The Glade 4.0

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/f ... -Easy.html

I find my self agreeing with him. Up until he starts talking about his own MMO which I doubt will be very different. I can play an MMO like SWTOR because it has a good storyline while leveling. End game hasn't been fun for me in any game since Burning Crusade and funny enough, WotLK was when I felt WoW turned too easy and I stopped playing. I went back for Cata and while it was a bit better than WotLK, it was still too easy. Everquest is too different from what it once was(though it was fairly enjoyable for the time I played it recently, but as soon as my friends stopped playing, it wasn't fun anymore because you can't do jack **** alone). The current generation MMOs are certainly too easy, in my opinion. And I agree with this post in that it kind of kills the sense of achievement.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

I've had discussions on this. I think a lot of people confuse "hard" for "pain in the ***." Mechanically, boss fights in Warcraft have grown more and more complicated, especially since Vanilla and BC. It was just more of a pain in the *** to get 40 people on the same server together, get them all geared and keyed (how many times have I been to UBRS to get 40+ Horde players keyed for Onyxia? It's in the triple digits). Coordinating 40 people was also a pain in the ***. It wasn't "difficult" or "hard" it was just time consuming.

Same with camping long spawns and the like in EQ, having hell levels that took literal weeks to get out of, or amassing asstons of toons to zerg the planes. If a URL link required 30 clicks before it took you to a website, the end result is no different than clicking once and the only difference one was more of a pain in the *** to do, not necessarily "harder."

People also have to realize that the gamers themselves have changed over time as well. They are another variable in the whole equation that many don't seem to realize.

I think what it generally boils down to is that veterans of MMOs are trying desperately to recapture the feeling of what playing an MMO was like when they themselves were new or somewhat new to the genre. And that's why nostalgia can be a harsh *****.

You can dress up in your 1980's clothes. You can watch the shows you watched in the 80s. You can listen to those tunes from the 80s. You can talk to other likeminded folks about the 80s... but you'll never be able relive the 80s again and likely you wouldn't want to. Nostalgia's trap is that it only lets you remember the good and it glosses over the bad.

It's better to accept the changes and enjoy things for what they are. Not what they were or what you personally wish they could or should be (which, again, may not necessarily be the best wish).

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

To me the big change is how little groups are "required" for.

Most of my playtime in WoW, outside of normal raiding, requires me to have almost no communication with anyone else.

Dungeons, heroic scenarios? Everyone knows their roles, just go to it.

Someone made a point about EXP grinding in EQ a while back- the pace was slower, you had a while to chat and get to know a group, and you didn't have to click so many things per minute that you couldn't really type anything without dying/losing DPS.

I find it's hard to chat in groups in WoW these days, mostly because if I take the time to type something (and I'm very fast), I likely lose the mobs I'm tanking, drop a fair chunk of DPS, or the person I'm healing dies.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I have noticed, in discussion of TESO with many people, that there's a strong undercurrent among MMO players of basically just wanting nothing but "endgame". It's all about just lining up the numbers (people, gear, rotations) the "right" way to kill things "efficiently" and anything besides that is just a drag that doesn't belong in a "modern" MMO. Insta-teleportation or at least fast transport, insta-auction halls, addons that let you know every detail of the behind-the-scenes numbers, the ability to inspect and know every detail of any other character you meat.. and so forth.

Gamers don't rely on skill; they want to figure out the numbers and then use the "optimal" solution, because somehow this is "competitive" aiding or something.

EVE avoids a lot of this, but EVE is also not for everyone; it IS hard, brutal even, and a lot of it comes from the other players being a pain in the ***. Every game can't be EVE; most games shouldn't try.

But, games should stop trying to be WoW. The people demanding all this are also the people complaining of WoW-clones, and hopping from game to game at the drop of a hat. Everything is "gimmer endgame RIGHT NOW RARR!!". Developers, if they want this genre to remain strong, need to basically stop listening to the playerbase so much, especially for the major things that affect the game's social dynamics. Players are great for feedback on "We want to have crossbows!" and "ability X trivializes ability Y" specifics, but players suck at overall game balance and appeal. They claim they want the same thing in every game, right before going off to the next one.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Interesting read.

