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MMOGs Only For the Hardcore?
Gamepro has an editorial up asking the question are Massive Games only for the hardcore? From the article: "Part of it has to do with the conventional pricing model. With a game demanding $15 a month, you can't afford to just casually log in a few hours on the weekend without feeling jipped. So the casual gamer's MMO has to be a game entertaining enough to pull people away from their usual games (let's face it, most MMOs are boring), and rewarding enough in a 1-2 hour timeframe so it doesn't require you to neglect your daily routines."
here is the text from the second part of the article
"duh"
There is truth in humor.
It seems difficult, possibly even impossible, to create a game where advancement does not depend upon a particular path. Put simply, it's nearly impossible to create a game where you can advance as quickily by soloing as by grouping. In World of Warcraft, you can almost do this for the first 1/3 of your levels. Almost. Eventually it becomes impossible, and you're left with the same problems other MMORPGs have--you either have to be able to devote the same amount of time to the game as your friends, or you have to constantly find new groups. New groups can be fun, but I generally prefer to play with people I know or just solo. Of course, this means soloing, but then if I wanted to solo, why would I play a MMORPG?
The sad reason is that there just aren't that many good RPG-esque games out there. I'd love to play a single-player version of WoW, particularly with an added over-arching quest.
But consider how deeply some lives of normal non-geeks have been affected by MMOGs like Everquest. The difference between MMOGs and a monthly pass at your local video arcade is that the MMOG provides for a level of social interaction that simply isn't present in normal games.
The communication aspect of the game is built directly into the game, so for many people who are not typical gamers are able to enjoy the MMOG whereas they would be turned off by something like Pac-man. So it isn't that MMOGs need hardcore players to survive. Rather it is the style of the game itself that leads players to become "hardcore players" that are online all the time.
of early ORPG's, but everyone I hear harping about WoW and Eq2 and how they get XP boosts if they don't log in for a few days, tell me that they easily catch up to their guildmates who game almost constantly. With this solution to the problem of leveling gaps, the game becomes much more social, as friends can game together more regularly.
The problem with MMOGs is that casual players cannot compete with those who dedicate a significant portion of every day to playing. Someone who plays for a couple of hours on a boring Sunday afternoon is fresh meat for seasoned veterans of a game - and there's really no way to change this other than limiting how much people can play. I'm not entirely opposed to that, either.
-agent oranje.
By ignoring Puzzle Pirates, Planetside and the rest of the casual gaming market, he's gerrymandered the online market to support the argument of his article. Bleh.
schild
editor, f13.net
(note I did not RTFA):
"With a game demanding $15 a month, you can't afford to just casually log in a few hours on the weekend without feeling jipped."
Guild Wars has the one time cost of $50, and there's no monthly fee.
And about the whole leveling up and everything, in Player vs Player in Guild Wars, it's all skill based, so having a higher level doesn't really help that much.
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With a game demanding $15 a month, you can't afford to just casually log in a few hours on the weekend without feeling jipped.
Was is this taken as gospel, that cost is still an issue?? I hear people say that all the time, but even if you only play 3 hours a week, that means you are paying a little over a dollar an hour, where is the big deal? i used to go to arcades and spend ALOT more then a buck an hour.
Lord people whine.....in fact, let me now rant about people whining......
I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
I'd say it is to the contrary, really: most MMO'ers I know play it because it is only $15/month. After the initial purchase/download, if the game can keep their attention, they are pleased as punch because otherwise they would spend at least that much buying one game every few months.
With an MMOG, they can keep their same game going from month-to-month, without fear of starting over from scratch, for only a pittance compared to buying a new game every few weeks. And since MMOGs are tiered to release new content the higher a character's level is, and release brand new content for everyone on a regular basis, that one "golden game" can keep thousands of people for months.
Most men are not thought unwise until they speak.
Sounds like an orgy to me...
Come on... Talking about MMOGs and not mentioning Kingdom of Loathing?
You pay for a game, and you get tired of it in 3 month. Most of my friends are long burned out on WoW. They liked it, played it, but since that started to play games like kingdom of loathing (web based rpg) and PSP's and old RPGs that they havent played for years. Guess what, those RPGs they havent played for years didnt cost them 15 dollars a month. They can still play them and enjoy them. Your argument that there is new content to keep players paying 15 dollars is false. The content is the same within the same scope of game. So what there is a new mission, it is the same except change parameter from X to Y, instead of going to Z go to W. You pay 15 dollars a month for that?
Nonsense.
WWMMS
Personally, it's a turn-off for me, and one of the main reasons I've not particulary liked any of the MMORPGS since original Everquest. In original EQ, one could play only against the environment (PVE) or, when engaging in Player versus Player (PVP) the combat was limited to only those close in level. None of the major post-EQ MMORPGS have this feature and they suffer for it.
/. MMOG. STOP.
Logic, macros, and more
This is not intended to be a flame or troll, but as constructive criticism. You might want to refrain from the term "jipped". The root word is "gyp", which comes from "gypsy". This refers to the idea that all gypsies were thieves, and not to be trusted. It has become a derogatory term similar to "jewed". I assume that you would not use the terms "chink", "spic" or "nigger" here, so you might want to consider what effect using terms such as these might have.
