On the Verge of Unsubscribing

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a. MMORPG, b. Console

November 1, 2011

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I sat down with Arkham City (PS3) this weekend and something clicked: When I have time to game, RIFT is hardly ever my first choice anymore. Actually, MMOs in general aren’t my first choice. It might seem trite, but this is the first time in quite a while that I haven’t been “MMO Dedicated” even though I maintain a strong interest in the genre. Not strong enough to get me to login, though, it seems. So after nearly eight months, RIFT may get the boot.

The problem is endgame. There’s just not enough for someone like me to do. Don’t get me wrong, RIFT has plentiful options to keep you busy at 50 but they all seem to take an hour or more to enjoy. PUG dungeons are 1-2 hours, Chronicles aren’t being ran (by my guild), and zone events occur such that, generally, you’re only doing one an hour off-peak. These days, I log in, look for a zone event and log back out again if one doesn’t spawn fairly quick. They’re the only tangible way for me to continue and when I’m logging in and out having done nothing, I usually just assume play something else and save the time.

Right now, long stretches aren’t something I can commit to gaming, so RIFT will get the cut unless 1.6 drops before my sub expires on the 15th.

The larger question this raises is whether or not a game like RIFT should provide options for a player casual player. Leaving all thoughts of “money left on the table” aside, should an MMORPG provide options for the one-hour or less crowd? Some old school players would say no, that to see the most in any game you have to commit to it. I say they should and that they should be more than just side-dishes to the main event.

In my case, RIFT provides plenty of on-demand options, I’m just not interested in them. Crafting is an option but I’m just not a crafter, artifact collecting is a pleasant “side” activity (but when you’re not doing the “main” part of the game, does it matter?), and PvP is so woefully impenetrable that I walk away frustrated most times I try. RIFT is providing me options but none of them are worth $15 a month.

I’m not saying casuals should be raiders or get the same opportunities as more dedicated players, but if you’re developing a game that’s “massive in scope” shouldn’t there be enough substance to keep casual players from feeling like they get the scraps on the side?

I hate to say it but here we go: mini-games. Mini-games are the answer to this “you’re making my game too casual” argument. I’m not suggesting we add a Bejeweled clone into every game but is there any reason other parts of these games need to be so shallow? Why can’t we make crafting or gathering more involved? Why can’t fishing actually be fishing? If there is anything FFXIV got right, it was making crafting more than a click-and-forget affair.

Or how about the return of a classic idea, like mobhunt? Mobhunts were a system from the MUD days where the game would assign a random, increasingly difficult mob for you to kill. If you did it, you got gold and some experience, which also increased with the amount of mobhunts you’d completed. It was a lot of fun and relied on the player’s knowledge of the game world, something which is definitely needed in today’s MMOs.

I guess leaving RIFT for a while wouldn’t be so bad. I feel this need to stay subscribed to it since I blogged and podcasted about it for the better part of a year. Since then I became a grad student. How things change.

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Skylanders shouldn’t be embraced, it should be shunned

Categories:

b. Console, c. PC Gaming

October 25, 2011

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I’ve been mostly checked out of the MMO blogging world this past week but when I dropped in, it seemed like Skylanders had suddenly taken my “must read” list by storm. What’s more, it doesn’t seem to be on any merit of it’s own, but more of in the CCG, Gotta Catch ‘Em All, type way. That said, the gameplay could be fantastic and I’d still say Skylanders is should be shunned and certainly not encouraged.

In a world of exploitative DLC, Skylanders is probably the worst yet.  In case you happen to be late to the party, too, it essentially goes something like this: Pay $70 for a “starter kit” which features  several tiny action figures whose digital versions are already installed on the disk but unavailable. Stick the toys in a special box and connect it to the console. Bada bing, bada boom you just paid an extra ten bucks for some action figures. Not much different than buying a collector’s edition. The problem is that there are lots of other characters already on the disc too, but to access them you must first pay $8 for each little doll. The entire game is built around buying these extra little toys. At eight dollars a pop. Each.

This is worse than on-disc DLC; far worse. It’s a baby step into the realm of CCGing video games. If this is a hit, parents everywhere will again be pressure to buy another little doodad to keep up with the Jones’. What makes it worse than DLC, though, is that to access all of the content that you already paid for, you’re stuck buying 8 additional dolls. All the sudden “acceptable pricing” just jumped from $60 to $130. And there will be more. $130 is just the beginning, especially if it’s a hit. None of this would be a problem if the starter bundle wasn’t already $70.

