Casual Games Quickly Transforming the MMO Market

An anonymous reader writes "Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick disclosed that their forthcoming, unnamed MMOG will have 'a little more broad appeal' than its market-leading MMO World of Warcraft. This is adding to speculation that the game might be free to play, since such games now take more in digital revenue than any other genre. In his GDC Austin keynote today, Sony Online Entertainment president Jon Smedley said, 'As a company, we knew we had to evolve ... to expand [our] audience ... and to get a much wider female audience.' The article notes that SOE hasn't abandoned hardcore MMOs, but his talk focused on Free Realms, SOE's free-to-play MMO that has grown to 5 million users in 5 months. Marketed to kids, 51% of Free Realms gamers are under 13, with around 75% under 18, who pose a challenge to attract and retain. Since they only play for about 20 minutes per session and aren't focused on the mechanics of the game, SOE can get away with changes that are unfair to some players, as shown by a recent, oddly-handled item nerf in Free Realms."

Comments

WoW was ruined

[acehole]

I used to play wow. I used to love it. I raided with my guild, did all the fun stuff. Got the rewards from putting the effort in and loved each moment of it. Then Blizzard started listening to the vocal minority crowd, the ones who wanted the rewards with no time put in. The ones who wanted to get the "Sword of OMGWTFBBQ" to kill boars in the forest and nothing more, they wanted to be shiny and wanted it now with no effort. That's when the game started to go down hill. When I first started raiding it would take weeks of running an instance before even getting close to finishing it but now... its hellokitty island adventure with a different skin. The biggest complaint I hear about people who quit now is "I'm sick of seeing everyone decked out in Epic gear." You know you've done wrong when even the 'casual' (and I use that term loosely) player base complains about it.

The casual player is a misnomer, there are people who identify themselves as this and refuse to raid but want the rewards yet they spend a lot more playing the game than most 'hardcore' raiders. Blizzard ruined the game about half way through BC and turned it basically into a game where you login and get teleported to your mail box (because walking is too much effort) to collect your epics.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you honestly that bitter about people doing "less work" to get "unearned" items as shiny as yours in an online game? Really?

Re:WoW was ruined

[johan_from_cape_town]

I somewhat understand your problem. But you see my problem - I have a full time job and a life. I also want to play WoW. So should I just always suck - never able to actually complete an instance? I don't think so. Maybe Blizzard should create "I don't have a job and my parents pay my way realms" (for people like you) and "I can only spend a couple of hours a week on a computer game" servers for people like me.

Re:WoW was ruined

[lordofthechia]

Disclaimer: I played WoW for 3 years but quit before the WotK expansion.

It's not about the time put in, it's about the time commitment raiding requires. They tried to solve this with 10 man raids which could be done with pickup groups (which at times can be equally as painful). Just because someone can devote 2-5 hours a day playing a game doesn't equate to them being able to commit the same 4 hours a night to raid with their guild plus the hours mindlessly collecting reagents, potions, and repair money they'll need to get through the raiding.

But then there was the other aspect of raiding, the repetitiveness. Every week you have the same raids, with the same fights, that have to be executed (orchestrated) in the *same* fashion. I do know with the BC they focused on spreading good loot on quest chains that were varied and at the end of which you were guaranteed *some* reward and smaller raids.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that what he's leaving out is that he's had the shiny items for 6 months, and the people doing "less work" for them are only getting them now... as they release even shinier items for those people who actually want to put the effort into raiding to get.

So the real complaint is that in order for him to continue to be "better" than everyone else, he has to continue to raid to stay ahead of other people, since now it's fairly simple for anyone to catch up to the point he's already at.

Re:WoW was ruined

[acehole]

I had a full time job at the time (I still do yet with another company), a family that I spent time with and study at the same time. Yet I found the time to do what I like. Some watch TV others collect stamps, some play wow and others whine about time management.

Re:WoW was ruined

[L4t3r4lu5]

Completely agree.

My biggest issue is:

- Without the gear, you cannot raid.
- Without raiding, you cannot get the gear.

How am I supposed to enjoy end-game content when I can't get into a group because my DPS is around 1k too low for these "elite" groups? I constantly see raids occurring with calls for "3000+dps" which is just unachievable without raid / heroic gear, and you can't get that without a significant time commitment that is just unachievable if you have any physical social interaction in evenings / weekends at all.

Re:WoW was ruined

[webax]

You should be playing FF, SE has not let anything stand in the way of endless grinding reaping exclusive rewards.

Re:WoW was ruined

[pHus10n]

Why does it matter if someone else gets an epic-quality item? Does it somehow strip you of your earned rewards? And why is it so wrong if a 12 year old kid wants to do *exactly that* and take his Sword of OMG to the forest and kill boars? If he's enjoying it, why do you care? How does it affect *you*?

You complain that it no longer takes weeks of running an instance to clear it. So I'm guessing that (prior to you quitting) you've cleared all the hard modes available to you in the first week? .... yup, I didn't think you did. There's no lack of challenge in the game if you want it. Many of the instances are tuned for casual play, so that nearly anyone who's interested can make reasonable progress, even if they don't fully understand the calculus involved in tank itemization (for example). On the other hand, hard modes and the new Heroic 10/25 versions of Coliseum allow those seeking extreme difficulty can have it --- and are rewarded for their efforts. As a matter of fact, at the time of this posting, there is exactly one (1) guild who has completed the "Earth, Wind, and Fire" achievement. It's *tough*, and ready for anyone who wants to meet the challenge.

Don't think I'm attacking you directly --- I'm not. I'm just tired of seeing this exact same argument passed around by forum trolls, who conveniently can't back it up with an Armory link.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Splab]

What killed DDO for me was when they introduced WoW style raiding. Everyone wanted the epic crafted stuff you could only get from the new big raid, that meant everyone where running the same stupid raid over and over - yeah it was fun once or twice, but playing the same stupid "maps" over and over again just took away any fun of the game.

Re:WoW was ruined

[acehole]

When I first started playing there were no 'heroic' mode instances. You had players who didnt want to raid, sure they got the blue gear. That was more than enough to do the content that they needed/wanted to do. It would be pointless even attempting to provide a armory link my characters havent been on in over 2 1/2 years. I attempted to find something else in the game that I could get enjoyment out of so I turned to multiboxing. I had 5 accounts and ran instances on my own yet even that wasnt enough to stem the frustration of seeing people geared up to the hilt but couldnt do or understand the simplest of things. They handed the purple gear out like candy and diluted its original worth.

Epic once meant what it described, eventually it became common.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DreamsAreOkToo]

To turn this into a theme...

I used to play World of Warcraft back when Stratholme was considered an impossible instance. Then suddenly guilds started figuring out this "raiding thing" and all of a sudden, some dumbass healer could get better items than me, because he had 39 other people to pick up his slack. That's when the game started going downhill. I quit and everyone else I knew started quitting and the biggest complaint I heard back then was "I'm sick of seeing some dumbass decked out in epic gear because he can farm gold all day and raid all night." I think the game was ruined sometime halfway through it's first year.

"Casual" is not a misnomer. Anyone who wants to play whenever they feel like it is "casual." Anyone who adheres to a schedule where they get penalized for tardiness is working a 2nd (or 1st) job.

tl;dr "Remember when WoW was good?" "WoW was never good."

Re:WoW was ruined

[Jurily]

So the real complaint is that in order for him to continue to be "better" than everyone else, he has to continue to raid to stay ahead of other people, since now it's fairly simple for anyone to catch up to the point he's already at.

Well, that's an inherent property of the level cap. After you reach it, there is no real distinction between you who have been there for a year, and me, who just got there. Nothing to prevent me from getting the same stuff you have without going through the same long process you have.

On the other hand, it's in Blizzard's enlightened self-interest to make sure the newcomers can almost catch up to the veterans. It keeps both groups going.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Thanshin]

its hellokitty island adventure with a different skin

Pure marketing. It'll never reach the degree of complexity and required skill you could have in HK:IA.

I'm talking about before the Breach brought the dark avatars and the kawaru fell upon the land, of course.

Re:WoW was ruined

[daid303]

It affects you in PvP.

You spend months getting very powerful, and then suddenly people get just as powerful in only a few days. While you ruled PvP situations, and it took parties of 5 to kill you, now all of a sudden it only takes 1 or 2 people to kill you. This can ruin your fun if you PvP a lot.

I used to play this low profile MMORPG. With only a handful of players (about 100 at the top times), and gear was very important. I was one of longest players around and thus had collected a lot of very powerful gear. I could solo wipe 7 man parties in PvP. Which was no fun for them. And then... came the nerfs, some of my strongest items became almost worthless. A few hardcore players left over that nerf, but I stayed. And the game became more fun, I was no longer unstoppable. And the newer players stood a chance, making for better battles. Sure, lots of my hard work was gone. But in the end that worked out fine, as there was more fun.

The people that complain about these kinds of nerfs are the people that leave after a nerf. And... you are better off without them, those kinds of hardcore players tend to ruin the game for many others.

I'm playing WoW for 4 months now. I really like it, I see people rush to lvl80, but I'm still only lvl70. I don't care, I have fun while playing.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

This is quite funny - the "omg epics are easy" crowd is a very small and very vocal minority crowd, and even here it likes to label everyone else "vocal minority" instead.

Reality is, vanilla WoW was easy. You could literally AFK your entire molten core raid and eventually get decked in epics. It took no skill, no dedication - it just took time. This is the complaint they have. It takes too little time to get baseline epics with which you could start raiding, which means that lazy people who get kicked out of raids for being clueless and not doing their job hit the ceiling and stop improving their gear - while those "easy epics noobs" who do know how to play keep on raiding and get much, much better gear them them, and fast.

In WoW at the moment, gear is tiered into item levels. Basic pre-raid and 10 man naxx raid epic gear is item level 200. The current "normal mode" tier drops item level 245 gear which is far, far better. The difference is so great that damage dealing class in item level 245 would most likely do about twice the damage output of damage dealing class in item lvl245.

So gear differential isn't the problem at all for anyone who actually understands the system. It's very much still there. The main problem with most of these people seems to be complete and utter lack of skill required to raid nowadays - they seem to look back to "afk time" of molten core raiding with so much nostalgia...

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rhaban]

Maybe Blizzard should just re-think item classification.

Today we have 5 item classes, 2 of which are useless:
- grey, useless
- white, useless
- green, used while leveling, or if you just dinged 80 last week.
- blue, most people who do not raid/hero have some of this. considered as 'basic' items
- purple, everything from entry-level-80 gear (reputation items, heroic instances) to the most hardcore-level gear you can find in raids
- orange, for some special vhl items only owned by a handful of people

A lot of people complain about how everybody has epic (purple gear). why not lower the classification of low-end purple and make it blue, while keeping the same stats? Similarly some blue items could become green.

If necessary, they could even make a new class between blue and purple, or between purple and orange. A character with gear from ulduar-25 hard mode would be differenciable instantly from a character with naxx-25 gear, who would be differenciable from a character with 5-man heroics / reputation gear without having to actually know each item or even look at the ilvl.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

One word: market force. The vast majority of the 12 million or so WoW players are not end-game raiders. That was clearly shown when end game content of Burning Crusade was seen by a tiny minority of players - all that development time sunk to a few dedicated hardcore raiders.

All progression-based games have this issue - people will come to the top and run out of things to do - so endgame needs to be engaging and rewarding. At the same time a company needs to play to its base - the 11.5 million or so who are not experiencing this content. You can argue the way Blizzard has done that ("welfare epics") but you cant argue that the issue exists.

The announcement of more casual games shows that the market is changing and companies understanding it and catering for it. This will mean, new games will be multi-platform, interact with Facebook etc and may have little to do with the "sword and sorcery" games that we grew up with. Personally, that is just good business from Sony and Blizzard and all the others. But it also means that hardcore players may have to find their own niche and possibly switch games. Hence the success of EvE Online - clearly a game designed from scratch for the more dedicated players.

In other words, we see in this market what all markets see when they move from early adopters to mass market. Differentiation of the companies and their product offering and more creativity in the process. Sure you have the cry babies who will lament any change but that is normal, expected and transient, the market will absorb them elsewhere.

Re:WoW was ruined

[L4t3r4lu5]

You spend months getting very powerful, and then suddenly people get just as powerful in only a few days. While you ruled PvP situations, and it took parties of 5 to kill you, now all of a sudden it only takes 1 or 2 people to kill you. This can ruin your fun if you PvP a lot

Then you're playing the wrong game.

This isn't Die Hard. You are not invincible. One on one fights should be close, and one person should not be allowed to dominate. How do you think the 3 people you deck feel who have come over thinking they have as fair a chance as anyone else at getting somewhere? More to the point, what the hell does it matter if you win or not? You already have the elite gear, be it PvP or raid. You don't need the Marks to get the purples.

Sweet jesus, play the game for enjoyment. Find another "Benchmark for Awesome"; It's obvious that gear isn't it any more.

That's what achievements are for. Play PvP for a fun battle, which you could win or lose. Surely charging in, knowing you'll win, is only fun for a short time.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Arkham79]

So, I've heard this before, and used to be in the same boat. It's not true anymore - you can gear up to decent raid levels without going to raids now, especially with the recent instance additions. It'll take longer than if you were raiding the whole time, but it's not that difficult. You do have to run Heroic 5 man instances though - no way around that.

With the changes they have made to the instances though they are much, much easier to run these days than they used to be in BC. Do the daily heroic each day (30-50 minutes) and you will quickly get enough badges and rewards to be running in one of the entry level raids, keep it up and you can get well beyond the 3000 DPS you mentioned. It takes some patience if you don't have hours to devote to running instances, but one instance each day you can log in should be your first priority if gearing up is what you want to do.

Re:WoW was ruined

[lbbros]

Except that FFXIV will be different (although - luckily - not WoW like). FFXI hasn't changed a lot in the past 2 years because SE is basically keeping the game on life support, with very little development (despite a new "expansion").

Re:WoW was ruined

[L4t3r4lu5]

Why not keep everything how it is, and stop caring about how much purple everyone wears?

I've been in instances with L80 full-purple DPS spec shamans who did lower dps than me, a 79 full-blue DK. By your reckoning, that shouldn't happen. But it does.

Your shiny-shiny does not make you a good player. Purple items are no longer a measure of achievement.

Those italics are intentional.

Re:WoW was ruined

[selven]

Battleground epics.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Av8rjoker]

I think that the the person who you replied to has a different type of mindset; one which is not too uncommon. If they had to work so hard for something, then it should not be handed so easily to those who don't put in nearly amount of effort. What was once difficult becomes easy for the newcomers due to the changes in the game. It basically boils down to a matter of pride.

The only thing I can compare this to is the Marine Corps. I was punched, kicked, tackled, thrown, slammed on a table repeatedly, forced to drink water until everyone in the platoon puked, etc... not to mention the mental abuse. I've never been punched in the face until I joined the Marine Corps. BTW, I joined in 2002 (I don't care if you believe or not, that shit still happens).

It would upset me if someone is handed that Eagle, Globe, and Anchor for doing anything less.

It is a much more... less PC... way of thinking. It has more to do with pride, and "I had to go through this bullshit in order to acquire whatever, so you should have to do the same.... blah blah blah."

I'm not saying that you are wrong, I'm just trying to point out a possible explanation to why people might get upset when someone who does far less work achieves something much easier than the work that they put into it. I'm sure many people could relate to this in many different situations. (I don't play WoW btw).