This is only intended to be advice, from a political perspective. If you disagree, that's fine. It's just my opinion, which may be quite flawed. ;-)
Okay we've all identified the problems that exist in MMOs with hardcore gamers vs more casual, sunday afternoon type players.
All MMOs will discriminate in favour of the hardcore gamer, so what about keeping them apart ?
Most MMOs use multiple servers, this is usually for geographic or language reasons, they may then deploy multiple servers within each region in a sort of load balancing solution.
Why not move the player's characters around so that they wind up on a server where folks tend to play as much (or as little) as they do.
Obviously the players should be aware of this before they sign up.
And note I said characters not players, we've all got some "alts" we only wheel out on odd occasions.
Everyone starts off on an entry level server, if a character is played more than, say 6 hours a week, he is graduated to the next server, more than 10 hours a week, onto a more senior server.
Obviously players should be informed their character is about to move and be informed ahead of time (game time not real time) and possibly be given the option to lock their character to a particular server, though I can that last bit could be open to abuse.
The oldtimers wouldn't be mixing with the n00bs for very long before moving on and likewise the n00bs wouldn't get pwned as much.
That's it, thoughts ?
Throw in high level raids (which implies teamwork), instanced dungeons (normally done with multiple people) and a weak economic system (crafting has almost no risk involved and costs little) and the game just feels like it tried to achieve too much all at once. At lower levels, everyone solos and theres nearly no reason to team up with others for any reason. At higher levels, everyone teams up and soloing is near impossible. Top off the fact that most players end up reaching the 'end game' content with very little cooperation with other players and you have players that simply do not know how to play their job well at all.
To be fair though, I'll admit casual gamers also cause a growth in the economy. Those basic rocks, roots and monster eyeballs you bought had to have been collected by someone.
I'm a casual gamer myself, with about 3 hours of gaming per week at most.
:)
As much as I'd like to try an MMOG, the article is right in that it is just too expensive.
So should the programmers start building casual MMOG's?
No!
There simply isn't enough money in that market to make a good enough profit out of an MMOG.
Sure, you could probably make a profitable casual MMOG, but you can make a 10x more money by building a hardcore MMOG, so why bother?
Then again; a casual gamer will probably not tolerate any grinding whatsoever, so the only way to get a casual gamer to play an MMOG is if it has no grinding in it. I guess such an MMOG would be the dream of hardcore gamers too
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There are two million people playing World Of Warcraft - and with Guild Wars fighting WoW for the top place in the PC games chart - I'd say that the appeal of the MMO can be pretty damn non-hardcore.
Although what might be changing is the average sticking time. There are fanatics that play any game for years - people still play Quake 1 daily. MMOs used to only attract those fanatics - but gradually more people are discovering the MMO. But it doesn't mean that to play and enjoy an MMO you have to play it for years. If you play WoW for a couple of months, see all you want to see - then get bored with it - so what? You got your money's worth. Move on to another MMO and quit complaining.
I've played Planetside on and off since launch - quitting once to go play City of Heroes, game back to Planetside, quit again. Tried WoW, quit that, was going to go back but then I picked up Guild Wars - I slowed down somewhat but I'm still playing that, and now I'm also messing around in Second Life. Trying to get into Battlefield 2, but I'll probably just casually play until the next big shiny MMO comes along - which it eventually will.
My personal rule is that I'll never pay more than two MMO subscriptions at the same time - but I'll try to keep it down at one if I can. I then treat the MMO as if it were any other game when it comes to my buying decisions and what I want to spend my gaming time and money on.
The current version of Ultima Online is a far cry from the early versions. Ignoring the lag and server issues, the game was EXTREMELY complex, relied a LOT on player teamwork and had so much variety that it was possible to maroon yourself on a small far away island if you wanted to. You had dozens of different spells, weapons, status effects, monsters, and the ever-present threat of PVPers. You HAD to travel in groups if you wanted to travel the main roads without fear of being ganked by a group of 13 year olds who would mock you for dying in a 1-on-5 fight. It was also possible to set up teleports even into a monster's dungeon so you had to seriously trust a person if you were willing to step into someone else's portal before they did.
As one of the minorities listed above, I have witnessed and personally experienced such discrimination. I have never used such a term, other than as a reference to said term. Period. For someone who claims what your last sentence did, you sure used it quite a bit. But then... I suppose I should have expected that from an AC.
Most of the (rather short) article is uninspired whinging about MMORPGs and can be discarded. The only point they made that seems valid is the bit about solo, class-specific instances. The idea of providing a class-tailored quest that focuses on the players skill with their class' unique skills sounds like it would be good, especially if you can break it up into several sessions and use it to fill time between finding groups.
Everquest 2 has an element of this in the Halmark Quests that you need to progress beyond levels 10 and 20 but they provide an unequal challenge and are generally fairly easy. For example, the level 10 quests for the rogue involve killing mobs, sneaking and tricking people while the priest quests simply involve spending large amounts of time running back and forth between your trainer and some random NPC with no real challenges involved.