It is absolutely stupifying that people actually think combining the CCG model with video games is a good idea. I respect that some people find this stuff affordable and fun. Let’s not send any messages to the industry, though, if you please. The DLC situation is bad enough; buying a game doesn’t really buy a game anymore because there’s a $15 character skin around the next corner or — gasp — an hour of story content probably better left on the cutting room floor. Giving developers yet another way to suck our wallets dry with the smallest effort possible is BAD for the industry and worse for gamers.

That said, I DO see kids loving this and if you buy it for your child, well, I can’t say I don’t understand. Making kids happy is a wonderful thing. Buying into this because it “calls to your inner child” only promotes something detrimental and harmful to yourself in the long run. Unless, of course, you like wasting money to get what’s already on the disc. In which case, I’m sure there are plenty of companies willing to sell you an extra mission or two for another $30. In every game you buy.

In short, Skylanders only pushes the perceived value of video games higher. Think Bobby Kotick won’t notice you’re invested $90 in the doll game? Think again.

 

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A Rebuttal to My Last Post and My Response [Mists of Pandaria]

Categories:

a. MMORPG

October 22, 2011

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Maxivik left a great comment on my last post and I wrote a response I thought I’d share here. I think it better explains why I was probably the most cynical about WoW I’ve ever been. The rebuttal!

Maxivik Said:

I am pretty stoked about this XPac. Removing the big bad villain at the end frees me up to enjoy other aspects of the game like dungeon challenges, horde v alliance, pokemon etc. It removes one of the big “grind” like aspects of end game. At the same time, there will still be raids to do. I like the apparent lack of focus this seems to be bringing to the game.

As far as talents go, I welcome any change from the cookie cutter builds that we have now. Today I got to decide between a total of two talents when I respecced my resto as we hit hard-mode rag (last hard boss available with current path). What I am hoping to see is more utility vs regen vs throughput etc decisions for healing talents.

I can’t wait to roll a Pandarian Brewmaster, I think it’ll be hilarious. As far as I’m concerned they fit better with lore then the squid face (Draeni, who were the cause of countless “hard core blizzard people” to “quit” wow in BC… ).

My response:

I should probably clarify a little where I’m coming from with this attitude; it’s probably the harshest reaction I’ve published here and that’s for good reason: I like the game. I do. It’s given me more hours of enjoyable game-time than probably all of my single player games combined. As far as I’m concerned, the core of WoW is still solid and appealing to many, many players. I might even come back with the next patch to see the Raid Finder in action.

My animosity really stems from how cocky they were just one year ago. I recall someone asking when a wardrobe system would be added to the game and one of their head guy says, “What I want to know is who wants to play dress-up online,” or something like that. They didn’t even pretend to consider player’s ideas during the QA. I mean, come on guys, we can see your heads from outer space. That’s how it seemed to me, anyway.

Today we see a WoW that’s still king of the hill but maybe not by so much. A lot of what was new and appealing when Cataclysm launched now looks outdated compared to new and upcoming MMOs. Then Blizzcon comes around and we’re seeing a full expansion based on “a joke race” that would “never be added to the game.” I also have a general vibe that this expansion does more to bring the game up to par with the rest of the genre than really offer much new, pet system excluded. The MMO landscape faces major change as this year ends and 2012 begins and if ever there was a time to draw people in and hold them, this would be it. Does Mists of Pandaria do that?

All of that said, I don’t doubt the expansion will be good, silly race aside. If you don’t take it too seriously, there’s some neat stuff coming and giving players more to do at level cap is good. Challenge mode dungeons, I’m sure, will be fun in the same way dungeons have always been fun. If you don’t care much about the wider outlook, this expansion announcement is probably great. I can’t help but to look at things from the wider view, so I see the “we’re still cool, we’re hip, we’re with it” type undertone.

But maybe they just don’t give a damn and are throwing some of their old sticking points to the wind. If the final product turns out to be a blast then I’ll have totally misread the thing and will probably re-sub to see what I’ve been missing.

To be clear about one thing, though, and not just for you, Max: If you’re playing the game and are enjoying it, that’s great. It’s a good game as my /played will easily show.

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Mists of Desperation

Categories:

a. MMORPG

October 21, 2011

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For the first time in years, a Blizzcon has come and left me with, dare I say it, LESS desire to play WoW than than before. Forgive me for sounding a little negative but am I the only one who finds this whole Mists of Panderia thing a bit pathetic? This is what the death of a giant looks like.

