This post is bordering on psychotic, and I'm truly reluctant to post. Especially when the OP refers to actually playing WoW for a long time and said "when they decided that the truly difficult, truly hardcore dungeons were not to be included any more.". WoW HAS NEVER HAD ANY TRULY DIFFICULT CONTENT EVER. WoW dungeons and raids have always been the laughing stock of true players that actually do play difficult content. I truly thought I would never see WoW and difficult content in the same reference. Be that as it may.
Then, when asked about these "clones", I checked in the previous thread this thread refers to, and no games were really mentioned. There are slight references to Guildwars, LotRO, UO(?), and Everquest(?)(are you crazy? seriously?). Now I don't follow UO, and I have no idea what they've done to that game. Both Everquests were launched BEFORE WoW (they're both RPG's, I guess that makes them clones, although considering launches, unless Everquest developers have a crystal ball and can look into the future). GW, I don't really keep up with that game, I heard it was mostly pvp anyways, so of course the pve will be pretty simple. LotRO does have some of the mechanics of WoW, but then any "mechanics" of any game is in another game somewhere, that doesn't make them clones (while I do agree the challenge rating of the game is on par with WoW).
So, you can see my dismay at what someone might actually mean by hardcore when the above references and examples are made. Casual VS Hardcore is a time sink. How much TIME does it take to get from A to B. WoW 40 man raids take hours and hours of pure time sink. Other games do this too. Nothing difficult. Not much challenge. Just a time sink. Other games do it much better and have not changed anything. In fact, they have become MORE challenging. Some with more time sink, some not.
So yes, a lot of games are going to cater to more casual gamers because they are the majority. Some games still have time sinks, some still have difficult content, some have very little time sinks, and some have very little difficult content. You make the choice of which game you wanted to play. You trusted your developer, and can be happy with that, or not. That is your choice. You speak with your pocket book. If you want a game with more time sinks, play one, they're still around. If you want to play a more difficult game, there have always been more difficult than WoW, considering they were the bottom of the barrel, then play one.
I hope you find what you are looking for. This isn't the first time a game company has switched up on their playerbase. It probably won't be the last. We go with the flow and play what you like best. Most games have fansites and forums to give your concerns, and if they don't listen, then move on.
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
4. bahamut1: What WoW clones? Which games are WoW clones?
Response: Look at just about any MMO in development at the moment. They are all cloning various aspects of WoW in hopes that the game will be as successful as WoW has been. With the exception of PotBS, Warhammer, and maybe a few others that didn't really look interesting enough to my personal preferences, they all fall into that category. Even MMOs already on the market have begun to do it, as pointed out in an earlier thread.
I dont see how you can pretend that, WoW itself didnt bring anything new to the table they took the best of lot of old mmorpg's and imroved the concept. The only game release or about to be that clearly target "casual players" ( read ppl that only have a few hours of play a week and dont want to bother with the complexity and time comsumming of a more hardcore game) is LOTR.
IF we are gona call WoW clones any mmorpg with Quest, eazy lvling, instanced dungeons, instanced pvp, auctions houses just to mention the mains features of WoW then how are we gona call the games those features come ?
I do agree about OP post on how WoW changed the mmorpg market but stating that any mmo in DEV atm is trying to be a clone of WoW is a bit out of the line imo.
I do agree about OP post on how WoW changed the mmorpg market but stating that any mmo in DEV atm is trying to be a clone of WoW is a bit out of the line imo.
I dont see how you can pretend that, WoW itself didnt bring anything new to the table they took the best of lot of old mmorpg's and imroved the concept. The only game release or about to be that clearly target "casual players" ( read ppl that only have a few hours of play a week and dont want to bother with the complexity and time comsumming of a more hardcore game) is LOTR.
IF we are gona call WoW clones any mmorpg with Quest, eazy lvling, instanced dungeons, instanced pvp, auctions houses just to mention the mains features of WoW then how are we gona call the games those features come ?
It broke my heart to hear this, but Age of Conan will be a "casual oriented" game. Funcom released one of the most complex character building games i've ever played and there's no doubt that Warhammer won't be a DAOC-light version. How many classes did DAOC have and how many will Warhammer have?
If you cant see the trend with the games in development then you are blind. Games designed for players with less playtime means games designed with less content. Period. Games designed for non-typical gamers are games designed without complex mechanics. Games that require less thinking. This is WoW and what it has done. It has nothing to do with specific features.
To Aerendir:
There's more twinking to be done with a level 10 (out of 220) Anarachy online character, than any level 50 CoH character.
Those idiotic min/maxing "hardcore" CoH players with their childish videos of exploiting game mechanics destroyed CoH. I used to play that game on/off since the beginning and the constant nerfs happened solely because of them and their bragging. If they never created some stupid contest on who can break the game mechanics the most, and publish them all over the damn forums, that game would be very much like it was 3 years ago.
It was a casual game, meant for casual players, and it had it's place. There is nothing wrong with casuals or occasional game made for them, but when every MMORPG recently released, and in development is oversimplified and uninspiring, there is nothing left for longtime mmo gamers to enjoy.
It is not the "casuals" fault so much at it is the greed caused bv their presence in MMO gaming. Yet we cant blame greed (and be taken seriously) so we can only gripe that as longtime, or "hardcore" MMORPG enthusiasts, we as consumers are being neglected in favor of newcomers.
Originally posted by Mylon Wow uses a (curiously still) unique system that allows people that don't spend as much time online to make their time spent online more fruitful. I speak of rested experience. Casual players only have to really earn maybe 55% of the experience to get to max level. Hardcore players might have to earn 75% or more experience to hit the same level. While the difference is significant and nice, unfortunately it's not enough.
There are other games that use systems like that. The problem is that it just becomes another tool for min/maxers. In fact it can work against casual players, for example one type of casual play pattern is people cant play at all during the week but have a lot more time during the weekend. For this type of person, rested xp will run out and they will be forced to play without it, while the min/maxer will use every drop of rested.
The main problem, however, is casual players dont care about falling behind in their progression as they do about being locked out of content. If you can only play 3 hours a night and all the meaningful content takes a minimum of 6 hours the content may as well not even exist. Its certainly ok to have some of that type of content but if the game fixated on it, it is no longer casual friendly.
Although its gotten a little better this is why WoW at 60 became one of the least casual friendly games on the market. Once you hit 60 you had two options, raid every night for 5-6 hours or grind battlegrounds 16 hours a day for months on end. This has been replaced with crazy faction grinds and lackluster raids but at least you can now do it at close to your own pace which is what a casual player needs.
It broke my heart to hear this, but Age of Conan will be a "casual oriented" game. Funcom released one of the most complex character building games i've ever played and there's no doubt that Warhammer won't be a DAOC-light version. How many classes did DAOC have and how many will Warhammer have?
If you cant see the trend with the games in development then you are blind. Games designed for players with less playtime means games designed with less content. Period. Games designed for non-typical gamers are games designed without complex mechanics. Games that require less thinking. This is WoW and what it has done. It has nothing to do with specific features.
To Aerendir:
There's more twinking to be done with a level 10 (out of 220) Anarachy online character, than any level 50 CoH character.
Those idiotic min/maxing "hardcore" CoH players with their childish videos of exploiting game mechanics destroyed CoH. I used to play that game on/off since the beginning and the constant nerfs happened solely because of them and their bragging. If they never created some stupid contest on who can break the game mechanics the most, and publish them all over the damn forums, that game would be very much like it was 3 years ago.
It was a casual game, meant for casual players, and it had it's place. There is nothing wrong with casuals or occasional game made for them, but when every MMORPG recently released, and in development is oversimplified and uninspiring, there is nothing left for longtime mmo gamers to enjoy.
It is not the "casuals" fault so much at it is the greed caused bv their presence in MMO gaming. Yet we cant blame greed (and be taken seriously) so we can only gripe that as longtime, or "hardcore" MMORPG enthusiasts, we as consumers are being neglected in favor of newcomers.
Its usually the so called hardcore players that gravitate to simple repeatable mechanics, and then distinguish themselves by the sheer number of times they can repeat it.
WoW may have had the hooks for casual players but there is no question its got more in the way of hardcore appeal then any other game on the market. Go look at the big ubar guilds and see what they are playing; they mostly play WoW and raid, with EVE&PvP being a distant second choice.
Remember, most of Blizzard fan base are and were hardcore online gamers they just did it in Battlenet rather then in an MMO.
