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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.
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.
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.
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. ;-)
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.
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2B1ASK1
"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.
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.