MMO PvE is just a more sophisticated version of 'Simon Says'. I don't care if someone else can follow a sequence of mechanics and press keys correctly. My experience should be not be tied to their ability to do so.
Now group PvP is a completely different story. Human beings are to a degree unpredictable. There's a huge skill component in the ability to not just adjust on the fly to your opponents but do so in unison with your allies. It requires an amount of coordination and discipline that you won't find in PvE.
You can be successful in PvE by simply watching YouTube videos, copying their strategies and then following their key sequences and movements. All this requires is a good memory and I don't find it the least bit impressive thus I certainly do not want to do it with another human being.
MMOs at their core are designed for grouping, but that grouping should always be done for PvP. PvE should be a solo activity.
Originally posted by Edli You talk like there is and always will be one generation that plays games. The one that is 30 years old now. Which is ridiculous. You think there aren't kids with to much time in their hands now like they're used to be? It sucks for those that got older but they are not the only ones playing.
I'm sure eventually my generation will die of old age.
But for now, the majority of gamers are the 30-50.
Whether you personally like group content or not is irrelevant. I'm just looking at the data going 'this is why X is not appealing to my demographic'. If you have data to prove me otherwise, please share them.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
The average gamer may be 30, the average mmo gamer is not. Those that have kids have stopped playing mmos ages ago. Sure there are still some of them around but they do not make the majority of the mmo playerbase. They now mostly play daughter and waifu simulators like tlou. 10 hours of gameplay that is closer to a movie than a game.
There will always be new generation of kids with a lot of free time. I would say the numbers of them today is much bigger than it was 10 years ago.
Originally posted by Edli The average gamer may be 30, the average mmo gamer is not. Those that have kids have stopped playing mmos ages ago.
According to most studies and research, the average age of an MMO gamer is somewhere between 26 and 28 years old. Individual MMOs may tip to one end of the scale or another due to their target demographic. Whatever the case, 26-28 isn't that far off from 30 and holycrap are these boards crawling for anyone else lately?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Hey OP when you title your post "Why Group Content doesn't work for the majority of the player base " And go on to complain about or try to make an argument about grouping in an MMO and its SO HARD because you have kids dont expect any sane person to listen period. How is it that I have 3 kids, a wife, work 60 hour weeks and take online classes for my Bachelor's of Science in CIS, and I still find time to raid weekly (Yes some weeks I just cannot make it) and find time for group content with kids? Its called time management and not crying when I cannot raid for two weeks because of real life. I don't go to the GAME forum or MMO forums and bitch moan and groan over why MMOs require grouping. They do its a MMO and if you dont like it go play a single player game. Stop bitching because you lack time management skills and you want games to change for you. If you are the type of person who has to be busy every minute of every day stop trying to get people to feel sympathy for you. Grow up be a man and deal with it. I am tired of people like you thinking your a something special when Millions of other players are just like you. 95% of my WoW guild right now are in the same boat than I am in, only 3 right now are single early to mid 20's. However we manage to raid and do group content without a problem. Yea a week here or there we cancel because of BBQs during the summer or football tryouts. But thats life.
Ok I didn't read all 6 pages but your first post and last post stated this 30-50 age group. Where are you getting your info? Are you referring to all gamers? Or mmorpg players? Because if it's all gamers you are very wrong they don't want group content. What are some of the higher selling games? Halo because of multiplayer , CoD because of multiplayer, WoW because of multiplayer.
Now if you are saying the average age of mmo players is 30-50 again where you getting your info? Because the truth is the average age of mmo players is 26 years old. 25% are teenagers and well here is a link with tons of other fun stats.
Ok I didn't read all 6 pages but your first post and last post stated this 30-50 age group. Where are you getting your info? Are you referring to all gamers? Or mmorpg players? Because if it's all gamers you are very wrong they don't want group content. What are some of the higher selling games? Halo because of multiplayer , CoD because of multiplayer, WoW because of multiplayer.
Now if you are saying the average age of mmo players is 30-50 again where you getting your info? Because the truth is the average age of mmo players is 26 years old. 25% are teenagers and well here is a link with tons of other fun stats.
I would suggest reading the OP if you wish to contribute to this thread rather than have people go '/Facepalm'.
