A View From the Road: Cry Less, Noob

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Guild Wars, I entered the world of post searing at level 4 because of some jerks that took advantage of me not knowing what was going on. However, instead of letting that get to me, I continued to play on that character, and he remains my main to this day. But I could play it all and even though it was difficult, still live and enjoy the game at such a low level.

Another one for my camp I feel Easy is tedious.

 

[Syntax Error]

Death Penalties are the things that almost made me break keyboards when I was still actively playing MMO's. While my experience with this is limited to Experience penalties (you lose 10% of the total XP you need to level), it's not hard to feel angry because you died of LAG. It's worse when you think that that 10% will take you 4 or 5 hours of grinding to get back. Though this also had an upside in that players are trained to play carefully and select targets that they can actually kill.

Another complaint I can think of from those days is the unnatural difficulty curve in most areas. You might be breezing through one area, then on the next there are monsters strong enough to one-hit kill you without any warning.

But I loved the social aspect of it all. Adventuring with like-minded people is great. Trash talk goes a-flyin' when someone dies.

 

[KaiusCormere]

Honestly, I have zero interest in non-death penalty based pvp. There's a whole dynamic that is there when people have consequences for dying - lootable items is what I'm thinking of here - and without that I can't be bothered.

I never PvPed for the hell of it, for fun, or whatever. I did it because I am a strategy nut, and I'm addicted to the deadly serious adrenaline rush when you put it all on the line.

But Eve Online is the only MMO that does PvP in a way I personally enjoy. Mindless insta-respawn killfests aren't fun for me at all. If I wanted that kind of action, I'd play an FPS.

 

[Proteus214]

Fond veil of nostalgia, my bum. It was frustrating, evil and sucked my life away. I still loved it. If you want pretty skipping games then fine, but don't paint my game with rainbows when I like the dark.

My sentiments exactly. I love a challenge in a game where you are rewarded for excellent play with something other than just a shiny star on your achievement list. You gain respect from the community and you make a lot of friends with your guild mates while you're at it. I find that more solid comradery comes from content that is much more difficult. It creates a buzz that is difficult to match with any other gaming experience.
A game could never make me jump up and down screaming "YES! FUCK YES!" and yet when my guild killed M'uru (one of the most difficult raid bosses ever made) I did. Were the wipes demoralizing? Yes. Was the preparation and execution exhausting? Absolutely, but the victory was so very sweet.

 

[Charli]

Amen. I'm sorry but there is still content in MMO's to cater to the masochistic.
Anyone crying otherwise hasn't actually gotten there and is bullshiteing their face off for the sake of justifying their little whine-crusade.

I've played games that carry the torch of clearly being only for the grindy, twitchy, 8 hour a day gamer and really, after time, I really am not having fun, because everyone's just trying to 'Out-elitest' everyone else and it does become a glorified dick waving contest that I just don't want to get into anymore.

I have my own nostalgias but I acknowledge when things are just for the best.
Things are not being made casual, believe me if they were my mum wouldn't look at my WoW interface like I was using advanced microsoft excel spreadsheets and I was explaining trigonometry to her.

Shes a gamer too so... believe me that explanation is not void of merit.

 

[lordswift1]

Yeah Eve Online is the game for me. Sense of loss in this game is one of the main reasons i love it. You can lose everything if you make a mistake. but it does not take you long to build it back up again.
No naff respawning and back in the battle almost instantly. Unless you have ships nearby

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

I've played games that carry the torch of clearly being only for the grindy, twitchy, 8 hour a day gamer and really, after time, I really am not having fun, because everyone's just trying to 'Out-elitest' everyone else and it does become a glorified dick waving contest that I just don't want to get into anymore.

And that attitude is what really gets me down. Just because I want to spend time taking down Hamidon or Rallos Zek does not mean that I laugh at petty level 1's that would kill to be me.

Look next to you, one of those level 1's is likely to be me as well.

I like casual at times, I like hardcore at times. But changing one into the other because of "demographics" is stupid, petty and gives you a brief increase in treasury before burying your game.

 

[Charli]

I've played games that carry the torch of clearly being only for the grindy, twitchy, 8 hour a day gamer and really, after time, I really am not having fun, because everyone's just trying to 'Out-elitest' everyone else and it does become a glorified dick waving contest that I just don't want to get into anymore.

And that attitude is what really gets me down. Just because I want to spend time taking down Hamidon or Rallos Zek does not mean that I laugh at petty level 1's that would kill to be me.

Look next to you, one of those level 1's is likely to be me as well.

I like casual at times, I like hardcore at times. But changing one into the other because of "demographics" is stupid, petty and gives you a brief increase in treasury before burying your game.

