Very good Reddit post on the attitude of MMO gamers

[Cthulhu 2020]

This post is being lauded by the GW2 community and others. I strongly suggest you read this post and, while taking the tone with a grain of salt, pay attention to the overall message and points that it makes.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c..._and_you_dont/

There are some shit people in this subreddit, downvoting anyone that responds with actual facts about how to avoid hitting any of the grind limits. And upvotes for anyone that just whines and bitches. It is extremely annoying and we as a community should be better than this.

God save me from some aspects of the MMO community. You people are impossible. You have ruined a ton of AAA games in the last few years - you DEMAND treadmill gated endgame, beat it in a month, and then whine and abandon a game for not having enough content (you all know exactly the games I am talking about). Now a game has to literally FORCE you to stop doing the same mindless activity over and over and actually do different things to enjoy endgame, and you all bitch and whine because you can't grind yourself to boredom in a month like you have done with every other MMO.

You are destroying the viability of MMOs by being entitled impatient kids who can't make fun for yourself, you have to have a game hand it all to you on a silver platter and whine and bitch if you don't get it fast enough, or complain because you have to work hard to get something you want because they won't let you run the easiest dungeon over and over or run the same dynamic event over and over. Fuck everyone whining about this.

You all keep acting like this, you realize NO MMO WILL EVER SATISFY YOU. You will buy a new MMO, play it for a month - bitch and whine - and then abandon it and the company will lose money. What will happen in 5-10 years? Nobody will be making MMOs anymore, because they will simply not be profitable.

Maybe the problem isn't the MMO, maybe the problem is you. Maybe you need to examine the way you approach an MMO - many of you will spend hours playing a FPS with no progression because it is fun - and then you whine because spvp has no progression and say so "what incentive do I have to do spvp if I don't get better gear?" (Actual statement I have heard).

Many of you will spend hours exploring the world in Skryim, doing tons of side-quests, and yet whine and complain because all there is to do in GW2 is explore the world and run dungeons and do events. That is like rushing to finish the storyline quests in Skyrim and then complaining that the game has almost no content.

Why can't we as an MMO community take the attitude we bring to FPS games, RPG games, and apply it to an MMO? Too many damn players feel like the only thing that motivates them in an MMO is the "carrot" of gear always being held out in front of them (and don't know what to do with themselves without it) - and you are destroying the genre. You need to fix that shit before you destroy the genre that we love.

We take the attitude of playing games for FUN in almost every other genre, so why can't we do it for MMOs too?

[Deleted]

Oh dear, this won't end well.

[Deleted]

I feel exactly the same way, why is the MMO community like this?

[Riavan]

I love how lots of people commenting are not even 80 and have not actually even tried the explorable dungeons. Please don't even comment if you are not 80 and/or have not done explorables, you have nfi.

It's not just that it's hard, it's that its not skillful, their's the diablo 3 version of skill, ala, death grind/gy runs, there's crazy bugs that ruin encounters half way through, theres bugs that ruin them straight away. Some trash mobs just have 1 hit ko's, enjoy the walk back. Some mobs are broken and instantly respawn, some events just don't work the wya they are meant to.The buff to CoF actually didn't just make it harder, it introduced a game breaking bug half way through it where the only way to fix it is to die a ton of times till it works. This is all ignoring the fact that psychology means you need to dangle the carrot within a certain distance or else people will not be interested in it at all. Most of all, they are just not fun, this is not skill, this is not something you can learn, the dungeons are just broken and horrible.

The biggest deal is with content, currently the endgame pve content is either exploring! (debatable whether this is actually endgame) events! (the giant orr raids we were promised never made it into the final game, dirty liars) or dungeons (obviously currently only meant for the hardcore crowd within the current ideology, but even as a raider I don't see why anyone would bother doing them as they currently stand). There's a balance between making content last as long as it can, giving people something to do still for a long time and making it so grindy that no one will ever want to do it. Arenanet currently has that balance wrong.

[DrakeWurrum]

Much as I agree with this post on how terrible the MMO community has gotten, I do agree that this thread won't end well.

[Cthulhu 2020]

That entire paragraph is about the transient MMO players, who hop from game to game, play it to death for a month, and then complain that there's nothing to do.