I read your OP and you are basically crying about not having as much time to play an MMO and how hard it is to get with long time friends in an MMO. This is not unheard of and I am telling you that you are not some special snow flake. Right now I have a married couple who just had a baby daughter in June. I have not played with them since January because life. They will just pick back up in a few months and we will go on as nothing happened. Its LIFE deal with it. I still manage to make other friends and people with others who have been in an out of MMOs for 10+ years. MMOs are a social game make friends as you go. You will not like everyone you play with just like you will not like everyone you work with. You basically are crying because you do not social network well and want a game to change for you. I have heard this time and time and time again. If you dont want to do what it takes to be successful you only have you to blame. I social network in games just like I social network with people I work with so I get a better job. I use social networks to make friends and see content in games.
Originally posted by danwest58 Hey OP when you title your post "Why Group Content doesn't work for the majority of the player base " And go on to complain about or try to make an argument about grouping in an MMO and its SO HARD because you have kids dont expect any sane person to listen period. How is it that I have 3 kids, a wife, work 60 hour weeks and take online classes for my Bachelor's of Science in CIS, and I still find time to raid weekly (Yes some weeks I just cannot make it) and find time for group content with kids? Its called time management and not crying when I cannot raid for two weeks because of real life. I don't go to the GAME forum or MMO forums and bitch moan and groan over why MMOs require grouping. They do its a MMO and if you dont like it go play a single player game. Stop bitching because you lack time management skills and you want games to change for you. If you are the type of person who has to be busy every minute of every day stop trying to get people to feel sympathy for you. Grow up be a man and deal with it. I am tired of people like you thinking your a something special when Millions of other players are just like you. 95% of my WoW guild right now are in the same boat than I am in, only 3 right now are single early to mid 20's. However we manage to raid and do group content without a problem. Yea a week here or there we cancel because of BBQs during the summer or football tryouts. But thats life.
So you have this site post a column of how gamers are NOT "entitled" . And then you have a post like this explain how that "not entitled" post is so far from the truth.
Pretty much sums it up. I dont get people who feel entitled. I guess I will put it like this. I once played Floor and Roller hockey and when I was 19 I was playing 7 days a week 3 to 7 games a day. I just loved playing when I was not working I would play. Games were at a set schedule. If I had to work a few heavy weekends around holidays I didnt bitch and complain that my work schedule or my hockey schedule had to conform to my schedule. I could try with work but I was a dishwasher/cook and low on the totem pole. I worked when I was scheduled.
Today I know server people who are around that age today. They bitch and complain when they get scheduled to work 8pm to 1am on Friday and Saturday nights. They come back with the excuse that they are special and it ruines their weekend and they cannot be expected to work that schedule because they go out clubing. That is Entitlement the same thing the OP is complaining about. Its the same thing, they basically want a game or work or what ever to conform to their wants and schedule. Well guess what people. The world does not revolve around you.
Recently 2 of my friends got married and found out afterwards that their wives were ex-WoW players.
This started a series of events that ended up with 9 players in Karazhan cause most of us left during the BC/Wrath era and no one knew what the heck was going on.
Where are my talents? Why is there a pokemon game in WoW? I was told there is farmville in WoW now. Where is it? F it! Lets pile into Kara for old times sake!
While it was a fun run of 9 people for '2-3 hours' something struck me. Not one of us actually managed to play for the full 2-3 hours.
Baby feeding / baby bath / wife aggro / Non-scheduled downtime at work etc all meant people had to take breaks while others went ahead. Now Kara is solo content so we didn't have any issues as we made our way through but what if it wasn't?
What if we were in 'current Raid content' in WoW? Would any one of us actually be able to play?
Now, back in the BC/Wrath days, most of us were single so we could. Now? Married + kids? I don't think so. And I don't think i'm alone in this. The large portion of people who played WoW on release were in their 20s. They grew up and are doing things that most people do when they grow up; have a child / start a family.
This limitation for us means 'bite sized content' which starts the whole 'lack of grouping' in modern MMOs. If you only have 20mins consecutively, you are not going to be able to group with other people.
Here's the thing, I'm pretty sure we represent the largest portion of the MMO playerbase; middle class or higher, aged around 30-50. As someone from that playerbase, sorry but this 'group content' isn't more important than my baby's meal / baby's bath / Wife aggro / whatever.
MMO players grew up, deal with it.
for the record, i am 38 years old. i played wow since US beta.
i can STILL play for as long i want.
i made a choice there, to not get married and NOT have annoying children. because i have no life?
na, because i have too many to start another one.
YOU stopped being a gamer, deal with it.
but stop telling the rest of us what works and whatnot.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
US: Female age 32 yrs, male age 29 yrs, 47% were single, 25% were parents. 53% had fulltime job.