Re:WoW was ruined

[Kjella]

The question is who sets the schedule. Some jobs like being a clerk or sales assistant require you to be present from X to Y, other jobs may be "code this in three days, if you do it 3PM or 3AM I don't care". Same with WoW, if you just show up and leave whenever you want then fine, if you have to be on raid schedule from X to Y it's pretty limiting. If you got two schedules already, I can understand there's little time for a family. At least for that family to feel important.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Dhalka226]

I found your post somewhat insightful upon first reading, though I didn't necessarily agree with all of it. But as I re-read it, something started to bother me.

How am I supposed to enjoy end-game content [. . .] that is just unachievable if you have any physical social interaction in evenings / weekends at all.

If you don't have the time to run many heroics or raids to get your gear up, why do you expect to have time to run the end-game content? It's certainly not going to be any shorter. If you DO have time to do it, just not as much as the hardcore types, you can still experience it; it's just going to take longer.

For those who literally don't have the time to get to any piece of content while there are still players interested in doing it, I don't think the solution is to dumb the content down*, at least not while such content is still the highest tier of content available. I think those players are just out of luck. If that ruins their enjoyment of the game, well, there are a lot of games out there. They should find one that is less grindy so having less time for the game isn't as big of a penalty.

For what it's worth, I don't get as worked up about "ZOMG they hand out epics!" as others do. I measure my enjoyment of the game by, well, my enjoyment of the game. I just want to make forward progress, and that's independent of whether or not you or $HARDCORE_GAMER_X has made more or less progress than me.

* I do sort of like the 10 normal/10 hard mode/25 normal/25 hard mode distinctions. It seems like a relatively good compromise.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Narpak]

Why does it matter if someone else gets an epic-quality item? Does it somehow strip you of your earned rewards? And why is it so wrong if a 12 year old kid wants to do *exactly that* and take his Sword of OMG to the forest and kill boars? If he's enjoying it, why do you care? How does it affect *you*?

I agree. It would seem that for some waxing their epeen is way more important than actually co-operating with others and having a well run raid. For me getting a raid done fast, with no wipes, unnecessary deaths; while talking trash on vent was always the most enjoyable part. Gear was simply a means to an end; not the end itself. And pretty much without exception the people I talk to agree.

Now personally, as well as two close friends of mine, have been playing wow since the summer of 2005. After about six months of playing the game we started raiding MC, and later on BWL/AQ, then Kara, TK, Black Temple, and etc. Now myself dropped out of raiding after farming Black Temple (stopped playing all together until WOTLK arrived), since returning to the game I haven't really done anything but some 10 man and a few 25 man pugs in this new expansion; mostly I just stick to doing heroics and PvP. However everyone I talk to personally, both my two real life friends who have kept up the hardcore raiding, and those of my in-game friends that have dropped off and returned after prolonged hiatuses agree that the current state of the game is better and more enjoyable. This sentiment is mirrored, with very few exceptions, through the entire guild that I used to raid with. Raiding is more fun, gearing alts for raiding or PvP is less of a chore, the new instances are way better designed, daily quests makes acquiring coinage for repairs/consumables/enchants/gems less of a chore; basically the game feels, for those I have been talking to, more like an actual game. There are less people going emo (which seemed to have happened quite a lot more back when we were raiding 40 man instances and getting the gear you needed for the next step took ages and ages of repeated smacking your head against the wall until you were so full of piss and vinegar people went batshit for no apparent reason.

Obviously the changes to the game leaves some people longing for the good old glory days when men were men and everything was much better; but for the most part my personal experiences indicate a higher enjoyment level, more laughs, with most of the heated debate circling around just how much cooler Chuck Norris is than your mum.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

taking the marine corp that seriously makes perfect sense. taking an online video game that seriously makes you a pathetic excuse for a human being.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Exitar]

Are you sure that aren't you the vocal minority crowd that believes that raids should be for few elected players?
You probably was one of the few players wearing epics in vanilla, but if you fail in real life I don't see why the false sense of importance you get from raiding must remove the fun millions of people have playing the game for what it is, a game.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Lord_Dweomer]

As much as I'd like to mod you down I'd rather respond.

Why do you feel you are entitled to have more fun in the game than someone who pays the same amount as you every month?

It now requires uber gear to do ANYTHING fun in the game and if blizzard prevents casual players from accessing half the game because they don't treat it like a second job they will lose a ton of subscribers.
If you really need to wave your epeen around you have achievements. Hate to break it to you but who do you think blizzard cares more about, one person who is upset he can no longer solo 5 people in pvp and wants to quit or the 5 people who are getting soloed and want to quit? Guess which group makes them more money.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Av8rjoker]

You are very much missing the point. People take pride in the smallest of things. It is all relative. I only used the Marines as an example.

Re:WoW was ruined

[cyxxon]

I am with you on this one, and I was in the group of people that did not even down Illidan in TBC before 3.0 (and never even set foot into SWP), and never went into AQ or Naxx in vanilla either. Still I liked the endgame more back then. Sure, there are some niceties now, such as tier tokens, and yeah, to an extend badge gear as well, but the removal of attunements and the tuning of the raids to be cleared by casuals with additional hard modes just isn't the same.

Trying to down a boss for weeks and then getting epics for it is something completely different than clearing the boss in week one or two, and then proceeding to down the same boss, but slightly harder (yes, I have done lots of hard modes in Ulduar, but not all). You already did the boss, and know the encounter, and after a time signups go down since people say "yeah, we downed that boss, no point wiping on him for epeen-ness", next week maybe". TotC doesn't feel like a raid at all, because yeah, trash is important. Trash respawn timing in SSC was bad, yeah, but I still fondly remember many trash groups from TK, or BT. Trash pulls in Ulduar? Mostly boring, even if you have to sometimes tank two mobs out of LOS or so. No challenge makes it dull. Artificial challenge (by enabling hardmodes) turns of too many raiders to make it much harder to keep on bringing together quality groups for raiding. Epics don't make it better. The rewards from heroics are fine for every content but raiding, and if you don't cnsider yourself a raider, then why do you need Ulduar-quality gear? You don't.

So please, bring back some short attunement quests (short is fine, doesn't have to be 30+ steps), make raids progressively harder without having to resort to hardmodes. There is enough for casuals, hell, there was enough for them / us in TBC already, really. I was never as bored in TBC as I am now in Wrath, even though officially I should have much more to do right now...

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rhaban]

I really don't care about what a character wears. I don't play wow very much, having done maybe 3 or 4 wotlk instances, and wear several green items.

I think these changes would make sense for the people who complain all the time about how purple gear is too easy to obtain. Because you can't tell 12 million persons "Why don't you stop caring about how much purple everyone wears?" and expect them to do so.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Spluh! WoW is a social game; humans are social animals; social standing is determined relatively, not absolutely.

Re:WoW was ruined

[dbet]

"Epic" never meant anything. You're romanticizing a false indicator of personal triumph.

Re:WoW was ruined

[jaraxle]

It affects you in PvP.

You spend months getting very powerful, and then suddenly people get just as powerful in only a few days. While you ruled PvP situations, and it took parties of 5 to kill you, now all of a sudden it only takes 1 or 2 people to kill you. This can ruin your fun if you PvP a lot.

Then maybe you're not as good at PvP as you think you are and were just relying on gear the entire time.

In a PvP MMO, the "equation" should really be Numbers > Skill > Gear. Basically, a large number of enemy players should be able to take you down when you're alone, a much better skilled player in similar (or slightly worse) gear should be able to take you down 1 on 1, and when you have two equally skilled players the one with the better gear should come out on top.

Sadly, WoW fubared this right up from the beginning and gear trumped everything so that even the worst players imaginable could dominate in PvP simply because they were capable of raiding the top end content and anyone solely interested in PvP were left by the wayside. The Honor System attempted to fix that, but ended up being an even worse grind than any raiding ever was, so you were still better off tackling PvE content in order to PvP (unless you really had nothing else to do than PvP all day every day for weeks on end, or share your account). I quit WoW around Arena Season 4 because I was getting sick of lesser skilled players able to just crush me and some close friends just because their top end epics were far better than our mix of blues and "welfare" epics (just for the record, during the Honor Grind, I was able to get the blue Warrior set and was able to 1v1 almost anyone who wasn't decked out in 100% BWL gear).

Quite frankly, if you find that now suddenly people can get epic gear who previously were unable to and they're trouncing you in PvP I say "Good". You never deserved to be king of the heap, requiring "parties of 5 to kill you" because you relied on gear and now that the field is evened out a bit and skill is more a determining factor, your ego has taken a hit. Call me bitter, call me a troll, but I know a lot of people would agree.

~jaraxle

Re:WoW was ruined

[plastbox]

Firstly, I play WoW mostly for the pvp. I can do it alone or with a few friends, no need to get big, complimentary groups together.

Second, grinding honor is about as simple as it gets. Time-consuming, yes. Hard, no. It's like kids sports, just participating gets you a prize (honor, badge/mark). Though, since it isn't hard you don't get the best items in the game. With a bit of patience, anyone can get Hateful Gladiator set with Furious Gladiator no-set pieces. At this point, your gear is good enough that you can play Arena and get rating, thus advancing to Furious set + Relentless no-set, at which point nothing (but a bit of experience playing pvp) is stopping you from being at a rating high enough to get all the best pvp pieces in the game.

No need to do boring instances, raids and dungeons. Just go at it and whoop Alliance ass, and upgrade gear as you can afford ^^

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Epic once meant what it described, eventually it became common.

It's pixels on the screen. Get over yourself.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Fozzyuw]

It affects you in PvP.

No it doesn't because anyone who PvP's tells you it's about "Skill". Getting people in reasonably the same gear simply flattens out that variable, making skill more important.

Re:WoW was ruined

[jaraxle]

I said it from the start, and I still believe it... Blizzard, and any other company that implemented similar, made a big mistake in classifying gear in a tier system, namely their grey white green blue purple orange system (EQ2 has similar with treasured legendary fabled mythical).

Would there be such a big uproar from raiding players if gear didn't have this classification? What if every piece of gear was all the same colour and the only way to determine what was better was to look at the actual stats on it and compare to what you were already wearing? As it was when I left WoW (around Arena Season 4) you could find any number of people wearing crappy gear just because the name of the item was purple, despite the fact that if they did a bit of looking around on websites they could find at least one piece of gear that was better for that slot but the name was blue instead. People are blinded by purple so to speak.

While I understand it makes it a bit easier for players to identify possible upgrades and also possibly allow easier classification for developers to determine what gear should drop from where with a tiering system, how much of this problem would go away without it? EverQuest 1 had no tiering system for gear (not sure if they do now, haven't played in years) or item colours to determine rarity, and you could find people raiding top end content still wearing gear obtained from mid-level content just because there was no item level or colour to compare. You looked at the stats and benefits of the item, and if what you had was better than what dropped, you didn't bother getting that new item even if what you had was something you looted 30 levels ago.

~jaraxle

Re:WoW was ruined

[Mr. Bad Example]

> Why does it matter if someone else gets an epic-quality item?

Because you can't entrust the Sword of a Thousand Truths to a noob.

Re:WoW was ruined

[jaraxle]

This is why I believe the item rarity system should never have been used to begin with. If item quality was based on comparing just the stats and benefits with no other measure (ie. name colour, level requirement) then I highly doubt so many people would have their panties in a knot over "casuals" getting similar quality gear.

~jaraxle

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rhaban]

agreed

Re:WoW was ruined

[_14k4]

What I'd like is a game I can devote 20/60 minutes to and not really have to worry and think too hard about. I am a programmer, and spend all day in front of the pc. Lately, when I'm not in front of the pc I'm taking up things like working on my home, carpentry, etc. But when that game itch comes back, I can't find something that's a) free (I'm poor), b) mmo / social interaction, c) fun.

Well, I should say I can't find something graphical. I've been playing a lot of Materia Magica (a mud) lately...

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

They did change the credit card requirements... I put my account on hold for 3 or 4 months and now I can't log back in!

Dumbass SE!

Re:WoW was ruined

[drinkypoo]

Having it be much easier to get the gear later on means that the time the player spent WORKING is now worth LESS.

I would argue that playing a game that basically amounts to a telecommuting job is a sign of OCD, but what do I know? I won't play MMORPGs for the most part because they want you to pay for the client and pay again for the service. That's bullshit. Maybe Puzzle Pirates doesn't have the awesome complexity of WoW, but I can just hop on and play for a while for free and then hop off.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, he's just bitter that the 12 year old has a sword of omg and thus is able to defend themselves from the first wave of people who have the sword of omg that want to make themselves feel better by killing people who are killing boars in the forest.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Mad Merlin]

Have you tried Game!? It meets your criteria and in fact, having a limited number of turns per day is built right in as a method of leveling the playing field.

Re:WoW was ruined

[SatanicPuppy]

In WoW that's not so much the case; gear is vitally important. It's the difference between 1000 dps/15,000 hps and 4000 dps/30,000 hps.

That's actually one of the things I like least about WoW: weenies like the OP who have zero life can become little demi-deities.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Guild Wars

lvl20 cap, 1-19 is basically a tutorial.
special pvp gear almost as powerful as the most powerfull items in the game.

Suddenly skill and organization is what that matters, and intelligent people who play 20 minutes a day can beat the crap out of hardcore gamers.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

If he's enjoying it, why do you care? How does it affect *you*?

You've just bought a house. Suddenly, the government starts subsidising house purchases, along anyone to buy one for just a few thousand dollars. Do you care? After all, you've already got your house. Why would it matter if other people had theirs too?

Re:WoW was ruined

[Jorth]

JFYI: The item classification Rare, Epic etc, actually affects the items stat weights and "Budget" an ilevel 100 blue, is generally weaker than an ilvl 100 epic. I can't explain any better than that because its all maths I've never delved into. Obviously they could change this, but simply re-colouring things at this stage wouldn't work without changing item budget mechanics. They should however, do it on the push to 85 later next year.

Re:WoW was ruined

[MBGMorden]

With all due respect, this is the case for ANY organized activity. If you join a bowling league with your friends and you guys bowl on Wednesdays from 7 to 10 then that's time you set aside. If you join a band with some friends and you guys practice Mondays and Wednesdays from 6 to 8, and that's time you have set aside. If you have a weekly poker game on Saturday evenings then that's time you set aside.

Sticking one or two nights a week, even specific times, aside to take part in your hobby is nothing new. Guys with families have been doing it for ages now, and if you think sticking "on a computer!" behind the activity changes that then you're as naive as most modern patent clerks. It is completely possible to hold down a job, actually raid in WoW (not the hardcore 6 nights a week raiding, but there are plenty of groups out there that raid twice a week for 2 hours), and have a family that you're not neglecting.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

You can run some instances (even heroics) in 30-60 minutes and most under 90 minutes (without trying hard)
ToC, VH, etc. are easy to find a group for, even a pick up group (PUG)

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Having played WoW and (still) Puzzle Pirates, I would say that the games have equal complexity, just of different kinds.

I seriously doubt organizing a blockade is any less difficult that organizing a 40 man.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

so is your comment

you dont belong on internet, unplug now

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called "Guild Wars".

Re:WoW was ruined

[amplt1337]

The difference is your bowling league doesn't have twenty-five people, with the whole night a bust if two of them don't show up. Or a hard limit that only ten people can be in it, and if you have three other friends who want to come along, they're shut out in the cold.

Re:WoW was ruined

[ComaVN]

The money required for subsidising the houses comes out of taxes. Paid by, among others, me. This affects me.

The epics are not paid for by me.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Blizzard added item levels. You can use these to measure your epeen now.

Re:WoW was ruined

[elrous0]

It could be worse. Imagine if Sony Online Entertainment bought Blizzard out.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Stratholme was never an impossible instance, at least on my server considering at the time it was a 10 man raid instance before it was nerfed to 5 man.

People who did BRD 5 man when it was also able to be done as a 10 man flexed their e-peen quite a bit though.