I think his comparison to FPS games and Skyrim is spot in. Some of the most popular games these days are FPS. They are mindless constant fun that don't reward gear, some reward achievements and ranks, but they give no benefit other than cosmetic. People somehow feel that a gear reward in an MMO is necessary, when it's not.

The same goes for the Skyrim reference. If you've played Skyrim, you'll know what he's talking about. You play Skyrim and there's no feeling of rush to get to the end level. There are bugs in the game and features you may not like, but you don't go to the forums to bitch about them endlessly. In Skyrim, levels just come. There is no need to rush to the end right away. You want to explore, find things. Quests run up to you and are like "HEY I NEED YOUR HELP" and this is one of the features MMO players talk about that they love the most. Random stuff happening. They don't have to go to an NPC and be like "Hay, how can I help yoooooouuuuu" then go kill 10 boars and come back. SHIT HAPPENS TO YOU all the time.

GW2 is more like Skyrim in its PvE aspect, more like Dark Age of Camelot in its WvW aspect, and more like an FPS in its sPvP aspect. All are INCREDIBLY successful in their respective areas of gaming. The game is nearing its 3 week mark, and most of the bugs that were in initially are now gone, and you're complaining about a fly in your soup. You didn't find a fly, you took your soup, put it under a microscope, found an amoeba, blew it up into a poster, and threw it up all over the internet. You went into the restaurant, ordered a hamburger, got an extremely tasty hamburger, and are now complaining that you didn't get Kobe steak. This isn't even a matter of entitlement (which a lot of the die hards will tell you it is), this is just a matter of not knowing a good game when you play one.

You're fooling yourself if you think GW2 is a bad game. If you don't like it, then it's not the game for you. Go play something else. If you sunk 200 hours into the game then you got more play time than 99% of $60 games out there. If you rushed to level 80 as fast as you possibly could, then you skipped 90% of the game. The developers have always said, throughout the entire development of the game, that GW2 has end game, but level 80 content and raiding will never be the focus, as there are already plenty of games out there that do that stuff.

[Deleted]

The best think Anet can do right now is put their fingers in their ears, stick their head in the sand and go "LA LA LA LA LA LA" very loudly for a month or so. By that time all the whiny little twats will have left (back to wow probably with MoP comming out), and then Anet can listen to the more reasonable feedback by the much more reasonable if less vocal majority.

[DrakeWurrum]

That entire paragraph is about the transient MMO players, who hop from game to game, play it to death for a month, and then complain that there's nothing to do.

I think his comparison to FPS games and Skyrim is spot in. Some of the most popular games these days are FPS. They are mindless constant fun that don't reward gear, some reward achievements and ranks, but they give no benefit other than cosmetic. People somehow feel that a gear reward in an MMO is necessary, when it's not.

The same goes for the Skyrim reference. If you've played Skyrim, you'll know what he's talking about. You play Skyrim and there's no feeling of rush to get to the end level. There are bugs in the game and features you may not like, but you don't go to the forums to bitch about them endlessly. In Skyrim, levels just come. There is no need to rush to the end right away. You want to explore, find things. Quests run up to you and are like "HEY I NEED YOUR HELP" and this is one of the features MMO players talk about that they love the most. Random stuff happening. They don't have to go to an NPC and be like "Hay, how can I help yoooooouuuuu" then go kill 10 boars and come back. SHIT HAPPENS TO YOU all the time.

GW2 is more like Skyrim in its PvE aspect, more like Dark Age of Camelot in its WvW aspect, and more like an FPS in its sPvP aspect. All are INCREDIBLY successful in their respective areas of gaming. The game is nearing its 3 week mark, and most of the bugs that were in initially are now gone, and you're complaining about a fly in your soup. You didn't find a fly, you took your soup, put it under a microscope, found an amoeba, blew it up into a poster, and threw it up all over the internet. You went into the restaurant, ordered a hamburger, got an extremely tasty hamburger, and are now complaining that you didn't get Kobe steak. This isn't even a matter of entitlement (which a lot of the die hards will tell you it is), this is just a matter of not knowing a good game when you play one.

You're fooling yourself if you think GW2 is a bad game. If you don't like it, then it's not the game for you. Go play something else. If you sunk 200 hours into the game then you got more play time than 99% of $60 games out there. If you rushed to level 80 as fast as you possibly could, then you skipped 90% of the game.