EU: Female age 32 yrs, male age 27 yrs, 47% were single, 17% were parents. 45% had fulltime job.
Op states that the reason why group content doesn't work for the majority of the player base NOW is because a majority of players have kids. The reason why this is completely false is that the 30 minute heroic dungeons was introduced back when 20-25% of players were parents, with the LFraid happening shortly after.
The reduction of group content happened because people didn't want to do group content, it didn't happen because a majority of players became parents.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
how many of you completed WoW instances on HC yet?
or let's go even further, how many of you completed the latest raid on NORMAL not in the bloody LFR?
the LFR was made to actually show the players who bought the game - AND DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME OR PEOPLE - the whole game content, in a DUMBED DOWN VERSION.
you completed the lfr? gz - that's NOT what wow is about.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
I'm 40 and still have lots of time to play games. I just don't want to sit in a raid anymore with a bunch of people I don't really like but need them to get loot.
I'd rather goof off doing not so serious stuff with people I actually enjoy playing with. Many of them have time issues so I guess it's still a factor but really I've just been there and done it and even have a bunch of T-shirts. Raiding just isn't all the different in these games.
Although I'm slightly older than this the statement sums up my feelings also. Done raids, don't need the drama. Done 5 man content same drama. None of my friends are gamers so I'm stuck with solo... which is all the same regardless of title. So I quit MMOs until something new comes along and I can have that 'first time' feeling again.
Originally posted by danwest58 Hey OP when you title your post "Why Group Content doesn't work for the majority of the player base " And go on to complain about or try to make an argument about grouping in an MMO and its SO HARD because you have kids dont expect any sane person to listen period. How is it that I have 3 kids, a wife, work 60 hour weeks and take online classes for my Bachelor's of Science in CIS, and I still find time to raid weekly (Yes some weeks I just cannot make it) and find time for group content with kids? Its called time management and not crying when I cannot raid for two weeks because of real life. I don't go to the GAME forum or MMO forums and bitch moan and groan over why MMOs require grouping. They do its a MMO and if you dont like it go play a single player game. Stop bitching because you lack time management skills and you want games to change for you. If you are the type of person who has to be busy every minute of every day stop trying to get people to feel sympathy for you. Grow up be a man and deal with it. I am tired of people like you thinking your a something special when Millions of other players are just like you. 95% of my WoW guild right now are in the same boat than I am in, only 3 right now are single early to mid 20's. However we manage to raid and do group content without a problem. Yea a week here or there we cancel because of BBQs during the summer or football tryouts. But thats life.
So you have this site post a column of how gamers are NOT "entitled" . And then you have a post like this explain how that "not entitled" post is so far from the truth.
Pretty much sums it up. I dont get people who feel entitled. I guess I will put it like this. I once played Floor and Roller hockey and when I was 19 I was playing 7 days a week 3 to 7 games a day. I just loved playing when I was not working I would play. Games were at a set schedule. If I had to work a few heavy weekends around holidays I didnt bitch and complain that my work schedule or my hockey schedule had to conform to my schedule. I could try with work but I was a dishwasher/cook and low on the totem pole. I worked when I was scheduled.
Today I know server people who are around that age today. They bitch and complain when they get scheduled to work 8pm to 1am on Friday and Saturday nights. They come back with the excuse that they are special and it ruines their weekend and they cannot be expected to work that schedule because they go out clubing. That is Entitlement the same thing the OP is complaining about. Its the same thing, they basically want a game or work or what ever to conform to their wants and schedule. Well guess what people. The world does not revolve around you.
He gave his opinion. I don't see him demanding anything. Where exactly is the 'entitlement' problem coming in?
Most of the people i started out gaming with can't be bothered now for those very reasons. The guy that got me into gaming doesn't hardly game at all and he used to be famous back in those old counterstrike days. Makes me kind of sad but life goes on. If anything most of them are what you would call super casual gamers now. Raids are the last thing they would want to do now. I think its time for mmos to offer better content that doesn't involve raiding. Thats why know i know likes end game Wildstar.
Originally posted by Edli The average gamer may be 30, the average mmo gamer is not. Those that have kids have stopped playing mmos ages ago.
According to most studies and research, the average age of an MMO gamer is somewhere between 26 and 28 years old. Individual MMOs may tip to one end of the scale or another due to their target demographic. Whatever the case, 26-28 isn't that far off from 30 and holycrap are these boards crawling for anyone else lately?
Yes, it's really bad, I usually have to have another tab open so I can read another forum while I'm waiting for MMORPG.com to load a page.