As far as some dumbass healer getting better loot than you, he should be getting better loot than you because he puts more time into the game than you did. The game really went down hill when people like you complained that they couldn't get epics because they didn't have the time, so Blizzard started giving out welfare epics and made Wotlk heroic 5 mans trivial compared to the TBC ones.

MMORPGs are timesinks, if you don't have the time then don't bother playing because you'll never get the full value out of the game.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Whorhay]

I don't know that succeding in vanilla WoW required a fail in Real Life. But it did require either a ton of time, or slightly less time but at very inconvient times of the day alwasy combined with being lucky enough to make it into a large group of folks that could do the same. I managed to finish Molten Core, Onyxia, Zul Gurub and parts of AQ20 on two of my characters before The Burning Crusade was released. It took a lot of weekend late nights in raids because I couldn't afford to stay up past midnight on worknights. And my characters were always prepared for raids because I spent my other play time specifically preparing for them, I did very little leeching for equipment in raids.

All that said I didn't really come anywhere close to reaching the end game in WoW. And as a person that played probably close to 40 hours a week I don't know that that's a good business plan. The hardcore raiders were and are still the vocal minority. Making the end game encounters more readily available and playable might upset that minority but it's good business sense. Blizzard does not exist to take the money of the masses and produce a challenge so difficult that only the elite few will be able to feel like they "won" in any sense of the word.

I stopped playing before the last expansion came out and I doubt I'll go back to it. I'd rather spend the subscription money on lunch with my friends. I've been playing Diablo2 again a lot recently and the challenge of playing new builds is very entertaining even when the content is always exactly the same.

Re:WoW was ruined

[jaraxle]

I understand the ilevel of items and how it's affected/determined by the quality/rarity of the items. It's a good point to bring up, thank you. I feel it should have simply been done differently right from the start, however you're right in that it's probably too far developed to be changed at this point.

~jaraxle

Re:WoW was ruined

[amplt1337]

Having it be much easier to get the gear later on means that the time the player spent WORKING is now worth LESS.

And that's the core of it. There's a huge cognitive dissonance going on here -- people have spent years of their lives working these second jobs to satisfy this compulsive need for improvement that isn't being validated in the rest of their lives.
Now somebody else is getting paid MORE for LESS work! ZOMGWTFBBQLMAOZEDONG! That cannot be, if I went through all this suffering for my reward, then they must, too!
Of course the real message of all this is that people don't play the game for the fun experience itself; they play the game for the compulsive factor and the ego boost of being superior to others. Me, I quit WoW when I realized that Civ was more interesting from a skill perspective and that if I wanted a second job, I'd find one that gave me money instead of costing it.

Re:WoW was ruined

[MBGMorden]

And in what way does that relate at all to the statement that you can't raid without neglecting your family? You're arguing against a position that was never made.

Re:WoW was ruined

[platypussrex]

this is too funny. I don't think I have ever heard a casual gamer complain that they had too many epics. The complainers are almost always the (self-proclaimed)hard-cores who think the size of their epeen depends on having more epics than anyone else. But guess what, we all pay the same (approx) $15 a month to play the game. Blizzard finally understands that to expend huge amounts of resources to create content that was only seen by a fraction of the player base was not a bright idea. So the obsessive player can get their leet gear and run the new content when it comes out, the less obssesed players get almost as good gear after a month or two, and they too can then see the high end content. Only a completely self-centered person would fail to understand the appeal of that process.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Whorhay]

You are correct on all accounts there. The thing is though that rarely has Blizzard reduced the challenges so hugely that the same rewards are now worth a lot less. And in any MMO almost every bit of gear really just represents an investment of time played working specifically toward that goal. So naturally those that obtain that item earlier worked harder for it, or atleast devoted a higher percentage of play time towards it. If Vanilla WoW had stayed vanilla forever eventually almost everyone would have all the best gear. The hardcore would then have nothing to brag on but the fact that they had it earlier or can do it faster. Moving the Carrot lets the Hardcore always have something they can readily brag about.

By reducing the overall difficulty the hardcores' time frame for bragging is just reduced. And that's what the hardcore players are really upset about.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Hatta]

Maybe Blizzard should create "I don't have a job and my parents pay my way realms" (for people like you) and "I can only spend a couple of hours a week on a computer game" servers for people like me.

What's the difference between that, and you just playing something other than WoW? Seems to me that if you don't want to expend some effort to advance in the game, you don't really want to play WoW. You just want to do whatever it is all the cool kids are doing, and then complaining that it's too hard.

Think of it this way. Chess is a hard game, it takes a lot of effort to become good at it. If I decide I want to play chess, I don't ask people to change the rules so it's easier. I put in the time and effort it takes to become good at it. If I want something easy, I should play checkers instead. If WoW is too much of an investment for you, play something else.

Re:WoW was ruined

[amplt1337]

Um, I'm arguing against this assertion:

this is the case for ANY organized activity

It is technically true, yes, I have to manage/schedule my time. However, with WoW, if I'm in a guild that wants to raid 25-man content, then my ability to schedule my time is dependent on 24 other people managing their time effectively, showing up on time, and not bailing at the last minute. And if any of them do, then my scheduled time is now wasted. I'm willing to take that risk when it's four people I'm in a band with; I'm not willing to when it's 24 quasi-strangers on the Internet, because it rapidly becomes my "scheduled dicking around waiting for people to show up then logging off with nothing done" time.
Raiding in WoW is fundamentally different from other leisure activities because of the extent to which you're beholden to the schedules of others, with no good fallback when they're unreliable.

(And yes, I understand that higher levels of guild discipline would somewhat ameliorate this problem; but discipline is a two-edged sword, and disciplined guilds feel just like a second job, rather than fun.)

Re:WoW was ruined

[Whorhay]

In EQ I remember a friend that played a Warrior taking some minor peice of loot as an upgrade. This cause a double take because he was well into his 50's and the item he wanted was considered trash by most players. Turned out he was wearing some generic bit of armor dropped by a mid 30's mob that was normally sold to a vendor.

In WoW I had a Warrior that I played as DPS mainly. In Vanilla WoW he cleared AQ20, MC, Onyxia and ZG. Most of those many times. When TBC was released I was very happy to find an upgrade for my green shoulder armor that I had worn for the last year. They were basic turtle shell looking +13 str +13 agi, sadly they were better than any other plate shoulders I had seen drop. I almost took the leather shoulders from UBRS when no rogue wanted them but I couldn't make myself use leather armor as a warrior.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Chees0rz]

However, with WoW, if I'm in a guild that wants to raid 25-man content, then my ability to schedule my time is dependent on 24 other people managing their time effectively, showing up on time, and not bailing at the last minute. And if any of them do, then my scheduled time is now wasted.

Same goes for Adult Sports Leagues - the season starts out with a bang... but then people slowly stop showing up, and before you know it you're either a) scrambling for subs or b) forfeiting.

Or how about organizing a snowboarding trip only to find out half your friends can't get up that early because they didn't have the self control to call it a night at a reasonable hour (come on, even 1am is good enough).

Just a few of my pet peeves. At least "IRL" you can punch them in the face, afterwards... Internet social grouping (although I haven't done it in a while) has even less commitment and personal investment. It's even easier to blow/get blown off.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Whorhay]

S/He isn't complaining that other people can do something he can't. He's complaining that very large parts of the game are inaccessable without an unnacceptably large, to him anyways, investment of time. This is a common issue where everyone considers anyone that plays more than them Hardcore and anyone that plays less Casual.

In your example you pick a game that you have to play against another player. Not a game that is played against an automated and scripted opponent. And chess is not a hard game in and of it's selt. It's the skill of your chosen opponent that makes it more or less of a challenge. I could slaughter my nephews at chess all day and be bored by it. They would likely be frustrated and give up on it completely.

Other than the lame arguements involving waving epeen's around there isn't a good reason to not institute varying levels of difficulty within any game and even between servers. Diablo2 has Hardcore mode, which is pretty popular and represents much more skill and determination to reach max level on than anything WoW has to offer.

Re:WoW was ruined

[TheLink]

See the thing is, more people have time than they have skill. In games like WoW - the time you spend grinding greatly affects how powerful you are. So the many more people without much skill can have great power. Perhaps that makes Blizzard more money.

Whereas in a game where skill matters most, the few people with the most skill can kill 10 people in a few seconds (some FPS games are like that).

Unless of course the game is such that if 5 people jump on someone with the most skill, the 5 people can still win. Then it becomes more of a tactical war game - where positioning of troops and concentration of force at the right places count (or supply and logistics count - if consumables are important). Team skill and not so much individual skill.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Whorhay]

When are you talking about that Strath was impossible? For a long time it was a 10 or 15 man instance just like Scholomance. Eventually they limited it to five man only status and it was difficult for a little while until they rebalanced it to be played through by just five. It might have been difficult then but it wasn't that ridiculously hard. The toughest part was finding a warlock or mage so that you could do the AoE parts.

Re:WoW was ruined

[An ominous Cow art]

That's something I don't like, either - running the same instance over and over. I don't find it to be much fun at all to do that - with the caveat that I'll do it with different characters, because then at least I'm playing it a different way. But doing it over and over with the same character, and possibly with the same group of people, in the hope that some rare piece of gear you can actually use will drop... that's not for me.

Re:WoW was ruined

[BlackSnake112]

It's even easier to blow/get blown off.

That can be an incentive to many.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Hatta]

He's complaining that very large parts of the game are inaccessable without an unnacceptably large, to him anyways, investment of time.

Then he should find a game to play that fits into the time he has to spend. Why try to ruin it for those who do have a large amount of time to spend in a game?

I am currently becoming enthusiastic about SHMUPs. Some of those fuckers are HARD. Yet some people can complete them with one credit. I doubt I'll ever have the time to practice that much to get that good. Do I complain that Cave should make their shooters easier so I can win too? Of course not.

Re:WoW was ruined

[An ominous Cow art]

Bilbo twinked Frodo with a unique epic ring, purple armor, and a purple sword.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that wow was ruined but I'm not talking about the easy loot, although it is a side effect. Wow was ruined because everything became way too easy. When wrath was released my guild which I ran with all through BC (sorry, didn't get to play vanilla), started to disband, starting with the best players. In turn that forced us to recruit a bunch of idiots who barely knew how to stand out of the AoE, let alone pull their sub-par DPS (which was under 3.5k in t8 level gear).

I don't give a rats-ass who has what gear, but I would like a more challenging game rather than stand there and spam two buttons.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

GW is very different then wow. Max level is 20. Groups are usually 8 (less in lower level areas) can be 16 for certain runs). Items are only for looks not that a sword of this hits better then a plain sword. If the mods are the same, the weapons will hit with the same damage. GW is more about forcing you to pick and choose what you want to run skill wise. You can bring 8 skills with you. You can choose from over 200 skills now. It may be more I do not have all of the skills.

To hardcore wow raiders, GW is simple. There are a few people that I have run into that play both. GW is less about getting some item that will work, and more about having the right build skill wise, weapon wise, and armor mod wise. for one cannot have an armor set that is perfect again all types of damage. The same is true with weapons and skills. There is not a single build that will work for everything. You need to change your skills, weapons, armor, in order to rock from one area to the next.

Re:WoW was ruined

[ImprovOmega]

If you want frickin' hard go play Everquest. WoW is nice for what it does (the casual man's MMO). I left EQ specifically because it cost too much time investment to get anywhere (their AA system is a living hell to try to catch up on - you'll seriously spend a year or more hardcore playing before you catch up to even close - then the new expansion hits!).
I like WoW because I can play for an hour or so a few nights a week and make it to level 80 with passable gear. Plus I don't have to have a group to do most things. They do what they intend very well, and personally I think it's a vocal minority that's pissed about it. Somehow even though it's "going downhill" they maintain a 10 million+ subscriber base...

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

That's every MMO: they aren't predicated on skill like many other games are. They reward sheer, stupid time more than anything else.

Re:WoW was ruined

[ImprovOmega]

I think the achievement system was meant to partially alleviate this, and in large part it does. Someone who just now hits level 80 will probably never get the Classic Raider or Classic Dungeonmaster achievements like someone who's been playing since release likely has. It's a clever way of both preserving past accomplishments (for those that care about such things) and allowing new players to progress and get into the top end content without years of investment.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DrgnDancer]

It also levels the playing field for newer players. The fact was, back in the day, if you hit 60 say... three months before BC came out, you were NEVER, EVER going to be able to raid. Since it took weeks of working with a good guild to get to beginning raid gear, and good guilds weren't going to take n00b 60's, you weren't going to be able to catch up. Ever. BC reset progression, but within six months or so it was reestablished, and people who hadn't made 70 within the first few months and had a guild to raid with, were again locked out of the end game content. This was the beginning of the badge and heroic instance gear. Suddenly if you were willing to do enough harder 5 mans you could at least get the beginnings of something that would take you to end game. Thus you started to see some casual guilds and even PuGs doing Kara and Grull.

Everything since then has refined this policy to make it so that even casual guilds can at least see what the inside of Ulduar or Trial of the Crusader looks like even if we'll never defeat 25 man Yogg on hard mode. I'm happy. I can play a few hours a day, a bit more on weekends, take a few days off here or there, and still get to see the end game content. Being Shiny isn't a huge deal for me, except as it puts me in position to play more aspects of the game. I may never have gotten to see MC or Sunwell Plateau when they were new, but I'll probably get to fight Arthas in Ice Crown. Maybe not the day the patch is released. Maybe not on 25 man hardmode. But I'll get to see the fight, before the expansion makes it obsolete.

Re:WoW was ruined

[MBGMorden]

That problem was solved long ago by most guilds via web signups. If you think you'll be able to show that night, just click signup on the website. If they get 25 signups (or realistically, more than 21, as you don't always need a full 25 - we raided Naxx a few times with only 19), then the raid is on for that day. If not, then the raid gets canceled and nobody wastes their time showing up. Alternatively if you don't get picked for that night then you don't have to waste your time showing up either. Sure a few people who signed up will not show, but generally there will be an equal number who are online wanting to go who didn't sign up, so it usually balances out. I think you'll also find that in any guild of decent size, the whole "OMG we don't have enough people!!!" issue goes away quickly. If the raids are constantly not happening then people will just go elsewhere until you find a guild that does work.

Put it this way - I personally haven't been raiding (or playing WoW at all) for almost 2 months now; not some long drawn out "It's consuming my life!!!" debacle - I just got bored with it lately and noticed I wasn't playing anymore. However, when I was raiding, the guild I was in went for 2 years, doing between 2 and 3 weekly raids (usually canceling the weekly raids during major holiday weeks such as Christmas and Thanksgiving). I didn't personally attend all of them - my attendance was around 60% or so, but out of all that time we canceled maybe 4 raids total due to lack of attendance. Most of those ended up just whittling down to a 10 man run of some sort.

I'm just not seeing this huge problem you are.

Re:WoW was ruined

[TheLink]

Maybe you could look here:

http://www.onrpg.com/MMO/Free-MMORPG?sort=&dir=&data%5Bgenre%5D=&data%5Bdeveloper%5D=&data%5Bstate%5D=&data%5Brating%5D=9

I dunno about the validity of that site's ratings but I guess it's a start :)

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Strath was never a raid, ever...you were probably one of those people that copied what the original guilds figured out, that you could form a raid and go inside anyways, and let people drop group temporarily to complete quests. Even after the quest fix, you could farm it for the drops repeatedly by zerging the crap out of it over and over...people took "pride" in 40manning it in 15 minutes.