The game will see an influx of players, of course, but I fail to see how any long term player can see this as anything other than pouring a giant bucket of water into what was once a potent mix of serious story and light-hearted humor. There is nothing worth taking seriously anymore. Not the ‘epic’ raids (where we fight, what, a giant stuffed zebra?), because when you insert a bunch of Disney character wanna-bes into the role of ‘grand defenders’ the whole attempt becomes little more than a joke. But then, I guess they see that as their strong suit these days.

Other aspects of this expansion:

Challenge Dungeons: Because Blizzardifying good ideas never goes out of style. On the plus side, it’s safe to say that Blizzard as a whole company is now safely among the most derivative in all of PC gaming. I don’t care that you “forged this path” by releasing the original Diablo or Warcraft. The fact is, here we all all these years later and the amount of good ideas you’ve had on your own can be counted on one hand.

Pokepets: I actually really like this idea. It CAN fit in the game world and could be a lot of fun. It also really feels like an idea they scrapped as ‘too fluffy’ back in 05.

New Race/Class: Having players repeat the same leveling process is easy money. The Monk class sounds interesting. Going all out and calling it a ‘fat ninja’ was too far, I guess, but would probably have been more fitting with their new theme.

Talent Re-Vamp: I didn’t think it was possible for Blizzard to make WoW any MORE Vanilla but they’re doing it. I don’t think it’s a good idea to give players any less choice than they already have. You know what’s horrible? When I read about this, the first thought that came into my mind is

Free Diablo 3 when you subscribe for twelve months: Because, sheesh, after finishing Cataclysm in three days, subscribing for a full year is asking a lot of people. Frankly, I’ll just buy D3 and save the $50.

In short, everything they’ve announced just reeks of desperation and struggling to find an identity that can compete with TOR, GW2, and every other game that makes WoW look old. While I watch coverage it won’t be to look for extra tidbits of x-pac info, it will be to see if their devs have the same ‘daddy knows best” attitude as last year.

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The Other Side of RIFT’s World Events

Categories:

a. MMORPG

October 17, 2011

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Much has been said over how often Trion updates RIFT. We all know that major updates are pretty much a monthly thing. Personally, I love it. It’s earned Trion a lot of my respect that they work on their game so much. (I was tempted to write that they “focus on their game so much” but what would that mean for other MMO companies?) These patches are usually ushered in by highly advertised world events with “great” thematic tie-ins to the world’s lore. A couple months ago I might have even wrote that without the quotation marks.

Here’s my problem with world events in RIFT: They’re all exactly the same. Every single world event has consisted of variously skinned versions of “kill these invaders, kill these rift creatures, buff this wardstone, and go to this spot and click on something” — except this time they took out the clicking part. How great can your lore tie-ins be when what you’re actually doing is no different that what you’ve done every other time the world has been threatened? These planar leaders better get together for some kind of think tank because they’re seriously lacking in the creativity department.


This really goes along with my general feeling for 1.5, they have some good ideas but don’t go anywhere near far enough. Planar attunement is nice but levels tend to take forever unless you’re grinding chronicles every day. I like having another bar to fill but it’s hard to see my motivation staying up for too long; I could grind 10 levels for 10 spell power or… not. The better answer right now is to upgrade. Get better runes, run more dungeons, roll on gear drops. Every one of those will do more for you than planar attunement will. Other “good starts” in 1.5 – Chronicles: 15 minute XP farms but wonderful premise with a lot of potential; Master Mode Dungeons: Only one, which means people got burned out on running it, when was launch day again?

For all of these things, Ferrel would probably tell me that I’m complaining about extra stuff to do. World events really are fluff, after all, so why nitpick at the extra stuff. Honestly, he’s right. The reason to speak up, though, is that there are really good ideas in there buried under piles of “the same.” Don’t get me wrong, having world events — or really just new quest series/rewards — happening every month is great. Truly, I love that. There needs to be more variety, is all. You can’t put out a bunch of copy-paste world events “just because you can” and expect people not to notice. And the little bits they have changed, like the Hammerknell story sequences or the speaking travel stones, have been great. Even the variety of the in-city quests (finding spies, burning plants) is nice. So when you load into the game to see two good ideas and five recycled ones, it’s a little disappointing. Planar attunement is nice system, too, but needs to be sped up and made more interesting. And Chronicles, here’s a system that makes you wonder “why haven’t we been doing this all along?” They just need to make them longer, into full-fledged two-mans instead of appetizers before the raid.

