A great write up that Blizzard should think about

[Grogo]

Yeah but did you watch the whole video because regardless of his voice, very interesting video.

[Ronduwil]

Comparing LFR to welfare is not that far off the mark though, to a certain degree. It is a form of social assistance provided by Blizzard for those who cannot do regular level content. The connotation can ruffle feathers but the comparison is sound. I have also said that LFR is not actual raiding in the past, the poll used backs up ( in a weak way admittedly, it was a forum poll) that LFR was considered "not raiding" by many.

It's not social assistance. Blizzard doesn't have a limited number of epic chest pieces to hand out. They are digitally rendered on the fly as needed. No epics were taken from hard core players in order to meet the needs of the deprived masses. That's why the comparison to RL socialism never works. Welfare is when money is taken from working and/or wealthy families and redistributed to the poor. MMOs are unlike most games in that they actually give advantages to their best players. That's the opposite of the way games have traditionally worked. In golf or bowling, for instance, players with lower averages are given handicaps so that they have a chance of beating more skilled players. Only in games like WoW does a player who does 10% more damage than his peers get awarded gear that boosts his natural advantage to 50%. Giving less skilled players a means of narrowing that gap to only 20% isn't welfare; it's game balance.

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What if you go to a restaurant that's known for great barebeque and then one day they just use the oven and just before they serve it to you...they smear it in bbq sauce. Would you comment on the way they now did the bbq? Where before they slow roasted it on an actual bbq.

I might ask the manager why they changed up their technique, and I would let them know that I preferred the old way. I probably wouldn't visit the restaurant again until they brought the quality back. That's my right as a customer.

What I wouldn't do, however, is hang out by the restaurant and pester all the other patrons, berating them for settling for low quality bbq. I wouldn't insult their preferences or call them welfare queens just because a restaurant that happens to serve up bbq chicken in 5 minutes suits their needs better than one that lovingly prepares slow-roasted bbq in 45 minutes. I have no right to tell this restaurant how they should prepare their food, especially when their research shows that most patrons in the area come to the restaurant for quick meals during the workday. If I want my slow-roasted bbq chicken I can make it myself or find some other place that does it the way I like.

[MoanaLisa]

Comparing LFR to welfare is not that far off the mark though, to a certain degree. It is a form of social assistance provided by Blizzard for those who cannot do regular level content. The connotation can ruffle feathers but the comparison is sound. I have also said that LFR is not actual raiding in the past, the poll used backs up ( in a weak way admittedly, it was a forum poll) that LFR was considered "not raiding" by many.

That can be turned on its head though. For example:

"Heroic raiding is a form of social assistance provided by Blizzard for those who find regular level content too simple."
"Challenge mode dungeons are a form of social assistance provide by Blizzard for those who find regular dungeons too easy."

Welfare for the elites, as it were. But as a rule no one is calling heroic raiding or challenge mode dungeons welfare. And no one should. And I'm reasonably certain that people who prefer heroic raiding would find that formulation offensive. And they should. So it's not a useful way to characterize anything. And it goes both directions.

[melodramocracy]

In the scenario to which I was responding, an entire guild was griefing another one. How is this good? One gang of bullies terrorizes the server until everyone quits and then the bullies, with no one left to terrorize, quit too because there's nothing left for them to do. That's how games die.

That means that players didn't truly have means to do anything about the situation they were presented with, which is a flaw.

The problem here is that I don't want to play police, I want to play, you know, a game. I don't want to wait around until a another group if players (if this happens) decides to stand up for themselves. What sounds like more fun, policing or actually playing a game? I understand that this can be fun for a lot of players, just not me. EVE online is a good game if you like what the opening brought up, but it isn't for me. I don't want to enter a game I like and be stressed out by trolls and the only way to deal with them is other players AND hope they are successful.

Then don't play it? Yes, that's the answer, as there are plenty of games that DO essentially shield players from one another in this sense. As I said, it's not for everyone.

[endersblade]

TL; DR version of the whole story:

"I want to go back to 1996 and play UO".

Actually, I got more of an EQ vibe from it lol. But I agree. MMOs are EVOLVING, and this guy wants them to devolve. He needs to take the rose-tinted goggles off.

[Tomana]

I think it may be possible that there may be degree change where easy equates to boring and people want more of a challenge holistically rather than in one single area of the game.

This would go against the general evolution of our society, and is therefore extremely unlikely.

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There might be if WoW didn't exist. Everybody started to make WoW clones and forgot about trying other things and being creative.