Simply put: the market for MMOs has changed. It used to be a niche gaming market for elitist gamers (read: folks who had tons of time to dump into an online game). That's the way the MMO market was in the days of UO and EQ, and many other gamers wouldn't touch MMOs with a ten-foot pole precisely because they were set up by of and for elite gamers who had oodles of time to "work on" the game.
WoW changed all of that by demonstrating that you can make an MMO that appeals to casual gamers. Now WoW messed things up by having the leveling game be casual friendly and the endgame be elitist -- which was a terrible mismatch in design that led to a lot of discontent. In reality, the subscription fees of casual gamers were going to development costs of things like Naxxramas, which less than 5% of the players would ever see -- which is basically like a "casual tax". It was bullshit, and it was a stupid design. But nevertheless, what WoW demonstrated to every other designer was that the potential appeal for MMOs was broad, if they could be designed to appeal to a broad market and not primarily the elitists who spend oodles of time on the game.
What does this mean in the future? I think it means that you will certainly see more games being made to cater, in one way or another, to the mainstream, non-elite market. There's too much potential money out there for this not to be the case. At the same time, because there will be more of such games, that development in itself creates a niche market for more elitist types of game designs, if designed properly. The latter will never have the same appeal as a more casual-friendly game, because while elitists may ike designs that allow them to lord their eliteness over everyone else, most other people will pass on that exercise, and opt for a game that doesn't belittle them in comparison to elite gamers.
In short, the elitist phase in MMO history is behind us. We're now in the populist phase. There will be pockets of elitist resistance for years to come, of course, but the populist phase is here to stay.
You used "elitist" 7 times in that post. Have mercy man, more than just "achievers" play MMOs. Don't hate on the rest of us because MMO hierarchies always put you on the bottom.
As for claims that WoW ends up hardcore, how many raiders are there? If WoW had no casuals and only raiders they'd be left with as many players as any other game. And if the "hardcore" part of WoW was what made it successfull we'd be seeing hardcore games in development. And, dont you dare claim bringing battlenet players into MMORPGs was a good thing.
"Casual gaming" is the death of freedom in MMORPGs! Freedom is the only thing which seperates these games from any other. If these hollywood MMOs keep having their way, we can kiss "sandboxes", "twinking" "customization" and "open pvp" goodbye. How long before we're playing something as simple as Super Mario online? Hell, half of DDO is already a "casual oriented" platformer.
You dont give power tools to a toddler, and developers don't give heavy mechanics to a casual game.
No developer will waste his time/money giving players more tools for freedom when he can sell more copies of a simpler game. It's like our rights to imagination are being taken away because "casuals" don't need sophisticated games to enjoy. Ignorance is bliss eh? Say that when the only MMOs out there have 1 class, 1 quest, and 1 city.
How can anyone even think that this trend of oversimplifying is a good thing? If this continues, our grandchildren will take a look at Toontown and think it was hardcore. If you keep accepting products of lower quality, eventually all things will be below anyone's standard.
How long will it be before even first MMO WoW players look back and remorse? I tell you, it may be a lot sooner than when we see many complex games again. You can only clone something so many times before major defects occur.
WoW changed all of that by demonstrating that you can make an MMO that appeals to casual gamers. Now WoW messed things up by having the leveling game be casual friendly and the endgame be elitist -- which was a terrible mismatch in design that led to a lot of discontent. In reality, the subscription fees of casual gamers were going to development costs of things like Naxxramas, which less than 5% of the players would ever see -- which is basically like a "casual tax". It was bullshit, and it was a stupid design. But nevertheless, what WoW demonstrated to every other designer was that the potential appeal for MMOs was broad, if they could be designed to appeal to a broad market and not primarily the elitists who spend oodles of time on the game.
Contrary to belief you could play older mmorpgs as casually as WoW. WoW is just as bad for wasting time as any other mmo is.
Originally posted by MMoMoney As for claims that WoW ends up hardcore, how many raiders are there? If WoW had no casuals and only raiders they'd be left with as many players as any other game. And if the "hardcore" part of WoW was what made it successfull we'd be seeing hardcore games in development. And, dont you dare claim bringing battlenet players into MMORPGs was a good thing.
Im not sure what you are getting at. I dont think the Battlenet community is a good fit for the MMO world and in fact I blame the influx of Battlenet players for the breakdown of community many MMO fan sites, including this one have experienced over the last few years. But, if you think Battlenet players are anything but hardcore games you crazy
Prior to Burning Crusades there were servers where 30% of the characters raided regularly. You can bet more then 50% of the players took part in the hardcore content (Raid or PvP) and probably more of them that wanted too. Now factor in the number of people still leveling up and the people who simply grind alt after alt to max level (another hardcore style activity) and it becomes pretty clear that WoW at 60 was one of the most hardcore games on the market. This is only slightly less true at 70.
It's also why so many vetern MMO players soured on WoW, it uses casual play as a hook then switches to a hardcore style of play.
Originally posted by MMoMoney "Casual gaming" is the death of freedom in MMORPGs! Freedom is the only thing which seperates these games from any other. If these hollywood MMOs keep having their way, we can kiss "sandboxes", "twinking" "customization" and "open pvp" goodbye. How long before we're playing something as simple as Super Mario online? Hell, half of DDO is already a "casual oriented" platformer.
The only feature casual players really care about is to be able to play at the schedule they pick rather then one forced on them by game mechanics. How does supporting this limit the freedom you have in a game, it doesnt.
Originally posted by MMoMoney
You dont give power tools to a toddler, and developers don't give heavy mechanics to a casual game.
This is why people are labeling you as elitist. Instead of actually looking at what a hardcore of casual player really is you are starting with the premise that hardcore=sophisticated casual= simple. Rather then using the real meaning of the words you are assigning your own meaning to them. Basically you are starting with the assumption that you yourself are leet therefore you must be a hardcore player and therefore more leet then any casual player. You have a whole circular logic thing going on there...
In actual fact casual/hardcore is about the intensity with witch you play a game and that mostly comes down to your scheduled and how much time you are willing to invest. There is no connection whatsoever between casual and simple.
It seems these pro "hardcore" post can be summed with this:
"I'm sick of developers letting casuals being able to obtain the gear I got because I want to feel special and I want to be envied by the casuals and I want to gank that lvl 20 noob so he knows who da l33t shit is. This makes me feels so good. If this trend continues we expect more casuals who have lives to continue to take away our(hardcore) feeling of 'I roflpwn jooz wit my 1337 epic' uberness. Now what am I supposed to do get that feeling back?"
Does that sound about right?
Really, nobody on the planet, not even god, could care less about your useless painted pixels. The direction of the MMO market is for casuals and that is where the money is because casuals play to have fun without having some need to fill a void in their life with artifical success from a virtual world.
In actual fact casual/hardcore is about the intensity with witch you play a game and that mostly comes down to your scheduled and how much time you are willing to invest. There is no connection whatsoever between casual and simple.
Ok, you're right, then by that definition being casual is only a characteristic of the kind of player I have a problem with. Should I replace all instances of "casual" with "noob"? Would that be any better?
You know what I was trying to say so why argue over semantics instead of arguing the point? Is it because you have no argument?
MMOs are focusing on "casual" playstyle because of the type of players I've described (mmo noobs).
There have always been players who can't put in as much time as the next guy. But MMOs continued in the previous style of requiring more time investment. It wasn't until WoW had become wildly successful amongst non MMO players that this newfound focus on games with less playtime, and therefore less content, happened.
A game being aimed at an audience with less playtime means developers can cut costs on developing content before release, because they know they have enough time to develop new content post-release before their intended audience will exhaust the original content.
A game being targeted at "MMO noobs" does not require sophisticatication, because "noobs" don't have enough experience with game mechanics to understand the greater potential that advanced tools can give to expression of their avatar.
"MMO noobs" are the cause of the switch to focus on "casual" gaming, and therefore are the cause of oversimplistic and substance-lacking MMOs.
It seems these pro "hardcore" post can be summed with this: "I'm sick of developers letting casuals being able to obtain the gear I got because I want to feel special and I want to be envied by the casuals and I want to gank that lvl 20 noob so he knows who da l33t shit is. This makes me feels so good. If this trend continues we expect more casuals who have lives to continue to take away our(hardcore) feeling of 'I roflpwn jooz wit my 1337 epic' uberness. Now what am I supposed to do get that feeling back?" Does that sound about right? Really, nobody on the planet, not even god, could care less about your useless painted pixels. The direction of the MMO market is for casuals and that is where the money is because casuals play to have fun without having some need to fill a void in their life with artifical success from a virtual world.
