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General: Three Positive Influences From Casual And Social
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In this week's Free Zone column, MMORPG.com writer Richard Aihoshi talks about the positives coming out of the causual and social gaming trends. It is his belief that there are more positives than negatives. See if you agree by reading Richard Aihoshi's Free Zone.
As I discussed last time, casual and social influences are becoming stronger and more prevalent within the MMOG space. This is, of course, a generalization, but one that seems to apply to varying degrees across the entire spectrum. While there are some who decry this trend, I happen to be of the opinion it's more positive than negative overall. Among my reasons for thinking this way, there are three important ones that work together.
Comments
Thats a lot of words to say that more variety, competition and playerbase is win for everyone.
Mr Aioshi, you're getting on the right track. The style is better, but still your writings suffer at the information level. It would be appreciated if for the future you'll support your affirmations with examples from the F2P market. Me and most of the people here are not that into F2P's. "This F2P game has This concept which is cool, and supports my idea", that's what i personally want to read from the "F2P expert", not general thinking patterns.
I got to disagree, i like the "general thinking pattern" articles, we can save the this game has this concept for reviews, or when the article is about particular game mechanics. Sometimes when you have to write an article every week, you can't come up with some knock the readers socks off slew of information that shatters what they knew about F2P, converting half the P2P playerbase. Sometimes you just come out with an article that talks about a particular trend and why its a good thing, or bad, or both. i realize alot of people don't like Richard (i wouldn't call myself a fan, but I don't hate him) but seriously people, how many columnist we have giving us a free article to read every week?
I also emphisize the free part. for people who love P2P so much everyone don't mind acting like they all pay $15 a month to help these writers churn out some entertainment every month.
I'm not attacking you Simmihi, I just notice a trend in the comments after every one of Richards articles, and I've noticed lately that he has kinda steered away from citing a ton of examples, and having too many exact dates, and exact game references in his articles, and I personally like it. we just have varying taste in what we want.
I just want to see people ease up off the man, say thanks for being a consistant contributor to a site I frequent, and if you think you can do such a much better job, there is a little banner that shows up at the top of the site that pops up all the time about be a contributor. Do it, and put Richard to shame. If you can't don't hate on him cause you think he should do it some other way.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
nah you're wrong, the casual games doesn't give us shit. If I wanna talk to people I have my msn, if I wanna play with pre teen or older noobs I have CS I don't need them to come fuck up my MMO experiance also.
I have yet to see any indications that the industry will move from "casual" to "hardcore" at all.
It seems rather that "casual", meaning that they will use existing 3rd party applications and ideas to implement social networking has replaced a lot of what used to be "content" for games. Most companies seem to be deciding that casual and cheesy social BS is cheaper and easier than real content and keeps enough people happy to get by.
Ooo I got the trivia right this time! played pw for a year like I have said in other comments.
I know when PW first came out it was a hardcore grinfest but its graphics and deep gameplay made all the players love it. As the months went by they added several things to help get exp faster. It was very difficult to level up at higher levels without doing the 3 hour raids and even with the raids it takes at least a few days (4-5 raids per level at higher levels). You also have to do raids to get the "good" gear which could take quite a long time. They can all be difficult to do depending on your party and completing them doesn't gurantee you will get good drops not to mention it was up to the party to split everything evenly. A lot of the time it just ends up being a waste of a few hours if you don't get good drops or if there isn't enough to splite evenly.
What really kept me playing PW was my friends and the weekly territory wars. The territory wars and being in my guild inspired me to grind and level up so we could do well in the territory wars. Honestly it was very enjoyable to come on every day to grind or do some raids just to improve my character for the territory wars. Grinding wasn't bad at all if I had a friend to play with. I would also spend around 30$ every 2 weeks to buy fashion, mounts, pvp items, ect. I found spending money to be well worth it since I was playing it so much and paying for a few things make it a lot more enjoyable (and I make minimum wage). But after a year went by they just had to ruin the game with those gamble packs. Anyone who has heard of PW most likely knows about them.