The fact is, and you're right, people haven't stopped playing online games just because they grow up, the overwhelming majority of people who started playing UO and EQ haven't dropped online gaming, they've stayed and developers now cater to them because they represent the majority of gamers. Kids and people with no lives, while they may be the most vocal, represent a minority of the demographic.
how many of you completed WoW instances on HC yet?
or let's go even further, how many of you completed the latest raid on NORMAL not in the bloody LFR?
the LFR was made to actually show the players who bought the game - AND DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME OR PEOPLE - the whole game content, in a DUMBED DOWN VERSION.
you completed the lfr? gz - that's NOT what wow is about.
I guess you are aiming the post at me, given that I mentioned reduction. What I referred to was reduction in time to play things, and it had nothing to do with raidfinder since the tool didn't even exist when I played wow.
Dungeons went from 4 hours to 1.5 hours down to 30 minutes. There was a huge reduction in needed time to play through raid instances which explains why we finished bastion of twilight in one raid evening on 25-man.
The attitude that you would go for the quickest way to get gear existed before dungeon finder was introducer, but when it was introduced in WotLK dungeon running was all about speed, pug it and you listened to the "GO GO GO" mantra, and the dps spamming, and it had to be quicker and faster. Whenever you ended up in Oculus people dropped groups immediately because it wasn't fast enough.
They did try to change dungeons in cataclysm, making them slightly harder and longer, but instead people stopped running them (according to blizzard metrics). What the majority of players actually wanted was quick and easy dungeons that you could PUG, and none of it had to do with most WoW-players having kids.
If we are going with anecdotal evidence, my wotlk raid group still exists but went from a 25-man group down to a 10-man group and still raid 3 times per week although the attitude is slightly more casual. The people that wanted more hardcore raiding went for the 5-6 raid days per week, and those that got a busy real life quit the game for good.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
Originally posted by Cephus404 ...the overwhelming majority of people who started playing UO and EQ haven't dropped online gaming, they've stayed and developers now cater to them because they represent the majority of gamers...
Really, because almost none of the people I met in EQ still play online games today. If you had said WoW, I'd probably agree with you since every game out there is a Wow clone so lots of quest hub games for them to enjoy. I know, Vanilla WoW was different, but still.
People also enjoy alternatives. The very simplified version of EQ today has its merits. Less stress, faster leveling, good soloing possibilities (until the higher levels). I found it appealing when playing it a few years ago. But I also would like my old, hard, EQ back. People seemed to take the game more seriously then; and formed stronger bonds; and were more vested in the world.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
Originally posted by jpnz Originally posted by KingAlkaiser no offense in any way ( don't take this the wrong way) but the world doesn't revolve around you, just because you can not dedicate time to play a Multiplayer game doesn't mean it should be catered down to you. Just because you can't find the time to play mmorpg doesn't mean other wont pick it up, last time i checked world population is around ~7.046 billion-8 of your friends......see what i mean. Theres' plenty of single player games/moba types games that doesn't require time investment like MMORPG's.The "OP"'s mentality is the reason the MMORPG genre is so watered down nowadays and why few maintain high population over a period of time as they try to please everyone and it just won't always work well for anyone. why group content doesn't work for the majority of the player base.........................>7.046 billion can't all invest time on them.....................= thank you captain obvious.
You seem to not understand the difference between 'Majority' and 'All'.
No offence btw.
And you don't understand the difference between the "majority" and "your group of friends" in no way does what you experience in your group of friends reflect the "majority" of anything. Here is another fun link for you that points out how multiplier games (groups) are taking over and asking if single player games are dead.
Recently 2 of my friends got married and found out afterwards that their wives were ex-WoW players.
This started a series of events that ended up with 9 players in Karazhan cause most of us left during the BC/Wrath era and no one knew what the heck was going on.
Where are my talents? Why is there a pokemon game in WoW? I was told there is farmville in WoW now. Where is it? F it! Lets pile into Kara for old times sake!
While it was a fun run of 9 people for '2-3 hours' something struck me. Not one of us actually managed to play for the full 2-3 hours.
Baby feeding / baby bath / wife aggro / Non-scheduled downtime at work etc all meant people had to take breaks while others went ahead. Now Kara is solo content so we didn't have any issues as we made our way through but what if it wasn't?
What if we were in 'current Raid content' in WoW? Would any one of us actually be able to play?
Now, back in the BC/Wrath days, most of us were single so we could. Now? Married + kids? I don't think so. And I don't think i'm alone in this. The large portion of people who played WoW on release were in their 20s. They grew up and are doing things that most people do when they grow up; have a child / start a family.