It still wasn't a raid, and some of us actually 5-manned it and the other cheated instances like scholo, lbrs and brd. (this is where the original hard tbc heroics took their inspiration)
The only release raids were Ubrs (barely, more than 10-15 was pure zerg) MC and Ony, everything else was people abusing the early raid forming system.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it was proven time and time again that this "minority" was not minority in fact/ Once services that chronicled your guilds progress became wide spread, it was rather funny to see percentage of players who have actually completed most of the raiding content, with something like 1% of all players who actually have beaten the highest raid boss. Now that to me seems very silly, to have a game where only 1% of players experience the whole game.

Re:WoW was ruined

[brkello]

You are my favorite type of WoW player. The type who says "God, I hate that game! I played it for 3 years and it sucks now!" I think any game you have played for a long period of time is naturally going to be a bit boring. I call that healthy.

Re:WoW was ruined

[drsquare]

Am I the only one amused at people thinking they're putting in effort and hard work by sitting at a keyboard playing one of the easiest games ever created, and only getting ahead of everyone else because they don't have anything else to do?

The whole point of WoW's success is that everyone can get to the top levels, do all the raids and get all the gear. Five years and twenty million sales later, poopsockers are still telling us how Blizzard got it all wrong.

Re:WoW was ruined

[brkello]

I totally agree with your post. It is like the people who are against gay marriage because it diminishes their marriage. Like since Bob and Tom down the street are married, you are suddenly going to stop loving your wife.

Like you, I am impressed how they have had made content available to more people but have added in challenges that give better rewards to those who really want to go for it. They know what they are doing. If the people ranting in here had their way, WoW would be much worse off.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DrgnDancer]

This isn't Die Hard. You are not invincible. One on one fights should be close, and one person should not be allowed to dominate. How do you think the 3 people you deck feel who have come over thinking they have as fair a chance as anyone else at getting somewhere? More to the point, what the hell does it matter if you win or not? You already have the elite gear, be it PvP or raid. You don't need the Marks to get the purples.

Ehh... if you continue reading his post you'll see you're agreeing with him. He thinks the leveling nerfs were a good thing and made the game more fun for everyone. It's only an extra paragraph, reading it would not have been that difficult.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Whorhay]

Probably because he is representative of the vast majority of the paying customers. Remember that label on the game box and splash screen that says something along the lines "game experience may change"

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

I somewhat understand your problem. But you see my problem - I have a full time job and a life. I also want to play WoW. So should I just always suck - never able to actually complete an instance? I don't think so.

Maybe Blizzard should create "I don't have a job and my parents pay my way realms" (for people like you) and "I can only spend a couple of hours a week on a computer game" servers for people like me.

Here's the real problem, which the parent mentioned - casual users want to have all the best gear, the uber-cool items, etc. but don't have the time needed to earn them. The other side of the coin is that if you make these items easy to get for a casual user, the hardcore players will quickly earn all the gear, and quickly grow bored- and while casual gamers are good for a quick cash boost it's the hardcore players that make up the bulk of the constant revenue for MMO's.

Part of the problem is that there isn't enough content available with mediocre gear, and in general many of these games tune the questing, etc. to require top-notch players/gear in order to complete. The solution is to drastically expand the amount of content available for the low-end and mid-range characters (in terms of strength required to have fun and complete) While the hardcore players will be able to lay waste to such instances/quests, as long as you keep the best stuff in the high-end areas you can keep that base satisfied as well.
The only big drawback to this option, is that there is a point where you'll spend more on content development than the midrange players will generate back in revenue.

The idea of having more variety in the servers is certainly not a bad idea either. Setup some servers where the mobs have lower skills and hp, etc. and setup others for the really hardcore players that have boosted NPC's, lower drop rates, more enemies, etc.
The big issue with this idea is that you'd have to restrict character transfers to/from these servers, or else you'll just see all the hardcore players start out on the weak server, quickly max out their levels, and then transfer to the hard servers.
They could even take a page out of some of the "persistent" strategy games like O-game, etc. and decrease timers for thing like health regen, mob respawn, etc. basically fine-tune the casual servers for an accelerated growth and play rate, add more travel options, hell maybe even give new players mounts right from the start so they can cover ground quickly.
They could even set it so that you could only transfer from an easy server to another easy server, which would prevent people from using those servers as farming spots for gold or training grounds for guild alternates.

But will they? Probably not.. it's just too much extra investment. Would be nice though.

Re:WoW was ruined

[bonch]

This is a tough thing for Blizzard to address. They definitely overshot it in Wrath of the Lich King. The idea of having a 10-player version of every raid seemed to be that you could casually run the content while the more difficult versions would play like past raids. Instead, though, there is very little crowd control required in any instances, so it's a massive AoE-spamming, damage-fest. On top of that, there are constant vehicle gimmicks, and the leveling content itself was very easy. I actually found myself missing zones like Blade's Edge Mountains and Nagrand because they had some difficult and memorable quests. I blasted through Northrend on two characters and don't remember much of it. There were barely any group quests.

In the name of convenience, a lot of the challenges in the game are being removed, and it's making it feel very dull and bland. When you log in now, you basically just farm easy heroics for badges. People were farming them so much that there were instance launch problems until recently.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because someone can devote 2-5 hours a day playing a game doesn't equate to them being able to commit the same 4 hours a night to raid with their guild plus the hours mindlessly collecting reagents, potions, and repair money they'll need to get through the raiding.

Sounds like you need a better guild. I've seen good guilds that have enough players in enough regions that you can log in, and be headed out to a raid within a pretty short time frame.
But there seems to be an abnormal number of guilds in Wow (as opposed to other mmo's) that are very militaristic in their organization. I see a lot of power-tripping guild leaders that run essentially a strict military regiment, demanding an awful lot from their guild members. This isn't a problem with WoW, it's a problem with that guild's leadership, organization, and members.
The advantage to running with a hardcore guild, is that you know you have a decent team for your raids. You don't have to worry too much about ending up with a group of chumps that can barely run their own characters, let alone work in a team or show any strategy in a group.

So if your guild leader is requiring you to sign in at certain times, etc. and that's not up your alley, get a different guild.

Re:WoW was ruined

[bonch]

Why does it matter if someone else gets an epic-quality item? Does it somehow strip you of your earned rewards? And why is it so wrong if a 12 year old kid wants to do *exactly that* and take his Sword of OMG to the forest and kill boars? If he's enjoying it, why do you care? How does it affect *you*?

It affects others because giving the 12 year old kid an easy chance at that item requires removing the challenge and progression of the content, making the game boring to play. The item is no longer epic-quality if everyone can stroll in and get it.

All people do now in WoW is log in and farm heroics for badges. Even the normal ToC gives out gear on the level of Naxx. It's become a very boring game to play.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Whorhay]

I don't remember it ever being possible to 40 man those instances in release, it was possible in closed beta though when they first instituted raid groups. People would 40 man WC just to clear out the quests. I was aware that you weren't always able to complete the quests in a raid group but I don't remember ever seeing where it was an exploit to 15 man strat or scholo. I don't even remember having to form the raid outside of the instance. I did do Scholo in a five man before the nerf to five man only. It was rather difficult and several of the characters were geared well beyond it and were just helping a friend through.

Anyways all of this is a long ways back in my memory so I could be mistaken.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that Chess is free to play. Paying customers of a service have an implicit right to request changes (or else quit paying); the service provider has an incentive to listen.

WoW isn't a game, it's a business transaction.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Hatta]

That's the problem. I hate seeing quality ruined by market forces. Appealing to the lowest common denominator may be a great way to make money, but it's a terrible way to make anything of quality. This is a fundamental problem with capitalism.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

You can cry all the bitter man-tears you want, but there's no big conspiracy against you and no caving-in-to-babies effect going on here. It's just the math of adding ten more levels with every expansion. When an expansion is about to come out, and the media buzz starts around it, Blizzard quietly accelerates the level gain rates so that more people will 'catch up' to the high levels right around when the expansion comes out. Because - as you might not be aware of - most players aren't hardcore raiders, but do want to eventually see the new zones and quests and story fluff and mounts and so on. And the experience costs per level were pretty damn steep at the original game launch, such that if the progression had been continued upwards with no changes, it would be outright impossible for casuals to get anywhere near the top levels. Seriously, the vast majority of players would struggle to break 70.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Fozzyuw]

Actually, you're saying the same thing I am.

I know gear is vitally important. Man, it was crazy how terrible PvP was until I had nearly all PvP gear in each slot. Resilience is that important. Or being behind the weapon curve by 1 or 2 tiers.

What my point was that "easy" gear is a "Good Thing"(tm) for PvP because more people will have the gear they need, faster, to be relatively equal in those terms. Making "skill" and "class choice" the bigger issues.

What would be self-deprivating would be to only give "good" gear to "good" players, in PvP. And that's where Arena breaks down. You can have more skill, but if someone has better skill, they could beat you. If you loose, you don't get the points to get the gear you need. If you can't get the gear you need, you can't beat the person with better gear. Now you get caught in a vicious cycle.

Ergo, the best way to make PvP balanced and truly competitive is to make it as easy as possible get everyone the same level of gear. I think Blizzard has done a great job with that... except arena PvP weapons. WG has made it easy to get Honor and marks to buy fairly high quality PvP gear with not a lot of effort (see time investment).

I think the "easy" gear has been a good thing for PvP. Or, at least those who like to PvP on a relatively more competitive level. But, as we have seen and as you have eluded too, many people don't enjoy competitive levels, they enjoy pure unfair dominance. Those people have migrated a lot to "Twink" non-XP battlegrounds... who have now flocked to WoW forums QQing about no one to play with but other twinks... which isn't fun because they can't /faceroll anyone.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Blakey Rat]

Ditto.

WOW had, for awhile, this crazy thing with the arena/battlegrounds where it would alternate between being for casual and hardcore players. They'd do a patch which made it so only hardcore players could get the rewards for those parts of the game (i.e. make it so buy arena armor required *maintaining* a minimum rating), then change it back around so that casual players could gradually earn arena armor by building up points over time, then change it back around again so that the arena points expired after time, etc etc.

Considering that, at this time, all the raids in the game were freakin' huge (20 players minimum), and were only run by casual-unfriendly guilds who wouldn't let you raid if you weren't 1337 enough, the arena/battlegrounds system was the *only* way for casual players to advance beyond a certain point.

When Blizzard made those hardcore-only as well, I finally just gave up and quit. Although given their flip-flopping, I'm sure it's been changed to be casual friendly yet again.

* The funny thing about the end-game raids being controlled by hardcore guilds is that every single guild always ran the raid at 6:00 PST sharp. I actually got invited to a couple runs I couldn't do, because you had to show up 15 minutes before 6:00... I'm barely starting dinner by then.

Every. Single. Guild. I talked to: 6:00. "Can we start at 7:00, I'm not ready by 6:00?" "What are you, an alien mutant from Venus!!"

I have a hunch that only east-coast players and west-coast jobless losers raid.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I believe the item rarity system should never have been used to begin with. If item quality was based on comparing just the stats and benefits with no other measure (ie. name colour, level requirement) then I highly doubt so many people would have their panties in a knot over "casuals" getting similar quality gear.

~jaraxle

I know it's been hashed out, but I just want to chip in a little.

People, in general, real-life or not, want to be "cool". They want to have something neat that everyone else can point to and say "oooooo Shiny!" Those other people then go out and attempt to get that item so people will point at them in turn.

So what you have, is a constant gripe from those without the Shiny because they want it and "can't" get it (for whatever reason), and those already with the Shiny who become upset after enough other people get the Shiny so that it's not Shiny any more. This usually manifests as "it's too hard, or takes too much time" to get the Shiny, and "it's too easy, and doesn't require the investment" to keep the amount of Shiny in the game low.

Now, you can define "Shiny" in many different ways.

If the uber-rare items give no benefit in stats, and look identical to all other items, you really don't see a lot of demand for them. The people who want these types of item want them because they are a badge, a medal, some type of reward showing they actually put in all that time to get them... and/or because they are (like me) the type of person that can't just beat a game, I have to go back and clear it 100%. In an MMO, the only way to "clear" the game is to kill everything, go everywhere, and most relevant to the Shiny discussion, get all the "Shiny" items that show such "accomplishment".

The most common way Shiny works, is that it gives some gameplay advantage. People want these so they not only look "cool" to everyone, but are also able to do more, faster, easier, etc. (and subsequently, also look "cooler")

The second most common way that Shiny works, is by looks alone. A very sexy outfit for a female avatar, for example, or an item that generates a special graphics effect that no other item gives off. If you have a game that has little or NO difference stat or ability wise, this is the major type of sought-after item.

If you also remove rarity from the mix, then you will quickly find the same problem- everybody will be using/wearing, etc. the gear that looks best, or stands out the most.

So it's sort of a never-ending battle for the game devs. If everything is equally available, then why even bother creating any content that differs? Well, because people will gripe that the game is visually boring. But people will then all go out and wear that same outfit, and it'll stay boring regardless of how much other content you have.
So then you make it so items have rarity, or take achievments to obtain them. Now you have people griping that it's too hard, or else you make it too easy which causes the first problem again, and also pisses off the people who spent all that time/effort.

The solution? Lots of gear. Tons of gear. Holy freaking shitpiles of gear, Batman. And it all needs to look good. And it needs to be a smooth progression- sudden jumps in looks or performance ruins the whole gear/demand chain.
The only other solution, is to make gear purely for looks... but again you have to make enough of good enough looking that everyone doesn't end up wearing/using the same stuff.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Blakey Rat]

The problem is that you reach a point in the game where it switches from:

"Just play a couple hours on weekends, or whenever you feel like"

To:

"You MUST be on and at the instance at exactly 5:45 PM PST you MUST remain on for 4 hours MINIMUM, then be free the next day at exactly 5:45 PM PST in case we don't finish the instance today. You MUST research all the bosses before entering the instance. You MUST be using one of the 2 acceptable specs for your class online, or you will have to respec, grinding gold to afford it. You MUST carry a minimum amount of healing potions, meaning you have to grind gold to buy them. You MUST install seedy chat software, and WOW add-ins, you can't participate with the default program."

There's no transition. The end-game raiding content is a complete 360 from the rest of the game, and it's an extremely jarring change that people don't expect.

Up until MAX_LEVEL, you're in a world where almost everything can be done on your own schedule, in your own way. (By yourself, if you like, and with whatever character spec you want.) You have no reason to expect that this would change when you hit MAX_LEVEL, unless you've experienced it in other games.

So you end up with games in the first category either getting slowly sucked into the second category bit-by-bit, or simply giving up and leaving the game.

Now the smartest thing WOW ever did was add end-game content *other* than raids, for example, battlegrounds and arena. The dumbest thing WOW ever did was then modify battlegrounds and arena so that only hard-core players could be successful at them, making them just as useless as raiding to the casual player.

Re:WoW was ruined

[amplt1337]

I mean, a lot of it does depend on a guild-to-guild basis. It sounds like your organization was better than ours was. My only point is that the activity is built such that it demands more structure from the players than do many other leisure activities, which can make the scheduling aspect a less rewarding experience -- enough so that, in my opinion, it's a substantially different type of activity than other hobbies.
(I'm not trying to jump down your throat or belittle your point here, which was generally a good one. There are times I'm trying to be a dick, but this wasn't one of them.)

Re:WoW was ruined

[Blakey Rat]

If they go back to attunement quests, PLEASE, PLEASE add a way in the UI to see whether you're attuned to a particular dungeon or not. That was my biggest gripe.

Back when the game was level 60, I quit playing for awhile, forgot everything I knew, then came back. I'd get invited to a group to do one of the dungeons that required attunement, but there was *no way* of telling whether you had the attunement without forming a raid and trying to enter the instance.

Terrible user experience; I literally had to leave at least two groups after we were all formed up and ready to go because my character wasn't attuned. I felt like an ass to the rest of the group, but what's the alternative? There was no way to look it fucking up!