Some of it reads like an add for his latest game, but I agree with his basis.

In the effort of making MMOs for accessable, they have made them too easy. In WoW, it's especially bad and mad worse IMHO because there is such a swing in difficult, often with no real ramp up. Raids get very technically difficult without much in the way of "training" areas to learn the skills necessary to raid well.

And as Numbuk points out, raiding in WoW has become more annoying, not more difficult. And really melee unfriendly.

In some ways I miss the leveling experience, as doing the quests and exploring the world is to me one of the most fun parts of a game. However, the challenge there is in being able to play with friends and having the content scale.

This was something that CoH actually did pretty well, in that you could instantly grab a buddy who logged on, invite them regardless of their level. SK them up or down to match you, and have them come join whatever mission you were on and it would automatically scale up to your new party size as soon as you used an elevator. If only more systems would use a scaling mechanism like that.

DIdn't EQ (or maybe EQ2?) have a /mentor command that allowed you to lower yourself to a group members level?

I've been making this point for at least 5 years, now. I think this and the lack of required grouping content while levelling (and assumption that this would comprise MOST of the good levelling content, not just a handful of instanced dungeons sprinkled every 5-10 levels as mini-endgame content rather than grindable levelling content) are the biggest culprits in preventing us from getting that EQ feel back. Because the thing that drew us into EQ was the community. And that community was built on the socializing and hanging around while the cleric medded and you were waiting on a pull, or the warrior's typed lines between kicks and taunts.


The stuff you talk about with fast travel and auction houses vs. live sales also plays into this. EQ and its contemporaries were memorable for their immersion -- even if it wasn't strictly a roleplaying jargon, it was definitely its own world where location mattered, and you could dedicate time to doing a vast array of things. Players are also notorious for "desigining" all the interesting things out of games, and then complaining of boredom if you cave to their design advice.


EQ2 did. Not sure about latter EQ1. But CoH did it first, and CoH did scaling, where EQ2 didn't. The problem with CoH was that the group dynamics were a little loose, scrappers were way OP ( ), and procedurally generated content gets repetitive. It probably remains my favorite action-MMO, though. Say what you (or I) will, but the combat was itself fun.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I think the slower pace is why I like soloing as a tank in WoW. Takes a while to kill things, but it takes a while for things to kill you, too.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

Agreed with this.

No game has gotten this right, ever. Some have gotten close. WoW and SWTOR had the feel of gameplay while leveling right, but EQ had the pace. It took forever to level, and it made it an adventure.

As for the "End Game" itself, I don't like it. Never have. I've participated in it, but I don't want to have to deal with guilds and schedules and the stress of it all. Worst yet: I don't ever want to feel stuck at some point in my character advancement. I should always have an avenue to move forward, at my own pace and gameplay style. I shouldn't be trapped a tier below because I don't want to join a raiding guild or use Ventrilo or stay up until 3AM on a raid. That ends the adventure right there.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
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ROFL, I read a lot of the replies and this one caught my eye...



There is no going back. Most of us that cut our teeth on EQ, aren't going to or can't devote that amount of time to a game. And most of today's crowd won't put up with the amount of time and work vs reward, thus the most popular games are WoW and the like. Easy, fast, and cheap.

If I were to try and spend as much time on a game as I did in the first years of EQ, I'd likely be divorced. And, it just wasn't healthy. I shudder thinking of the hours I spent trying to accomplish simple things.

That was true for almost everyone122334411223344

What EQ did was to introduce 'Spirit Shrouds' in the Depths of Darkhollow expansion in 2005 (a year and a half after CoH was released). Instead of being down-ranked to a lower-level version of yourself, you chose an available monster in the level range in which you wished to play.