This limitation for us means 'bite sized content' which starts the whole 'lack of grouping' in modern MMOs. If you only have 20mins consecutively, you are not going to be able to group with other people.
Here's the thing, I'm pretty sure we represent the largest portion of the MMO playerbase; middle class or higher, aged around 30-50. As someone from that playerbase, sorry but this 'group content' isn't more important than my baby's meal / baby's bath / Wife aggro / whatever.
MMO players grew up, deal with it.
I think you are really over-generalizing here or at least drawing some conclusions about what people expect from an MMO. When I was a kid in college, my freinds and I used to play board-games or PnP role-playing probably at least 4 nights a week. Obviously, married with a family and a job, that doesn't work anymore... but I can pretty consistantly carve out an evening to do that once every 2-3 weeks and so can most of my married and employed freinds. This gets even easier as the kids get older.
If you expect to play every single night like you did 20 years ago....then yeah, you need something that can be consumed in bite-sized pieces and easly interrupted. Frankly I find off-line games like SPRPG's or Strategy/Wargames either single player or PBEM alot better for that sort of thing because you really can pause and save the game whenever you want. I don't really look to an MMO for that sort of experience.
On the other hand, I don't know too many people who can't arrange for a few uninterrupted hours of personal time every week or two or three. It's easy enough just to trade off with the spouse with a "You watch the kids on Friday night so I can game, I'll watch them on mondays so you can watch your shows" type deal
I don't think that the issue is whether group content works for the majority. It does, but it has to fit the parameters of an individual's preference. People don't want to have to schedule things based around a guild boss's timeclock...they want their own timeclocks to be honored for a change. And so, group and raid finder tools are great for them.
They don't want to have to stick a headset in their ear to enjoy group content. They want to immerse themselves in the game, not the chummy chummy BS that imposes itself on the game via TeamSpeak. And so, group and raid finder tools are great, because they can do group content without some guild gatekeeper deciding whether they can or can't.
I think the issue is with the way the games have traditionally made the group content accessible, guild membership, is something fewer and fewer customers are really interested in. That's the thing that the new games are moving away from. They are designed so that you can find the content you want, without having to rely on a gatekeeper.
__________________________ "Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it." --Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints." --Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls." --Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Well...of course it doesn't work when you have no time to play.
-No time to play...
-Play something else...
As a dev so first you have to say "I want to make a game for A) people who have time to play or people who don't... hmm."
Actually, it makes more sense for a developer to have people who don't have time to play, assuming they're going to pay anyhow. Less time to play means less time online, meaning they need fewer servers. It means they need fewer GMs and other customer service personnel. It means they don't have to make new content as fast. It means that they will sell more out of the cash shop that makes it easier to level. All in all, people who don't play, but pay anyhow are much better than people who play all the time.
US: Female age 32 yrs, male age 29 yrs, 47% were single, 25% were parents. 53% had fulltime job.
EU: Female age 32 yrs, male age 27 yrs, 47% were single, 17% were parents. 45% had fulltime job.
Op states that the reason why group content doesn't work for the majority of the player base NOW is because a majority of players have kids. The reason why this is completely false is that the 30 minute heroic dungeons was introduced back when 20-25% of players were parents, with the LFraid happening shortly after.
The reduction of group content happened because people didn't want to do group content, it didn't happen because a majority of players became parents.
So you agree with the OP that the group content doesn't work for the majority of players. You even cited one of the best examples of how MMOs have acknowledged that and designed to accommodate it - in WOW we saw the gradual reduction of group content in size (from 40 to 5 players) and time (from a couple hours to half hour) to cater to how people play and enjoy their games.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Ok I didn't read all 6 pages but your first post and last post stated this 30-50 age group. Where are you getting your info? Are you referring to all gamers? Or mmorpg players? Because if it's all gamers you are very wrong they don't want group content. What are some of the higher selling games? Halo because of multiplayer , CoD because of multiplayer, WoW because of multiplayer.
Now if you are saying the average age of mmo players is 30-50 again where you getting your info? Because the truth is the average age of mmo players is 26 years old. 25% are teenagers and well here is a link with tons of other fun stats.
I would suggest reading the OP if you wish to contribute to this thread rather than have people go '/Facepalm'.
In the article you cited, the data shows that 77% of gamers play with others at least one hour per week.