Re:WoW was ruined

[JAlexoi]

I was not part of a "vocal minority", but I did find it much better having dungeons doable in less than 2 hours. I actually have other things to do, not only play WoW. Apparently you think that people that play WoW 24x7 are the majority, you were never the majority.
Yet, there is epic gear and there is raiding gear, where you still HAVE to spend weeks, if not months.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Terrasque]

I play a tank, and I notice that many people seem "overgeared" compared to their skill level. That means that they open with their big hitters at the very start of the combat, ignore threat reduction talents / skills, run away from tank when they get aggro, and so on. That stuff worked fine when they were in worse gear, because they did so little damage. But now, they can make a tank's job impossible..

People gaining the gear the "old way" would have already spent countless hours raiding, and would know that stuff by heart.

So yes, blizzard giving out epics like they were candy IS annoying, and I think it's a large reason for why there are so few people playing tanking roles now.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Darinbob]

Yeah, I think MMOs are being hurt by that sort of elitist attitude, the idea that they deserve better than other people because they have "dedication", even though everyone pays the same amount. Although I dislike the WoW style that emphasizes rewards in the first place, a $100 bill attached to a fishing line. If a game is playable and fun without the Sword of a Thousand OMGs, then I don't really want to have one. But when the game starts saying "you can't see this area without begin geared up and in the inner circle", it starts encouraging this gear lust in everyone, not just the elites.

Re:WoW was ruined

[JAlexoi]

Well, I see Blizzard having an issue with in game economy management. And yes, WoW actually HAS an economy, though it's in a constant inflating bubble state.

Re:WoW was ruined

[ildon]

There's two possible situations here. The first is that the raid leader is being a douche and insisting on unreasonable gear requirements for easy encounters. The solution to that is not to raid with that douche and to find another group.

The other possible situation is that you yourself are attempting to participate in raids that you simply do not have the right gear level to contribute meaningfully to. The solution to this problem is to shoot for lower end raids. Do Naxx 10 or 25, Sartharion 10 or 25, or even Ulduar 10 man pickup groups until your gear improves.

I have a feeling, based on your description, that you are specifically complaining about not being able to do Vault of Archavon, since this is the only consistently pugged raid with a steep gear requirement (because Blizzard keeps adding a new boss every content patch which requires a somewhat "current" gear level). If you can find a group willing to skip Koralon, you can go with that group. Or if you wait long enough, eventually all the "geared" players will have done it and you can give it a try with the rest of the leftover players on Sunday/Monday, and you'll understand more clearly why the groups earlier in the week are so insistent that people have good gear.

Anyway, ignoring all this, it's easier now than it's ever been to catch up in gear level just from doing 5 man heroic dungeons and checking the auction house. And if you're having trouble getting into pickup raids, my advice would be to find a guild that raids on a schedule compatible with yours. I'm not talking about a bleeding edge end game progression guild. I'm talking about a guild that does Naxx25 on Saturday nights and can only clear the entrance of Ulduar. This will get you gear and badges to buy gear faster than running 5 mans and crying about not being invited to pug raids because your gear level is too low.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Darinbob]

Except a lot of raids take more than an hour, and in some games (sadly) you need a dedicated guild or set of friends to go with, and need to spend a lot of prep time (paying for repairs, buying consumables), getting geared up, doing prerequisites, etc. For many games, including WoW I think (or at least pre-BC) being a raider was an enormous time investment, and if you fell behind you had to find another group at the same stage. But that's ok, at long as the game doesn't make raiding the sole thing to do at end game, which was WoW's failing for a long time ("raid or quit" was the saying). Raiding to me just feels like an absurd gameplay style.

I found it amusing, and very sad at the same time, when some pre-college kid in another game told someone with two young children that he needed to learn time management if he wanted to raid. Someone with zero life experiences telling someone more mature how to do things :-) Probably that kid thought that raids were the most important things, and thus the rest of life can be adjusted to make room for it.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the same reason people (and the MSM) start wailing when the Dow drops from 10,000 to 8,000. If you are new to the stock market, it's great because you can suddenly buy more/cheaper stock. If you had money in there all along, your investment is suddenly worth a lot less. Seeing in-game content that you've had to grind X hours for now obtainable in X-Y hours is often viewed as a devaluation of your time expended; great if your new, crappy if your not.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Darinbob]

Don't forget that with 24 other people, it's extremely unlikely that they'll all be actual friends. Raiding guilds are very cut throat at time, full of politics, strict rules, etc. With 3 other people who are actually friends (ie, they care about each other, not just what the others can do for them) then you can arrange to take time off, adjust schedules, forgive each other, etc. With 24 strangers all lusting after gear, you can't just say your kid was sick for the last two weeks and can everyone who's on Attunement #272 come and help you get caught up on Attunement #270.

Re:WoW was ruined

[ildon]

Blizzard actually kind of "solved" this by accident. Greens are garbage level-up quest rewards, blues are good level-up quest rewards and "starter" dungeon gear, purples are "standard" max level gear. At max level, anyone who's put any time or effort into the game (and many who haven't) has epic items in every slot already.

It's been like this since at least half-way through Burning Crusade. In fact, I thought most players had gotten over the "everyone has epics" thing already, and that even the vocal minority had given up on complaining about it. Maybe my perception is skewed.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DrVomact]

My biggest issue is: - Without the gear, you cannot raid. - Without raiding, you cannot get the gear. How am I supposed to enjoy end-game content when I can't get into a group because my DPS is around 1k too low for these "elite" groups?

I certainly know whereof you speak...I pretty much soloed my Warlock to level 80 in PvE. Then I had to find something else to do, so I thought I'd try raiding. I quickly found out that my DPS was dismally substandard for raid groups—if I even got into a group, I was quickly ejected —sometimes very rudely indeed. Words like "freeloader" and "parasite" were used to describe me.

Actually, I don't have any quarrel with these groups—though I wish they had been more polite; I wasn't trying to commit a crime, for crying out loud. As far as I'm concerned, a group is certainly free to set its own criteria for admission. I think the problem is really one of game design; it's a fundamental flaw that I first noticed in the later, degenerate days of Everquest, and it is this: DPS is everything.

I think the drift to DPS-centric game design is probably due to a couple of factors. First, it's relatively easy to design a game around this concept—it's just a matter of hit points and how much damage you allow players to inflict over time. Second, I think that a lot of players like it because it's so easily quantifiable. (And if you look, you will find web sites dedicated to the precise calculation of Damage Per Second for every WoW class that would put some dissertations on quantum physics to shame.)

To me, this is just awful. I want the game to be a fantasy in which I can vacation after a hard day of Reality[TM]; I want it to require skill, pluck, and quick thinking. I want to be part of a group of adventurers who have a sense of humor, and whose primary goal is to have fun. I don't want winning or losing to be a matter than can be calculated at all. That makes it work! (Can you just imagine a fantasy story in which the Noble Knight yells at the Damsel in Distress to shut up because he needs quiet while he works his PDA to compare his DPS to that of the dragon? "Sorry," he says after much brow-furrowing, "I'm just not geared for this. The dragon is gonna take me apart, so sit tight while I round up some higher tier armor, ok lady?")

As I said, I noticed this design drift back in my Everquest days. I started playing right when EQ (the first one, not that sorry waste of pixels, EQ2) first came out. I can truly say that some the most enjoyable recreational experiences I have ever had were in that game. I played a dark elf enchanter, and I'd picked that combo because it was supposed to be difficult. After the first couple of years, during which I had put a lot of energy into becoming a first rate crowd-control specialist, I gradually realized that nobody really needed crowd control anymore. During the early period of EQ, a crowd control specialist was just as essential to any adventuring group as a healer or a tank, because the game was designed to make "adds" just about inevitable in every fight. When adds happened, my chanter would hit them with a stun and a mezz, and I'd often be keeping 3 to 5 mobs staring blankly into space, waiting for their turn to be slaughtered. But then they jacked up the DPS of just about every melee class to the point where adds could be "off tanked" by a bard or pally or berserker, or anybody that wasn't wearing a nightshirt for armor.

This totally ruined the game for me. Sure, my guildies would have pity on me and let me come along (heck, they might need a dose of crack, and I could slow almost as good as a Shaman), but it was just charity. Plus, there were too many nights when there weren't enough guildies on, and I just couldn't get a group. Seeing as soloing a chanter in EQ was as much fun as walking a tightrope in a ice storm wearing greased turtles strapped to your feet instead of shoe

Re:WoW was ruined

[Dotren]

Am I the only one amused at people thinking they're putting in effort and hard work by sitting at a keyboard playing one of the easiest games ever created, and only getting ahead of everyone else because they don't have anything else to do?

Ah but it can be a lot of effort and hard work and I don't think its wrong to like to be possibly rewarded for putting in the extra time, at least more so than someone who decides not too. I raided though most of the original game and up to Illidan in TBC. Some of those encounters were laughably easy, the trash mostly boring, but some of the encounters were really damn hard and took the majority of those 40 people (at the time) to be performing at their best. I say majority because most of the fights could still be won with a few slackers although there were other fights that weren't as forgiving. I never got to kill C'Thun, for instance, because the guild I was in never quite got the fight down as a whole.

Back then I raided 3 or 4 nights a week and had a blast. It was more about the teamwork and the first kills (that excitement over voice chat after than the loot, but the loot was great fun too. I did this while having a full time job and hanging out with friends. I wasn't in a relationship, nor did I have kids or anything like that so I did have some free time. Back then we're talking like maybe 4 or 5 hours a night for some of the longer instances.

These days I've mostly backed off raiding although I try to do some with my guild one day a week on the weekends. It's MUCH easier to get a 10-man going these days and doing an entire raid instance in a rather short amount of time (Naxx may be an exception but that instances was originally designed to be long back for the 40-man days). Heck, some of these instances are pretty much entirely boss fights.. you walk in, kill something for 5 minutes, and walk out with epic gear.

The whole point of WoW's success is that everyone can get to the top levels, do all the raids and get all the gear. Five years and twenty million sales later, poopsockers are still telling us how Blizzard got it all wrong.

I don't think that they got it wrong. I may have had a semi-elitist mentality back in the 40-man days but honestly I still think that a good number of the people who didn't even make a small effort to get the gear just didn't want to put the effort out and some of them indeed wanted it handed to them. I mean, with even a few hours a night spread out over a week, a guild could have cleared MC. Sure, I'm sure there were plenty that tried and failed, and that sucks, especially since back then PvP hadn't fully developed yet. I don't think I ever thought myself better than anyone else simply because I had T2.. I was just excited to do the content and thought it was cool that succeeding in it allowed me to get some stuff not everyone had. At first I was a bit disappointed at the change to 25-man raids but not because I thought that just anyone would be able to do it and walk out with free epics but that it wasn't going to be as fun without 39 of my guildies in the raid with me.

In fact, I think Blizzard has recently hit upon the jackpot. This split of instances into 10-man and 25-man and then a further split into normal and hard modes opens up the content to pretty much everyone and you don't have to be uber-geared to hop into a 10-man normal mode raid. Heck, they've done it with normal instances too, with the heroic versions becoming available at 80. Furthermore, you get badges for completing these heroics and doing daily quests surrounding them.. badges which, when you have enough, you can use to buy loot that rivals the very latest hard-mode raid instance gear. In all of these, the gear is more powerful in the hard modes than normal, and more powerful in the 25 mans over the 10 mans.

The only unfortunate part that I see is that the gear pretty much all looks the same. This expansion has suffered from that since day one when even the quest rewards all looked the same. It would be cool if the 25-man heroic loot maybe looked a bit cooler in some way than the 10-man stuff but they probably don't have the man power for that.

Re:WoW was ruined

[pwfffff]

Epic gear means as much as a superbowl ring.

Purple pixels, shiny metal.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

taking the marine corp that seriously makes perfect sense. taking an online video game that seriously makes you a pathetic excuse for a human being.

No it doesn't. It's all the same psychology in the end. It happens in every aspect of your life.

Next time you wait in line at the grocery store for 20 minutes, and are next to be checked out, how about you let the guy who just walked in the door go ahead of you? What, you don't like this? You must think that to be fair he should wait in line like everyone else, right?
This is the same thing.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Darinbob]

Yeah, I didn't like this in WoW, it completely ruined immersion to fight the same boss over and over, hoping for a drop. I did stop doing an instance on a character in WoW once I finished the instance (unless I was helping someone else). At times if felt like I was the only one doing this, and everyone else was just farming. That's when I realized it wasn't a role playing game, but a strategy/tactics game.

MMOs, at least the stereotypical ones, have this lather/rinse/repeat game play completely unlike role playing games or even single player games.

When I started LotRO I liked the idea that they had some "reflecting pools" to redo group quests, which was sort of a "remember when you did this?" flashback style. It only applied to quest instances, not quests that took place out in the world, or world instances. A lot of the story line took place in small quest instances, which let you keep up the fiction that the boss wasn't just going to respawn in a few minutes.

Re:WoW was ruined

[pwfffff]

Being physically abused to assure that you can kill another human makes perfect sense, but sitting quietly in your home bothering no one makes you a pathetic excuse for a human?

You need to watch less movies (and maybe get out of your house some more).

Re:WoW was ruined

[Darinbob]

I think a lot of MMO players, the majority maybe, are nerds and geeks. If they weren't, they'd be doing real life social activities. So those who have a competitive streak had that suppressed for a long time; they were beaten up, shoved into lockers, laughed at, given wedgies, etc. Now that they're in a different playing field - the online one instead of the school yard - their inner jock comes out finally. It's their turn to be the best, to laugh at those who only have green gear, to kick beach sand at those role playing. They don't want to see a level playing field, because then they couldn't be the best again. They have to have the better armor so that everyone can see that they're better. Letting casuals have good gear would be as unnatural as letting a science geek date a cheerleader; it upsets the natural order.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, you play it for hours every day and more on the weekends, and think this isn't hideously excessive?!?

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Break it up both of you ACs.

Re:WoW was ruined

[changedx]

It now requires uber gear to do ANYTHING fun in the game

A guild recently cleared Ulduar in blues, just to disprove that way of thinking: http://greedygoblin.blogspot.com/2009/08/ungeared.html

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you feel you are entitled to have more fun in the game than someone who pays the same amount as you every month?

I get to have exactly as much fun as I want. If I want to have fun staring at a blank wall you can't do anything to stop me. So yes, I would say I'm entitled to all the fun I can have out of anything I please.

t now requires uber gear to do ANYTHING fun in the game

No, you have decided that it is not fun for YOU. This is your opinion, and you are indeed entitled to it. You have made up your mind that the things that do not require uber-loot are no longer fun, and feel entitled to do everything else in the game with your current level of effort and items. Good luck with that.

they will lose a ton of subscribers.

Their quarterly sales figures disprove this assertation.

If you really need to wave your epeen around you have achievements.

Again, this is your opinion. Other people may like to demonstrate, to themselves or others, their "epeen" through other methods. Such as being able to tackle a difficult instance, or having uber-loot that took a long time, and/or great amount of skill to obtain. You however, seem to think that you should be rewarded for nothing more than bitching about how much less time you dedicate to earning such things.

one person who is upset he can no longer solo 5 people in pvp and wants to quit or the 5 people who are getting soloed and want to quit?

Chances are, none of them will quit. If you're looking for pvp in an RPG then you already understand that gear and level are usually more important than human skill at controlling the avatar. Maybe they like the challenge. Probably they will work to reach the point where he can only take out 2 or 3 at a time, and eventually to an even footing.

Guess which group makes them more money.