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Go back to zero, take a pill, and get well ~ Lemmy Kilmister

EQ2 had scaling of a sort, but it didn't work too well. De-levelled mentors basically just annihilated everything. I hated doing stuff in mentor parties because itwas so trivial.

Kaffis has it right, though. Players design all the interesting stuff out of games, especially anything social other than raids and max level group dungeons. A lot of stuff you basically shouldn't be able to do solo. People whine that then it will be frustrating and tedious and they'll quit and go back to WoW, but they do that anyhow.

Honestly, drama and player politics keep games strong. EVEs metagame is arguably stronger than the actual play. EQ player and guild drama kept people going forever; think of some of the arguments over loot. People claim to hate drama... but they love it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

speak for yourself. crap like that is why I quit EQ.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

I'm with Taly on this one. Rarely has a game caused me to quit, it's always the people that are playing the game.

When drama and assholes get to prevalent, I usually walk away.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I disliked the grind of EQ. There was no incentive to do quests, which meant just grinding mobs. Which meant attempting to stake out a good spot to do so in the hopes that someone else hadn't done it.

That fostered a sense of community in the same way that a four hour wait in a doctor's Waiting Room might foster a sense of community. When you are that bored, there is nothing else to do BUT talk to other people. I said this in 2000, and I'll say it again: EQ was just an AOL chat room that had a bit of combat on the side. Don't get me wrong, I have fond memories of the game and am glad for the time I spent in it. But I would never, ever go back.

A sense of community is fine, but it shouldn't exist solely because everything else you're doing is so damned boring.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I'm not speaking for myself; I'm speaking for the health of the games. I don't like drama, and I didn't like loot disputrs in EQ, but they kept me engaged. It isn't fun to get ganked or blobbed in EVE, but the elaborate corporate political scene is more engaging than most drama movies. It keeps people coming back, so from a business standpoint its smart.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

It really shouldn't, and no one should try to reproduce grinding as it was in EQ. However, in evolving away from impossible quests and endless grinds, we got stuck on the wow plan of ever-easier general gameplay so rhat people can trivialize raids faster.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Also worth noting that you either have to have some grinds or simply massive amounts of content.

And then you have the issue of trying to cater to both people playing a bit each day, and those playing for 8+ hours each day.

IF you have enough content to satisfy the latter, the former feel like it's an insurmountable climb.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

I'm not sure how you can say that. No game has come close to the financial health of WoW, regardless of what we think of it.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Yeah, I call those people content locusts that are halfway to max level after 8 hours and maxed in 3 or 4 days. There is no way to make enough endgame to satisfy them and no way to make enough grinding to slow them down, and they tend to be the most demanding that everything revolve around their impossible-to-satisfy playstyle. I wish more designers to basically tell them they aren't worth the effort.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Exactly. No game has dulicated its success. Trying to is a proven losing strategy. Making WoW clones in gameplay and easy access doesnt work because people can just go back to wow when they find nothing new. Until WoW gets so old or its devs **** up so bad that the mass market is not willingto do that, things will remain that way. Other games should compete with WoW by not being like it.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The desire to grind keeps growing weaker and weaker for me, especially if I have to do it alone.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

It's the alone thing that's the kicker for me in WoW atm.

The friends I do have, I don't sync up with faction or playtime with very often, and the two guilds I've tried have both been pretty dead.

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Darksiege: You are not a god damned vulcan homie.

World of Warcraft isn't as successful as you may think. The vast majority of the subscriptions come from asian countries where they don't have the same pay model as here in western countries. Basically, you buy game time that allows you to pay for X number of hours, rather than an unlimited monthly subscription. So all of those "active accounts" Blizzard likes to point to is people that have as little as one minute left on their card but don't play the game anymore. WoW has been bleeding subscribers since WotLK and is not nearly as healthy as people believe it to be. Does it still have more numbers than other MMOs? Probably. We'll never know for sure, though.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

Their sub numbers have taken a steep, steep drop over the last 2 xpacs.

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Holy shitsnacks!