Guildwars also has an aspect of this in the early game, where you're picking up your secondary profession. You get quests that are designed to expose you to the abilities of your potential secondary class so you can decide what skillset is right for you. This works out really well since the game already has an established system for NPC 'henchmen' that work with the player but, unfortunately, it falls short because these quests only happen at early levels - pretty much everything else is generic and non-class-specific.
I don't claim to know how it should work but, if the game's going to have solo content, having some of it targeted at how well you play your role would be a lot better than "you're level $X, go do $FOO".
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Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
Too many people seem to treat MMOGs as work, or a must-win competition, or something otherwise onerous and unpleasant.
I'm playing World of Warcraft. I'm enjoying World of Warcraft. I'll unsubscribe when I stop enjoying it.
I won't be yelling "DAmm yu Bliizard!" on forums any time soon just because they changed the effectiveness of one spell by 1% or increased the drop rate of one blue item shortly after I "worked hard" to acquire it.
That's what being a casual gamer is about. Play, have fun, leave. Without bitching about it.
erroneous: look me up in a dictionary
PUH-LEEEEEZ! Never been to a European train station, eh?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Many of us at the top end of the age bracket for gamers (mid-30s) have few blocks of uninterrupted time to invest in larger quests and campaigns. We're lucky to get a few solid hours on a saturday evening. Even at 2 hours/weekend it's still a bargain when compared to other entertainment, it still seems like a rip-off if the user can't use the game outside of those blocks. MMOG products can address this a number of ways:
:)
- Create longer puzzling or strategic challenges that can require thought, planning, and possibly even group discussion outside the game. (In other words, a guild could chat on IM during the day and plan out how to infiltrate an enemy compound.)
- In addition to the current adventures, make shorter ones.
- Alternative non-play interfaces into the virtual world, such as access to the chat channels, virtual in-game web-cams, real time stats, mail, auctions, etc. The trick would be to do it without the usual 3d game client, using standard desktop technologies like DHTML, Java, RSS feeds, Flash, etc. Anything that allows the user to be a part of the world without a huge time and client investment, so they can be connected at work or in the short gaps between 'real-life' tasks at home.
- Make more real-world resources accessible and standard within the game client. Provide an IM client to major protocols (AIM, ICQ, Y!, etc). Obviously nobody wants windows popping up when they're battling a 60th level tit-mouse, but careful GUI engineering can provide unobtrusive notifications and even auto-responders. Same for other real-world resources, like email clients. Point being, for those of us that do get a few hours to play, keep us there.
- Hire me.
_______
2B1ASK1
It had very litle effective since very few people knew the jipped comes from gypsy(if that is even true).
Seems like you go looking for ways to be offended.
One of the reasons I stopped playing World of Warcraft was because even an hour or so a day wasn't enough. The problem was that there's only so much you can do in an hour, and the results seem almost insignificant. I just didn't have the time to spend even 2 hours a day playing a game, and it became really frustrating not keeping pace. What became even more frustrating was seeing people I had grouped with only a few weeks before, and they were 15 levels higher than me already. Then a few of them started alts and their alts would pass me in level! Admittedly, I'm not very good at video games, but the level of fun just dropped off and I retired WoW to the bookshelf.
Finance tutorials and more! Understandfinance
(There's also the small fact that for some reason no one wants to party with a hunter, despite the fact that if it's played well, it's a great puller and can prevent wipes).
Also, WoW's rested state helps give a boost to people who don't play as often. Hard core guys have to fight twice as many mobs basically.
If you're a casual weekend gamer and you need some henchmen to help with a difficult quest and you don't want to bother any human players, the game always has a few frendly computer henchmen waiting to be recruited by the gate.
I frequently spend $25 on a movie and snacks for two. Total time is usually 90 minutes. The maximum amount of interaction with the movie is laughing, being surprised or scared, and shushing the idiot who spends $25 to talk on his cell. Most of the time, I feel the experience was worth it. Yet $15 a month for an online game is a lot?
I also feel the $15 a month is high, but we're equating the game servers with internet servers. Since game servers are highly specialized, we should be happy the price is so low. I think it is a resistance-to-change mindset. Still, I prefer the "free service with purchase approach," because my interest will wane quickly. It's like insurance, you get overpaid for most players, and underpaid for the hardcore.
It is my conclusion that hardcore fans will never enjoy the lower prices we currently have if there aren't a huge number of casual fans.
Later on in the game you have instances where hunters are a must (Molten Core) but very few are dependable in terms of hours they can spend in front of the computer.
I started a druid and got it up to 29 and have grouped with quite a few people. I'm putting points into restoration and so far it's providing good healer services in groups. It also has the advantage of being decent soloing (so far) for when I don't have much time to play.
You're just a whiney bastard. No offense intended to actual bastards.
If you want to get anyway fast in these games, and you aren't hardcore, simply make a chick healer type.