Let me see. Let's assume $10 a month to make the math simple.
So 5 people times 2 months played (average length of time for a casual online gamer) is $100
And 1 times 3 years (average length of time for a hardcore WoW addict) is $360

There you have it.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much the opposite for me. I stopped playing WoW because the game refused to award me several achievements for which IMHO I'd put in clearly more effort than should have been necessary. While I don't like the thought of subsidizing end-game content that I'll never get to see (much less take home the lewtz from), I resigned to live with it. Being blocked from getting the Love Fool and Patron titles was the last straw for me. No reward means no fun.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be cool if the 25-man heroic loot maybe looked a bit cooler in some way than the 10-man stuff but they probably don't have the man power for that.

Yeah, they're only pulling in a couple hundred million dollars per month. There's no way they could have hired a few more artists with such dismal profits.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW is more of a bait-and-switch though, compared to traditional games. As you level, you can put in effort and achieve results solo or do 5-man dungeons and play in relatively short sessions. When you hit the level cap, the time commitment to get anywhere ramps up and, you become dependent on 9-24 relative strangers to get their shit together and perform their roles with reasonable skill... endgame (PVE, at least) is quite different in many respects to what you've been doing for the last 80 levels.

Of course, you can always roll a new toon and level them to the cap... but it's more fun to whine and complain 'till they give us welfare epics and nerf everything - then you get to watch the arse-pained hardcore folks rage :D Srsly folks - read the TOS.. it's Blizzard's epeen and they'll nerf it down to a stump, or pump everyone's as they see fit.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

How am I supposed to enjoy end-game content when I can't get into a group because my DPS is around 1k too low for these "elite" groups? I constantly see raids occurring with calls for "3000+dps" which is just unachievable without raid / heroic gear, and you can't get that without a significant time commitment that is just unachievable if you have any physical social interaction in evenings / weekends at all.

If every instance was doable by anyone with any gear, there wouldn't be a reason to keep playing unless they released new content every week. That's why they have basic instances, heroics, raids, and heroic raids. How much fun would these games be if anyone could easily complete them? Try applying your logic to other activities:

"How am I supposed to enjoy climbing Mt Everest when I can't get into a climbing group because my stamina is too low for these "elite" groups? ...and you can't get that without a significant time commitment that is just unachievable if you have any physical social interaction in evenings / weekends at all."

Some people train every day to run triathalons. Some children study dictionaries every day to win spelling bees. Some musicians practice and rehearse every day to make it big. The fact that you don't want to be that committed to playing WoW just means that the highest level content isn't for you.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and that n00b got PKed and lost the purple armor and purple sword. Then he went and junked the epic ring before quitting the game.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rakarra]

Do you watch television on weeknights AND weekends? For most people who play the game a lot, it is a hobby that takes the place of, say, TV. Or game consoles.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rakarra]

I used to play wow. I used to love it. I raided with my guild, did all the fun stuff. Got the rewards from putting the effort in and loved each moment of it. Then Blizzard started listening to the vocal minority crowd, the ones who wanted the rewards with no time put in. The ones who wanted to get the "Sword of OMGWTFBBQ" to kill boars in the forest and nothing more, they wanted to be shiny and wanted it now with no effort. That's when the game started to go down hill.

You call them the "vocal minority crowd," but the truth is that Blizzard decided not to cater solely to the 4% of the player base who were raiding Naxxramas at 60 or Sunwell at 70 pre-nerf. Yeah, the hardcore raiders were never the great majority.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rakarra]

* The funny thing about the end-game raids being controlled by hardcore guilds is that every single guild always ran the raid at 6:00 PST sharp. I actually got invited to a couple runs I couldn't do, because you had to show up 15 minutes before 6:00... I'm barely starting dinner by then.

Every. Single. Guild. I talked to: 6:00. "Can we start at 7:00, I'm not ready by 6:00?" "What are you, an alien mutant from Venus!!"

I have a hunch that only east-coast players and west-coast jobless losers raid.

My guild currently has raids that start at 6:30 pm PST, and basically that time frame was chosen because it was the one that the most people could play at. If you started any earlier, you would cut out just about all the West Coasters off. If you started any later, then the raid would end well after midnight for the East Coasters. So from our experience, we settled at a 6:30 starting time after trying out many other times and finding this was the one that more people could make. I suspect most of the other guilds had a similar trial and error process too.

Boy, that extra 30 minutes makes all the difference for us west coasters too. Fortunately, I live close to my workplace, so if I leave at 5:30, I get home at 5:45. For those west-coasters foolish enough to live 1-2 hours from their job... ugh. Probably cut off completely.

Some can't make the early weekday raids and can only be on time for the Sunday evening raid instead, and that's fine. My partner and I play in the same guild and are in the same raid, so on weekday raid nights dinner is something that we can make in a few minutes (like, say, a chinese chicken salad from a good salad kit) right after I get home from work. We've come up with ways that make it work for the both of us.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rakarra]

This is why I believe the item rarity system should never have been used to begin with. If item quality was based on comparing just the stats and benefits with no other measure (ie. name colour, level requirement) then I highly doubt so many people would have their panties in a knot over "casuals" getting similar quality gear.

~jaraxle

No, instead people would find something just as ridiculous to get worked up over. It's not like there's some amazing difference between a blue and epic of the same ilvl. There is a difference, but it's small. No, people are worked up because the title of the item is purple.. or just the item level itself. So... if you made everything blue text or purple text, people would find something else to grumble about because they just want to grumble about items of similar strengths coming from achievements that have differing difficulty.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rakarra]

Having it be much easier to get the gear later on means that the time the player spent WORKING is now worth LESS.

This will always, ALWAYS be the case, and it always has been. Gear is always transitory -- it is a way to improve yourself NOW so that you can do achievements and instances NOW. Your super hot Sword of Epicness that dropped tonight in your heroic 25-man will likely be useless in 3 months, or replaced by something that a 10-man pug will be able to do at that point. But by that point in time you'll be getting items that are better than what said PuG is getting. As long as this is something you can accept, you'll be fine in raiding. But if you agonize over the idea that the items you worked hard to get now will be obsolete in months.. then this is the wrong game to be playing.

The reason the Coliseum item rewards (badges from dailies, etc) are so good is because the next dungeon is Icecrown Citadel, the home of Arthas. He is the entire culmination of the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, and Blizzard wants people to actually see that dungeon and play through it. So the current content cycle is designed to bring everyone up in gear level to prepare them for what is coming. They don't want it to be limited to the top 5% of players like vanilla wow or BC was. Instead, the super-elite groups will be doing achievements through their heroic hardmodes, while the more casual players will be cruising through in the regular mode. The super-elite players will be getting better prestige and the better gear that lets them be more powerful and tackle new achievements, but both groups get to see the content that Blizzard has been working so hard on and was promised on the box cover. That is what is different about this expansion -- harder challenges still give you better rewards, but most people can still see the actual content, especially now that all raid dungeons have a 10-man easier-to-organize-than-the-25s version.

Re:WoW was ruined

[PaganRitual]

On the other hand, it's in Blizzard's enlightened self-interest to make sure the newcomers can almost catch up to the veterans. It keeps both groups going.

It's funny though, because out of all the pros and cons you could come up with out of a system with this desired result, the one thing that never would have occured to me is "the veterans will cry about the fact that the newcomers also get purple gear". It's not like this is even a Felucca vs Trammel thing, the fact that newcomers can have easier access to epic levelled gear has virtually zero effect on the 'veterans', who still have their purple gear. Unless of course you count "not being able to grind non epic-geared players you find out in the world into a fine paste as easily" as a huge impediment to your gaming.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Blakey Rat]

Well, I don't have any problem with some guilds doing 6:00 PM PST, the problem was *every guild on the server* (that I talked to, which I think is most of them) started the raid at the exact same time. Not a single one started at 7:00, or 5:00. It was ridiculous.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Blakey Rat]

Oh, and BTW, some of us can't *afford* to live closer to our jobs. If you're the small minority in a tech job on the west coast, in a place with *sensible* real-estate prices, consider yourself extremely lucky. For the rest of it, it's a choice between renting your entire life, commuting an hour each way, or going bankrupt.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Yuuki Dasu]

The problem is that you reach a point in the game where it switches from:

"Just play a couple hours on weekends, or whenever you feel like"

To:

"You MUST be on and at the instance at exactly 5:45 PM PST you MUST remain on for 4 hours MINIMUM, then be free the next day at exactly 5:45 PM PST in case we don't finish the instance today. You MUST research all the bosses before entering the instance. You MUST be using one of the 2 acceptable specs for your class online, or you will have to respec, grinding gold to afford it. You MUST carry a minimum amount of healing potions, meaning you have to grind gold to buy them. You MUST install seedy chat software, and WOW add-ins, you can't participate with the default program."

I see this sentiment a lot, but I really don't feel it has that much basis in reality. The truth isn't nearly as jarring.

There are plenty of guilds with no attendance requirements, who do what they can with the people that show up. They don't kill the latest content, typically, because they aren't organized enough and don't care enough. However, by comparing yourself as a newly-max-level character to those who are killing the latest content, you're skipping quite a few steps in the middle, which is why you see such an abrupt lack of transition.

Yes, if your performance is sub-par, people will sometimes try to get you to change the way you use your talent points (a system with unique skills for each class, by which you specialize to gain some abilities and make others stronger or faster), but it's not for no reason: it makes you better, and more efficient. It's not some evil conspiracy; other people won't want to play with you if you're not pulling your weight.

The gold you're arguing about grinding for is negligible: re-specializing costs at most 50 gold, when you can earn about 150 gold in half an hour doing a double handful of daily quests.

This is the first time I've heard of people call Ventrilo seedy software. Yes, it helps to have the equivalent of a VoIP party line going to coordinate things and chat. There are a couple of really useful add-ons that people often ask their teammates to use, and they can be a hassle, but I don't see why they themselves are such a deal-breaker. Overall, if you have no problem with Blizzard Warden, I don't know why a couple of other programs would be so odious.

I feel a little dirty for being a Blizzard apologist here. There are plenty of things to criticize about the game. But arguing that it's still necessarily "too hardcore" isn't one of them.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the entire problem is that WoW is almost completely gear based. Games with more versatile stat and skill based character development models avoid a lot of the problems discussed here. And personally, make the game more interesting. It's unfortunate that the games that attempt serious character development often don't have the level of total refinement that WoW has.

Also unfortunate is that with WoW doing so well financially many game publishers feel the need to be similar to WoW. WAR is pretty much the WoW concept done a lot better, but it's still the WoW concept. Would be nice if they'd realize that instead of competing with Blizzard directly on their grounds, they should compete by offering an alternative that is actually different.

Re:WoW was ruined

[cfalcon]

Sup, it affects you in pvp. My main is a rogue in plenty of 245 -232 loot, and I'm in a raid guild, and I arena. If you aren't a paladin and I open on you, I'll probably beat you solo- which is fine, the game isn't about 1v1. The issue is that while it's a pretty good fight versus a mage, a lock, a DK, a shaman, a druid, etc.... in equivalent gear, it's friggin ABSURD versus a fresh 80. Fresh 80s don't even get out of CHEAPSHOT, and that's in pure PVP gear- if I wear my raid gear, it's way sillier. The gear ramp up has been crazy this time, and blue is on the record as saying it.

So no, if someone raids or does whatever to get gear, it very much affects every other player in the game- same faction players still have to arena versus you, and everyone on the opposite faction fights you in BGs. If you don't understand how a top tier set of gear can influence pvp, you don't play WoW.

But hey feel free to roll horde on Ursin. We'll see if you can get enough gear to make me press Kidney Shot.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

That ring was legendary and not epic, n00b!

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

The chess rules are not hard. There are 6 different pieces, which each have their own movements, an a couple of special moves.

The rules is not what makes chess hard. It's the opponent. There are opponents for every skill level.

In most MMORPG's, getting that item you just need takes the same number of hours of playing, no matter if you play that many hours in a day, or in half a year.

And, with chess, the less you play, the quicker the game is. Two beginners can play a game in 15 minutes. Two hardcore players can play for hours. So, for a casual player it becomes a casual game, for a player who is able to spend the time to get really good, it becomes a game that takes a lot of time.

with most MMOs, it's the other way around. If you play 16 hours a day, getting that epic item takes a day. If you play 2 hours a week, getting the same item takes 8 weeks.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Doggabone]

Christ, you play it for hours every day and more on the weekends, and think this isn't hideously excessive?!?

A few hours a day - not every day, even, he takes a few off here and there - and a little longer on the weekends isn't excessive. Online gaming actually cut down my "lazy" activity time and cut costs. I wasn't plonked in front of the TV (cancelled a few cable packages, rented fewer DVDs), I decided to spend more non-game time away from the computer and/or TV (read a bit more, got out of the house), and on top of all that spent more time with the better half (playing the game together, chatting while we did, etc).

Yeah, sometimes you don't get to play or TV or whatever for a while, something more important is happening. We stopped playing for a few months last time we sold the house, we had work to do when we got home. Online gaming is only excessive when you fail to keep up with life's priorities (job, home, health, family, friends). Ditto any other gaming, TV time, internet surfing, hardware hacking, wood duck carving, drinking, drugs, food, jogging, etc etc etc. It's usually easy to keep it all in balance, and part of what WoW does well is deliver a game that you CAN walk away from, to focus on the important things, and still keep up with the game.

It's not so much that "Casual" gaming is influencing MMO's, as it is that game publishers recognize that a lot of gamers are all adult-like now, and if we can't integrate the game into our real lives, we're not giving them our money. And money - the market - is what influences MMO's.

Re:WoW was ruined

[DrgnDancer]

This. I haven't really watched TV at all in the last few months. Once the new season of the shows I like start I'll probably play less and watch more TV. Plus my wife and I are temporarily separated (not, like, about to be divorced separated, she got a job in another city and had to take it) and she plays to so we can actually be "together" when we play better than we could be otherwise. I used to say that I played 10 or so hours a week, right now it's more like 20... *shrug* with the wife out of town and nothing good on TV, well I can only ready so much before I get a headache. Between playing with her, and my other friends in guild, this is a better time sink than most ATM.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Blakey Rat]

This is the first time I've heard of people call Ventrilo seedy software.

Because at the time I was using a Mac.

The most retarded thing about the seedy Ventrillo is that it *can* work on Macs, they even have a Mac client, but only if the server is set up correctly-- and the default server settings are incompatible with Macs. It's pretty much the most retarded software for VOIP I've ever used.

Yes, it helps to have the equivalent of a VoIP party line going to coordinate things and chat.

No doubt; except that the software that they far and away used DIDN'T FUCKING WORK ON MY OS.

There are a couple of really useful add-ons that people often ask their teammates to use, and they can be a hassle, but I don't see why they themselves are such a deal-breaker.

I don't either, and yet many guilds would *require* them before you could enter the raid.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rakarra]

I chose renting for a long time just because real estate prices here are so wild (just bought a 1100 sq ft house for $645k). But it's all about quality of life for me -- if I'm going to spend 2 hours in my car every day, then what is even the point of owning a home? That's 2 hours every day that is completely, entirely wasted, time I'll never get back. I made the choice that nothing is worth that, but I understand if others make a different choice.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Rakarra]

I'm guessing it's because there are almost no "west coast" guilds or "east coast" guilds.. they're all guilds of various people who get along or have similar aims, and they're all mixes of west and east-coasters, with all the same time constraints.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that you reach a point in the game where it switches from:

No, you don't. If you do, that's not my problem. You need to find a better guild, and I don't mean "better" in terms of better at poopsocking.

Re:WoW was ruined

[LordVader717]

While I don't want to have the assertive undertone of the other poster, the fact that a "few hours a day" isn't yet considered "hardcore" is quite astonishing.
I tried the game for a few months when it came out, but never got past level 40. It just wasn't worth the money (I ended up paying over $100 for the game and subscriptions so that makes it my most expensive game ever) for someone who "only" plays less than 7 hours a week.