If they are playing with others at least 1 hour per week, I'm not sure where that excludes group content. Maybe not high-tier raids, to be sure, but it seems the majority of players engage in some sort of "group content" every week.
The average age of the gamer is, in fact, 31. However, of strictly computer based gaming, only 12.3% of the market share is held by Role-Playing games. Of households owning a dedicated gaming device, 68% play on consoles, another 53% on smartphones. Since dedicated PC gaming isn't even included in the bar graph shown, I'd assume it isn't a higher percentage than consoles or smartphones.
So, the average gamer is 31. The large majority of those gamers play on consoles, a second majority on smartphones. Of those that even do dedicate a PC to gaming, only 12.3% of the games bought for this platform are role-playing. What's more, in the overall scheme of online gaming time played, only 11% of it was dedicated to persistent multi-player universes.
To imply that, by this data, the average age of MMO gamers must also be 31 is a fallacy of composition/division. MMO gamers are a tiny percentage of the overall gaming data included in that article. If you've ever heard of an outlier, you know there can be a clear case made for the possibility that the MMO gamer's average age could very well be one. Note that I'm not saying, definitively, that the average age of an MMO gamer is an outlier. I'm saying that, with the data cited, there's not a very strong case to be made that the average age of an MMO gamer correlates strictly with the overall age of a gamer.
Comments
Group PvE has never made sense to me.
MMO PvE is just a more sophisticated version of 'Simon Says'. I don't care if someone else can follow a sequence of mechanics and press keys correctly. My experience should be not be tied to their ability to do so.
Now group PvP is a completely different story. Human beings are to a degree unpredictable. There's a huge skill component in the ability to not just adjust on the fly to your opponents but do so in unison with your allies. It requires an amount of coordination and discipline that you won't find in PvE.
You can be successful in PvE by simply watching YouTube videos, copying their strategies and then following their key sequences and movements. All this requires is a good memory and I don't find it the least bit impressive thus I certainly do not want to do it with another human being.
MMOs at their core are designed for grouping, but that grouping should always be done for PvP. PvE should be a solo activity.
I'm sure eventually my generation will die of old age.
But for now, the majority of gamers are the 30-50.
Whether you personally like group content or not is irrelevant. I'm just looking at the data going 'this is why X is not appealing to my demographic'. If you have data to prove me otherwise, please share them.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
There will always be new generation of kids with a lot of free time. I would say the numbers of them today is much bigger than it was 10 years ago.
According to most studies and research, the average age of an MMO gamer is somewhere between 26 and 28 years old. Individual MMOs may tip to one end of the scale or another due to their target demographic. Whatever the case, 26-28 isn't that far off from 30 and holycrap are these boards crawling for anyone else lately?
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Thank you for proving my point
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/130552/unmasking_the_avatar_the_.php?print=1
Lets look at how OLD this is. DAOC / UO / AC1 / AC2(!) / EQ
AC2 shut down 10 years ago (well 9 to be precise) so if we take the '26 year old' from NINE years ago, what do we have now folks?! That's right! 35!
OR lets look at something current
http://venturebeat.com/2014/04/29/gaming-advocacy-group-the-average-gamer-is-31-and-most-play-on-a-console/
I would suggest reading the OP if you wish to contribute to this thread rather than have people go '/Facepalm'.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I read your OP and you are basically crying about not having as much time to play an MMO and how hard it is to get with long time friends in an MMO. This is not unheard of and I am telling you that you are not some special snow flake. Right now I have a married couple who just had a baby daughter in June. I have not played with them since January because life. They will just pick back up in a few months and we will go on as nothing happened. Its LIFE deal with it. I still manage to make other friends and people with others who have been in an out of MMOs for 10+ years. MMOs are a social game make friends as you go. You will not like everyone you play with just like you will not like everyone you work with. You basically are crying because you do not social network well and want a game to change for you. I have heard this time and time and time again. If you dont want to do what it takes to be successful you only have you to blame. I social network in games just like I social network with people I work with so I get a better job. I use social networks to make friends and see content in games.
Pretty much sums it up. I dont get people who feel entitled. I guess I will put it like this. I once played Floor and Roller hockey and when I was 19 I was playing 7 days a week 3 to 7 games a day. I just loved playing when I was not working I would play. Games were at a set schedule. If I had to work a few heavy weekends around holidays I didnt bitch and complain that my work schedule or my hockey schedule had to conform to my schedule. I could try with work but I was a dishwasher/cook and low on the totem pole. I worked when I was scheduled.