I've been feeling the same way for several weeks. Well-written post!

[Riavan]

The best think Anet can do right now is put their fingers in their ears, stick their head in the sand and go "LA LA LA LA LA LA" very loudly for a month or so. By that time all the whiny little twats will have left (back to wow probably with MoP comming out), and then Anet can listen to the more reasonable feedback by the much more reasonable if less vocal majority.

It wont be the majority who are left.

---------- Post added 2012-09-20 at 08:01 AM ----------

I've been feeling the same way for several weeks. Well-written post!

That who ideology at the end that "you got 200 hours!" better than other games! is the same ideology as diablo 3, not a good ideology for an mmo, where the gameplay and content requires a thriving community.

[Deleted]

This comment is exactly how I feel about this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...u_dont/c6ac3m3

[Erolian]

I don't really see why people try to attribute this type of attitude to any one genre of game or basically anything in particular since people can and will act this way in all walks of life wherever applicable. It isn't a special MMO only attitude

[Elim Garak]

You all keep acting like this, you realize NO SHIT WILL EVER SATISFY YOU. You will buy a new SHIT, eat it for a month - bitch and whine - and then abandon it and the company will lose money. What will happen in 5-10 years? Nobody will be making SHIT anymore, because they will simply not be profitable.

Maybe the problem isn't the SHIT, maybe the problem is you. Maybe you need to examine the way you approach a SHIT - many of you will spend days eating the same PIZZA because it is tasty - and then you whine because SHIT is not pizza and say so "what incentive do I have to eat SHIT if I don't like it?" (Actual statement I have heard).

Tone it down. -Edge

[Low Hanging Fruit]

The MMO community is pretty shameful. Way to much damned if you do and damned if you don't. The worse part about it is it seems everyone is really concerned with either pushing people to play the game they play or undercutting and shitting on any game that isn't the game they play. Not to mention all the assumptions and grab ass'in that goes on from the 'defenders' and 'attackers' that just makes worth a whole lot less and eventually take over every single thread. I doubt this one will be any different.

[DrakeWurrum]

This comment is exactly how I feel about this post: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/c...u_dont/c6ac3m3

You shouldn't, because nowhere have they ever told players that there is no "grind" in this game. Simply just a lack of required grinds.

[Cthulhu 2020]

Edited this in above, but I feel it's worth repeating:

The developers have always said, throughout the entire development of the game, that GW2 has end game, but level 80 content and raiding will never be the focus, as there are already plenty of games out there that do that stuff.

If you require level 80 dungeons/raids/content and a gear grind to go with it, then GW2 never has been and never will be the game for you. The devs themselves made this very clear.

People will retort with "Oh yeah? Well they're not going to retain many subs that way!" GW2 has never been about having the most subs. It's about making a good game, in the way that they feel a game is good, in a niche market. Not everyone is going to like a game that encourages Skyrim style play, where exploration is not only encouraged but rewarded. And the devs have said they're ok with this.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

Well, this is just one man's opinion on a whole group of people's opinions. Some of what he says is true but really, them bitching is only half of it, game studios who listen and follow the gamers every demand is what ruins most game. Mainly when people ask for balance in PvP, which just makes every class the same and uninteresting.

[Erolian]

and about "making the game fun yourself and not having it handed to you" well... honestly I think the problem is that the game just ISN'T FUN for most people that complain and they have trouble realizing that MMO games just might not be for them and buy into all the hype then they get mad and go crying on the forums after they get bored

[Riavan]

I assume lots of people making these comments are people who have not even extensively tried the explorable dungeon content and some probably are not even 80. Saying you should be satisfied with no real content/buggy 'hard' content that isnt fun is just like saying you should keep watching a shitty movie that you hate over and over because you bought the dvd, it's not how the entertainment industry works. People will leave and I don't want people to leave, I've been a guild wars fan since beta weekends for GUILD WARS 1. I want the game to succeed, but I don't see people sticking around the way it currently stands.

[DrakeWurrum]

Trouble with that is that we don't hate the movie we're watching, and we don't think it's shitty.

[Riavan]

Trouble with that is that we don't hate the movie we're watching, and we don't think it's shitty.

You are not even 80 and have not even tried the explorable dungeons. You're still playing the best part of the game, the leveling and explorable content, too bad it just won't be enough for people.