients for my pie... what kind of pie? What kind of ingredients? Where do they come from? Fuck off.
2. I need ten kidneys for my pie. What animal? Fuck off.
3. I need ten kidneys from boars. Where are they? Fuck off.
4. I need ten kidneys, you can find them by heading north from here in the forest? Which way is north? Fuck off.
5. I need ten kidneys, the area is indicated on your map as a colored zone. How do you read a map? Fuck off.
6. I need ten kidneys, follow this glowing trail from animal to animal.
believe it or not, all have existed in games I played. Just how easy can it get? When might you just as well give a players a "I win" button and call it a day? When is a game so hard that it is more like work then play?
This is such a great example of why early MMORPGs sucked, for exactly the opposite reason of what (I assume) you intended.
Players play games for entertainment.
Players don't play games to be told "fuck off!"
So while your conclusion (glowing trails) isn't what they want either, the core of what makes games successful lies in making the dull parts of gameplay convenient while focusing on the interesting elements of gameplay.
In a game about exploration/discovery, you wouldn't have a map. Or rather, the map would be it's own gameplay feature unto itself. And developers would have spent a lot of time on it.
In a game where developers spend most of their time making combat fun, you do have a map, and you are told where to go, because those elements of gameplay haven't been polished up. So they're not fun. So the developer shortcuts you to what is fun. And those things are fun because developers have spent the most time on them, polishing them.
Early MMORPGs were very bad about optimizing for polish. Unsurprisingly, they did poorly and didn't reach their potential popularity. Later MMORPGs (the good ones at least) optimized for polish and saw dramatically better popularity.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Just want to round this off. I did not want to glorify gameplay that makes things tedious or stupid, and an easy game is not equal a bad game in my book. It is about how we discuss mmorpgs from very different backgrounds.
From my perception, a mmorpg is a world that invites me in to adventure, gives me mysteries or surprices and triggers my imagination. To me a mmorpg is a game but not just a game, and I compare it more to reading a book and escaping into another world on its terms. Others see mmorpg more like something to master, to break its code and compete with others to be the best to figure it out. Some see it just as a entertainment and does not embrace the game and live that game world; atleast not very deeply. Some say they are so busy with life, that they cant efford to escape into a game world - But they still want to. Some can accept more unlogical stuff than others, and some can accept more developer restrained gameplay/story than others, some think they can experience a game while texting to their friends every 2 minutes.
So what I am trying to say, is for some a mmorpg is one thing and for others it is entirely different, and this is often based on when you started playing. Obviously this will cause clashes, because I wish there were more mmorpg as I regard a mmorpg shoudl be, while others want mmorpg to be what I do not like. Mmorpg is a watered down word, that doesn't describe a genre anymore because we have completely different views on what that word means.
Comments
Exactly.
Plus old mountains tended to be moderately steep right at the start, whereas new (and obviously more popular) mountains are easy at the start and ramp up to being moderately steep.
Meanwhile the theoretical 'ideal mountain' offers players the choice of steepness at any point along the journey (and naturally you ascend faster the steeper path you choose.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Then you mean a fake mountain not a real mountain. A mountain is a mountain, you deal with it. If you want a mountain tailored to your needs you have to go to a Theme Park.
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
Where did the original poster talk about "true mmo's, true gamers?" All he used was an analogy that explains his feelings on the current state of the games that are being made by the industry. If you saw someone post that, then its 1 poster, and I dont see this entire thread centered around that idea. And even if thats the general sentiment, so what?
You think whats happening now is fascistic?
I spoke about this crap back in 2006. I got the OPPOSITE sentiment than what is being posted on these forums, and a whole thread of people disagreeing with me. I made another post about this 2 years ago, 2009, and it got deleted for "trolling" because that said person didnt agree with what I had to say. (I pm'd an admin and got it back)
There are many threads like this popping up because these forums reflects the sorry state of the MMO gaming industry. Read Wolfhead's Blog, "Why the MMO industry needs a real cataclysm" and you'll see what I'm talking about : http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=4221#4ef49
Maybe you dont agree, and thats fine, but theres a reason why so many threads like this are popping up. But to many people, theres a lack of innovation and blatant exploitation of the carrot on a stick system by the likes we've never, ever seen before. The "Pay to win" cash shop models are uglier than ever. Until the industry starts producing games which this camp of people want, you are going to continue to hear them on these forums, because this is probably the best and only way they will have their voices heard.
The "majority" (themepark) lovers have their wishes fuffilled by countless themepark games so they dont need to post. The sandboxers do.