Today I know server people who are around that age today. They bitch and complain when they get scheduled to work 8pm to 1am on Friday and Saturday nights. They come back with the excuse that they are special and it ruines their weekend and they cannot be expected to work that schedule because they go out clubing. That is Entitlement the same thing the OP is complaining about. Its the same thing, they basically want a game or work or what ever to conform to their wants and schedule. Well guess what people. The world does not revolve around you.
for the record, i am 38 years old. i played wow since US beta.
i can STILL play for as long i want.
i made a choice there, to not get married and NOT have annoying children. because i have no life?
na, because i have too many to start another one.
YOU stopped being a gamer, deal with it.
but stop telling the rest of us what works and whatnot.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
OP likes to use the idea that the majority of players have kids so let's use one survey that was made in 2010.
Nick Yee paper on WoW players.
US: Female age 32 yrs, male age 29 yrs, 47% were single, 25% were parents. 53% had fulltime job.
EU: Female age 32 yrs, male age 27 yrs, 47% were single, 17% were parents. 45% had fulltime job.
Op states that the reason why group content doesn't work for the majority of the player base NOW is because a majority of players have kids. The reason why this is completely false is that the 30 minute heroic dungeons was introduced back when 20-25% of players were parents, with the LFraid happening shortly after.
The reduction of group content happened because people didn't want to do group content, it didn't happen because a majority of players became parents.
seriously, which reduction?
how many of you completed WoW instances on HC yet?
or let's go even further, how many of you completed the latest raid on NORMAL not in the bloody LFR?
the LFR was made to actually show the players who bought the game - AND DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME OR PEOPLE - the whole game content, in a DUMBED DOWN VERSION.
you completed the lfr? gz - that's NOT what wow is about.
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Although I'm slightly older than this the statement sums up my feelings also. Done raids, don't need the drama. Done 5 man content same drama. None of my friends are gamers so I'm stuck with solo... which is all the same regardless of title. So I quit MMOs until something new comes along and I can have that 'first time' feeling again.
He gave his opinion. I don't see him demanding anything. Where exactly is the 'entitlement' problem coming in?
Yes, it's really bad, I usually have to have another tab open so I can read another forum while I'm waiting for MMORPG.com to load a page.
The fact is, and you're right, people haven't stopped playing online games just because they grow up, the overwhelming majority of people who started playing UO and EQ haven't dropped online gaming, they've stayed and developers now cater to them because they represent the majority of gamers. Kids and people with no lives, while they may be the most vocal, represent a minority of the demographic.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
I guess you are aiming the post at me, given that I mentioned reduction. What I referred to was reduction in time to play things, and it had nothing to do with raidfinder since the tool didn't even exist when I played wow.
Dungeons went from 4 hours to 1.5 hours down to 30 minutes. There was a huge reduction in needed time to play through raid instances which explains why we finished bastion of twilight in one raid evening on 25-man.
The attitude that you would go for the quickest way to get gear existed before dungeon finder was introducer, but when it was introduced in WotLK dungeon running was all about speed, pug it and you listened to the "GO GO GO" mantra, and the dps spamming, and it had to be quicker and faster. Whenever you ended up in Oculus people dropped groups immediately because it wasn't fast enough.
They did try to change dungeons in cataclysm, making them slightly harder and longer, but instead people stopped running them (according to blizzard metrics). What the majority of players actually wanted was quick and easy dungeons that you could PUG, and none of it had to do with most WoW-players having kids.
If we are going with anecdotal evidence, my wotlk raid group still exists but went from a 25-man group down to a 10-man group and still raid 3 times per week although the attitude is slightly more casual. The people that wanted more hardcore raiding went for the 5-6 raid days per week, and those that got a busy real life quit the game for good.
Really, because almost none of the people I met in EQ still play online games today. If you had said WoW, I'd probably agree with you since every game out there is a Wow clone so lots of quest hub games for them to enjoy. I know, Vanilla WoW was different, but still.
People also enjoy alternatives. The very simplified version of EQ today has its merits. Less stress, faster leveling, good soloing possibilities (until the higher levels). I found it appealing when playing it a few years ago. But I also would like my old, hard, EQ back. People seemed to take the game more seriously then; and formed stronger bonds; and were more vested in the world.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
You seem to not understand the difference between 'Majority' and 'All'.
No offence btw.
