12/11/12

[GW2] Horizontal Endgame or a Purposeless, Grind-Centric Existence?

I’ve been reading other people’s blogs more than writing on my own recently and one of those posts is about GW2′s horizontal progression over at Professor Beej. He makes a good case for providing progressing out vs progressing up and it leads me to wonder if I’m just not the intended demographic for such a game. I own Guild Wars 2 and like it well enough, but I didn’t find it nearly as sticky as other games even in the leveling up process. So when he and other bloggers cite things like,

There is no “endgame” because the endgame is just the game itself.

I am tempted to reword that into

There is no “endgame”

Now, I don’t mean to pick on Mr. Beej here because he is hardly to first to draw attention to this fact. ArenaNet has actually done so on several occasions. Likewise, a lot of players have shared similar sentiments since August. But the thing is, even pre-launch I expressed concerns at how valid this actually is. If your model for keeping players engaged after 80 levels of leveling is “go back and do it again,” your thinking is inherently flawed. WoW has always given extra gold and reputation for completing old quests but the number of players with 100% completion is minimal. I firmly believe that people do not like to re-tread old ground unless they are forced to and why daily quests are a stop gap for slower development cycles.

Guild Wars 2 is a bit different because of the event system and karma currency. Neither of these do much to encourage me to return to old zones if there is something even remotely interesting at my own level. It is an odd psychological trait, I suppose, that I would rather stay in new zones for hours on end rather than return to others that I haven’t seen in a while, but I am hardly alone. There is a sense of having earned that end-level content, a feeling that it should be the best and most rewarding (a conclusion which is supported by the game in a number of ways) because it’s taken so much effort along the way. Step 2 trumps Step 1 and Step 3 trumps them both.

I will return, especially to help friends, and the event system is really a boon. I would, any day, rather return to Queensdale in GW2 than Silverwood in RIFT or the Barrens in WoW. No question about it, Guild Wars 2 holds up better. But going back to a zone whose main purpose was leveling when you’re all leveled up really begs the question of what’s the point.

And don’t say “because it’s fun”. Not only is that a parroting of pre-release hype but also because I don’t much think it holds water in this case. Saying the point of retreading old ground is “because it’s fun” ignores the whole context of this MMORPG. In GW2 combat can be mastered in 1/8th of the leveling process and even the dynamic events boil down to reskins of reskins. “Because it’s fun” may be re-worded as “because the combat is fun” in which case visiting old zones is for the change of scenery. That’s simply not enough to support an endgame.

“The whole game is endgame!” also highlights what I believe is one of the biggest misconceptions there is about Guild Wars 2. The game is incredibly grindy. The is horizontal progression with essentially no point. There is vertical progression with little point and incredible effort. If you want to do something meaningful with your max level character, you had better be prepared for one of the worst grinds in years. High level karma gears costs hours upon hours upon hours of event grinding and an arm and a leg in virtual currency. If you want a legendary weapon, there is no option to acquire it socially. You will do social things along the way, for sure, but what you’re left with is a laundry list a hundred hours long landing squarely on the shoulders of the player. Even getting dungeon sets require dozens of run-throughs before that’s even a possibility.

Guild Wars 2′s gear game is so incredibly grindy it’s nauseating. In a time when there are so many good titles to choose from, MMO or no, why would I ever bother to grind so much for so little? And the fact that no one talks about this is a little troubling. If only LotRO could have gotten the same treatment with its deed grinds.

Critics of this viewpoint are quick to point out that you can easily buy exotics on the auction house. This is true and will allow you to participate in high-level events and dungeons. I would also highlight that you just chopped off the most meaningful progression left for your character. Mini-pets and cosmetics await because map completion, jumping puzzles, and events… well, I’ll put it this way, if you’re still worried about karma gear when the stat boost to your character is so minimal, that item must look really good.

All of this reinforces that ArenaNet really doesn’t expect players to stick around once they’ve hit the level cap and poked a thing or two. Their model is about the ebb and flow, luring players back with holiday events and zone unlocks. For what it’s worth, that’s actually a pretty good model. I enjoy when games update often; it makes me a satisfied customer. As a player, though, it’s a bit disappointing that 2004′s World of Warcraft has proven much more successful at keeping players interested once the leveling is complete.

08/14/12

Contrasting Viewpoints on GW2′s Endgame

“My loot horde will severely disappoint you.”

Like many of you, I’m excited for the launch of Guild Wars 2. After taking part in numerous MMO rises and falls, however, I’ve become more guarded than I like to be. Couple that with a need to consume as much content as possible and you can see how I might spoil any surprises GW2 has in store for me. So, hard as it was, I put myself into media blackout for at least the last six months. I’ve watched the manifesto and read some things — total blackout is nearly impossible — so I know the Arenanet is aiming high; I have a good idea about big concepts like doing away with the holy trinity and getting rid of raid progression.

I ended that blackout this week. I’m consuming all I can because ~~winter~~ launch is coming. One of the burning questions on my mind, perhaps the most burning question, is — if they’re doing away with endgame progression, what exactly are they planning? With finely honed Google-fu I’ve found some information you probably already know: max level PvP/PvE zone, max level events and dynamic leveling to experience what you might have missed leveling up, organized PvP and world-versus-world. They lack progression, per se, and instead offer cosmetic rewards, skill alterations, and other non-gear based incentives.