Re:WoW was ruined

[KingBenny]

dude ... it's a game ...

Re:WoW was ruined

[LordVader717]

I had a full time job at the time (I still do yet with another company), a family that I spent time with and study at the same time. Yet I found the time to do what I like. Some watch TV others collect stamps, some play wow and others whine about time management.

It's up to everyone to schedule their time themselves. If you can make it fit your schedule that's great. But when I tried WoW, I didn't have the time to keep to the schedules for much of a multiplayer experience, at least not without neglecting other things that I wanted to do. I wasn't prepared to use that amount of time for an online computer game. Bear in mind I was 16 years old at the time. I quit after a few months.

The Problem is that while I liked the game, the rewards were so centered on massive time-investment that the game wasn't too much fun if you had little to spare. That and the high subscription fees.

Re:WoW was ruined

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, sure. He spent hours and hours of his life working through dungeons , raiding, clawing his way up, to get certain elite items. Now it's much easier, and that reduces the achievment and exclusivity of it.

          Honestly,if they did make some high-powered items easier to get, they should have made a new item. Make it as similar as they want, but some difference so people still have their exclusive version.

          (Note I don't play MMORPGs.)

          So, do keep in mind you won't get burned like that in these casual MMORPGs. They are going to be easy to begin with I think. It'll be an adjustment if you've played MMORPGs to grind through and get epic items, but maybe playing for fun will be more fun?

outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Stroot]

True, they dumbed the game down too much. But what also killed the fun for pvp in WoW is the battlegrounds and arenas. Because of this there's hardly any pvp in the outside world anymore. Every pvper is just mindlessly grinding Alterac Valley for gear. Warhammer Online promised a lot of outside RvR but unfortunately copied the battlegrounds too. Really looking forward to playing Aion, no battlegrounds, just a lot of outside pvp everywhere.

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Because outside PvP doesn't work. Battlegrounds are there for a reason, a game 10 vs 10 is reasonable fair. A fight in the open with 60 vs 40 (WAR!) or 2 vs 1 (PvP in open PvP games), is only fun for the winners, the loser has no incentive to stay around. But in a battleground you have objectives to complete and teamwork can make a difference (since it's equal numbers).

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Aion HAS got battlegrounds, sorry to burst bubble : )

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Try Eve Online, PvP is pretty much everywhere. And you get meaningful losses, making the whole experience more fun.

Wider Female Audience

[Anonymous Coward]

'As a company, we knew we had to evolve ... to expand [our] audience ... and to get a much wider female audience.'

OMG! Ponies MMO!

Re:Wider Female Audience

[Rhaban]

already in-game: http://www.wowwiki.com/Argent_Pony_Bridle

Re:Wider Female Audience

[Thanshin]

'As a company, we knew we had to evolve ... to expand [our] audience ... and to get a much wider female audience.'

OMG! Ponies MMO!

Nonono, it's "wider female, audience" not "wider, female audience".

So, OMG! Full blown shire horses! XMMO.

Re:Wider Female Audience

[L4t3r4lu5]

So, OMG! Full blown shire horses! XMMO.

The appropriate term is "Hipponies!"

Re:Wider Female Audience

[Neffirithion]

'As a company, we knew we had to evolve ... to expand [our] audience ... and to get a much wider female audience.'

OMG! Ponies MMO!

Actually, they are gonna be the ones funding the Twilight MMO from the sounds of it... http://www.massively.com/2009/07/28/theres-a-er-twilight-mmo-coming/

Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[milosoftware]

I don't know about the rest of you, but i always make a point of lying through my teeth when it comes to online subscriptions to anything - especially a game. When asked, I'm a 12 year old redhaired girl living in Namibia.

Now back to their stats. How do they know 50% is 13 years or younger? Right. They ask for your birthdate. And then assume that you click the truth...

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Kjella]

Surprisingly, many people tell the truth. I myself used to write crap like that, but I found I was really just being an asshat. These days I write something real for the demographics, I won't tell you my birth date but you'll get the age right. Not my address but the country. Basically close enough to be statistically useful, but not accurate enough to bother me.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[IBBoard]

Kids go the other way, though. Because of the US COPPA legislation my wife's website doesn't allow under-13s. What you find is that kids want to pretend to be older than they are, sign up as 15, 16, 17 or 18 year olds because they think it is cool (and they can get to stuff that they shouldn't).

Either that or kids don't have the imagination to lie like that, and most people can't be arsed either.

I end up the other way and just going "I'm over 18, so why do you need to know my DoB?" and proceed to just hit "end" on their day/month/year picker and end up somewhere in the region of 113 having been born on New Year's Eve!

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[am 2k]

Usually, I'm about 100 years old on those web pages, in order to get rid of age restrictions.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[L4t3r4lu5]

Did you ever find yourself being offered services being tailored for Namibian 13 year old girls?

No?

Your IP address shows which locality you're in, never mind which country. The rest they can guess from your interest in specific features, or by stealing data from cookies from associated websites.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe I've ever come across a birthday verification that allowed you to select 1896 as your birth year.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[elrous0]

And to think I sent you all that anti-Malaria medicine for nothing.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[IBBoard]

I can't think what I registered with recently, but some places do it as "we don't allow under 13s because of COPPA", so start in 1996, then go back 100 years from there. Why stop at, say, 1930 and lock out the 80+ age group?

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never heard of a proxy server, have you?

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[julesh]

I end up the other way and just going "I'm over 18, so why do you need to know my DoB?" and proceed to just hit "end" on their day/month/year picker and end up somewhere in the region of 113 having been born on New Year's Eve!

I designed a web site for a client once who insisted that the DOB input fields on their registration form should be drop downs, and that 1 Jan 1970 should be selected by default. When they started getting a lot of registrations with a DOB of 1 Jan 1970, they suggested disallowing this date...

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Anonymous Coward]

If that's true, then apparently I'm a 14 year old girl who likes porn, Pokemon, and listening to drum and bass.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Blakey Rat]

Nobody lies DOWN. People lie UP.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Anonymous Coward]

I am always born on January first (or whatever the default is).

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[ildon]

I was surprised recently when a website tried to tell me my birthdate of 1/1/1900 was "invalid". It seemed to take 1/1/1910 just fine, though.

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Anonymous Coward]

There will always be those of us that realize you get a host of legal protections if you say you are 13 or under.

But you are right. These companies and their marketing departments deserve accurate information so that they may acquire even more money. Drink Coke!

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[DrVomact]

I don't know about the rest of you, but i always make a point of lying through my teeth when it comes to online subscriptions to anything - especially a game. When asked, I'm a 12 year old redhaired girl living in Namibia.

Now back to their stats. How do they know 50% is 13 years or younger? Right. They ask for your birthdate. And then assume that you click the truth...

Rrrrrright. And then they accept your credit card information?

Re:Lies, damn lies, and my birthdate

[Carra]

Those statistics could also tell us that 90% of all people have their birthday on the first of january.

Casual players vs. unmanaged development

[192939495969798999]

I disagree that casual players are the reason that a game change was posted without notifying anyone. That sounds a lot more like unmanaged development processes. How hard could it be to have some area where you say things that all the players can read, let's call it an "official website", where you post messages like "FYI, we changed the shoe items"? Do they really think people will buy the "our customer base doesn't care" argument? I'm more inclined to think that even if none of the customers would care, certainly the development team cares that they made the change, and they'd want to tell people about it. Presumably it either fixes a bug, adds a feature, or something. If the change really was purposeless, then why make the change at all? What's worse, can you imagine a development environment where the process driving these changes was so ad-hoc that you didn't have a way to communicate the changes to the users? From some older coding positions I held, sadly I *can* imagine that.

Re:Casual players vs. unmanaged development

[ZekoMal]

It's more common than you think.

In most "free" MMOs, the process is roughly similar: release something, screw something up, patch it and screw people over. I'll list an example from Goonzu (they call it Luminary sometimes). There was a glitch where if you claimed a hunting ground for your guild, your guild would gain roughly 30-40 levels. So, some guilds went from level 30-70 overnight. They patched it swiftly but did nothing to undo the guild level ups. So there was a huge gap between the 20 or so guilds that did it, and the hundreds that couldn't. And that's just one example: glitches, bugs, hacks, cheats...just spend about a week on any MMO and you'll see it. Another example: Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine recently had an FC (Fortune Card) snafu where they forgot to code in the rare item you could get from it. To fix it, they changed it into a raffle: the more rl cash you spent on the FC's, the more rare items you would get. This didn't count prior purchases, though, so anyone who spent money trying to get it before the patch was shit out of luck.

Just some examples; I'm sure I could find more. And somehow, MMO free-to-players are fine with the constant bludgeoning they get...

Re:Casual players vs. unmanaged development

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason for not posting game changes is cost. It is a free game. It costs to turn programmer documentation into user docs. By not posting changes they eliminate a lot of expenses by not generating the announcement, posting it, and dealing with the increased noise volume attendant upon full discussion and understanding of the changes to the game.

Pizza and promises

[wild_quinine]

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick disclosed that their forthcoming, unnamed MMOG will have 'a little more broad appeal' than its market-leading MMO World of Warcraft.

Seriously? Love it or hate it, the one thing WoW has is a broad appeal. I know loads of people who play WoW who, apart from Wow, only play casual games. In fact, amongst the people I know who play WoW, over half of them are (typically) casual gamers. Hardly any of them would touch Crysis, or even Arkham Asylum, and know what the hell to do with it.

Hell, WoW has broader appeal than a casual game, because Casual and Hardcore gamers both play it! You want to expand on that? The only thing I can think of with broader appeal than that, is Pizza. Actual bread, cheese, tomato, to your door in 30 minutes or less. Are activision branching out, or going nuts?

Re:Pizza and promises

[Narpak]

You want to expand on that? The only thing I can think of with broader appeal than that, is Pizza.

Good idea. Make it so that in their new game after ten hours of playing they buy you a pizza delivered to your door (or dormitory); now that would broaden their appeal I reckon.

Re:Pizza and promises

[Chris Mattern]

You want to expand on that? The only thing I can think of with broader appeal than that, is Pizza. Actual bread, cheese, tomato, to your door in 30 minutes or less.

Everquest II did that. WoW countered with Chinese, but that turned out to be an April Fool's prank. The EQII /pizza command, however, was real, but I believe it's been discontinued.

Re:Pizza and promises

[elrous0]

It's kind of scary to even contemplate something with more broad appeal than WoW. It's sort of like a drug dealer announcing that Crack wasn't addictive enough, so he's working on a new "Super Crack."

Re:Pizza and promises

[jgtg32a]

The only thing hard core about Crysis is ... was the hardware requirements.

Re:Pizza and promises

[gad_zuki!]

Exactly. I dont think they understand how causal WoW playing can be. The missions are brain dead simple, you can sit around and chat all you like, theres no real punishment for death, you can casually solo a lot of content, etc. These games are so casual friendly that you can pretty much play it 90% of the time without any group or even without joining a guild. Sure, you miss out on the instances and good gear, but casual Joe MMO Player doesnt care about that.

I think what "casual MMO" is going to mean is something like how Champions Online is today. A dumbed down button masher thats more "arcade levels" than "towns." I dont see who the target demographic really is. WoW, AoC, and the rest are already pretty easy and dont really demand too much time and effort, especially if youre a solo player.

Re:Pizza and promises

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't understand the choices made behind "hardcore" versus "casual." The other day I put in 16 solid hours of Harvest Moon. The day before was all Super Paper Mario. For my retro jollies, I occasionally play through Castlevania: SOTN in one sitting. That doesn't sound casual to me. But I'm a second-class gamer because I don't want to shoot people in the head.

I played some WoW casually, but it was frustrating. People with 4 end-game characters drove up auction hall prices to the point where I'd spend days grinding whatever I could to buy a stack of mithril. I'd have farmed it myself, but the 80's on their epic mounts were buzzing through raping the land to earn money for alt mounts and gear. I stuck with it about 4 years, but finally realized I was happier grinding for turnips.

Re:Pizza and promises

[Blakey Rat]

I actually had some weird experiences in WOW, where I'd mention being excited about just buying Mass Effect, and the entire guild would go, "uh, what's that?"

Gee, you guys play a video game 12+ hours a day, I figured you were interested in video games. Nope, not video games, just MMOs.

Ok, so now I'm excited about trying Age of Conan... "uh, what's that?" Ah, so they're not interested in just MMOs, they're literally ONLY INTERESTED IN WOW.

WTF?!

And I'm not talking about just a couple of people, in a guild with about 40 people online, something like 35 of them were completely disinterested in any other video games. The only "gaming" community I've been in where that's true.

Re:Pizza and promises

[FuckTheModerators]

If I had mod points I'd give you +1 Obscure-as-all-hell for the probably unintentional Frankenhooker reference to SuperCrack.

Re:Pizza and promises

[Anonymous Coward]

Popcap Games made an add-on to WoW so that you can play Peggle from inside the WoW GUI.

Would you like some heroin in your crack today?

Re:Pizza and promises

[Rakarra]

I love the World of Warcraft April Fool's pranks. They always manage to hit just the right tone, whether it was the Bard class or "Don't let the inconvenience of eating impede you from reaching your Maximum Gaming Potential."

Re:Pizza and promises

[Rakarra]

Mmm. I had about the opposite experience -- when I was leveling up my mining, I had no problems finding Mithril (well, ok, not Mithril. It's the one ore that is more difficult to find than the others.. just because in the area where it's found it's mixed in with iron and thorium too) or any other profession reagent.

This CAN be a problem though in the weeks after something is released that requires those materials.. say, when jewelcrafting was released, it was difficult for awhile to find lower-level ore thanks to the people trying to level their new skills. In normal circumstances though, I was able to run through and find what I needed. Occasionally you would get a level 80 running through gathering stuff, but the zones are large enough that the raw reagents respawn faster than a single level 80 could collect.

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Rhaban]

Outside pvp is fun in a pvp-only oriented game.

Wow is and has always been a pve-oriented game, with some pvp thrown in for people who really want it.

!surprise

[wjh31]

c.f The effect that the wii has enabled on the casual games market.

Re:!surprise

[kellyb9]

c.f The effect that the wii has enabled on the casual games market.

I've never played WoW simply because I don't have the time, however if I did, I'd be kind of annoyed if they watered down the gameplay because Nintendo came out with a new system. Some games are meant to be complex.

Re:!surprise

[Blakey Rat]

Oh, come on, the Wii has nothing to do with popularizing casual games. If anything, I'd credit Yahoo Games, MSN Gaming Zone, and PopCap. Those are the companies that really embraced the casual market online.

If you want to credit the Wii for popularizing motion sensing controllers, sure that's fine. But casual games were on consoles long before the Wii came around-- to give a couple of obvious examples, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Tetris, and Dr. Mario were all on the original NES. Even the Xbox 360 HD (the "most hardcore" system) came packed with Hexic HD, an excellent example of an original casual game.

Broad appeal

[Hognoxious]

Broad appeal ... that means they're marketing it to women?

Re:Broad appeal

[CarpetShark]

Either that or they've licensed some porn for the in-game billboards.

Another casual mmo

[Loomismeister]

DDO is doing something similar to this semi free to play and it seems to be working out quite well for them.

Re:Another casual mmo

[Jaysyn]

Yeah, I've been having fun with it too. Gotta love Gary Gygax as the DM in most dungeons.

Fatties rejoice!

[Shivetya]

The ultimate expression of casual gamer.

on a side note, in World of Warcraft you can play Bejeweled... a time waster inside of another time waster!

a perfect place to meet creepy men!