Also another thing that ruined it was being able to refine gear to +12 and the only way to get refine orbs was through the cash shop. +5 and up can cost up to $50-500. getting +12 probably cost more than $500. To +12 all your gear you would pay well over $1000 and there were people on the server with +12 gamble pack gear. These people would all go to the same guild and perhaps unsurprisingly they dominated the territory wars and 75% of my guild quit which made me to quit. It is possible to get the special gamble pack gear through raids but you have to be very high level like 98-100 (it took me a year to get to 90) to even be able to equip them. Not to mention the raids would take forever and theres a chance nothing will drop. But the main thing is most people never got to that level and the people who did only went on raids with friends and it was impossible for someone with no high level friends to get through.
tl;dr: the main things that mmogs fun is the social and competitive features of the game. I have played many ftp mmos with impressive features but they are often overshadowed by the overpowered cash shop items and the imbalance of classes and level differences. Being able to hop into a game for a few hours without getting bored can be achieved by having something to look forward to after leveling up which is something most games lack. Learning a useless skill and recieving more quests isn't exactly something that keeps me hooked on a game. With PW there was the Territory Wars and the occasional PvP to look forward to. Most games I have played don't even encourage pvp until you reach level 40 or so and even then you will most likely get run down by higher levels. As for socializing I usually end up killing things with other random people but socializing doesn't get fun until you join a guild of some sort which usually has to wait until the higher levels like with PvP. There are a lot of things that can be done to make social and competitive features more worth our time but it certainly is taking awhile to find something worth logging in for every day (logging in every day is something I would and want to do in my ideal mmo).
I typed way too much...but no turning back now. Even my tl:dr was too long to read..
My only complaint with F2P games is this.
Do I have to spend money to remain competative? If yes, then I am turned off.
If the game is really great(P2P quality or better) then do I have to spend more than $15/mo to be competative. If yes, then its just not worth playing.
I look at F2P games as a cost to value. If the cost is zero, then I can enjoy it. However if I am limited due to being unable or prohibitively restricted to remain competative, then its not enjoyable.
If the F2P game can match the quality of gameplay that I enjoy out of the P2P games I enjoy, then can I remain competative on $15/mo or less? If not, then its not worth playing and the value of the game is less than that of other P2P games.
Its quite simple to me. None of the F2P games I've played have ever quite been able to provide as much enjoyment or realistic expectation of competativeness for the time or money required as a P2P game.
"I'd prefer not to be locked into a revenue model that siphons money from my wallet or credit card, even if I don't play at all."
Richard, lose the hyperbole, it's unbecoming in a writer of your quality.
You might have a point if we were talking any significant money at all. We're talking the price of 2 movie tickets for a month of game time - assuming you don't buy popcorn or a soda. That's 3 hours worth of enertainment time in my book,
I'm for an honest, up-front fee than for a "free to play" that has whatever other charges involved in actually playing the game. But, hey, I'm just that kind of guy - I never believed those free cell phones were free, either. A 2 year contract requiring me to spend at least $80 a month (for example) is NOT free. The fact is, the phone was paid for in higher cell phone service costs than could have been provided if they charged me for the phone up front.
If you are supporting some other kind of pay plan, then you do have to get specific; if you don't, we'll end up arguing apples and oranges, just like most political arguments are done. Keeping a discussion like this general is keeping it hazy and hard to pin down. Real evidence must be given if you expect people to honestly change their minds about an issue.
Have played: Everquest, Asheron's Call, Horizons, Everquest2, World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings Online, Warhammer, Age of Conan, Darkfall
Sheesh, I am getting sick of these top 3/5/10 good and bad lists for every single game out there in the MMORPGverse (hint: article called "3 reasons why social gaming hurts MMOs" is already lined up for next week) which basically consist of summarizing the main points of forums discussions. I know we are in an MMO drought and the journalistic pickings are slim but come guys and gals you can do better than ranked forums cliff notes...
Great artical Richard.
Sad but there seems to be a core of people who will have something negative to say regarless of the artical content.
You point regarding time available was a very real consideration. I have more than a few times avoided a raid because I didn't have 3 hours to spare.
Oh...Nightcloak, you might want to re-read the artical again. it says far more than more competition, playerbase and variety is a win. Variety in and of itself may or may not be enjoyable.
"Supporting casual play offers access to a larger audience. A larger total audience will probably mean more hardcore games and social side is underexploited and has more benefits"
This is untrue.
The essence of multiplayer gaming has always found its home across messengers and forumboards. This site exists as an example of how social people are among with millions. The connections between Clans, Groups, Players and even first party has been at the center since the late 90s. Today, its becoming far more centralized and even escaping the scope of pure-gaming. How Social is TOO Social? Today we are at a point people want your real life info in games. One reason many play multiplayers is because they are not "alone" online and can talk to others which is something Singleplayer does not offer.
