Slashdot Mirror
The Dilemma of Level vs. Skill In MMOs
Karen Hertzberg writes "Since MMORPGs became a mainstream medium, players have debated the two primary methods of advancement. Which is better? Is it the level-based system that is so dominant in today's MMORPGs, or the lesser-used skill-based system? This has been a strong subject of debate on many forums, blogs, and gaming sites for as long as the genre has existed. Ten Ton Hammer's Cody 'Micajah' Bye investigates the two concepts and gathers input from some of the brightest minds in the gaming industry about their thoughts on the two systems of advancement."
Relatedly, I've seen a growing trend of players saying that such games don't really take much skill at all. The standard argument is that it just boils down to "knowing how to move" or "knowing when to hit your buttons." In the MMO community, people often make references to FPS or RTS games, saying they have a higher skill cap. However, the same complaints also come from within those communities, with comments like "you just need to know the map," or "it's all about a good build order." At what point does intimate knowledge of a game's mechanics make a player skilled?
I can't tell if this is a troll, someone who has been smoking Blizzard's wacky weed, or someone too clueless to have played other MMOs.
WoW caters to the lowest common denominator. Almost all classes, you can make a one button macro to target a mob, either walk up to it, or pull it, mash a couple abilities, loot, then move to the next. Pretty much, if you can do that, you can hit 80 in a reasonable amount of time.
Once 80, you can go into PvP where the class balance (especially compared to other PvP games like Guild Wars) absolutely stinks. You have two classes who take no skill to play, and the rest of them are their honorable kills. Sometimes one of the hind teat classes ends up actually not being a prison bitch in BGs and arenas for a couple months until its nerfed back into oblivion because of how the devs like their own pet classes. Faction-wise, Horde or Alliance are just the left and right side of the short school bus.
Or you can raid, and compared to Everquest or EQ2, WoW's raiding experience is miserable. You can go to the same two large raid zones each week, perhaps visit the three smaller ones, and that is it. Raiding in WoW has been made so brain dead easy is mainly about trying to score numbers on recount, everything else be damned. In fact, it doesn't even matter if you die during a boss fight, as long as you can pull 4k to 4500 DPS.
Blizzard barely puts out any content between their two year expansion cycles. In the time BC was out, EQ1 and EQ2 had three expansions each, each one being almost the size of Northrend.
WoW isn't the only fantasy MMO out there. It does serve a good purpose though. It and a certain MMO which is still in beta in the US keep the real bad players away from real MMOs (LOTRO, EQ1, EQ2, Vanguard, even DDO.)
If you are able to do something you have a skill in it. If you can pump gas into your car then you have a skill - pumping gas. Some skills are easier then others (pumping gas vs replacing your breaks).
I've been away from making lotro gold for quite a long while. This isnâ(TM)t really a great hdro gold tip, but please bear with me as I get back into the lord of the rings online gold flow of bringing in thousands of herr der ringe online gold . First, this is an advanced lotro gold strategy requiring you to to have at least several hundred hdro gold as starting capital and have leveled your lord of the rings online gold Jewelcrafting and herr der ringe online gold Enchanting professions to a minimum of 350 each. If you are at least in your aion kina 60s and are able to do dailies in the aion gold Burning Crusade then this is a aion kina guide for you. As every aion gold Jewelcrafter knows, prospecting ore gets you aion powerleveling to use both for crafting jewelry and for use in aion powerleveln . You can make some aion powerleveling from doing this throughout your aion powerleveln . It is also a no-brainer that if you have a solid eve online isk from other activities (like BC dailies or auctioneering) you can drop the eve isk kaufen , buy all your eve isk from the auction house and pick up Enchanting to sell disenchanted materials from eve online isk kaufen . For anyone who has been practicing eve isk (or plans to) and has managed to raise both their eve online isk Jewelcrafting and Enchanting to 350, the following Jewelcrafting eve isk kaufen recipes are probably the cheapest and easiest to produce compared to the eve online isk kaufen you will get from selling their disenchants: guild wars gold Bloodstone Band guildwars gold Crystal Citrine Necklace guild wars gold Crystal Chalcedony Amulet guildwars gold Sun Rock Ring These cost only 2 guild wars items and one gem of the appropriate type, making guild wars items relatively cheap to produce. While I would recommend prospecting with silkroad online gold for the increased drop
I actually *prefer* the grind model in games, and RL, but there is one problem with it...
...Time is by definition limited, and any one person can't possibly grind every single skill he want's to massive success without sacrificing things like health, family, etc - that might be more important.
Perhaps the true skill , or talent, in these systems is prioritizing your grind, and choosing your personal *build*
I wish there were more hours in the day (30+ would be nice) so to give more grind time =, because prioritizing sucks!