[slinks]

" 51% of Free Realms gamers are under 13, with around 75% under 18 " The other 25% is creepy men! sound to me like they do have a broad appeal!

Give the 13 year olds free realms...

[ILuvSP]

While I agree that free realms do have broader appeal, why does that have to be the all we get? I pay to play WoW because to me it is worth it...or used to be anyway. The game has become..well..in all honesty a joke. I have been playing since the day it came out. Sure, make games that are free to play so that you can draw in the 13 year olds. But that shouldn't stop game developers from making games, that are subscription based that do have the separation that a lot of more mature players want.

Good

[nedlohs]

The balls to nerf and annoy the cry baby players is important to making a sustainable MMO (from a playability point of view, not from a profitability point of view).

At some point you will screw up and introduce an item or power or combination that is simply too powerful. You need to fix it if you want to not have every character be exactly the same and have whatever that thing is. Nerfing it is orders of magnitude better than powering up everything else since if you power everything else up you'll get something wrong again and some other thing will be overpowered.

But the idiot players don't like nerfing (even though it has the same effect as powering up everything else), so almost all the MMOs end up stuck in an endless cycle of increasing the power level - it's like a Dragon Ball Z series...

Re:Good

[Rhaban]

Just wait for the Dragon Ball MMO

Cat got my tongue

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont tell me "early" WoW "was better" some time ago.
Its almost the same game for those who "have no life" and \ or for those [b]who know so little about true gaming ... [/b]
Playing WoW is not actually playing, its working for some variables in Blizzard's DB.

~Avast.

ohhh nooo

[Anonymous Coward]

"we've lost 100% of our 18 year old players from last year !!!"

"they're 19, you dumbass !"

Not quite easy as it sounds...

[Nesa2]

This totally makes sense. See unexploited market, then focus on exploiting it.... I don't thinks so....

Ten years ago only "geeks" like myself used to have a PC and know how to use it and play MUDs online. Since then the market has changed - more and more people have at least one computer in their house and Internet. Where games used to be for a few dedicated hardcore games before, they have since changed to cater to all (or at least try to cater to all).

I've also been a huge WoW fan in the past and seen it grow from game catering to hardcore gamers to catering 13 year olds. Don't get me wrong, there is still content to hold a hook in for some of the hard core gamers, but with every patch and expansion pack it's less and less. As more and more games become so generic to try and hook larger demographic, new games will start to come out that will focus and specialize on hardcore gamers, casual gamers, kids... etc. Games with broad appeal will die, as a game that does not cater to and individual audience will not hold anyone's interest. Sometimes by trying to satisfy everyone, you don't satisfy anyone... MMOs market is still in it's infant stage...

Games, like movies are made for niche market - specific audience, and Blizzard is just greedy. How many people would watch a movie that contains all of following: porn, sci-fi, fantasy, comedy, drama, thriller, action, gore.... I'd rather watch one good comedy, or one good action movie than any movie containing all aspects of the genres.

Blizzard will fail if they don't start making individual audiences happy with their games. In ten years or less WoW will turn into a MMO Whack o Weasel.

Re:Not quite easy as it sounds...

[Reapy]

Wow has always been casual friendly, from the beginning. The leveling up process change in wow was the biggest thing around at its release. Back then you only had like EQ or DAOC leveling models, no way in hell you were soloing your way to max level. Even the concept of 40 man raiding was a WHEW SIGH OF RELIEF from all the other games out there... Ahhh ONLY 40 people, great!

Wow has always been casual, it is just our idea of what is casual and hardcore that has changed over the years.

Re:Not quite easy as it sounds...

[jaraxle]

A lot of people seem to forget or just not know that two of the major figures in WoW's development were Tigole (Legacy of Steel) and Furor (Fires of Heaven), guild leaders of possibly the most hardcore raiding guilds in EverQuest, and part of their "Vision" (yes I use that term on purpose for those that understand why) in the beginning was to make an MMO that offered gameplay that they were used to (raiding) to a broader audience. AKA make raiding more casual friendly.

~jaraxle

Was it really ruined?

[Anonymous Coward]

Blizzard ruined the game about half way through BC

How many players does the game have now vs. the number of players it had then? I think that is a much better metric of whether or not blizzard "ruined the game."

Maybe they ruined it for you, but made it awesome for ten other people. Given that their ultimate goal is to make money, not to please you specifically, it makes sense for them to hit the broadest market possible.

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[space_jake]

Eve Online is a griefer's paradise. Sure its fun if you've got a fleeted 95% of the time, but that is hard to swing if your corp resides primarily in different time zones.

MMO-Lite spawns MMO-Lighter

[Anonymous Coward]

WoW was almost immediately the MMO-Lite game; something anyone could log in and play for an hour between rounds of FPS tournaments, and was pretty much trivial to any player of the more developed or 'serious' MMORPG genre. To see Blizzard planning an "MMO-Even-Lighter" is just too funny. WOW may have introduced a lot of players to the idea of the avatar in a shared world cooperative game, but the skills and tactics do not compare with most of the more evolved raiding games, and the players who develop their understanding of such skills in WOW find themselves far behind the curve in more heavily group-dependent virtual worlds. It will be interesting to see how the players of the new game do when moving into the WOW level, and how the more experienced WOW players view the influx of those who get their virtual feet wet in the new game.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.

[Petersko]

"Playing WoW is not actually playing, its working for some variables in Blizzard's DB."

And playing baseball on a field is working for little numbers in boxes on a scorecard. And playing golf is working for even smaller numbers on a smaller scorecard. When kids play cops and robbers, it's for... nothing.

Play is about what's fun.

Re:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever.

[Rakarra]

And playing baseball on a field is working for little numbers in boxes on a scorecard. And playing golf is working for even smaller numbers on a smaller scorecard. When kids play cops and robbers, it's for... nothing.

Play is about what's fun.

Dear moderators -- please mod this up to 11. Not to 5, or 10, this one goes to 11.

Thank you,
Someone who has posted way too many times in the article already.

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Whorhay]

For me the problem with outdoor PvP or RvR in WAR was the often incredibly long ways you had to run back after you lost a fight. Granted that's part of the death penalty and whatnot but it was too annoying when I could que up for scenarios and be assured of getting into some good action and not have to run or ride back to the fight for five minutes if I died.

I think a major problem with PvP in all of these games is that they are rewarded with items. So you end up with a lot of people just doing it for the item rewards. Which leads to people looking for every shorcut they can to farm the points or whatever for that equipment. I think the best system would be to simply keep a record of whom killed whom, how many times, level differences, etc. Let the record be the reward it's self. By encouraging it with gear, exp, coin or whatever you just encourage the behaviour that the pvp crowd always complains about.

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Reapy]

Try darkfall online, pvp oriented game. I like world pvp as much as the next guy, but unless the game is defined around it, world pvp is generally a gankfest, either you are horribly outnumbered or they are horrible outnumbered. It took a lot of work to find one of those memorably equal battles that take place.

Anyway DFO might be your place to go. I'll check it out eventually but I want to give it a bit of time, also the idea of afk macroing my way to competitiveness isn't fun either.

Missing topic?

[Token_Internet_Girl]

What the hell is all this WoW talk? I'm surpised no one has made the conjecture that SOE is just bad for gaming in general, considering the way they pissed all over Everquest after acquiring it from Verant Interactive. Seriously, this topic needs an obligatory "get off my lawn" tag.

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[DrgnDancer]

I played on a PvP server in vanilla WoW for a while... You're right, it was great fun! There's nothing as great as having a level 55 corpse camp you in Ashenvale because killing level 19s in one shot makes him feel manly. Then eventually just having to log out and come back later to finish your quest, because he just. won't. leave. and you have no recourse, since he's orders of magnitude more powerful than you no matter how much skill you have. Did I mention that this was back when servers were regularly overpopulated? Sometimes it took 20 minutes to get back in! Ah good times. I don't know why I moved to PVE server.

Battlegrounds and flagging assure that if you're doing PvP, you want to do PvP. They also ensure that the PvP you're in is either a) reasonably fair, with a reasonably equal number of similarly leveled players, or b) a choice you made to let the other side potentially gang up on you because you chose to flag (and can choose to unflag when you're tired of the lvl 55 asshole.) World PvP would be fun if people had any sense of honor or fairness, but too many people don't. Playing on a PvP server was incredibly frustrating at the early levels.

MOD UP

[julesh]

Don't have mod points myself (never seem to get 'em these days...), but if I did this post would definitely be worth modding.

Problem is the subscription system!

[tpg0007]

More MMOs should adopt the pay-per-hour system popular elsewhere in the world, so that they'll know where the fuck their revenue comes from, the casuals or the 40-hour-a-week hardcore gamers. Subscription is basically asking casual players to subsidize the hardcore guys, like a fucking insurance plan. As a result the casuals have to be given the same level of attention as those who have invested much more into a product, and neither group is happy and view the other with loathing. Does this make sense? You have one group of customers who love your product and have the potential to spend a lot, vs. another group that occasionally brings you business and could just as well go buy another product, yet you charge them exactly the same and treat them the same?

Re:Problem is the subscription system!

[mujadaddy]

Good point, but what does pay-per-hour translate to in $?

I'm so sick of casual games

[AthleteMusicianNerd]

and I'm so tired of hearing about every Schmoe on the planet jumping on board the casual game band wagon. To all you Schmoe's out there...NO I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR STUPID CASUAL GAMES IDEA THAT TARGET WOMEN! ABC, NBC, CBS, have do nothing but target women, and now they are DYING... GOOD!!! IDIOTS!

Great....

[Dotren]

Since they only play for about 20 minutes per session and aren't focused on the mechanics of the game, SOE can get away with changes that are unfair to some players, as shown by a recent, oddly-handled item nerf in Free Realms."

So not only is Sony encouraging the ADD-like behavior that a lot of people are showing these days (anyone remember back when a movie could be 2 or 3 hours long and didn't require explosions every few seconds to keep an audience interested.. LotR and Titanic are the only ones I can think of) but they're also going to get used the idea of screwing players over without any real negative feedback?

Granted, I realize Sony screwing players over is no new thing (I played SWG back when it was good), but at least when they do it in most of their games there is some sort of lashback.

Re:Great....

[LionMage]

anyone remember back when a movie could be 2 or 3 hours long and didn't require explosions every few seconds to keep an audience interested

In actuality, movies have been gradually increasing in average length since the inception of the motion picture industry. The earliest films were really short -- The Great Train Robbery, released in 1903, was 12 minutes long. In this decade, 90 minutes is considered a bit on the short side, and anything under 90 minutes (many animated films fall into this category) is "really friggin' short, suitable for children and anyone else with a short attention span."

I had at least one film history site blocked at work, but I found a couple other pages that have interesting stats. This page shows the trend line for film length -- the graph is given in meters of film, which correlates linearly with run time (duration). This page gives a bar graph of run time broken down by decade, although this WikiAnswers article does critique the methodology used by the author of that study (e.g., the choice of the top 50 rated films in those decades, which may skew results).

Precious few movies approached the 3-hour mark "back in the day" -- I think Gandhi, released in 1984, is the only one I can remember seeing as a child, and it was a rare experience for me in that it was the first time I remember going to a movie that had an intermission. A more recent example would be Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of Hamlet.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, people tend to remember the past selectively, and usually with rose-tinted glasses.

It's true that your typical summer blockbuster relies more heavily on shock value and SFX/VFX to keep the audience's attention, but I would argue that the vast majority of dramas that we see today easily exceed 2 hours yet don't rely on explosions and other VFX to carry the audience; just off the top of my head, I can think of We Own the Night and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

So... I see hope for the future, not despair. :-)

but they're also going to get used the idea of screwing players over without any real negative feedback?

This, I fear, is going to bite Sony in the ass in the long-term, but they are going to flirt with this model anyway because it frankly goes with the kind of corporate culture they've developed. It's a bit like having the much-storied "arrogance" of Apple, without as much good taste or sense. (Not trying to start a flame war, considering how much Apple hardware I own, but the perception is out there, and not entirely unjustified.) The control freaks in Sony like the idea of being able to make unilateral changes to their products without getting beaten up by whiners, and as long as revenues don't take a hit, they're likely to win the day. That entire model is predicated upon gamers either (a) not noticing, or (b) not caring that the game is being nerfed or otherwise mangled in an undesirable way. As soon as Sony crosses some threshold where someone in the gaming community notices and gets vocal about it, social network effects take hold and even people not directly affected by the changes will complain or quit playing.

If an established company keeps starting MMOs that are designed like this, the MMOs will start to appear to be nothing more than get-rich-quick schemes. But since these lite MMOs are mainly designed to tweak the reward circuits of the brains of the players, there will always be a small core of players who will play such games; these are the same kinds of people who'd play slot machines in Vegas. So this is a lot like gambling, without the requirement that sometimes the house has to pay out. The money is real, but the rewar

Re:outside world pvp battlegrounds

[Orbijx]

Meaningful?

Hell yeah. It means something when you're mining ice in Empire space, and three people warp in out of nowhere and pop your Mackinaw before you can warp out, even if you're smart enough to be pre-aligned for a gate or station warp. They don't care that CONCORD comes to pop them shortly thereafter -- they're probably using a cheap ship (Thrasher, fitted with several 270mm Artillery cannons, good for longer range pain, and a spread of ammunition types to eat shields, armor, and hull, for example) that if they lost it, they aren't out of nearly as much as you will be.

Since your highpoints are usually all occupied by MSM2s, you can generally rely on drones and other people for attack or defense. If the person or people you thought you could trust to protect you end up playing double-agent for someone else, then of course, you are soundly buggered out of an expensive ice vacuum with no recourse except to get even.

Same story with any Exhumer that takes forever to get into.

You get to foot the bill for the replacement ship and any equipment you bought to put on there, minus whatever insurance covers. ... You did insure your ship, right?

(Barely doing the numbers while at work, a Thrasher will probably run you 1m ISK plus your fittings. Mackinaw will probably run you 90m ISK plus your fittings. Get 5 people who don't care about their security status, stuff them in Thrashers with whatever fittings it will take under their skills, and drop 'em down the Mack's throat. The harder you can make it for the mack to init warp, and the harder you can hit that mack before you get a faceful of CONCORDoken, the more likely you are to ruin someone's day. If you include a sixth, non-aggressive person outfitted with salvagers, you also recoup some of your costs by salvaging the smouldering wrecks of anything left behind.)

I'm no PvP fan, but even I can see the beauty and horror in meaningful PvP like this.

Blizzard take note.

[ubergoober]

Create a kid-friendly zone. Yeah, I realize its "War"craft, and I understand that for myself, but its also a visually beautiful game with some incredible game mechanics. While I typically play after the kids have gone to bed (ie casual gamer), they're not dumb and get curious. I've found some slightly safer non-aggro areas and let them run around and play with the Hunter and his pets (son loves my Dino pet, especially with Eyes of the Beast) or priest (daughter loves how her magic is so shiny). They love to sit around and make characters. So many of the kids games are boring to them and don't have this kind of freedom.

I'd love to see a server or even a small zone that lets you run around, not worry about being attacked so they could play around with it. Maybe put a few bucks into marketing to eliminate me feeling like bad father when my daughter mentions to mommy that she plays the "war" game. I'd pay the fee easily every month just for them so they can share some of the fun without the scary stuff.

Wonder if I could get enough support to change the name to "World of Non-violent Happytime MindCraft?" Yeah, sure that'd fly.

HEH

[Anonymous Coward]

lol.....PvP in WoW?

I left WoW 2 years ago because the PvP was horrendous. Never really was about the better skilled....only the better geared (hello - twinks). AND, the fact there's no real loss when entering into battle kinda removes any hope of it ever BEING a strictly skilled based form of combat.