"There are two million people playing World Of Warcraft - and with Guild Wars fighting WoW for the top place in the PC games chart - I'd say that the appeal of the MMO can be pretty damn non-hardcore"
To start with the nitpicking: even if they were only from the USA, 2 million players would mean less than 1% of the population. If you throw in Europe, some Asian players, Australia, the rest of America, etc, we're suddenly talking less than 1 per thousand.
So there still is plenty of room for attracting more casual players.
But in the end you provide the perfect example of why the author is right, after all. Think about it: WoW has some 5 times more players than EQ at its peak. What does WoW do differently? Catters a lot better to the non-hardcore folks, _and_ tries to reduce the difference between folks playing 16 hours a day and those playing 4 hours on weekends only.
With the XP bonus for being _offline_, it becomes a lot less of a race to squeeze in 1 extra hour a day or fall behind. If I play 6 hours a day, and you can play only 5 hours a day, chances are you won't fall as far behind as you would in some other games.
This is the exact opposite of what other games try to do. Most MMOs seem to be in a mentality that they must invent more devices to force/coax you to stay online more.
E.g., since you mention City Of Heroes, consider taskforces where if you quit before all 10 missions are over, the whole team might be screwed. Try doing the Cave Of Transcendence mission for example when one player has quit the team. You're screwed: you can't activate possibly activate all 8 obelisks at the same time, with less than 8 players.
E.g., consider COH's timed missions being _real_ time instead of game time. If you just got a mission with a 2 hour countdown, you can't quit, go to work for 8 hours, and come back to it. You do it _now_, work be damned, or find out you've failed the mission when you come back.
Fail too many of those, and you won't be able to buy some Single Origin enhancers from that contact. (Well, after level 35 it doesn't matter any more, since you can buy all SO from the shop NPCs. But if you want a Fly SO or an Endurance Regen SO at level 22, better do a lot of missions for the right NPC.)
Now I'm not saying COH is bad or anything. (Hey, it's my current addiction again. Damn right I won't say it's bad;) But I _am_ saying that its design goes even above and beyond the level grind to coax you to stay online more.
Blizzard takes the opposite approach: hey, if you can't stay online all day, it's cool with us. Here, we'll even give you _some_ xp bonus for the time you couldn't be on. Just so you won't fall too far behind and be unable to group with your friends.
So far, that seems to pay off for Blizzard. A _lot_ of people seem to be more comfortable with Blizzard's idea than with the traditional pressure to spend more and more time.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The thing that hits casual gamers most is the "can't catch up" syndrome. Especially if their friends are higher level. Some games are starting to mitigate that, CoH has sidekicking and mentoring, EQ2 has mentoring. Various games give XP bonuses when you haven't played for a while.
I think the biggest issue is that game developers turn their games into time-sinks. Obviously, as you get higher level and the sheer time it takes to level up increases, the casual player gets left out. If everybody could level in 1-3 hours, for every level, developers would still get months of playing time out of players. By that time, they'll probably have a social group and they'll be logging on as much to chat with them as to do any real gaming. Throw some crafting of some sort in there, and some high-end content (both massive raid and just really tough for a group), and you've got a game. The reality is that most people that play a game to level are going to start over with a new character when they're done. If you get 'em hooked with good gameplay, and limit the time-sinkyness, they'll keep playing.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
And maybe Planet Side where advancement is not as important as an MMORPG (the /. news post said MMOG right?) where the player just jumping into the battle and starts killing other players right away without worrying about gaining levels. There are advancements in both games but they only give slight advantages where as a level 60 vs 5 in EQ would be totally unfair (and is why they don't allow combat with that big of a range of player)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
I am also what you would describe as a casual gamer.
After playing a few months, I stopped. I found that what I was getting for my money just wasn't good enough. I might start again sometime in the future but I somehow think thats unlikely.
That's another thing I think is a rip-off. Six Months after unsubrscribing, my characters are deleted. For the money I've given them they could at least give my characters permanent space.
I only reached LV 36 with one character, because I didn't play all that much.
Having said that I did invest numerous hours into the Game.
I suppose that's because I did alot of soloing, like most poeple I know. I might have been on a bad server, but there just weren't enough people who wanted to casually group and do a few quests. And I haven't got that kind of flexibility to adjust my playing time to that of my freinds, or some other guys in the game I've never even met.
The biggest fault in WoW is that it's just sooooo slooooooowwwww.
Even when I was in a group, the game experience didn't improve all that much. Sure, you can gain experience quicker and easier, but everything still just takes so long. So much running. For anything you could do, you have to run for miles. And when you finally get those much worked for Exp it gave you a pitiful amount towards your next Level.
It's not as if the Quests were even fun. Collecting some stupid claws from cats that only about one in ten had (?) isn't all that much better than running over miles of land.
To me, the game just wasn't fun.
Well, there are free MMOG's. Yes, you can say "they're worst", but anyone can reply "but they are way cheaper". A google search gave me this one as an example...
