They belong wherever they fit and the author decides. Warcraft is such place, a place of high fantasy and anthropomorphic races.
---------- Post added 2013-05-11 at 06:14 PM ----------
It's Garian that says it is, not me.
---------- Post added 2013-05-11 at 06:15 PM ----------
Which is exactly what is happening and the reason of this thread.
MMO player
WoW: 2006-2020 || EvE: 2013-2020 // 2023- || FFXIV: 2020- || Lost Ark: 2022-
I'm not totally convinced that that applies to everybody, least of all the guy who plays for 4 or 5 hours a week and just basically ques up for dungeons and maybe does a daily or two. His exposure to others with gear is pretty minimal. I guess inside the dungeon he sees people. See but that guy isn't interested in making others feel less special, he's just interested in being a badass and looking cool and getting reward.
I get the principle behind it 100% but i'm not sure it's exactly appropriate for casual players.
This is another point I've harped on for a while.
The central value proposition of an MMO, I contend, is to deliver ego inflation in a social context. No one who plays the game is a world-saving hero in real life. Most players have lives that are as unexceptional as they come.
Anytime the game tells you "no, you actually suck", it's working against this central value proposition. And I don't think the devs understand this. They've added a bunch of things that deflate the ego of the average player:
-- Armory (you can now see how far behind you are)
-- Rated PvP (ratings tell you, with depressing exactness, just where you are buried in the pile of mediocrity that is the player population)
-- Finely sliced levels of PvE difficulty. These are the PvE equivalent of PvP ratings. Your "X out of Y" for the expansion is, in effect, your PvE rating. The more finely they slice it, providing challenge for everyone, the less the game can tell comforting ego-inflating lies about how good people actually are.
The ego of the top players is properly inflated, but this is a kind of ponzi scheme. That inflation depends on the presence of a large cadre of lesser players who aren't getting the same ego inflation. This isn't sustainable.
"There is a pervasive myth that making content hard will induce players to rise to the occasion. We find the opposite. " -- Ghostcrawler
"The bit about hardcore players not always caring about the long term interests of the game is spot on." -- Ghostcrawler
"Do you want a game with no casuals so about 500 players?"
Ok cool lol
I never said it was about sociability... i gave an example of someone just wanting to drop into a game for a very short time and that they do not need to socialise. They click a menu and que... and thats casual gaming. They can socialise as well if they like, but the point is THEY DONT HAVE TO IN ORDER TO PLAY THE GAME.
An MMO traditionally forces players to socialise in order to beat content... thats my point.
Wow is arguably not even an MMO anymore. Its an online multiplayer game, where u dont have to interact with the other players if u dont want to and u can still progress as far as those who do interact. Exactly the same as XBox gaming online.
My point is that Wows 'progress' over recent years has expanded the casual aspect of Wow at the expense of whats MMO about Wow.
Ru surprised that the MMO crowd are moving elsewhere to look for their MMO?
Last edited by mmoc978ad45763; 2013-05-11 at 05:29 PM.
Sorry about that, I was wondering if that might be too advanced for you, it'll be covered in detail in 201. Anyway, the basic idea is that there are many people who only get their sense of accomplishment by putting others down. Instead of actually elevating themselves to "specialness", they spend their time pointing out the non-"specialness" or "lessness" in others. "I'm special, not because of what I can do, but because I'm better than those guys".
If they participated in an activity that only the top 15% could do, it would make them more or less special. But! if they could filter out the bottom 80% of that and now participate in an activity that only the top 3% can do, their sense of self worth shoots up.
They are no better then they were when more people were doing the same thing as them, but by moving the bar up to make what they are doing more exclusive, they have artificially increased how special they feel.
I would add the community also serves to reinforce the destruction of the players ego routinely and some members take sick pleasure in it. Nothing makes me feel shittier about playing then assholes on forums who take apart my character and log and tell me that I'm terrible. It's kinda upsetting and this forum is bad for it. The official forums are probably bad to I don't know. You could also add mods like recount to that list. It shatters that illusion. It's interesting psychology though. My god what a viscious circle.
---------- Post added 2013-05-11 at 05:32 PM ----------
No a traditional mmo forces players to commit vasts amount of time to get anything done. That's what makes it traditional. WoW would have died on the table if it was a traditional mmo. I'm not surprised that the wow crowd is leaving elsewhere and looking for another mmo because the game isn't catering to their desires anymore. Casuals are leaving by and large and it's because the game isn't really casual. See here's where you and I probably havea a disconnect. I consider makling palls and socializing in wow an experience ENTIRELY AIMED AT CASUALS. Now I agree that experience is missing but theirs nothing hardcore or particularly mmo centric about being social and getting buddies and pals along.
WoW not being an mmo is an okay thing by me. And the more it tries to go back to being an mmo is the more it looses. Lot's of games have players socialise. Diablo 2 had me socialize with players and it was EXTREMELY casual. I play dota and am forced to play with others and I play it EXTREMELY CASUALLY. Hell league of legends is probably the most casual game on the planet and it forces you to socialise with players.
Last edited by Glorious Leader; 2013-05-11 at 05:40 PM.
Nothing to do with WoW, but great example to understand what is the market today. Saints Row IV the player is the President of the USA... with superpowers.
Like I said before, the gaming paradigma is changing and if the gaming industry doesn't follow, it will crash and burn and NO ONE will win with this.
---------- Post added 2013-05-11 at 06:35 PM ----------
Forcing to socialize is also wrong. That will do nothing but push players to single players on the countless places they can get them.