You're assuming all "hardcore" players are powergaming achievers and that the only use of content in an MMO is for advancement. If you assume the latter, then you yourself, are a powergamer.
What about players who think of MMOs like interactive movies and want more content to experience more of the game? There's nothing wrong with wanting to prolong a good story, is there? How many times has someone played a single player RPG, that they wish lasted longer? SRPG players enjoy the story and typically loathe the achievement part.
All "anti-hardcore" posts can be summed up as either arguing over semantics or assuming hardcore = powergamer.
It seems these pro "hardcore" post can be summed with this: "I'm sick of developers letting casuals being able to obtain the gear I got because I want to feel special and I want to be envied by the casuals and I want to gank that lvl 20 noob so he knows who da l33t shit is. This makes me feels so good. If this trend continues we expect more casuals who have lives to continue to take away our(hardcore) feeling of 'I roflpwn jooz wit my 1337 epic' uberness. Now what am I supposed to do get that feeling back?" Does that sound about right? Really, nobody on the planet, not even god, could care less about your useless painted pixels. The direction of the MMO market is for casuals and that is where the money is because casuals play to have fun without having some need to fill a void in their life with artifical success from a virtual world.
You're assuming all "hardcore" players are powergaming achievers and that the only use of content in an MMO is for advancement.
What about players who think of MMO's like interactive movies and want more content to experience more of the game?
All "anti-hardcore" posts can be summed up as either arguing over semantics or assuming hardcore = powergamer.
Everybody wants more content but why should it only be available to those who can raid all day or all night. Read the WoW posts. Most of it reads something like this "From lvl 1 - 60 its great, but after that it is grind, grind and unless you have a lot time to raid, you are pretty much done with WoW unless you make an alt". That left lots and lots of players bitter who could not experience end game content because of time restraints and they felt duped. So why should a paying casual customer whose money is going to a company who is developing end game content for a small percentage of raiders not have casual content to reap the same rewards? But yes, that perception of the hardcore is accurate because they are seen as the ones who live in their parents basement playing MMO 24/7.
Ok, you're right, then by that definition being casual is only a characteristic of the kind of player I have a problem with. Should I replace all instances of "casual" with "noob"? Would that be any better?
Why not replace hardcore with noob instead? We were all noobs once but in my experience its the players with aspirations of being leet that are more likely to be noobs for life. Of course, any type of player could well be a noob for life, so maybe it doesnt make sense to pigeonhole these as either hardcore or casual.
Originally posted by MMoMoney
You know what I was trying to say so why argue over semantics instead of arguing the point? Is it because you have no argument?
Im not a mind reader. The only way I have of figuring out what you mean is by what you have written and the crux of that is that you think players that cant/wont commit a huge numbers of hours to MMOs (casual players) are the root of all problems in the MMO genre.
I disagree with this, but you havent exactly given me much to rebut since your posts have been based on some vague insinuations that casual players are noobs and idiots. All I have done is call you to task on making this unfounded assumption.
Originally posted by MMoMoney
There have always been players who can't put in as much time as the next guy. But MMOs continued in the previous style of requiring more time investment. It wasn't until WoW had become wildly successful amongst non MMO players that this newfound focus on games with less playtime, and therefore less content, happened.
Dont mistake the demand for higher quality content with a desire for less content. What people complain about is stretching content too thin, taking two weeks worth of content and stretching it out to 6 months by adding EQ1 style camps and grinds. I fully support having a *few* multi hour camps and maybe even a few long grinds as long as the reward at the end is particularly nice, but this a general solution for adding content.
I also have to point this out once more that there is nothing casual about Blizzards fan base, there are ever professional Starcraft players. These noobs are some of the most hardcore gamers around and the only difference is that they havent played MMOs prior to this. WoW uses fast&casual early game play as a hook, but both game and player base are hardcore at max level.
I also have to point this out once more that there is nothing casual about Blizzards fan base, there are ever professional Starcraft players. These “noobs” are some of the most hardcore gamers around.
gtfo
Sitheus is right about the OP. I feel dirty arguing in this thread, why are we arguing? Everyone wants more content, tools and features right? I guess I should be trying to educate "noobs" on how games could be better, instead of blaming them for why things are getting worse.
Now I get It
Things won't stop until noobs stop falling for hype, brand names, and thinking that polish is the only sign of quality.
When you start playing a lot of MMO's you start to notice the little cool ideas in all of them. So my advice to MMO noobs is if you got time, play them all, and think twice before you get your hopes up for a big upcoming release. Just because a game has bad graphics, or is full of bugs, it can still have some great idea left hidden.
Anways if WoW raiding is no good try a new game. Doesn't EQ focus on raiding more than any other MMO?
2. StanlyManly: Cliff notes for those who didn't want to read:
QQ
Response: If you decide you have anything that adds real value or depth to the conversation going on here, please feel free to post again. Until such time, I'm not even going to bother acknowledging your future posts. Feel free to troll away and flame me for it, but if you want to show me up and prove that you can one up me, I'll lay out a challenge for you: If you don't reply again within say.....a week, I give my word, on penalty of never posting on the site again, that I'll make a thread praising you for showing me up. Take it or leave it.
Well, I didn't actually expect it to happen, but he's actually gone one day short of the week I laid out, so, being as I keep my word, I have to give him credit. He has showed me up on the challenge, so my congratulations in regards to that.
As far as your post goes, Sitheus, um...yeah, lemme just point out that I play on an RP server and "ganking noobs" isn't really something I concern myself with. Prior to having played WoW, I spent 4 years in FFXI (where the "elitist" side of me developed, I suppose) and there's not even an open PvP system, it's all the equivalent of BGs that are tiered to level, so there's no "wtfpwning" going on there. Sorry to pretty much make your whole post irrelevent, but before you decide to flame someone, it typically helps if you at least have grounds to justify what you're saying. Granted, my name was never *specifically* mentioned, when you start your post by flaming the post for existing, that's pretty much targeting the OP, as MMoMoney showed by later saying "you are right about the OP".
In any case, the thread I had originally posted has deviated immensely from the simple debate I had hoped to spark and boiled down to one side saying pretty much "we want casual games, we hate 'elitist players' who want content we don't have the time and/or attention span to attain" and the people like me who say "we want content that takes time and effort beyond the norm to get". I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. Oh well, perhaps once some of you have actually been in the situation, you'll understand. Or perhaps once you run Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, and heroics on WoW a few dozen times and realize "huh....I have the best stuff out there and I hardly did anything for it....this sucks" you'll see the point that's been laid out here.
To be honest, I suspect the majority of the people in favor of casual gaming won't ever truly get it, but hey, I can wait it out til you all get over MMOs and the market goes back to the "niche", as it was termed in an earlier post, who are willing to "repeat the same grinding methods for hours" to get their content. But just keep in mind, the same arguments most of you put out can be made against you as well. Just cuz you don't like to or don't have the time to do the grinding in question doesn't mean those of us who don't mind or are able to should be limited.
Lastly, since it seems to have been brought up somewhere in the posts since, never once in my post did I say "casual gamers shouldn't be playing", I simply said that I wanted content to be tiered towards what you can and want to do.
If you define "hardcore" meaning massive time commitment, then most MMOs are not casual. WoW is no more casual than EQ. Both require tons of hours of raiding for you to advance your toon at the end of your level grind.
If you define hardcore as having leet skills to play, then I'm sorry but no item centric MMO is hardcore. You're only fooling yourself if you think that because you have a full set of Dragon Pwnage armor you're actually skilled. It means you devoted 100 hours to staring at your screen, and following a script.
Taking 6 months to get max level, or 4 weeks to get to max level really isn't a big deal. I would play the game that offers the better journey.
If you define "hardcore" meaning massive time commitment, then most MMOs are not casual. WoW is no more casual than EQ. Both require tons of hours of raiding for you to advance your toon at the end of your level grind.
If you define hardcore as having leet skills to play, then I'm sorry but no MMO is hardcore. You're only fooling yourself if you think that because you have a full set of Dragon Pwnage armor you're actually skilled. It means you devoted 100 hours to staring at your screen, and following a script.