Mind Booster Noori
I guess I am a casual gamer. I get tired when a game is the samething over and over. i want to move onand experience new things. I loved Half Life, but did not enjoy Halo 2's story. Half Life kept changing... a scene of shooting, a scene of puzzle, a littleinteraction. Halo is the sameeverywhere: shoot, find key. Its like Doom with better graphics.
So my friend talked me into playing WoW. It was very cool for a while, but frankly the quests are all basically the same. Go here, find this, bring it back. It became very monotonous to me, one of the reasons I retired at 30th level.
Here are the two main problems with WoW: Lack of a variety of adventure types (like I said most are mission, find key dressed up), the guild system while social has no bearingon the game except as ways of gettinghelp to advance.
Worse is the character classes. With a group they are essentially used for fighting. A rogue fights different than a warrior, yet it is all about the fight. I would have lovedto see dungeons where you need a rogue to open areas up, a warrior as first line of defense, etc. Ifthe dungeons NEEDED certian classesit would go a long way to party development, much like a DnD adventure works. As it is you just yell "who wants to ______?" and whoever joins its okay. It could be a group all warriors... dont worry, there are no locked doors you need a rogue for.
The Oxford English Dictionary seems to have a different opinion of the origin of "gypped". It says that "gyp" comes from "gippo" meaning "scullion", the French word "jupeau", and was a 19th Century term for a college servant at Cambridge or Durham universities.
It's also possible that the current meaning derives from "gyp" meaning "pain or severe discomfort", which is another 19th Century word perhaps derived from "gee-up".
They don't even mention the possibility that it has anything to do with Gypsies, nor is it flagged as offensive.
So, your opinion is about as clueless as the people who get all huffy about words like "squaw", "niggardly" or "blackboard".
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Have you even played WoW? You can solo from 1-60, with any class you want. Mage, priest, warrior, rogue, doesn't matter. Saying that you can only go for 20 levels is nothing but BS, pure and simple.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
Put simply, it's nearly impossible to create a game where you can advance as quickily by soloing as by grouping. In World of Warcraft, you can almost do this for the first 1/3 of your levels. Almost. Eventually it becomes impossible
I solo'ed 1 - 60 in world of warcraft. The only time I group was for instance runs (which I did 3 of pre-level 60). It is possible to go from 1-60 in WoW without grouping.
Of course, this means soloing, but then if I wanted to solo, why would I play a MMORPG?
To PvP. The sad reason is that there just aren't that many good RPG-esque games out there. I'd love to play a single-player version of WoW, particularly with an added over-arching quest.
I like solo'ing and PvPing in WoW, my only problem is the forced socialization in the end game. If you want to do endgame dungeons you have to make friends with the social misfits that are in the big guilds. It's not enjoyable.
I think World of Warcraft has done so well because levels 1-30 are easly accessable to the casual player. You can log in, play 2 hours and level or get some new gear. After level 40, that totally wears off and it becomes a grind/questfest like every other mmorpg. I found WoW to be very enjoyable for the first few weeks I was playing, but after a while I decided that I was putting too much time in for too little reward. I cancelled my account two days ago. Yey, back to real life. My only regret is not leveling a rogue high enough to pvp, as they seem like the best class for ganking.
i think you're wrong here,
it is perfectly possible to make soloing just as rewarding as grouping.
you have to realize that these games are *designed* to be as slow and tedious as possible, with the goal of keeping people hooked to the monthly payment as long as possible.
one strategy is to have extreme ammounts of chores a player has to do before anything good happens.
i'm talking about hours upon hours of leveling or gathering resources.
this also saves huge ammounts of content which otherwise would have been explored by the players if they wern't forced to do stupid repetitive stuff.
another trick is requiring grouping.
this makes the game less playable for a certain ammount of players which will struggle longer (and therefore possibly pay money for a longer time).
if you decide to go along with just any group you will find yourself in conflict of interest and you will have to debate stuff, make appointments which may or may not be lived by by the others.
then you can have ridiculous prices (npc's) for even the most common items.
also the sometimes vast vast worlds between places is a drag to travel., (ooh, look, a tree!).
all these things hinder progress in the game.
and there are more, like random ultra-strong monsters that will kill you and make you go fetch your stuff in the middle of nowhere which will take a good portion of a day (real time). or even better, someone else looting your stuff that you collected over a 6 months period.
compared to 'normal' games these games tend to be very harsh, requiring you to invest huge ammounts of time to get even the smallest bit of sattisfaction.
'normal' games have a much more balanced reward system imo.
REAL LIFE has better odds on having a good time compared to these games. even if you own a tv.
i think it's a stupid idea to pay for a game (and then monthly) and then have to work realy hard to get very little reward just to be able to have a chance of surviving the world for which you have payed to participate in.
i mean, you work all day, then get home and pay the company to work some more!
it just doesnt make sense.
imagine you go to disneyland, pay the entrence fee, and then have to work 4 months in a labour camp to be able to walk through the park and visit all the attractions.