Right, and no one never ever thought "oh hey, I have this great idea... but it's not WoW, so I won't be making it". This is silly.
If there was a recipe to make a successful game in parallel to WoW, somebody would already do it. Instead, we only get pityful attempts at differentiating ourselves from WoW. Even high-tech MMOs turn (a slightly different segment) turn to junk, which is amazing in itself.

[Lord Pebbleton]

You can’t have Lord Nagafen

...I can't have WHO?

The famous Norrathian dragon

Ah. The famous Norrathian dragon. Who doesn't know Norrathian dragons? They are, like, the most...
...nnnno idea.


OP: if you wanted serious death penalties, you should try Realm of the Mad God. It literally punishes you for your heroic deeds.
But keep this list away from WoW.

[MoanaLisa]

Thing is, no one knows what that next big thing is. The great unwashed public are a fickle group. I think it may be possible that there may be degree change where easy equates to boring and people want more of a challenge holistically rather than in one single area of the game.

I think the democratic nature of gamers (including the casuals) will come back to earning their way.

The real question is when people decide they would like to move up to something with more difficulty, more engagement and less boring, something that requires a group to accomplish, will they be welcomed or pushed aside. History would suggest the latter.

Ironically, LFR could be viewed as a punishment to the raiding community for their inability to be inclusive. If people of lesser experience and skill were welcomed into raiding guilds and pugs, requested and were given proper assistance by those with the experience to give it, LFR wouldn't be necessary at all. Flex raiding, for all of its faults perceived or otherwise, is a new way to accomplish exactly that. I'm skeptical that it will be used in that way but I guess time will tell.

[Ronduwil]

That video is very interesting, should watch it.

Even the creator of the video didn't take it seriously. "Its revenue allowed Blizzard to buy the entire plant of Jupiter. It was the first PC game to be mentioned by Jesus himself." You know why there is only one "Sandbox" MMO? Do you know why, despite its lack of competition, it peaked at less than half a million subscribers? It's because "Sandbox" is a code word for "tolerant of griefers."

The theme park elements in WoW are designed to keep players from being jerks to each other. That's why groups have in-game looting systems. That's why Guild Leaders can set restrictions on their guild vaults. That's why there are PvE-only servers. That's why there are instanced dungeons. Otherwise players can either choose to join a big group of bullies that terrorizes everyone else or resign themselves to being terrorized by everyone else. Some people enjoy that style of play, but most people don't.

If you want a sandbox game by all means go find one. Please quit lamenting that WoW isn't a sandbox game. It was never intended to be one, and very few players want to play one.

[CptAwesome]

No company is ever going to make a game like this, so the entire discussion is pretty futile. The underlying reason is that the developers will take a step back and say "is this fun?" and it just won't be.

I will say that I loved vanilla WoW more than I enjoy it's current state, just because it felt more like a journey or an adventure than it does today, but I wonder if that is the game's fault or the fact that I've been playing it for eight years now and either way, I still enjoy it so who cares? Yes, it has been watered down a bit, catering to casuals etc but when you think back to vanilla WoW, some of the grindy shit in there was just plain dumb. I'm talking about farming flasks and potions for raiding, resistance gear, trying to get 40 people online and in step, zero way to gear alts up to Naxx raiding level without doing old raids. I don't want to go back to any of that.

None of this shit being suggested is fun, at all. I love some PvP, I'll take on anyone, but if I lost 10% of a level and some items every time I got ganked, I would stop that shit all together, how is that fun? Especially when you consider that the increased death penalty would encourage more griefing because it actually hurts you rather than just pissing you off. It's silly, doesn't need to be there, WoW used to have plenty of world PvP without any silly death penalty crap because people would just have a go at each other for the hell of it, for fun.

Also, I know this is getting ranty but "get rid of instances" WHAT? So killing bosses is now the exclusive domain of no-lifers who can be on all day long, no thanks. I have a nice routine, I work, I raid, it works for me (and many others.) I can't be online at a moment's notice at 4am because Dragonface just spawned but I can set aside 4 hours a night to raid with my team. It's far more controlled and relaxed this way. I actually agree that there is a place for old school world bosses, sure. Maybe I won't get to see or kill them very often (I didn't with Galleon) but I don't mind. As long as there is still an endgame that people can play on demand in the instances, otherwise there is basically nothing to do at max level unless you want to go ganking people.

TLDR: All these ideas are horrible, there's a reason EQ got eclipsed by WoW.

[MoanaLisa]

No company is ever going to make a game like this, so the entire discussion is pretty futile. The underlying reason is that the developers will take a step back and say "is this fun?" and it just won't be.