"having leet skiils to play" doesn't mean "having a full set of Dragon pwnage armor or devoting 100 hours in front of the screen"
Having skiils to play means grew faster than the other players do, getting to a certain level in 10 time less than a normal player and so on...
See, I lean more towards the "time committment" side of it. I don't remember where I first saw the quote, but I'm of the belief "gear doesn't make a bad player good, it makes good players better". As far as WoW being "as hardcore as any other MMO", I disagree with that. I hit the level cap in WoW when it was 60 in about 2 months. That, to me, is nowhere near hardcore, as it took almost a year to hit the level cap in FFXI. I was capped at 300 smithing, mining, fishing, cooking and first aid at around level 55. Also far from being hardcore.
As I posted earlier, I suppose I'm just in the situation where I came from one of the most time intensive games on the market where most of the players don't make it within 25 levels of the cap due to lack of interest and determination, then flock to games where their lack of time and devotion aren't an issue. If that makes me elitist, I suppose I don't really have a choice but to accept that. I suppose I'll just go back to FFXI where the content is actually challenging and makes things fun to me, instead of waiting for the next expansion for WoW to come out and add content that I'll be done with in a couple months at most.
I've never understood why don't just create an option similar to the Hardcore character option in Diablo 2. If you wanted more of a challenge you could play a character with permadeath. If they want to tack on an exp penalty, slower travel etc. that could also make a person feel superior to most players.
I want to have weapons, armor, and items that other people don't. That is honestly one of the biggest drives for a lot of MMO players.
you are kidding, right? how pathetic of a person do you have to be to sit there and type this with a straight face. Alright, then tell me, what drives you to play?
A community to share your time with? If that's all you want, then go out and find friends in real life. A place where you can take on an alter ego in a fantasy setting? Go play a solo RPG. At some level, no matter how much you may try to deny it, no matter who you are, you will always look at someone and go "man, his gear is horrible" or "wow, this noob has such crappy armor", and, if you're playing a game that posts a notification of when someone checks your gear, you always think at one point or another "yeah, that's right, check out what I have that you don't", or, Heaven forbid, you get that random tell/whisper/whatever from someone going "OMG that sword is awesome, where'd you get it?" and you sit there all smug while you respond. EVERY person who has ever played a game online thinks those things at least once, and usually far more than once, during their online career. Nobody can truly deny that on some level, that is a driving goal for them. If you even try to, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. The sooner you can come out and admit it, the better off you and the rest of the MMO community will be. You can try do dance around the issue all you want, but in the end, we all know the truth, even the others who deny it or try to cover up saying they just wanna RP or they like the community know it, the difference just happens to be that I am willing to come out and say it while so many others won't or are too afraid. And to be honest, after seeing all the responses and people lying through their teeth about their opinions and experiences, I suppose forums really aren't the place for me, because the single underlying problem that has come about through this experience is my discovery that, when all is said and done, I really don't care what the opinions of a bunch of people who are too scared, self-righteous, or immature to admit what their true feelings on an issue are, simply because they are too worried about what the other people on the forums might think of them.
As far as the casual gaming topic goes, I suppose I'll just reiterate my feelings on it, but in less vague terms. I think it is a huge problem for the market, but I think the people it will impact most are too blind to realize that fact. In five or ten years, when you're all sitting around wishing you had a good MMO to play, I hope you remember this post, because when that time comes, I'll be waiting for people to make posts about how all the MMOs out there are way too boring and don't have enough content and are designed for little kids, and when it happens, I'll be laughing about it.
In any case, I'm done with this post. Nobody wants to take it seriously and give any real thought to it, which I can't say really surprises me. Nobody ever wants to acknowlege problems until it's too late to do anything about it. Just don't say you didn't see it coming, because I've presented it all right here in black and white.
Lastly, to the select few of you who did think your responses through and contribute to the topic in a meaningful manner, I appreciate it, regardless of your opinion on the issue. It was interesting to see the reasoning and ideas that you had and has given me a few things to consider on the issue. Overall though, there were few who truly fit into this category, but I trust those who do know who they are.
This has been becoming a more and more popular trend of late, most notably after the success of World of Warcraft. This is, in my opinion, a double edged sword. To be perfectly honest, this trend is the reason I have become so burnt out with WoW of late. I see myself as a more "hardcore" MMO player, and as such I like content that enables me to push my character to a level that less dedicated people will be unable to attain. I want to have weapons, armor, and items that other people don't. That is honestly one of the biggest drives for a lot of MMO players.
Is this trend a good one? Perhaps. The answer is a grey area. It helps bring more people into the genre, thus giving MMOs a more dominant market face. As such, MMOs will receive more popularity over time. It means people with jobs, school, and real lives have a game they can play in the genre that is able to be played around their schedule. The downside to this is that those of us who want to do raids that require a large number of people are going to be given the short end of the stick. It means those of us who put in all the work and time to reach the plateau prior to this decision are now bored and left feeling like our work was all for naught. This is an issue that honestly depends on which side of the fence you stand on.
The other, somewhat obvious, motivation behind this is profit. A larger section of the market for MMOs is...the casual gamer. There are far more people looking for a casual MMO than a very demanding one. This has led to more and more publishers looking to make easier, more casual MMOs. This presents a very real problem to those of us wanting a challenging game. Simply put, which is more realistic; a publisher aiming at the narrow market for truly hardcore MMO players, or, a publisher aiming for the much larger market of casual gamers?
After all, MMOs were pioneered by UO and EverQuest. These games were not designed to be "casual", there was no "well, I'll get on and play for an hour to run a random endgame event " in these games. Endgame is supposed to be just that; the plateau of achievement. It is supposed to be the pinnacle of challenge and reward in the game. It's not supposed to be a very difficult, very long, very hard process that has rewards that will set you apart from those who are unable to do it.
The question I would most like to pose, however, is: how this is going to impact the MMO genre overall? Does the MMO industry need to be geared more towards casual gamers? What will happen to the genre if all the games that are released from here on are designed with the casual gamer in mind? Is there going to be a place left for those truly hardcore gamers if/when the market is dominated by games geared for the casual gamer market?
That said, I'd like to relay my own personal experience and disgust with this issue.
The biggest gripe I have with this is directed at Blizzard, due simply to the fact that I put so much work and effort into their game, only to have it thrown in my face when The Burning Crusade came out when they decided that the truly difficult, truly hardcore dungeons were not going to be included anymore. The level of content and challenge I wanted had been done away with. The biggest slap in the face and alienation for me, however came from their Account Cancellation, which went something like this:
They ask for a reason for leaving. I answer "Lack of 40 man raids" from their dropdown list. Their pop-up says "Did you know: 40 man raids such as Naxx and Molten Core are still accessable?" My response "..." What they're basically saying is "They're still there and you can still run them...despite being 10 levels past what they were designed to be challenging at....with gear far beyond the rewards you can gain in the instance in question....and we don't care." /sigh GG Blizzard
My dad works for Thomas's English muffins. For the longest time companies only made regular English muffins. Then they came out with toaster cakes. Then a few new flavors. Now they have over 80 flavors and dozens of products. The reason for this is because they want to appeal to many different tastes, not everyone likes the same thing.
WoW has done a great thing for the MMO market, because it vastly increased its market base. Now investors see that MMOs are a decent investment, which means more development dollars, more programmers, more games. Inevitably, you will find games that try to focus on different niches of gaming to appeal to different demographics. Look at Warhammer for instance, it is focusing on PvP rather then PvE, the total opposite of WoW. They see a market need not being met and they are going after it.
Not all games inevitably become WoW clones. Many games that have gone down that route have had bad results (SWG). You will find some development companies that specifically target only say 500,000 players with a niche product rather then go for the entire market. The fact is, when you produce a WoW clone, most WoW players don't get pulled away. I sure didn't jump ship for LoTRO. Why level a new character in a game that is the same as the one I'm playing.
In the long run hardcores will end up with better games too. If we take a step back and assume hardcore is more about wanting challenging encounters and goals (rather then a contest of who has more free time) then more development dollars means more content. The problem with raiding in WoW wasn't that it took a lot of time, but it took a lot of time every single week to farm the damn instance. It was 80% farming 20% learning. Doing the same content over and over again isn't hardcore. Running BWL on farm status is about as challenging as killing thirty boars and bringing their tusks to some guy. In order to really engage the hardcore player you need to be coming out with new raid instances constantly. One should only need to come to the same instance a few times to get what you need.