Has anyone ever played Morrowind? It's basically a single player RPG, but the plot is fairly open ended and the word is roughly the size of a MMORPG. It's really fun, but it would really be something if you could play it with 2-64 other people on your server. The community based Neverwinter Nights servers somewhat serve this purpose, but they typically have to use a series of kludges to have real persistence. It would be great if a company would develop such a game. You could run a private or public server, then buy world extensions/framework upgrades as they are developed. I guess what I am describing is a commercial graphic mud.
Thanks for reaching level 60 in WoW. You hopefully played mostly quests and didn't grind as much. It's more fun that way. You probably did some instances for quests but didn't go back and camp bosses for the uber loot they drop.
I'm sure you stopped at 225 for any profession you tried out. After that it becomes really difficult to progress.
Now that you're 60 and have seen 30% of the content in WoW. You should probably reroll a different race (and faction) to see the other 30%.
Also try the CTF battlefield. It's quick fun and you can leave at any time.
But no. Instead you whine that everyone else has better equipment than you. You whine that you get owned in PvP. You whine that there is no more content for you to play even though you can reroll and get fresh content.
You point at us and call us the hardcore crowd as if it was something we should be ashamed about.
I planned my weekends around raids for uber loot. I did the quests I wanted to do for the rewards and then I turned around and camped mobs for the rare drops I hoped to get. In PvP I setup my keybindings for ultimate effeciency so I could be quick and lethal.
I'm not a "hardcore" player. I'm just a guy who played well.
Please stop whining and get with the program. If you were in a sports league and whined like this your team would eject you and find someone new who has dedication to excel.
If you want to play with the big boys you're going to have to act like one. An MMO takes dedication. It's not a game. It's a lifestyle.
Yes, as we all know, there's only one definition for each word, right?. Oxford lists TWO definitions for the word, and that's just the compact version:
Perhaps you might consider looking in more than one place. Miriam Webster, Cambridge, and yes, Oxford all agree on this term. I'm sorry if your dictionary isn't up to snuff. Do your research before flaming.From UrbanDictionary.com:
Look, this wasn't intended to slight ANYONE. My intent was to educate, then let people make their own choice. Not everyone knows this, as another poster previously noted. I didn't take offense at this issue personally, as it didn't seem to be intended as a derogatory statement. I tried to make that clear in my first post. Apparently I failed. I apologize. I didn't call the poster an insensitive clod, or attack him in any way. I simply said "You might consider..." and left it at that. I'm having trouble seeing where I caused offense, but it wasn't my intention. If there is any doubt in your mind, perhaps you should check my past posts, in which I tend to score 5 once every four posts because I try to HELP PEOPLE. I'm not in the habit of intentionally alienating anyone, and I apologize if my intentions were unclear. Relax already.
Why is this modded down?
My blog
Lots of games don't have monthly fees, but that's got nothing to do with MMOGs. And yes, having a higher level does help that much, its just that the level cap is 20 and you can get to it in a day. Also, how much time you waste wandering around capturing elite skills from bosses matters alot too, and is rather time consuming.
Even their website tells you, its not a MMOG. Its an ordinary diablo 2 style online RPG. In fact, its pretty much diablo 3. A MMOG would imply a persistant world. Guildwars just put a city backdrop behind the chat portion of the game.
I was quite taken a-back by that term in the story too. I'd assume the US-centric orientation of this site means the meaning of the word is not too obvious to US readers/editors.
In the UK the meaning and roots of the word, as an offensive term, are quite common. Gypsies themselves are one of the most oppressed, disliked and unaccepted people in Western Europe, far more so than 'mainstream' ethnic minorities - often said to be the last publicly acceptale form of racism. Walk around the country side one day, as referenced here, its not unusual to see signs on pub doors, or even the grounds of religious schools, saying "no gypos allowed", "jips leave", or "no jipping".
Of course, any class with a pet is already effectively grouping :)
There are two points that I would like to make: 1) As some have mentioned, not all games have monthly/yearly charges that are required to play. Games such as http://mapleglobal.com/ and http://gunbound.net/ opperate on a differnent model. The game is totally free to play (you don't even have to pay for the game itself, you download it). However, if you want spiffy enhancements (such as cool outfits and weapons) then you have to pay a one time fee for that item (like going to a store). This model is very effective for low bandwidth games like gunbound and maple story (low bandwidth compared to, say, WoW). Because you don't have to pay, you CAN play only on weekends when you have free time without feeling you aren't getting your monies worth. 2) Some games are experimenting with the idea that although you the player don't play 24/7 your character does. In http://atriarch.com/ your character stays in even while you log out. While you aren't playing your character does whatever tasks you want it to while you are gone (like practicing skills). This allows people who don't play very much to keep up with players who do play alot. Granted, players who actually play level up faster then players who let thier AI do it for them but they don't fall nearly as far behind.
Speaking is NOT communication
Wait until you get mobbed by a bunch of them at a Russian tourist site. Then tell me it's just a stereotype.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Most people don't like partying with hunters because too many hunters are really bad at partying. They only know how to solo and end up doing things that wipe the party, when they could have gotten a different class and perhaps done the dungeon a little slower, but safer and with less chance of bad pet pulls. As a mage, I hate hunters because they seem to not know when to aggro and when to aggro. I'll just get finished casting polymorph on an extra and then the pet always seems to want to attack it instead of what we're already attacking. Don't get me wrong, you may be a very skilled hunter, but there are just too many hunters who aren't.