I could write several paragraphs (as most of you can imagine) but I'll leave it at this: Many people who spend a lot of time here criticizing WoW both constructively and otherwise never much discuss fun. Their ideas and proposals are couched in language that evokes words like work, effort, respect and status. For them, the idea of playing a game simply because it's fun is mildly foreign and belongs to the realm of unserious gaming. The original post never mentions the word once and in 400+ posts I have yet to see a convincing argument made that the game described in post #1 would actually be fun to play. Theorycrafters and min-maxers have the same problem really. They bury themselves in abstruse numbers looking for 0.02% increases in damage/healing or they play classes they wouldn't play otherwise because they're optimal and efficient. Perhaps it's fun for them but I don't see it.

It's a big enough game to encompass all of those types of players though and I'm OK with that. If that's what they want to do that's fine as it doesn't affect me and isn't really any of my business anyway. The issue is that some disparage those that are along for a good time and thereby isolate themselves into an enclave community that congratulates itself behind its closed walls. Then they propose not to expand the game to encompass more players of different skill levels but to eliminate or beat to death those things that lesser skilled players enjoy--LFR, pet battles, farming, mini-games--so that the game as a whole reflects the world view of their enclave. It's bad for the game because it doesn't work and it's bad for gaming generally. Which after all is about the reason most of us play games to start with: to have fun and share experience with like-minded people.

[Soulwind]

I could write several paragraphs (as most of you can imagine) but I'll leave it at this: Many people who spend a lot of time here criticizing WoW both constructively and otherwise never much discuss fun. Their ideas and proposals are couched in language that evokes words like work, effort, respect and status. For them, the idea of playing a game simply because it's fun is mildly foreign and belongs to the realm of unserious gaming. The original post never mentions the word once and in 400+ posts I have yet to see a convincing argument made that the game described in post #1 would actually be fun to play. Theorycrafters and min-maxers have the same problem really. They bury themselves in abstruse numbers looking for 0.02% increases in damage/healing or they play classes they wouldn't play otherwise because they're optimal and efficient. Perhaps it's fun for them but I don't see it.

It's a big enough game to encompass all of those types of players though and I'm OK with that. If that's what they want to do that's fine as it doesn't affect me and isn't really any of my business anyway. The issue is that some disparage those that are along for a good time and thereby isolate themselves into an enclave community that congratulates itself behind its closed walls. Then they propose not to expand the game to encompass more players of different skill levels but to eliminate those things so that the game as a whole reflects the world view of their enclave. It's bad for the game and it's bad for gaming.

Okay, we can close the MMO-Champion forums. The ultimate post has been written.

[Grogo]

Okay, we can close the MMO-Champion forums. The ultimate post has been written.

I guess so, the game is perfect now, let's all stop complaining. Time to move on.

[Aphrel]

agree with point 2 and 8 to a degree. Jut the other things are just horrible suggestions.

[MoanaLisa]

I guess so, the game is perfect now, let's all stop complaining. Time to move on.

Well, I didn't say that but I am interested in if you think I have a point about what I said in #400, i.e. welfare cuts both ways.

[Deleted]

Better to be hated by many, loved by a few and respected by all.

...

In other words, make content for everybody!

I actually had to laugh when reading that last bit.

The kind of MMO you're describing wouldn't work anymore. The only people that have time for such a game are teenagers and students who don't have to do fuck all all day and can play games 15 hours a day. People that have to work and keep the country from collapsing, don't have time for 'no easy travel' ... that's just a waste of time. If wow would incorporate even half of your ideas, I would unsubscribe the very same day as they announced it.

[RaoBurning]

I hope I haven't been beaten to it: No.

I encourage competent play styles and improving over time, but all that stuff sounds like a recipe for bankruptcy. Financial seppuku, if you will.

[Dilbon]

So EverQuest Next has been announced and I guess it follows some of the points in that write up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqWesD5YH74

[Grogo]

Well, I didn't say that but I am interested in if you think I have a point about what I said in #400, i.e. welfare cuts both ways.

I guess i would have to say that i agree with you in some ways. It can cut both ways and I get your point. That being said, welfare is meant for those at the bottom not at the middle. The middle class do not get social assistance unless of course they lose their job and qualify. Perhaps it was a piss poor analogy on my part but it seems to fit in a weird sort of way. I could go into a nice laundry list of why I do not like LFR but we have all heard what there is to say on that by now. it is not just LFR though, it everything. To sum up your response about welfare cutting both ways, it is something i will consider, at this point I will not say I feel you are wrong.

With the news coming out about Everquest Next recently, I think we might see a game changer in the near future which is trying to break out of the mold of the current MMO formula that everyone is currently copying and that Blizzard owns.

[Morbownz]

No thanks, I want it all and I want it now.