Eventually there will be games for hardcores that like raiding, hardcores that like pvp, crafters, explorers, socializers, and yes, even the 40 year old housewive. There will be games for all those people because the development dollars and market demand will be there.
Well I don't think that Casual MMO's will hurt the MMO market by a long shot because of the fact that games like WoW have brought in new players that wouldn't have even considered playing a game like EQ1. This has ballooned the player base of the MMO Genre from about 1 million total players to probably well over 20 million players worldwide. The majority of those new players came into this genre because of the new casually oriented games. So now of course anyone making a new MMO is going to incorporate features to cater to that majority.
Now all that said I myself being an old EQ1 and UO player don't like this trend but I've learned to except it. I've been playing Lineage II since Open Beta and even though I've tried to leave for other games I keep going back. This is mainly due to the fact that after reaching the "End Game" in games like L2 and EQ1 these new games seem so easy to me that I get bored with them within a couple of hours to a couple of days max. I play for a week max and start to think, "This is so easy why am I even bothering to play?". The only thing the MMO developers need to rethink is that casual does not have to equal "Kiddy skill level" games. Whats the point of playing a game that poses no challenge to the player? Oh well thats my opinion in a nutshell, Nobody blow a gasket over it as it is "my opinion".
I want to have weapons, armor, and items that other people don't. That is honestly one of the biggest drives for a lot of MMO players.
you are kidding, right? how pathetic of a person do you have to be to sit there and type this with a straight face. Alright, then tell me, what drives you to play?
A community to share your time with? If that's all you want, then go out and find friends in real life. A place where you can take on an alter ego in a fantasy setting? Go play a solo RPG. At some level, no matter how much you may try to deny it, no matter who you are, you will always look at someone and go "man, his gear is horrible" or "wow, this noob has such crappy armor", and, if you're playing a game that posts a notification of when someone checks your gear, you always think at one point or another "yeah, that's right, check out what I have that you don't", or, Heaven forbid, you get that random tell/whisper/whatever from someone going "OMG that sword is awesome, where'd you get it?" and you sit there all smug while you respond. EVERY person who has ever played a game online thinks those things at least once, and usually far more than once, during their online career. Nobody can truly deny that on some level, that is a driving goal for them. If you even try to, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. The sooner you can come out and admit it, the better off you and the rest of the MMO community will be. You can try do dance around the issue all you want, but in the end, we all know the truth, even the others who deny it or try to cover up saying they just wanna RP or they like the community know it, the difference just happens to be that I am willing to come out and say it while so many others won't or are too afraid. And to be honest, after seeing all the responses and people lying through their teeth about their opinions and experiences, I suppose forums really aren't the place for me, because the single underlying problem that has come about through this experience is my discovery that, when all is said and done, I really don't care what the opinions of a bunch of people who are too scared, self-righteous, or immature to admit what their true feelings on an issue are, simply because they are too worried about what the other people on the forums might think of them.
As far as the casual gaming topic goes, I suppose I'll just reiterate my feelings on it, but in less vague terms. I think it is a huge problem for the market, but I think the people it will impact most are too blind to realize that fact. In five or ten years, when you're all sitting around wishing you had a good MMO to play, I hope you remember this post, because when that time comes, I'll be waiting for people to make posts about how all the MMOs out there are way too boring and don't have enough content and are designed for little kids, and when it happens, I'll be laughing about it.
In any case, I'm done with this post. Nobody wants to take it seriously and give any real thought to it, which I can't say really surprises me. Nobody ever wants to acknowlege problems until it's too late to do anything about it. Just don't say you didn't see it coming, because I've presented it all right here in black and white.
Lastly, to the select few of you who did think your responses through and contribute to the topic in a meaningful manner, I appreciate it, regardless of your opinion on the issue. It was interesting to see the reasoning and ideas that you had and has given me a few things to consider on the issue. Overall though, there were few who truly fit into this category, but I trust those who do know who they are.
A lot of people start out like that, but they grow up. Seriously. After the first year or two you realize there is no end to the race. It just keeps going. There is always a new weapon, a new piece of armor. If you despise the race itself, then you are stuck in a perpetual loop of doing something you hate to get some item that is obsolete in short order, so you do something you hate again.
Most skilled people I meet, I mean really skilled, actually wish that gear and lvls were fairly static for all characters. That the main feature of an MMO wasn't ever spiraling "progression" or bigger numbers, but rather differentiating you character by making choices with consequences. That rather then grinding so that you won by having the l33t armor, you won because you made better strategic choices. When I enter a PvP situation I want to face opponents with the same strength level as me. I want to win based on skill, not raw power. I guess I'm just a Blizzard RTS veteran that views MMOs as a different king of competition, and I keep expecting to join games where we all start with the same resources. Even in PvE, I would prefer to zone into a raid instance with the resources necessary to defeat it, if I employ the right strategy and execute well. Farming mats for FR didn't enhance my Ragnaros experience at all, it just wasted my time.
In any event, most people feel chained to gear progression, they don't enjoy it. They feel they need to "keep up" so they can participate in other facets of the game they enjoy. Other people, people like yourself, are imposing your will on them. Your kind of player is fundamentaly bad. Only by making other peoples gaming experiences miserable, can you feel good about yours. It is not so different then the attitude of the schoolyard bully.
Which, of course, brings us to the matter of the "l33t" player (notice I don't use the word hardcore). The l33t player asks a lot of MMOs, because for the average l33t player it is the only thing they have going for them. Typically they are an age 16-35 year old male. If they are in school they are usually taking easy fluff courses, not a lot of credits, or getting bad grades. This leaves them lots of time to play MMOs. If they have graduated high school or college they have probably taken some fairly low paying meanial job somewhere where they put in their 40/week. They don't have a wife and kids and thier career isn't too demanding, so they have lots of time to play MMOs. Now, they resent the fact that their real life is so hollow. They aren't parasailing with moviestars like they thought they would be when they were ten. Maybe they even have latent aggression because they got picked on in school. It's too late (at least without lots of hard work) to make their real life successful. But, they can make their little pixalated game character successful. Maybe they don't get any respect from people at their shit job, but people look up to Bob The Destroyer. Bob gets the respect he deserves, even if the person playing him doesn't. As the l33t player gets older and older the need for MMO fulfillment only grows as his life slips away.
MMOs serve as a place for people to get their fix of social acceptance and career advancement that they don't have in real life. They are like real life lite. A way to fulfill emotional needs with a fraction of the effort. As someone else put it, "I work hard in a video game because I'm too afraid to work hard in real life."
Just as in real life though, these l33t players are a fraction of the population. MMOs have outgrown you. MMOs are the realm of real people with real lives now. People that studied in school and got real careers and have families and friends and like to play Frisbee in the springtime and not have to worry about keeping up Bob so he doesn't come gank me. In the future there will be MMOs that appeal to all different playstyles and lifestyles. There will even be MMOs for l33t players like you so you can wave your e-peens around at eachother. But you don't own this genre anymore, it has outgrown you, even if you yourself haven't grown up.
Comments
This post is bordering on psychotic, and I'm truly reluctant to post. Especially when the OP refers to actually playing WoW for a long time and said "when they decided that the truly difficult, truly hardcore dungeons were not to be included any more.". WoW HAS NEVER HAD ANY TRULY DIFFICULT CONTENT EVER. WoW dungeons and raids have always been the laughing stock of true players that actually do play difficult content. I truly thought I would never see WoW and difficult content in the same reference. Be that as it may.
Then, when asked about these "clones", I checked in the previous thread this thread refers to, and no games were really mentioned. There are slight references to Guildwars, LotRO, UO(?), and Everquest(?)(are you crazy? seriously?). Now I don't follow UO, and I have no idea what they've done to that game. Both Everquests were launched BEFORE WoW (they're both RPG's, I guess that makes them clones, although considering launches, unless Everquest developers have a crystal ball and can look into the future). GW, I don't really keep up with that game, I heard it was mostly pvp anyways, so of course the pve will be pretty simple. LotRO does have some of the mechanics of WoW, but then any "mechanics" of any game is in another game somewhere, that doesn't make them clones (while I do agree the challenge rating of the game is on par with WoW).
So, you can see my dismay at what someone might actually mean by hardcore when the above references and examples are made. Casual VS Hardcore is a time sink. How much TIME does it take to get from A to B. WoW 40 man raids take hours and hours of pure time sink. Other games do this too. Nothing difficult. Not much challenge. Just a time sink. Other games do it much better and have not changed anything. In fact, they have become MORE challenging. Some with more time sink, some not.