There's a reason why, when I'm in a dungeon the first time I ask "pet?", and if no one responds with a "it shouldn't be a problem", I dismiss it. It's just too risky to get bad pulls, esp on the longer instances. I guess a lot of hunters haven't learned to let the warrior do his job of holding agro.
EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
AC's need not reply
On behalf of all actual bastards: !@#$ off
EveryDNS. Use it. It works.
AC's need not reply
Frankly, I'm too easily bored by the rote style of play that MMORPGs tout. You practically need a second computer so you don't become bored.
Actually, in WoW soloing is faster than grouping, except for priest/druids/pallies. Without dungeons I leveled 1-60 in 15 days played my first time through, and did 1-40 in under 4 days my second.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
This site purports to support freedom of speech and expression. Racism is one such freedom that everyone has a right to, though it may be one of the more unsavory freedoms.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
I think the real problem is some people think 15 dollars a month is a lot to play casually. I think plenty of people pay time on those cames and just play once in a while
I know plenty of people who not only played a few hours a week but they paid 30 dollars a month so that they would have a second account for a healer. When asked why would you spend so much money they usually reply it cost more to take the wife and kids out to a movie.
Really think about it though, bringing a girl out on a date. Two tickets 16-20 dollars, popcorn and drinks, another 15 dollars. That is for 2-3 hours of entertainment.
MMORPGs are nice though cause the only people who can really play them are people 16+ and in most cases 18+. Because of money issues. So you get a somewhat more mature audience of people.
Please pick up the courtesy cluephone: I quoted from the two definitions in the Oxford Concise OED. Go back and read what I wrote. Paragraph 1, paragraph 2. Two paragraphs, two definitions, two possible derivations.
Yes, multiple dictionaries "agree on the term" in that they agree on its definition. They don't, however, say that it has anything to do with Gypsies. I wasn't arguing that the term meant something else; I was pointing out that your claimed etymology was bogus.
UrbanDictionary takes content anyone posts, so it doesn't prove anything. I could post that "cretin" was insulting to the island of Crete and UrbanDictionary would list that information.
If you want to come up with a citation to support your assertion that gypped has something to do with Gypsies, you'll need to find one in a reputable dictionary. So far you haven't posted any, whereas I've posted the etymological info from the Concise OED, which flatly contradicts you. So, you're the one who needs to research before flaming--and learn to read before replying, too.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
I think you just described Lineage II. It still baffles me how popular it is in Korea.
well, , Lineage had the added brutality of uncontrolled PvP (player versus player).
this means you, as a newbie lvl.4 mage, regularilly get slaughtered for fun by traveling lvl.85 knights which will then actually start *laughing* at you ingame.
needless to say i did not see the humor in that...
Of course not, talking about it marks you for getting beat up by the jocks.
Got my Druid to 60, and done everything up to Onyxia. Druid is definitely the best soloing class, but at end game, you're not useful in small ground. A very good all round guy to fill out 10 and 15 man raid groups, but not really wanted in a 5-man.
Mod point free since 2001
As for 5mans.. those tend to be almost universally Warrior, Mage, Priest, Rogue, Warlock. Warrior is usually arms/fury spec with a dash of prot, mage ice/arcane, priest holy/disc, rogue with imp. sap and whatever else and the lock will go with whatever.. they're really only there to soulstone the priest anyway. A shaman can fill the role of the warlock horde side, provided they have imp reincarnation.
In my experiences @ 60, there's really not much that you'll 5 man anyway unless it's DM, which as you know is 5 man only. Scholo and Strath are both raided, seeing as there's no real point in 5 manning them, despite there being some outstanding gear to be had from the quests there.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
While being a horde player, I have little/no experience with a pally, saying that priests & druids have a hard time soloing is crazy. Shadow spec priests are just as capable of grinding mobs as a mage, and possibly more so if you consider heals. Droods are just as good for it, and I've seen some of them go 1-60 in amounts of time that will rival a rogue.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
Self fulfilling prophesy:
Design games (by purpose or accident) that can best be played by hard-core gamers, then charge $12-$20/month for them.
So, yes -- the few commercial MMORPGs I played are for those gamers who can spend 4+ hours a day *and* have a consistent group of team mates when gaming
I'm seriously looking at the free game shards (DoL for DAoC, e.g.) as a way to be a casual gamer
-- joe
I have played MMOs for years, with wife + kid. Hour or two a night, sometimes more (and less) on the weekend. Zero complaints here.
And common. $15 a MONTH?
I spend more than that on coffee at Starbucks in a week. And for what, 50something cents a day you can't beat it. Lowers my stress level, I have fun and it's better than watching TV.
First of all: WoW is a pretty well designed game. A real lot of efford was spend to make a "playable" game with "balance" and getting a lot of problems solved you usually enocouner very ealry in a multi player game ro MMORG.
