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Casual Games Quickly Transforming the MMO Market

Posted by Soulskill on from the wrath-of-the-carebears dept.

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."

13 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. WoW was ruined by acehole · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    --
    Be you Admins? nay, we are but lusers!
    1. Re:WoW was ruined by L4t3r4lu5 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
    2. Re:WoW was ruined by Narpak · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

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      The Long Now Foundation
    3. Re:WoW was ruined by jaraxle · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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

    4. Re:WoW was ruined by plastbox · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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 ^^

    5. Re:WoW was ruined by Fozzyuw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

      --
      "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth." ~1984 George Orwell
    6. Re:WoW was ruined by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
    7. Re:WoW was ruined by amplt1337 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.)

      --
      Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
    8. Re:WoW was ruined by ImprovOmega · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.

    9. Re:WoW was ruined by amplt1337 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      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.)

      --
      Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
    10. Re:WoW was ruined by DrVomact · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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

      --
      Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
  2. !surprise by wjh31 · · Score: 3, Interesting

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

  3. Re:Pizza and promises by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2, Interesting

    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.