Aaand I think you misunderstand me, I'm not saying interchanging one for the other is good, it certainly isn't. But making all the visable content avaliable to those that play the game the average amount of time for the entire playerbase isn't a bad thing, this is what irritates me when those that carry the title of hardcore get their knickers in a knot about.

Level 1's don't even enter into the equation, I'm talking about those of a fairly equal status at the higher end of the game who suddenly get left in the cold because they can't keep up the hours needed to see everything... I mean it's a game! Not a job! Averaging out and then creating difficult modes of those things for the overly dedicated with better rewards is a very good way to go about it. Just seeing the content and imagining how hard the difficult modes are will be enough for the so called casual. And for those that want to take it further the option is there.

But those that still whine after that is what gets my headaches going.

And sorry but I was in the leiu of 'First wave' Zakum Killers in Maple Story Global (US now only isn't it?), I know what being one of those overly dedicated individuals is like... kinda boring after a while. Nice memory, wouldn't go back to it though...

I am NOT saying make all MMO's more casual, that's not what the article is saying either. These Games are working toward happy mediums for all and what gets me down is the hardcore failing to see it because it's not what they are used to, if they just changed their thought patterns and got down to see what can be done 'instead of', they'll find the tough chewy center of self inflicted greif they always like picking at... Myself included.

While some MMO's are casualling it up so to speak, I don't agree with it, some are trying their hardest to cater to all and still getting greif...which really sucks.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Aaand I think you misunderstand me,

Not much to misunderstand really : "because everyone's just trying to 'Out-elitest' everyone else and it does become a glorified dick waving contest" : seems quite to the point.

But making all the visable content avaliable to those that play the game the average amount of time for the entire playerbase isn't a bad thing

Yes it is, and do you want me to tell you why?

Average amount of time can be REALLY low. I spent over 1000 hours in City Of Heroes and never got to see all the content, but some people did and had a wail of a time.

How much time do you think the casual has to spend? 4 hours a week maybe? 6 months until they get bored, so maybe 80 hours in game.

And in that time they HAVE to be able to appreciate everything? That's just crushingly bad.

Should Diablo have removed the cow level because not many people could have got to it?

Take a look at a game like GTA Vice City which isn't an MMO. How long would it take you to explore everything that had to offer? Years of casual play?

Are you saying that you'd stop people being that "overly dedicated individuals"?

No? Well neither would I.

Equally I'm not saying that you need to log on a 7 each night to have a chance at a .01% drop of the Uber-Goober Armour of Uberness, because that gets really old, really quick.

What's needed is an understanding that there's (at least) 2 different styles of play and not just set the game to only accomodate one of them. Which ironically is what Eve tends to do.

Casual friendly does not have to mean hardcore unfriendly, which is what Microsoft seem to be sticking on at the moment with Windows, you just have to have a little track that says "For a tougher time, click here".

I've collected more rats tails than you've had hot dinners So sometimes I like to start on cats.

 

[John Funk]

Fond veil of nostalgia, my bum. It was frustrating, evil and sucked my life away. I still loved it. If you want pretty skipping games then fine, but don't paint my game with rainbows when I like the dark.

My sentiments exactly. I love a challenge in a game where you are rewarded for excellent play with something other than just a shiny star on your achievement list. You gain respect from the community and you make a lot of friends with your guild mates while you're at it. I find that more solid comradery comes from content that is much more difficult. It creates a buzz that is difficult to match with any other gaming experience.
A game could never make me jump up and down screaming "YES! FUCK YES!" and yet when my guild killed M'uru (one of the most difficult raid bosses ever made) I did. Were the wipes demoralizing? Yes. Was the preparation and execution exhausting? Absolutely, but the victory was so very sweet.

But here you're precisely proving my points.

Are there any severe death penalties in WoW? Not at all; you lose some money on repairs and that's it. But that doesn't mean M'uru was any less of a complicated and intense boss fight. Would you have still enjoyed fighting him so much if every time you'd wiped, you'd lost 10% of your level and had to go grind it back? Or if every time you wiped, you had to wait 15 minutes for your death penalty to go away?

Now imagine that Blizzard had been doing the same "Normal Mode / Hard Mode" thing for TBC. The exact same fight with M'uru that took you wipe after wipe to get down - no changes whatsoever - would be "Hard Mode," and you'd get better gear from it. But then there'd also be a "Normal Mode" for less advanced raiders to take in and see the content. They'd get to control the blue dragons as they fought one of the leaders of the Burning Legion for the fate of Azeroth. They wouldn't get your fancy title, or special mounts, or loot that's as good, but they'd get to SEE it.

See, this is my point: There's nothing wrong with a challenge. Indeed, challenges keep us playing. But singleplayer games have difficulty settings that let players experience the entire thing at their level of challenge - why should MMOGs be any different? Something that's a challenge for the top tier of raiders is literally insurmountable by 99% of the populace; why should all the coolest art, lore, etc be found there?