Well there are mountains like Mt. Everest, and Yosemite that require climbing equipment. And there are mountains like Mt. Robson or The Chief in Squamish where you can go up the face for a vertical climb or up the back for a hike. Then there are mountains that don't require any climbing but you can hike up them.
Which ones are you talking about?
Incidentally I looked up the definition of mountain Merriam-Websters. I was curious about what it was actually defined in words as and it said, "a landmass that projects conspicuously above its surroundings and is higher than a hill "
So I looked up the definition of hill. It said, "a usually rounded natural elevation of land lower than a mountain."
A little circular no haha.
Venge
Pffft. Back in the day we used to make our own mountains. We didn't have anyone making them for us. lololol
My theme song.
Whether we like it or not,demand it or not, the mountains will always wear down for its their nature.
I liked the analogy btw.
Apparently you've never been to a real mountain.
Straight up the cliff = hard, but fast if you're skilled.
Switchback trail = easy, but a lot longer.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Yeah, built them with sand and tweezers, too.
This is a very good point.
I'm an experienced human warrior. I have come from far away and had fought many difficult battles. I see a camp of orcs near a human village. I'm not stupid, I know that these orcs threaten the human village (LORE!!!!!!!). So I go and clear the camp. I succeed. There's satisfaction in it. I protected the village and I killed some orcs. I really hate them, because they slaughtered my whole family.
I don't need a quest to kill the orcs! And absolutely I don't need a quest to find ingredients for a stupid pie.
The mountain analogy is very adroit here, because it's an excellent analogy combining 2 things:
1. A journey
2. A strong challenge
You could say the difference without the challenge is a bit like comparing climbing a mountain and sailing around in a cruise-liner, both take you on a journey but both are very different experiences.
Perhaps part of the problem with challenge is a lot of mmorpgs wish to build around an easy starter experience and then set the challenge as it goes along. However perhaps a lot of mmorpgs have allowed the starter experience to extend up through the game and realized this makes it more profitable?
Perhaps just like Werner Herzog's film Fizcarrildo, developers are trying to drag a cruise ship up a mountain/hill?
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
I get a good chuckle when people say WoW and original EQ are equally as difficult. UO was even worse.
nethervoid - Est. '97
[UO|EQ|SB|SWG|PS|HZ|EVE|NWN|WoW|VG|DF|AQW|DN|SWTOR|Dofus|SotA|BDO|AO|NW|LA] - Currently Playing EQ1
20k+ subs YouTube Gaming channel
This is such a great example of why early MMORPGs sucked, for exactly the opposite reason of what (I assume) you intended.
Players play games for entertainment.
Players don't play games to be told "fuck off!"
So while your conclusion (glowing trails) isn't what they want either, the core of what makes games successful lies in making the dull parts of gameplay convenient while focusing on the interesting elements of gameplay.
In a game about exploration/discovery, you wouldn't have a map. Or rather, the map would be it's own gameplay feature unto itself. And developers would have spent a lot of time on it.
In a game where developers spend most of their time making combat fun, you do have a map, and you are told where to go, because those elements of gameplay haven't been polished up. So they're not fun. So the developer shortcuts you to what is fun. And those things are fun because developers have spent the most time on them, polishing them.
Early MMORPGs were very bad about optimizing for polish. Unsurprisingly, they did poorly and didn't reach their potential popularity. Later MMORPGs (the good ones at least) optimized for polish and saw dramatically better popularity.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
What are you smoking?
I may know the least here,but I am the loudest about what I do know.
Just want to round this off. I did not want to glorify gameplay that makes things tedious or stupid, and an easy game is not equal a bad game in my book. It is about how we discuss mmorpgs from very different backgrounds.
From my perception, a mmorpg is a world that invites me in to adventure, gives me mysteries or surprices and triggers my imagination. To me a mmorpg is a game but not just a game, and I compare it more to reading a book and escaping into another world on its terms. Others see mmorpg more like something to master, to break its code and compete with others to be the best to figure it out. Some see it just as a entertainment and does not embrace the game and live that game world; atleast not very deeply. Some say they are so busy with life, that they cant efford to escape into a game world - But they still want to. Some can accept more unlogical stuff than others, and some can accept more developer restrained gameplay/story than others, some think they can experience a game while texting to their friends every 2 minutes.
So what I am trying to say, is for some a mmorpg is one thing and for others it is entirely different, and this is often based on when you started playing. Obviously this will cause clashes, because I wish there were more mmorpg as I regard a mmorpg shoudl be, while others want mmorpg to be what I do not like. Mmorpg is a watered down word, that doesn't describe a genre anymore because we have completely different views on what that word means.
"I am my connectome" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HA7GwKXfJB0