So yes, a lot of games are going to cater to more casual gamers because they are the majority. Some games still have time sinks, some still have difficult content, some have very little time sinks, and some have very little difficult content. You make the choice of which game you wanted to play. You trusted your developer, and can be happy with that, or not. That is your choice. You speak with your pocket book. If you want a game with more time sinks, play one, they're still around. If you want to play a more difficult game, there have always been more difficult than WoW, considering they were the bottom of the barrel, then play one.
I hope you find what you are looking for. This isn't the first time a game company has switched up on their playerbase. It probably won't be the last. We go with the flow and play what you like best. Most games have fansites and forums to give your concerns, and if they don't listen, then move on.
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
IF we are gona call WoW clones any mmorpg with Quest, eazy lvling, instanced dungeons, instanced pvp, auctions houses just to mention the mains features of WoW then how are we gona call the games those features come ?
I do agree about OP post on how WoW changed the mmorpg market but stating that any mmo in DEV atm is trying to be a clone of WoW is a bit out of the line imo.
If you cant see the trend with the games in development then you are blind. Games designed for players with less playtime means games designed with less content. Period. Games designed for non-typical gamers are games designed without complex mechanics. Games that require less thinking. This is WoW and what it has done. It has nothing to do with specific features.
To Aerendir:
There's more twinking to be done with a level 10 (out of 220) Anarachy online character, than any level 50 CoH character.
Those idiotic min/maxing "hardcore" CoH players with their childish videos of exploiting game mechanics destroyed CoH. I used to play that game on/off since the beginning and the constant nerfs happened solely because of them and their bragging. If they never created some stupid contest on who can break the game mechanics the most, and publish them all over the damn forums, that game would be very much like it was 3 years ago.
It was a casual game, meant for casual players, and it had it's place. There is nothing wrong with casuals or occasional game made for them, but when every MMORPG recently released, and in development is oversimplified and uninspiring, there is nothing left for longtime mmo gamers to enjoy.
It is not the "casuals" fault so much at it is the greed caused bv their presence in MMO gaming. Yet we cant blame greed (and be taken seriously) so we can only gripe that as longtime, or "hardcore" MMORPG enthusiasts, we as consumers are being neglected in favor of newcomers.
There are other games that use systems like that. The problem is that it just becomes another tool for min/maxers. In fact it can work against casual players, for example one type of casual play pattern is people cant play at all during the week but have a lot more time during the weekend. For this type of person, rested xp will run out and they will be forced to play without it, while the min/maxer will use every drop of rested.
The main problem, however, is casual players dont care about falling behind in their progression as they do about being locked out of content. If you can only play 3 hours a night and all the meaningful content takes a minimum of 6 hours the content may as well not even exist. Its certainly ok to have some of that type of content but if the game fixated on it, it is no longer casual friendly.
Although its gotten a little better this is why WoW at 60 became one of the least casual friendly games on the market. Once you hit 60 you had two options, raid every night for 5-6 hours or grind battlegrounds 16 hours a day for months on end. This has been replaced with crazy faction grinds and lackluster raids but at least you can now do it at close to your own pace which is what a casual player needs.
Its usually the so called hardcore players that gravitate to simple repeatable mechanics, and then distinguish themselves by the sheer number of times they can repeat it.
WoW may have had the hooks for casual players but there is no question its got more in the way of hardcore appeal then any other game on the market. Go look at the big ubar guilds and see what they are playing; they mostly play WoW and raid, with EVE&PvP being a distant second choice.
Remember, most of Blizzard fan base are and were hardcore online gamers they just did it in Battlenet rather then in an MMO.
WoW changed all of that by demonstrating that you can make an MMO that appeals to casual gamers. Now WoW messed things up by having the leveling game be casual friendly and the endgame be elitist -- which was a terrible mismatch in design that led to a lot of discontent. In reality, the subscription fees of casual gamers were going to development costs of things like Naxxramas, which less than 5% of the players would ever see -- which is basically like a "casual tax". It was bullshit, and it was a stupid design. But nevertheless, what WoW demonstrated to every other designer was that the potential appeal for MMOs was broad, if they could be designed to appeal to a broad market and not primarily the elitists who spend oodles of time on the game.
What does this mean in the future? I think it means that you will certainly see more games being made to cater, in one way or another, to the mainstream, non-elite market. There's too much potential money out there for this not to be the case. At the same time, because there will be more of such games, that development in itself creates a niche market for more elitist types of game designs, if designed properly. The latter will never have the same appeal as a more casual-friendly game, because while elitists may ike designs that allow them to lord their eliteness over everyone else, most other people will pass on that exercise, and opt for a game that doesn't belittle them in comparison to elite gamers.
In short, the elitist phase in MMO history is behind us. We're now in the populist phase. There will be pockets of elitist resistance for years to come, of course, but the populist phase is here to stay.
As for claims that WoW ends up hardcore, how many raiders are there? If WoW had no casuals and only raiders they'd be left with as many players as any other game. And if the "hardcore" part of WoW was what made it successfull we'd be seeing hardcore games in development. And, dont you dare claim bringing battlenet players into MMORPGs was a good thing.
"Casual gaming" is the death of freedom in MMORPGs! Freedom is the only thing which seperates these games from any other. If these hollywood MMOs keep having their way, we can kiss "sandboxes", "twinking" "customization" and "open pvp" goodbye. How long before we're playing something as simple as Super Mario online? Hell, half of DDO is already a "casual oriented" platformer.
You dont give power tools to a toddler, and developers don't give heavy mechanics to a casual game.
No developer will waste his time/money giving players more tools for freedom when he can sell more copies of a simpler game. It's like our rights to imagination are being taken away because "casuals" don't need sophisticated games to enjoy. Ignorance is bliss eh? Say that when the only MMOs out there have 1 class, 1 quest, and 1 city.
How can anyone even think that this trend of oversimplifying is a good thing? If this continues, our grandchildren will take a look at Toontown and think it was hardcore. If you keep accepting products of lower quality, eventually all things will be below anyone's standard.
How long will it be before even first MMO WoW players look back and remorse? I tell you, it may be a lot sooner than when we see many complex games again. You can only clone something so many times before major defects occur.
Im not sure what you are getting at. I dont think the Battlenet community is a good fit for the MMO world and in fact I blame the influx of Battlenet players for the breakdown of community many MMO fan sites, including this one have experienced over the last few years. But, if you think Battlenet players are anything but hardcore games you crazy
Prior to Burning Crusades there were servers where 30% of the characters raided regularly. You can bet more then 50% of the players took part in the hardcore content (Raid or PvP) and probably more of them that wanted too. Now factor in the number of people still leveling up and the people who simply grind alt after alt to max level (another hardcore style activity) and it becomes pretty clear that WoW at 60 was one of the most hardcore games on the market. This is only slightly less true at 70.
It's also why so many vetern MMO players soured on WoW, it uses casual play as a hook then switches to a hardcore style of play.
The only feature casual players really care about is to be able to play at the schedule they pick rather then one forced on them by game mechanics. How does supporting this limit the freedom you have in a game, it doesnt.
This is why people are labeling you as elitist. Instead of actually looking at what a hardcore of casual player really is you are starting with the premise that hardcore=sophisticated casual= simple. Rather then using the real meaning of the words you are assigning your own meaning to them. Basically you are starting with the assumption that you yourself are leet therefore you must be a hardcore player and therefore more leet then any casual player. You have a whole circular logic thing going on there...
In actual fact casual/hardcore is about the intensity with witch you play a game and that mostly comes down to your scheduled and how much time you are willing to invest. There is no connection whatsoever between casual and simple.
It seems these pro "hardcore" post can be summed with this:
"I'm sick of developers letting casuals being able to obtain the gear I got because I want to feel special and I want to be envied by the casuals and I want to gank that lvl 20 noob so he knows who da l33t shit is. This makes me feels so good. If this trend continues we expect more casuals who have lives to continue to take away our(hardcore) feeling of 'I roflpwn jooz wit my 1337 epic' uberness. Now what am I supposed to do get that feeling back?"
Does that sound about right?
Really, nobody on the planet, not even god, could care less about your useless painted pixels. The direction of the MMO market is for casuals and that is where the money is because casuals play to have fun without having some need to fill a void in their life with artifical success from a virtual world.