The Gaming Population has always been increasing, but as long as genres and subdivision exist, the population will always subdivide into those genres. A greater population does not necessarily mean better games will be produced. It just saturates things like what has gone on for the last 20 years in Japanese Gaming.
Hardcore gaming and casual gaming are the opposite in expectation. One appeals to the few, the other to the masses. Population means nothing if its all about the developers in the end. You can have 1 million gamers in a genre or 10 million in the genre...They will still play almost any released game in the genre with no physical restraint.
If you want better games you have to be willing to have enough experience and power to say "Enough is Enough" and hurt a company where it matters most..Money! If you purchase a game and then say it sucks, it means nothing since you spent your money on it and companies care about making money. Refuse to buy a game and attack it for its content and that forces other companies to listen out of fear repeating the same thing will cause themselves to lose money too. That is how you change things.
Every one of Richard's artciles inevitablly ends up as a rant for and against F2P. Nice to see that trend continuing.
Seriously though I think this article could have benefitted with a bit more deffinition of what you call "Casual and Social." I think you nailed Casual when you talked about time per session and time per month; both are very important to my wife and I right now.
Social is a whole other can of fish. Social can mean any and all of the following:
Non-Combat, Forums, Chat Rooms, Facebook/twitter links, group only content, player based economy (I.e. everything is made by someone a la EVE), GM Run Events, and I'm sure there's more here.
Point is how much of this is good? What should and shouldn't be implemented, or if it is implemented could be improved?
For instance:
My Wife went back to WoW and joined her old guild. My days off have switched to days when she can actually raid again. Unfortunetly she needs her Gear Score to bascailly double to join them in their current raids at this level. Which requires going on Raids (I guess she's getting Conquest Token Gear I have no clue I've been out of WoW for a while) since the stuff she can get solo in order to be social isn't cutting it.
To me this is part of the problem of "Forced Socializing" in games. One of the biggest reasons I left Dark Age of Camelot was that I couldn't invest the time (points back to Casual) to keep up with my role playing guild. I loved the guild but the game penalized them and me for grouping up with them. So either I dragged them down or they left me behind. My wife is just now realizing WoW can do the same thing and it's really pissing her off.
It's not fair to the rest of the guild to change a raid to a lower tier raid just because of one member. Especially when they're all trying to push on to the next raid up. Which is why you see guilds that don't allow people in under certain gear scores.
What's a good way to balance Social needs/desires and casual/regular game players? F2P is one model that works for some as it gives those who do not have the time to be a regular player a chance to keep up with their more regularly playing friends. Can it also give those who are hard core an advantage over everyone? Sure. Then again the hardcore always seem to have an advantage since they're playing the bloody game WAY more than normal folks.
Is F2P perfect? HELL NO! I am always on the look out for a better model that balances casual times with social structure. Any suggestions on this kind of system? (Guild Wars 2 seems to be a contender from what I've read so far.
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Current Game: Asssasins Creed 2(PS3, Gamer Tag: Happy_Hubby)
Current MMO: World of Warcraft and World of Tanks
Former Subscribed MMO: Star Trek Online, Aion, WoW, Guild Wars, Eve Online, DAoC, City of Heroes, Shattered Galaxy, 10six.
Tried: Too many to list
Wrong, wrong, wrong:
Supporting casual play pushes devs to making short, simplistic, content. To a audience which is bigger but spends less time in the game.
A larger total audience is what we have now. Does anyone see a flourishing of new types of MMO including hardcore? The die has already been cast and we have more players playing one template. Yet more players will result in more of the same.
The social side was cut by the devs long ago. ‘Social gaming’ from the likes of Facebook is underexploited, that’s why you MMO industry guys can’t stop talking about it. But ‘social play’ is something that was made a third class citizen when role-playing and social interaction where sacrificed for easymode and accessibility. Casual play is in fact a negative factor to social play as the MMO is filled with players who only briefly encounter each other.
rather ironic
Well said.
Maybe so that most mmog's ment to be social and developers implement alot of social featers into these games but if community in general is rather anti social you get more and more solo players.
In last few years i see a more anti social community and more and more solo players it seems most mmo's have opposite effect and create a solo community.
Thats why swtor and more of these themeparks make solo play more viable gameplay style.