If you can give the raiders their challenge (and last I checked, Hard Mode Anub'arak has only been killed by what, seven or eight guilds and it's been more than a month?) and still let more casual players see the content - at their own level of challenge - then you absolutely should.

 

[Charli]

Okay good Funk gets my point, because everyone else isn't getting that they're saying exactly what I think should be done, our experiences are just amounting to different ways of going about it.

It's difficult to explain when every one of us is probably playing a different MMO with different lines of developement and innovation in place.

 

[Tharticus]

If there's one thing about playing early, you can experience the early content. Playing the latest version would happen to result in getting better but mostly catering to the newbies.

I played several MMOs and came back to see what's different and pretty much the old versions are more of a tightrope walkings than easy cakewalk of the present day.

Jerry Holkins (Tycho)

There is a kind of genius expressed by Blizzard's mission to level the curve of World of Warcraft's original experience, slashing down brambles and rooting out malevolent fauna in an effort to grease the chute. As someone who has escaped its necrotic whorls, it feels a little like they're diluting the meager achievements I managed to secure, but any maneuver that diminishes the petty cruelties of that arc must be seen as a kindness in aggregate.

I might refer to the Penny Arcade comic "Consider the Nub".

Spoiler

 

[Beltaine]

I'm gonna disagree.

I am no where near a "hardcore" player, and I am not a "casual" player.

(As an aside, I'm seriously tired of gamers having to be pigeonholed as either "hardcore" or "casual")

I don't think the problem was that MMO's were too difficult or punishing. I also don't think that making them more "casual" was a solution.

Hear me out.

With the 1st and 2nd generation of MMO's (Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies) you didn't create a character and log in for the purpose of completing the game. You logged in to build your character, meet people and make friends, join a guild, explore the world, craft items, open a shop, help build a community, tackle dungeons, hunt down bosses, find treasure, defeat other players from other factions, protect your guildmates from playerkillers, hunt down playerkillers, and generally experience the life of your character.

All of the above was made more fulfilling and gratifying because it took a little bit of work, dedication, and sweat to make it happen.

Very few, if anyone, logged into that first generation of MMO's thinking "Man, I wish I could skip all this boring training and leveling crap so I can beat the final boss and finish this game."

Something happened though, in the transition of that 2nd generation. Developers began spending more time on content at the end-game. Why not? Most of their players were there now and they had to come up with a way to retain them instead of them moving to another game.

As end-game content expanded, it was necessary to up the difficulty in order to keep people playing. If you could clear new content in 1 month with your level capped character, then there was no point in maintaining a subscription. You could buy the expansion, play your month and see all the new things, get the new loot, and then happily suspend your account and play something else until the next expansion.

Fast forward to today's MMO's and what you find is a glorified tutorial designed to take you, on rails, through leveling your character to cap. Because level cap is where the real game is.

You want to defeat the Lich King? No problem. You can have every step from level 1-80 laid out right in front of you so you don't even have to think about what zone to go to and what monsters to fight. Grouping? Not necessary. Even though the game is Massively Multiplayer, you can breeze through the entire leveling experience all by your lonesome in about 5-10 days of play time.

"But you can't defeat the Lich King by just being level 80", you say? No problem, the game has already been modified to allow you to get 75% of the gear you'll need to enter the last raid dungeon without ever having set foot in any of the previous raid dungeons. It's a good thing too, because you won't be able to find anyone doing the previous content that will accept a character that needs the upgrades from that content anyway.

Developers have been making their end-games more "casual" because they're doing nothing to keep players from racing to be there.

No, I think the original MMO's WERE casual games. A typical night in UO could be spent in a guild tavern, doing nothing but sitting around and telling stories with guildmates. In Everquest, the developers knew that not everyone would be level capped and waiting for the next dungeon to be released because they were bored with the latest. There were things to do regardless of your level, size of your guild, and/or your ability to put together a small army of people to tackle a boss. Yes, there were some things that were extreme, including death penalties and week-long respawn timers, but they were doing something new and different and trying different ways of keeping people playing their game.

The major punishments were ironed out later on, but the popularity was growing and the gaming companies wanted to sell more product. The pendulum swung too far in the other direction. The status quo has become so diluted now that anything resembling the original ideal of an online world where you log in to a character and participate in the world just for the experience of the world is laughed at.

Today's MMO's have become a mad dash to the end. A single-player game teasing you with lots of little goodies you'll get to play with when you reach level cap. A glorified forum full of people and guilds waiting to post "First!" when they complete new content.

If you're not having your hand held by quest givers to direct you through the content, your game is a "grindfest".

If you are encouraged to seek out people to form groups to see content before you are level-capped, the game is too "hardcore".

If you can't defeat 3 other players on your own, the game isn't "balanced".