And you don't understand the difference between the "majority" and "your group of friends" in no way does what you experience in your group of friends reflect the "majority" of anything. Here is another fun link for you that points out how multiplier games (groups) are taking over and asking if single player games are dead.
http://venturebeat.com/2014/06/16/is-single-player-dying-the-move-to-multiplayer-and-the-sacrifice-of-solitude/
So you consider lol/dota as mmos? Okay.Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
I think you are really over-generalizing here or at least drawing some conclusions about what people expect from an MMO. When I was a kid in college, my freinds and I used to play board-games or PnP role-playing probably at least 4 nights a week. Obviously, married with a family and a job, that doesn't work anymore... but I can pretty consistantly carve out an evening to do that once every 2-3 weeks and so can most of my married and employed freinds. This gets even easier as the kids get older.
If you expect to play every single night like you did 20 years ago....then yeah, you need something that can be consumed in bite-sized pieces and easly interrupted. Frankly I find off-line games like SPRPG's or Strategy/Wargames either single player or PBEM alot better for that sort of thing because you really can pause and save the game whenever you want. I don't really look to an MMO for that sort of experience.
On the other hand, I don't know too many people who can't arrange for a few uninterrupted hours of personal time every week or two or three. It's easy enough just to trade off with the spouse with a "You watch the kids on Friday night so I can game, I'll watch them on mondays so you can watch your shows" type deal
I don't think that the issue is whether group content works for the majority. It does, but it has to fit the parameters of an individual's preference. People don't want to have to schedule things based around a guild boss's timeclock...they want their own timeclocks to be honored for a change. And so, group and raid finder tools are great for them.
They don't want to have to stick a headset in their ear to enjoy group content. They want to immerse themselves in the game, not the chummy chummy BS that imposes itself on the game via TeamSpeak. And so, group and raid finder tools are great, because they can do group content without some guild gatekeeper deciding whether they can or can't.
I think the issue is with the way the games have traditionally made the group content accessible, guild membership, is something fewer and fewer customers are really interested in. That's the thing that the new games are moving away from. They are designed so that you can find the content you want, without having to rely on a gatekeeper.
__________________________
"Its sad when people use religion to feel superior, its even worse to see people using a video game to do it."
--Arcken
"...when it comes to pimping EVE I have little restraints."
--Hellmar, CEO of CCP.
"It's like they took a gun, put it to their nugget sack and pulled the trigger over and over again, each time telling us how great it was that they were shooting themselves in the balls."
--Exar_Kun on SWG's NGE
Well...of course it doesn't work when you have no time to play.
-No time to play...
-Play something else...
As a dev so first you have to say "I want to make a game for A) people who have time to play or
people who don't... hmm."
Actually, it makes more sense for a developer to have people who don't have time to play, assuming they're going to pay anyhow. Less time to play means less time online, meaning they need fewer servers. It means they need fewer GMs and other customer service personnel. It means they don't have to make new content as fast. It means that they will sell more out of the cash shop that makes it easier to level. All in all, people who don't play, but pay anyhow are much better than people who play all the time.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
So you agree with the OP that the group content doesn't work for the majority of players. You even cited one of the best examples of how MMOs have acknowledged that and designed to accommodate it - in WOW we saw the gradual reduction of group content in size (from 40 to 5 players) and time (from a couple hours to half hour) to cater to how people play and enjoy their games.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
In the article you cited, the data shows that 77% of gamers play with others at least one hour per week.
If they are playing with others at least 1 hour per week, I'm not sure where that excludes group content. Maybe not high-tier raids, to be sure, but it seems the majority of players engage in some sort of "group content" every week.
The average age of the gamer is, in fact, 31. However, of strictly computer based gaming, only 12.3% of the market share is held by Role-Playing games. Of households owning a dedicated gaming device, 68% play on consoles, another 53% on smartphones. Since dedicated PC gaming isn't even included in the bar graph shown, I'd assume it isn't a higher percentage than consoles or smartphones.
So, the average gamer is 31. The large majority of those gamers play on consoles, a second majority on smartphones. Of those that even do dedicate a PC to gaming, only 12.3% of the games bought for this platform are role-playing. What's more, in the overall scheme of online gaming time played, only 11% of it was dedicated to persistent multi-player universes.
To imply that, by this data, the average age of MMO gamers must also be 31 is a fallacy of composition/division. MMO gamers are a tiny percentage of the overall gaming data included in that article. If you've ever heard of an outlier, you know there can be a clear case made for the possibility that the MMO gamer's average age could very well be one. Note that I'm not saying, definitively, that the average age of an MMO gamer is an outlier. I'm saying that, with the data cited, there's not a very strong case to be made that the average age of an MMO gamer correlates strictly with the overall age of a gamer.