Lots of great stuff came with the last patch, a world event just a point on the list. Like most every big idea, though, its been treated with the trepidation of successful people in a high-risk environment. As RIFT gets larger and more well off, I truly hope that a “don’t mess it up” mentality doesn’t start to stifle the ideas that clearly trying to leap out.

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Weekend Reading From Vagary.TV

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d. Everything Else

October 8, 2011

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It’s been a little quiet around here this week but that doesn’t mean you have to wait until next week for a post! I’ve been working for Vagary this week and having a great time doing it. Did someone mention a vidcast? It’s not just me, though. Over the last year, Vagary has brought on a bunch of skilled writers whose passion for video games ranks up with our very own. So, this Saturday morning let me direct your attention to what me and my esteemed colleagues have been up to:

  • Review: RAGE: You won’t like him when he’s angry. That’s all I have for this incredibly non-descriptive named game. Thankfully, I didn’t write the review. Instead, we secured copies for every platform and give you a multi-platform breakdown with a great main article by Don Parsons. It’s worth a read if you’re on the fence!
  • Why Battlefield Hasn’t Beat CoD… but Why They’re Closer Than Ever Before: The Battlefield 3 beta is good. No, really, you should be playing it. Unless you have a fear of warzones, in which case CoD is probably a better match for you. I wrote this one.
  • XBLA Review: Orcs Must Die: Tune in today for what every good Alliance player already knows. Tony Odett knocked this one out and did a good job of it. Seriously, we need to kill some orcs.
  • Film Review: “Drive”: Jeff Derrickson sits through Ryan Gosling to write this excellent review. Literally, he sits on a jello version of Ryan Gosling and kind of “pops” through him. Kinda creepy.
  • PSN Review: Castlevania: Harmony of Despair: Multiplayer Castlevania. A game series that kicked my ass without somebody else watching. If New Super Mario Bros. taught me anything, it’s that other players get frustrated quickly when they’re teamed with Suckity McSucksuck. Yes, folks, I’m Scottish.
I think I may make this rundown a regular thing. We’re all working extremely hard — hat tip to Don Parsons for being our “PR Guy” and a wonderful writer — and I know you’d all enjoy getting the “average gamer” review in a world of conglomerates. And op-ed. And podcasts. Hell, if you can consume we probably have something for you to enjoy. If you’re so inclined, leave us a comment of subscribe to the RSS. We’re up for review by Metacritic in January and have some wonderful sponsors that would love to hear your opinion (no survey but they keep an eye on our site).

Just in case anyone’s wondering, my work at Vagary doesn’t effect things here. That’s my “professional” writing gig. This is 100-percent me, baby. Game By Night because I’m too lude in the day.

Or something like that.

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Is Anybody Really Happy the WAR Guys Are Back?

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a. MMORPG

October 5, 2011

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Rockstars?

Forgive me for being a little crass, but I’m not all that excited Paul Barnett and Mark Jacobs are back. These are the same guys who sold us a total bill of goods and then dropped the ball like lepers at the super bowl. To be quite honest, I’d keep Paul Barnett out from in front of a camera (and microphone) for another three years if I could. If AOL wanted to help the MMO community, they’d have Massively pretend these two don’t exist entirely. Both their names are synonymous with failure and disappointment.

And it doesn’t help that these guys are pretty much severing all ties they had with the MMO world. Paul Barnett came off like a “facebook games are the future” –type back in December and was outright dismissive his former (and now future) customers. And Minecraft players, of course, because, you know, Minecraft isn’t even really a game. Mark Jacobs is doing the same but at least he’s being upfront about it. He says that social games are easier to make and their players are easier to please. It’s also a lot harder to put your foot in your mouth when your whole game consists of aiming birds or pressing “jump” repeatedly.

Simply put: Both these guys messed up. They’re likeable enough people and I respect them for their talents, but they should lose their PR privileges forever – you don’t shackle yourself to the Titanic and then try to sell me a river boat. Even though Mark Jacobs would have you believe it was EA that drowned WAR, a good look at Christmas Past should tell us all that WAR had fundamental problems far before EA bought them. It didn’t start with the buy-out, it only got worse because of it.

So, yeah. Enough with the schilling already. You pay marketing people to market, not “creative strategists” and CEOs.