If you want people to experience the world you've built and not worry about being level-capped, having the best gear, a bank full of wealth, and plenty of things to do once you're at level cap, then your game is not only "too easy", or "boring", but it's also "incomplete" and "lacking content".

I still "play" my MMO games. Do you?

Or do you "complete" them?

 

[Fearzone]

Yeah Eve Online is the game for me. Sense of loss in this game is one of the main reasons i love it. You can lose everything if you make a mistake. but it does not take you long to build it back up again.
No naff respawning and back in the battle almost instantly. Unless you have ships nearby

I think that is a good way to handle things... death penalties yes, for which you lose and your victor gains, but at the same time make them easy to recover from.

If my warlock lost his Staff of Infinite Mysteries to some rogue ganker (I'm talking early Burning Crusade), after all the guild/raid BS and patience I put up with to get it, I would have walked out the door, bought a gun, and shot my monitor, keyboard, and probably computer too. I mean I have several broken keyboards to my credit as it is even without severe death penalties. BUT... if replacing that staff meant a weeks worth of honor farming in the battlegrounds, I could have dealt with that, and I think I would prefer the game that way.

EVE, my sense is, from the time I played, is that nearly everything, including quest items, can be bought with ISK. I respect that. I think I could have gotten into EVE if only the fun parts came sooner.

 

[Fearzone]

No, I think the original MMO's WERE casual games. A typical night in UO could be spent in a guild tavern, doing nothing but sitting around and telling stories with guildmates.

Yeah, last night in Champions Online, after questing and cage match, I went into a disco. Aside from one player with all the broken imbalanced abilities challenging me to a duel, it was just a good old-fashioned disjointed and chaotic chat room while my superhero danced on the floor. I was surprised Blizzard never came up with that, and I don't mean Barren's Chat.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

No, I think the original MMO's WERE casual games. A typical night in UO could be spent in a guild tavern, doing nothing but sitting around and telling stories with guildmates.

Yeah, last night in Champions Online, after questing and cage match, I went into a disco. Aside from one player with all the broken imbalanced abilities challenging me to a duel, it was just a good old-fashioned disjointed and chaotic chat room while my superhero danced on the floor. I was surprised Blizzard never came up with that, and I don't mean Barren's Chat.

Pocket D in City of Heroes was built on that concept. There was Disco nights AFAICR.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Well put points

Agree totally. Anyone who "completes" an MMO has missed the entire point.

 

[Cherry Cola]

I like this guy. He's awesome

 

[Dahemo]

Well put points

Agree totally. Anyone who "completes" an MMO has missed the entire point.

What is the point, exactly? I've just read a page full of differing ideals regarding MMOs, and a good article forwarding another viewpoint. I would argue that there is no concrete "point" that we can strive towards, as every option or implementation comes with its own problems and ultimately leaves one or several groups out in the cold.

For example, someone mentioned a two-tiered parallel system, which sounds nice but has so many inherent flaws. Segregation of "casual" and "hardcore" by some contrived means is a dangerous path; what happens if a casual gamer wishes to become "hardcore"? Could a "hardcore" gamer regress to meet IRL demands yet still enjoy the game?

My personal opinion is that games must strive to be themselves, create a compelling environment and worthwhile challenges, then allow players to do what they will with that. If your game is hard intentionally, maintain that, if very easily accessible, stay as you are. Correct only imbalances which harm the gameplay experience, but don't pander to those who whinge, no matter how loudly. The term "nerfing" is born from palyers whining that their class has been kneecapped by changes, so better planning and less tinkering should be a watchword.

The reality is that in these highly competitive times developers have to push ahead with flawed designs or concepts and pray that the patches/updates/expansions will provide them the opportunity to fix them, so my points are largely moot. That said, the greatest gift deveopers can give to players is freedom...

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

My personal opinion is that games must strive to be themselves, create a compelling environment and worthwhile challenges, then allow players to do what they will with that. If your game is hard intentionally, maintain that, if very easily accessible, stay as you are. Correct only imbalances which harm the gameplay experience, but don't pander to those who whinge, no matter how loudly. The term "nerfing" is born from palyers whining that their class has been kneecapped by changes, so better planning and less tinkering should be a watchword.

Again, this is a good set of ideas that seem to be ignored by the latest MMO developers. Why should MMO's be kept casual friendly? Why can't they be gamer friendly?

The reality is that in these highly competitive times developers have to push ahead with flawed designs or concepts and pray that the patches/updates/expansions will provide them the opportunity to fix them, so my points are largely moot. That said, the greatest gift deveopers can give to players is freedom...

But they don't, do they? They create "The Next WoW Killer" and fail, because WoW is not the best game ever made. It's just the most popular and that's got little to do with whether you can reach 99% of all the areas.

In fact, from my limited understanding, you can't. There's just a set path to rush to 60, that's why the gold farmers love it so.