:D becuae they never played another MMORG ... or because they simply like to play and not to "think" about it ...
...
However: mst ppl simply dont understand it
Actually, in WoW soloing is faster than grouping, except for priest/druids/pallies. Without dungeons I leveled 1-60 in 15 days played my first time through, and did 1-40 in under 4 days my second.
This is completely wrong. It may be "somewhat true" for a hunter, rogue, mage or palladin, but not for a priest or a warlock.
Especiall if soloing means for you: killing monsters, and not questing.
Suppsoe you are a lvl 30, and your friends are all lvl 40
If you want to level VERY FAST, you get help from your friends, and you do QUESTS, quests, quests.
With some high level friends you can do high level quests, one or two quests per hour, or even more. You easy do 15 to 20 quests in 8 hours of gaming which is 20k to 50k XP depending on your level.
QUESTING, and that means TEAMPLAY is FAR, FAR, far, far faster than soloing.
(Except if you play a special char, like rogue/mage/palla and only grind in killing areas)
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Actually, one of the coolest things about Arcades (those are the old places your parents told you about before computers and xboxes) was the social interaction. I can't say I miss the smoke filled rooms, but going shoulder to shoulder with your friends or even complete strangers while working torwards the next level or knocking each other out simply is on another level entirely.
The social interaction can be more meaningful or elaborate online, but it's a lot less personal than letting that bitch standing beside you who put a quarter against you that he just got pwned. Ditto for finally beating the dragon on the last level with your buddies.
The problem with help doing questing is that yyou blow through the quests at 2-3 times the rate, and you run ouit of quests at higher levels. The fastest way to xp is to *solo* quests. You get all the xp from killing the mobs, AND you get the quest xp, AND you don't run out of quests.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Honestly, my favorite 5 man was warrior, druid, mage, mage, shaman.
Mod point free since 2001
How can it be the fastest way?
:D
You need 4 times the timt to finsih the quest, and you only get twice the XP for the mobs. Also a you have to solo a quest which "is on your level" you get far less XP for the quest itselv, about 50% -70%.
If you are so convinced that soploing is the right thing to do, you willnever see that powerquesting in a team with one über team meber is far faster
Regarding running out of quests: that is bullshit. My level 60 char has still several hundret quests open he could do.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I know all about the game thanks, I play it. That doesn't make the original post any less off-topic and useless, since it HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MMOGS. Wether or not Build Wars is a MMOG is in fact the point, read the question before calling people retards, you brainless sack of donkey semen.
And if you think you can compete in PvP out of the box, you need your head checked. You can compete after you've racked up enough points to buy decent skills, but not out of the box. All the pre-made builds are weak, and no matter how much bullshit posturing you do pretending your uber pvp skillz are all that matters, it will never become true. The game is all about your build, your teams builds, and team co-ordination. Individual leetness is worthless, go back to counterstrike if you want that.
$15 a month is going to the movies twice a month.
If you log an hour a week, you've got the same amount of time/money invested. So, if you find more value from more time invested - play a little more, but as long as you enjoy the time spent as much as you do a film you enjoy (if there are any left) - you're no more ripped off than that.
Where the problem creeps up is when you need to play 5 hours a night otherwise you won't get your moneys worth.
(5 hours * 30 days = 150 hours - thats a lot of hours spent - make sure you're enjoying them.)
another place I find problems creep up is if you don't play a whole bunch but your friends do. The closest solution to this I know of personally is CoH's "sidekick" option - which tends to work pretty well past the lowest levels.
cyn, free software and *nix operating systems enthusiast.
The monopoly telco in the Philippines, PLDT, has invested in the top MMOG operator, Level Up Games. They operate the local Ragnarok franchise.
Strangely enough, in a senior-level anthropology class in college entitled "Ethnocide and Genocide," I did a long research paper on anti-gypsy prejudice.
Every single source that I pulled from the library went on and on about how other people saw gypsies as untrustworthy and thievish, and that view wasn't necessarily fair.
Every single one of these sources also ended this discussion with the conclusion that this stereotype was extraordinarily accurate as well.
Not flaming or trolling, just put a lot of work in on that and was rather surprised to see the "enlightened" anthropological sources treat an ethnic group this way.
In most MMORPG's these days, at least a quarter of every dollar you spend (assuming the rate of $1/hour) is going to be spent on getting from point A to point B, managing your inventory, or trying to get in a group, and generally doing non-fun stuff.
The fact that most MMORPG's haven't been able to eliminate the drudgery only highlights how much they cater to the "hardcore only" crowd.
So, why are you frequently spending $25 on a movie and for two? Do you need two seats to yourself at the movies for some inscrutable reasons? Maybe you just mean snacks for two... as in you have serious munchies? On the other hand, do mean that movies require a date and food to be comparable to a MMORPG? Don't you ever eat during your computer sessions? This whole comparison seem awfully weird...
I'm a gnu world man.
I've ran LBRS with that setup quite successfully, although I prefer to have a rogue in place of one of the mages for instant DPS without needing mana.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"