One of last true realy social games ive played and played more in party(fellowship 9party members) and raids was Asherons call 2 and that was 6 years ago before game died.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
#4. Social and Casuals will leave to their own favorite games, rather than forcing hardcore games into being emote-centric chat rooms.
ChuckleNuts says: LAWLZ ROFL!!!!!111 *sigh*
I agree with Sallas89. I want my MMO to be competative, difficult, and have a complex learning curve.
I expect games to be challenging. If they aren't, I won't be playing them for long. If I want friends, I'll play Facebook.
Sorry Dr Fang, but the designers want to have the maximum number of players and cash in on social networks. So every MMO is being dumbed down and links are already being made between MMO’s and social networks. Steam and Real ID are steps in that direction.
We are already on the road to Facepalm hell.
Oh my god, I never thought I could ever see such a simple statement made to explain and put FaceBook and F2P into one phrase. Well done.
Personally I think that the social aspects of gaming is down to Devs making competition only games, those that try t implement social aspects get put in the carebear corner. Those that try to mix it up go broke. And all the rest are dreaming.
Every review or article tries to place the blame for the shortcomings of the "insert game" down to weak and water-down excuses for the company who paid them to write the article in the first place.
I go out try a game and if I like it stay around while I find something in that particular game. When a group of us become social then we get to know each other more and either group up, form/join a guild and get on with what can be achieved between the whole group.
So be it either grouping social aspects, grinding social aspects, sitting around nagging socialistic mother groups, or what ever you choose. I am sick of either reviews trying to give reason on how/why the industry needs to expand. And then on the flip side some pathetic excuse of a dev team making excuses why everybody left.
In the end, we see something, we look. We like, we stay and play. If we have the mechanics to be social adventure, group and all the rest, that's the Devs job. If they cannot be bothered adding things to the game or even listening to their players wants and how it fits or could fit into their world, then screw them and go find something else.
I would like to see the writer put his spin on a church group and why they are social creatures and continue going back. Or take a group of blokes who gather at the local watering hole and team up. Or maybe a group of mothers who get together and socialise for entirely different reasons.
Once you can do that, then you've answered your own articles question. Socialisation in gaming means different things to different people. Yet others see it as a release and challenge for some self gratification on a different play field rather than returning to the anti social world outside.
If the article was supposed to be about growth guess what. More people born each day in the world, it's growing and so is gaming. Just depends if the Devs are listening and creating enticing enough worlds for those upcoming gamers.
Now i'm a casual gamer (too old to play seriously... i'm so near to fifty...) but i think that casual players can enjoy the game till level cap and... then? Mostly or reroll another chracter (anc can be boring) or quit.
BTW it's true that casual players it's a big market but, probably, we need games developed for this kind of people.
My blog about (no more)MMORPG Addicted - a bog about videogames, cinema, politics and other things (in Italian)
Funny how you promote and defend the casual and social gameplay(not unexspected btw mmorpg.com in general a big time favorites of themeparks) while 99% of released games over past 5 years are themeparks with casual and social gameplay.
And mmo market prolly around 98% of all games is casual and social.
A good think why?
Unbelievable that you say this, you should take ferm stand agains casual gameplay and take sides for more losing side hardcore mainly free for all pvp sandbox games.
Even games like ryzom have to endure casuals who hate ryzom becouse npc's have no !,? above head or can't jump and then say it crap game bah:(
Your obvious agains hardcore games in general and specially games like Darkfall well mmorpg.com rating says it all, you all bunch of eurogamers who ruined with mmorpg.com together for Darkfall reviewed by themepark fans with very low scores:( , and reviewer who realy hated hardcore gameplay and as most casual and social players will sayDarkfall is a anti social game for hardcore nerds, while thats not true at all, i think most themepark gamers are very anti social.
You casuals and social themepark players are ones who ruin this market its sad you guys keep promoting ezmode fluff for kids from 8 to elders 88:(
In general sure its good that with alot of succesfull themepark mmos we get more games but im sure it won't helps hardcore mmo's, its oposite there are less and less hardcore mmo's made over past 5 years.
Majority that whines and screams on forums doing this on forums like Darkfall there more haters and trolls comming to forum then real fans.
Dont we have enough of this casual crap hundreds maybe even over 1000 themeparks for casual and social and maybe hadfull sandbox for hardcore:(
But as over years proven you win eventually and prolly in few years nothing but ezmode carebear fluff games left:(
But defend casuals do whatever please you in end its only thing you can talk about becouse hardcore is extinct.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.