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More Like Chronicles of AWESOME

Categories:

a. MMORPG

September 30, 2011

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I just hopped into RIFT for the first time since downloading the patch last night. Grabbing my Veteran’s Rewards from my inbox, I noticed a handy little note reminding me to do the Chronicle of Planar Attunement (or some such). If you’re new to the game, Chronicles are essentially story-based, solo/duo instances similar to skirmishes in LotRO but on a grander scale. The first one, I assumed, would be something small to unlock the Planar Attunement system, so I queued up not expecting much. Boy was I wrong.

I was blown away by the first chronicle. The other two are based on raids and this one is not, but if it’s any indication of what they can do with the system, I am seriously optimistic. The opening few minutes has you running through the city while the NPCs  cheer and bow to you. Quest givers from previous zones pop up and comment on how amazing all you’ve done is. The final part is well voice acted and interesting, as you’re asked to step into a whimsical machine of red death. Or so I thought. Instead, I was rewarded with more cheers and congratulations as I was awarded my first set of AA points.

Then all hell broke loose. Minions of death invade Meridian and people are running in terror. You have to rescue major story figures and fight two major bosses before getting to the ultimate test. The second, a dark knight, returns from the grave to summon a massive, death-themed, spider-creature. It’s a raid boss. And not a tank and spank. You have to move and react to a host of different abilities (it’s not hard, but if you’re not paying attention you’ll die quickly) while still attacking. Since I was in tank spec, I wasn’t doing a ton of damage, but it still took me a solid fifteen minutes to kill it.

When the boss finally died, the darkness seemed to draw back and lines of commoners streamed back in to cheer for me. Damn right. I just saved the whole city while all the other big wigs hid behind pillars. I am the hero.

I can say this without exaggeration: The Chronicle of Attunement did more to make me feel heroic than the entire process of leveling up. All of the little details, from the custom emotes, to the way ethereal barriers made you feel trapped and outwitted… this is an instance well done. I would go so far as to say that this is the way all new world events should be introduced. It brought me in and made me feel like I made a difference. Now, I can’t wait to stop writing to get back in there.

Excellent job, Trion. Kudos where kudos are due.

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Blizzard Changing the Game Again?

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a. MMORPG

September 28, 2011

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I was reading Kotaku a couple weeks ago and came across an interesting article about the upcoming Cross-Server Raid Finder in World of Warcraft. This is big news, why aren’t bloggers talking about it?! I read that article and I couldn’t help feeling like this might be WoW’s last big game-changing move in the MMO genre. And frankly, if it takes off anything like the 5-man tool, it will affect all of us. And it will… take off that is.

Because this opens the door to a whole new array of players. Not only will the time-constrained finally be able to raid, but the skill-short will too. Though the article doesn’t explicitly say so, it sure sounds like Blizzard is planning a whole new tier of raid content just past the level of heroics. Right now, players can choose 10- and 25-man raiding, the former being distinctly less forgiving than the last. Except, the new tool will automatically assign players 10-man groups, so how far down does that difficulty level need to drop?

Probably pretty darn far if you consider players won’t expect to actually speak while completing them. Voice chat? Nah, bro, I don’t talk to people on the internet. Cut out the communication and you cut out 90% of the need for organization. Players who don’t talk simply cannot complete raid content in today’s WoW. In patch 4.3, I give it three weeks before players are running things silently.

The gear, though they say will be lesser-quality than what normal- or heroic-mode raiders get, will still have to be fairly weighty. Otherwise, why bother with something that takes so much extra time? Then again, will these raids require that much time in the first place? If there’s no weekly save timer, you’ve got to be able to complete them fairly quickly.

How do they do that, you ask? I say that they drastically cut back on trash pulls and give bosses a fraction of their normal health.

All of these things might combine to create a new expectation of raiding. New games coming out better take note of how well this does because players sure will. And let’s face it, Blizzard would have to really screw up to make players not like this thing. Opening the doors to raiding was one of the last big things they could do to make MMOs “accessible” to the masses. Prepare to have people clamoring for this feature in MMO cut-and-pastes to come.

Despite how this might sound, I’m not totally opposed to the idea. WoW is a raiding game and gating that off was always doomed to fail. Once they decided that post-heroic gameplay boiled down to “raid, re-roll, or re-subscribe to another game,” they ensured it would never last, especially not after making MMO players out of a lot of people who used to thumb their nose at us. And getting to see the best and brightest of what WoW has to offer is a very good thing. Patch 4.3 will mean never having to miss seeing how a story ends again.

The thing is, depending on how much this takes off, it could re-define raiding as we know it. If your average raider turns into a LFR-tool devotee, meaning that tool-users outnumber guild groups, the then the market raid content in WoW, and by proxy every game that follows suit, will be serving a different audience than they ever have. What say you?