You know what I was trying to say so why argue over semantics instead of arguing the point? Is it because you have no argument?
MMOs are focusing on "casual" playstyle because of the type of players I've described (mmo noobs).
There have always been players who can't put in as much time as the next guy. But MMOs continued in the previous style of requiring more time investment. It wasn't until WoW had become wildly successful amongst non MMO players that this newfound focus on games with less playtime, and therefore less content, happened.
A game being aimed at an audience with less playtime means developers can cut costs on developing content before release, because they know they have enough time to develop new content post-release before their intended audience will exhaust the original content.
A game being targeted at "MMO noobs" does not require sophisticatication, because "noobs" don't have enough experience with game mechanics to understand the greater potential that advanced tools can give to expression of their avatar.
"MMO noobs" are the cause of the switch to focus on "casual" gaming, and therefore are the cause of oversimplistic and substance-lacking MMOs.
Thank you professor, may I leave class now?
What about players who think of MMOs like interactive movies and want more content to experience more of the game? There's nothing wrong with wanting to prolong a good story, is there? How many times has someone played a single player RPG, that they wish lasted longer? SRPG players enjoy the story and typically loathe the achievement part.
All "anti-hardcore" posts can be summed up as either arguing over semantics or assuming hardcore = powergamer.
What about players who think of MMO's like interactive movies and want more content to experience more of the game?
All "anti-hardcore" posts can be summed up as either arguing over semantics or assuming hardcore = powergamer.
Everybody wants more content but why should it only be available to those who can raid all day or all night. Read the WoW posts. Most of it reads something like this "From lvl 1 - 60 its great, but after that it is grind, grind and unless you have a lot time to raid, you are pretty much done with WoW unless you make an alt". That left lots and lots of players bitter who could not experience end game content because of time restraints and they felt duped. So why should a paying casual customer whose money is going to a company who is developing end game content for a small percentage of raiders not have casual content to reap the same rewards? But yes, that perception of the hardcore is accurate because they are seen as the ones who live in their parents basement playing MMO 24/7.
Why not replace hardcore with noob instead? We were all noobs once but in my experience its the players with aspirations of being leet that are more likely to be noobs for life. Of course, any type of player could well be a noob for life, so maybe it doesnt make sense to pigeonhole these as either hardcore or casual.
Im not a mind reader. The only way I have of figuring out what you mean is by what you have written and the crux of that is that you think players that cant/wont commit a huge numbers of hours to MMOs (casual players) are the root of all problems in the MMO genre.
I disagree with this, but you havent exactly given me much to rebut since your posts have been based on some vague insinuations that casual players are noobs and idiots. All I have done is call you to task on making this unfounded assumption.
Dont mistake the demand for higher quality content with a desire for less content. What people complain about is stretching content too thin, taking two weeks worth of content and stretching it out to 6 months by adding EQ1 style camps and grinds. I fully support having a *few* multi hour camps and maybe even a few long grinds as long as the reward at the end is particularly nice, but this a general solution for adding content.
I also have to point this out once more that there is nothing casual about Blizzards fan base, there are ever professional Starcraft players. These noobs are some of the most hardcore gamers around and the only difference is that they havent played MMOs prior to this. WoW uses fast&casual early game play as a hook, but both game and player base are hardcore at max level.
Sitheus is right about the OP. I feel dirty arguing in this thread, why are we arguing? Everyone wants more content, tools and features right? I guess I should be trying to educate "noobs" on how games could be better, instead of blaming them for why things are getting worse.
Now I get It
Things won't stop until noobs stop falling for hype, brand names, and thinking that polish is the only sign of quality.
When you start playing a lot of MMO's you start to notice the little cool ideas in all of them. So my advice to MMO noobs is if you got time, play them all, and think twice before you get your hopes up for a big upcoming release. Just because a game has bad graphics, or is full of bugs, it can still have some great idea left hidden.
Anways if WoW raiding is no good try a new game. Doesn't EQ focus on raiding more than any other MMO?
As far as your post goes, Sitheus, um...yeah, lemme just point out that I play on an RP server and "ganking noobs" isn't really something I concern myself with. Prior to having played WoW, I spent 4 years in FFXI (where the "elitist" side of me developed, I suppose) and there's not even an open PvP system, it's all the equivalent of BGs that are tiered to level, so there's no "wtfpwning" going on there. Sorry to pretty much make your whole post irrelevent, but before you decide to flame someone, it typically helps if you at least have grounds to justify what you're saying. Granted, my name was never *specifically* mentioned, when you start your post by flaming the post for existing, that's pretty much targeting the OP, as MMoMoney showed by later saying "you are right about the OP".
In any case, the thread I had originally posted has deviated immensely from the simple debate I had hoped to spark and boiled down to one side saying pretty much "we want casual games, we hate 'elitist players' who want content we don't have the time and/or attention span to attain" and the people like me who say "we want content that takes time and effort beyond the norm to get". I suppose it shouldn't surprise me. Oh well, perhaps once some of you have actually been in the situation, you'll understand. Or perhaps once you run Karazhan, Gruul's Lair, and heroics on WoW a few dozen times and realize "huh....I have the best stuff out there and I hardly did anything for it....this sucks" you'll see the point that's been laid out here.
To be honest, I suspect the majority of the people in favor of casual gaming won't ever truly get it, but hey, I can wait it out til you all get over MMOs and the market goes back to the "niche", as it was termed in an earlier post, who are willing to "repeat the same grinding methods for hours" to get their content. But just keep in mind, the same arguments most of you put out can be made against you as well. Just cuz you don't like to or don't have the time to do the grinding in question doesn't mean those of us who don't mind or are able to should be limited.
Lastly, since it seems to have been brought up somewhere in the posts since, never once in my post did I say "casual gamers shouldn't be playing", I simply said that I wanted content to be tiered towards what you can and want to do.
If you define hardcore as having leet skills to play, then I'm sorry but no item centric MMO is hardcore. You're only fooling yourself if you think that because you have a full set of Dragon Pwnage armor you're actually skilled. It means you devoted 100 hours to staring at your screen, and following a script.
Taking 6 months to get max level, or 4 weeks to get to max level really isn't a big deal. I would play the game that offers the better journey.
Having skiils to play means grew faster than the other players do, getting to a certain level in 10 time less than a normal player and so on...
As I posted earlier, I suppose I'm just in the situation where I came from one of the most time intensive games on the market where most of the players don't make it within 25 levels of the cap due to lack of interest and determination, then flock to games where their lack of time and devotion aren't an issue. If that makes me elitist, I suppose I don't really have a choice but to accept that. I suppose I'll just go back to FFXI where the content is actually challenging and makes things fun to me, instead of waiting for the next expansion for WoW to come out and add content that I'll be done with in a couple months at most.
My youtube MMO gaming channel
A community to share your time with? If that's all you want, then go out and find friends in real life. A place where you can take on an alter ego in a fantasy setting? Go play a solo RPG. At some level, no matter how much you may try to deny it, no matter who you are, you will always look at someone and go "man, his gear is horrible" or "wow, this noob has such crappy armor", and, if you're playing a game that posts a notification of when someone checks your gear, you always think at one point or another "yeah, that's right, check out what I have that you don't", or, Heaven forbid, you get that random tell/whisper/whatever from someone going "OMG that sword is awesome, where'd you get it?" and you sit there all smug while you respond. EVERY person who has ever played a game online thinks those things at least once, and usually far more than once, during their online career. Nobody can truly deny that on some level, that is a driving goal for them. If you even try to, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. The sooner you can come out and admit it, the better off you and the rest of the MMO community will be. You can try do dance around the issue all you want, but in the end, we all know the truth, even the others who deny it or try to cover up saying they just wanna RP or they like the community know it, the difference just happens to be that I am willing to come out and say it while so many others won't or are too afraid. And to be honest, after seeing all the responses and people lying through their teeth about their opinions and experiences, I suppose forums really aren't the place for me, because the single underlying problem that has come about through this experience is my discovery that, when all is said and done, I really don't care what the opinions of a bunch of people who are too scared, self-righteous, or immature to admit what their true feelings on an issue are, simply because they are too worried about what the other people on the forums might think of them.
As far as the casual gaming topic goes, I suppose I'll just reiterate my feelings on it, but in less vague terms. I think it is a huge problem for the market, but I think the people it will impact most are too blind to realize that fact. In five or ten years, when you're all sitting around wishing you had a good MMO to play, I hope you remember this post, because when that time comes, I'll be waiting for people to make posts about how all the MMOs out there are way too boring and don't have enough content and are designed for little kids, and when it happens, I'll be laughing about it.
