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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."
Are you honestly that bitter about people doing "less work" to get "unearned" items as shiny as yours in an online game? Really?
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.
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*?
.... 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.
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?
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.
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."
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
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."
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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.