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The “Twit Generation” vs. Us – and Why Your Memory is a Little Cloudy

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a. MMORPG

September 21, 2011

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Apparently SynCaine and I stirred up a bit of a controversy yesterday on where exactly MMOs should be heading and who should be playing them. That’s well and good, but reading some of the responses has me a little concerned, so let’s dig a little deeper.

Let me just say, unequivocally, if you’re one of the people saying busy adults need to find another genre, you’re a moron. Don’t try to justify it, you’re wrong. People who play MMOs do so because of the (ever lessening) uniqueness of it. I think Wilhelm says it best:

After a big world full of live people, a single player game can seem a bit “meh.” […] Yes, your actions can change the world, but only you and the computer notice, and who cares what the computer thinks.

I may not have as much time as a hardcore player, but that doesn’t mean I should cut myself off because “playsomethingelse” says so. We all play these games for the same reason and available time doesn’t enter into that.

That said, there is a whole other issue being raised here and it’s one of difficulty. There’s been a lot of comments on how “easy” things have become. If your main metric for difficulty is how long it takes to level, you’re kidding yourself. Time =/= challenge. It’s an arbitrary barrier that amounts to nothing more than keeping your sub active. Is there a place for it? Sure. This is an RPG we’re talking about and the highest levels shouldn’t be handed to players on a silver platter. But was Everquest “harder” than WoW because it took 2000 hours to level? Definitely not.

What SynCaine refers to as Farmville-level effort is still harder than what Everquest offered:

 Classic MMO Modern MMO
Organizing dozens of people together to raid (organization) Organizing 10-20 people to raid (organization)
Tank and spank battles (organization/time) Multi-phase, multi-ability fights (organization, reaction, direction [following or providing])
Grinding endless mobs (time) Grinding endless quests (time)
Camping contested mob spawns for hours or days at a time (time) Acquiring gear through “mini-raids” in 5-man dungeons (organization, reaction, direction)
Preventing “insta-gibbs” through quick healing  (reaction) Preventing “insta-gibbs” through quick healing and player movement (reaction)
Getting PK’d and losing everything (time/reaction) Getting PK’d and having to run back to your corpse (time, reaction)

There you have it. Classic MMOs were difficult primarily because of time and the ability to organize. You had to wait to level up, wait to get gear, wait to re-gear, and spend lots of time getting dozens of people together for fights that hadn’t yet evolved into the — love it or hate it — reactionary “dances” raids have become today. Instead of camping single mobs for single items, you now go into instanced dungeons that require more thought than “hit the mob, stand in one place, hope he doesn’t one-shot you.” I’m not saying MMOs are some ultra-hard thing, they’re not. And your mileage may vary on the “requires more thought” depending on where in the expansion cycle you are, but nowadays you at least have to move.

What older MMOs did have was a greater sense of danger and a much better sense of world, both of which have been lessened to obscurity in the name of convenience, which I’ll get to in a minute.

What SynCaine refers to as the Twit Generation (you’ve got a knack for coining those terms, Syn) are the instant-gratification types or, quite frankly the “new WoWs” who’ve built a nice stereotype around being socially inept, entitled kids who rant and rave whenever the slightest thing gets in their way. To be clear, I’ve put enough time into WoW to say that it’s a good game. Once it became a social phenomenon, though, it opened the door to a lot of non-MMO players more at home in Call of Duty than a 10-man.

There’s a difference. I believe that old school players unwilling to adapt are being left behind because their voices fall by the wayside of WoW’s dollar-tsunami. I also believe that modern MMOs that focus explicitly on quick effort/quick reward are missing the point. The whole purpose of playing an MMO is to have longstanding goals and someplace to come back to months and years later. You can have loot pinatas all day long but if there’s not a constant supply of fresh and exciting, your game becomes little more than a tourist destination waiting for the “next big thing” to push you to F2P.

So while I appreciate having more options as a casual player, I’m totally fine with having things I can’t see because of it — that’s my motivation to keep going. I’m against hollow, setting-only worlds. I want evolution and innovation and simulation. I want real challenge and not simply a time gate or cat-herd raid planner. In a few words, I want a game bigger than myself.

THAT’s the difference between the Twit Generation and the casual crowd. They’re not one and the same.

Hat tip to the other bloggers who weighed in on this topic: MMO Melting Pot, Too Damn Epic, Tish Tosh Tesh, Tobold, BM Hunter

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