In any case, I'm done with this post. Nobody wants to take it seriously and give any real thought to it, which I can't say really surprises me. Nobody ever wants to acknowlege problems until it's too late to do anything about it. Just don't say you didn't see it coming, because I've presented it all right here in black and white.
Lastly, to the select few of you who did think your responses through and contribute to the topic in a meaningful manner, I appreciate it, regardless of your opinion on the issue. It was interesting to see the reasoning and ideas that you had and has given me a few things to consider on the issue. Overall though, there were few who truly fit into this category, but I trust those who do know who they are.
WoW has done a great thing for the MMO market, because it vastly increased its market base. Now investors see that MMOs are a decent investment, which means more development dollars, more programmers, more games. Inevitably, you will find games that try to focus on different niches of gaming to appeal to different demographics. Look at Warhammer for instance, it is focusing on PvP rather then PvE, the total opposite of WoW. They see a market need not being met and they are going after it.
Not all games inevitably become WoW clones. Many games that have gone down that route have had bad results (SWG). You will find some development companies that specifically target only say 500,000 players with a niche product rather then go for the entire market. The fact is, when you produce a WoW clone, most WoW players don't get pulled away. I sure didn't jump ship for LoTRO. Why level a new character in a game that is the same as the one I'm playing.
In the long run hardcores will end up with better games too. If we take a step back and assume hardcore is more about wanting challenging encounters and goals (rather then a contest of who has more free time) then more development dollars means more content. The problem with raiding in WoW wasn't that it took a lot of time, but it took a lot of time every single week to farm the damn instance. It was 80% farming 20% learning. Doing the same content over and over again isn't hardcore. Running BWL on farm status is about as challenging as killing thirty boars and bringing their tusks to some guy. In order to really engage the hardcore player you need to be coming out with new raid instances constantly. One should only need to come to the same instance a few times to get what you need.
Eventually there will be games for hardcores that like raiding, hardcores that like pvp, crafters, explorers, socializers, and yes, even the 40 year old housewive. There will be games for all those people because the development dollars and market demand will be there.
Now all that said I myself being an old EQ1 and UO player don't like this trend but I've learned to except it. I've been playing Lineage II since Open Beta and even though I've tried to leave for other games I keep going back. This is mainly due to the fact that after reaching the "End Game" in games like L2 and EQ1 these new games seem so easy to me that I get bored with them within a couple of hours to a couple of days max. I play for a week max and start to think, "This is so easy why am I even bothering to play?". The only thing the MMO developers need to rethink is that casual does not have to equal "Kiddy skill level" games. Whats the point of playing a game that poses no challenge to the player? Oh well thats my opinion in a nutshell, Nobody blow a gasket over it as it is "my opinion".
Bren
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A community to share your time with? If that's all you want, then go out and find friends in real life. A place where you can take on an alter ego in a fantasy setting? Go play a solo RPG. At some level, no matter how much you may try to deny it, no matter who you are, you will always look at someone and go "man, his gear is horrible" or "wow, this noob has such crappy armor", and, if you're playing a game that posts a notification of when someone checks your gear, you always think at one point or another "yeah, that's right, check out what I have that you don't", or, Heaven forbid, you get that random tell/whisper/whatever from someone going "OMG that sword is awesome, where'd you get it?" and you sit there all smug while you respond. EVERY person who has ever played a game online thinks those things at least once, and usually far more than once, during their online career. Nobody can truly deny that on some level, that is a driving goal for them. If you even try to, you're lying to yourself and everyone else. The sooner you can come out and admit it, the better off you and the rest of the MMO community will be. You can try do dance around the issue all you want, but in the end, we all know the truth, even the others who deny it or try to cover up saying they just wanna RP or they like the community know it, the difference just happens to be that I am willing to come out and say it while so many others won't or are too afraid. And to be honest, after seeing all the responses and people lying through their teeth about their opinions and experiences, I suppose forums really aren't the place for me, because the single underlying problem that has come about through this experience is my discovery that, when all is said and done, I really don't care what the opinions of a bunch of people who are too scared, self-righteous, or immature to admit what their true feelings on an issue are, simply because they are too worried about what the other people on the forums might think of them.
As far as the casual gaming topic goes, I suppose I'll just reiterate my feelings on it, but in less vague terms. I think it is a huge problem for the market, but I think the people it will impact most are too blind to realize that fact. In five or ten years, when you're all sitting around wishing you had a good MMO to play, I hope you remember this post, because when that time comes, I'll be waiting for people to make posts about how all the MMOs out there are way too boring and don't have enough content and are designed for little kids, and when it happens, I'll be laughing about it.
In any case, I'm done with this post. Nobody wants to take it seriously and give any real thought to it, which I can't say really surprises me. Nobody ever wants to acknowlege problems until it's too late to do anything about it. Just don't say you didn't see it coming, because I've presented it all right here in black and white.
Lastly, to the select few of you who did think your responses through and contribute to the topic in a meaningful manner, I appreciate it, regardless of your opinion on the issue. It was interesting to see the reasoning and ideas that you had and has given me a few things to consider on the issue. Overall though, there were few who truly fit into this category, but I trust those who do know who they are.
A lot of people start out like that, but they grow up. Seriously. After the first year or two you realize there is no end to the race. It just keeps going. There is always a new weapon, a new piece of armor. If you despise the race itself, then you are stuck in a perpetual loop of doing something you hate to get some item that is obsolete in short order, so you do something you hate again.
Most skilled people I meet, I mean really skilled, actually wish that gear and lvls were fairly static for all characters. That the main feature of an MMO wasn't ever spiraling "progression" or bigger numbers, but rather differentiating you character by making choices with consequences. That rather then grinding so that you won by having the l33t armor, you won because you made better strategic choices. When I enter a PvP situation I want to face opponents with the same strength level as me. I want to win based on skill, not raw power. I guess I'm just a Blizzard RTS veteran that views MMOs as a different king of competition, and I keep expecting to join games where we all start with the same resources. Even in PvE, I would prefer to zone into a raid instance with the resources necessary to defeat it, if I employ the right strategy and execute well. Farming mats for FR didn't enhance my Ragnaros experience at all, it just wasted my time.
In any event, most people feel chained to gear progression, they don't enjoy it. They feel they need to "keep up" so they can participate in other facets of the game they enjoy. Other people, people like yourself, are imposing your will on them. Your kind of player is fundamentaly bad. Only by making other peoples gaming experiences miserable, can you feel good about yours. It is not so different then the attitude of the schoolyard bully.
Which, of course, brings us to the matter of the "l33t" player (notice I don't use the word hardcore). The l33t player asks a lot of MMOs, because for the average l33t player it is the only thing they have going for them. Typically they are an age 16-35 year old male. If they are in school they are usually taking easy fluff courses, not a lot of credits, or getting bad grades. This leaves them lots of time to play MMOs. If they have graduated high school or college they have probably taken some fairly low paying meanial job somewhere where they put in their 40/week. They don't have a wife and kids and thier career isn't too demanding, so they have lots of time to play MMOs. Now, they resent the fact that their real life is so hollow. They aren't parasailing with moviestars like they thought they would be when they were ten. Maybe they even have latent aggression because they got picked on in school. It's too late (at least without lots of hard work) to make their real life successful. But, they can make their little pixalated game character successful. Maybe they don't get any respect from people at their shit job, but people look up to Bob The Destroyer. Bob gets the respect he deserves, even if the person playing him doesn't. As the l33t player gets older and older the need for MMO fulfillment only grows as his life slips away.
MMOs serve as a place for people to get their fix of social acceptance and career advancement that they don't have in real life. They are like real life lite. A way to fulfill emotional needs with a fraction of the effort. As someone else put it, "I work hard in a video game because I'm too afraid to work hard in real life."
Just as in real life though, these l33t players are a fraction of the population. MMOs have outgrown you. MMOs are the realm of real people with real lives now. People that studied in school and got real careers and have families and friends and like to play Frisbee in the springtime and not have to worry about keeping up Bob so he doesn't come gank me. In the future there will be MMOs that appeal to all different playstyles and lifestyles. There will even be MMOs for l33t players like you so you can wave your e-peens around at eachother. But you don't own this genre anymore, it has outgrown you, even if you yourself haven't grown up.