I also found two excellent forum posts at MMO Champion (imagine that!) that highlight each school of thought on what ArenaNet are trying to do. They’re so well written, I had to share them.

Guild Wars 2 Endgame: You Actually Get to Eat the Carrot (1)

In Guild Wars 2, new content expands rather than extends the game. Thanks to the side-kicking system, content never becomes obsolete; when you reach the level cap your options are not limited to content specifically made for the endgame, you can still play any of the dynamic events or attempt any of the dungeons you may have initially missed. Furthermore, dynamic events provide constant variation across the entire game world. A zone might be completely different the next time you visit it due to different events being active, events being at different stages, or events having a different number of players participating in them.

An Actual PVE Engame Reality Check (2)

Moving onto the dynamic world content, I struggle again to consider this to be worthy endgame content. It is somewhat like returning to Elwynn Forest and completing the quests you missed. Granted the Dynamic Events will mix things up so that it is different and the world feels more alive than a bunch of NPCs standing around telling you to kill ten boars, collect ten boar spleens, but in effect you are revisiting leveling content. I’m sure that people are going to cry ‘But it isn’t leveling content, it’s all endgame content’ or some such, but really it’s going to feel like it did while you were leveling up, because it is what you were doing while leveling up. And, just like SWTORs story leveling experience, the novelty will wear off. There is a limit to how much ArenaNet will have scripted, and sooner or later you’ll see it all.

But what about the rest of the content that’s actually on level? What‘s the actual motivator?

(Quotes parsed for manageability)

(1) Firstly, there are rewards which expand your abilities. These include weapons, traits, and slot skills (including elite skills). All of these things combined provide a significant amount of depth in terms of character builds which is great news for those who enjoy theorycrafting and experimentation.

Secondly, there are rewards which provide ways of customising the appearance of your character. For example, each dungeon has its own unique armour set, and there also exist rare dyes which can be used to change the colour of specific parts of your armour.

Thirdly, there are rewards which provide a sense of achievement through explicitly tracking your progress and recording your character’s history.

As well as the content described above and its rewards, there is also the crafting system, the two-way auction house, and mini-games.

Tarien’s points begin by questioning how long the current set of dungeons will last players at the level cap, hard modes and alternative configurations aside. The following is more of a direct reply.

(2) Without gear upgrades there is very little incentive to keep clearing dungeons, once you’ve seen it, achieved what can be achieved and gotten whatever cosmetic items you need, what is the point? In other MMOs with gear progression your technique changes as you gear up. Initially you use CC, LoS pulls, and so on. Later you brute force it, and later still you chain pull wildly while the DPS try to balance running with AoEing. You won’t get that in a gearless game, you’ll find the optimal method and that’s it.

Great food for thought.

For my part, I enjoy the traditional raid-game but can’t often take part in it, so changing up the dynamic is appealing to me on a personal level. That said, I have serious concerns about the longevity of a non-progression endgame.

Think about it, MMORPGs are ALL progression in some form. Leveling is progression and the basis for what we expect these games to be. Nearly every tangible aspect of these games involves progressing your power. While cosmetic upgrades are neat, they offer nothing as substantial as the increased stats which is the very thing which tells us we are progressing.

Conceptually, I love the idea of players raiding because they enjoy the encounters. In a gaming environment where huge percentages of people never finish the games they start, however, why should the transient masses ever come back the second time? Is a new set of statless pauldrons enough to fill out raid spots? My gut says no. Look at other games that launched without item progression. Fallen Earth was widely criticized for having no endgame at all. GW2, for being different in so many other ways, gets a pass since they say it’s on purpose?

The counter-argument is, of course, that without a subscription fee it’s fine for players to leave when they’re done and come back when new content is added. That isn’t healthy for a game that wants an active playerbase at level cap. It’s true, of course, and F2P means there will be more people at any given time over a sub-game, but eventually claims of “your game is dead” will arise, as is the blame for “not planning for retention.” You might also say that the endgame is about PvP. In that case, should we have ever considered it a competitor to other MMOs where it’s is a feature rather than an alternative?

Where does all this lead; I see a handful of possibilities. Endgame players will leave shortly after they cap out realizing this isn’t the game for them; PvP will become the foremost activity for high-end gameplay; ArenaNet will provide an ability-based or alternative progression scheme to keep raiders satisfied; or raiding will take on a more refined existence, where players actually play for the experience rather than the item. Give me a mix of 2, 3, and 4 and I see a long happy future for GW2. Arrive with “you didn’t want it anyway” and there may be trouble.

06/10/11

Looking back at the journey, 1-50 [RIFT]

Last night, I stayed up late (and consequently overslept) to finish something I started on just over three months ago. I dinged level 50 in RIFT. This wouldn’t normally be an occasion since most of the world has already been 50 for a month or two, but there’s something we need to understand: It is extraordinarily rare for me to hit the level cap in a game. So rare, in fact, that I’ve only ever done it one game — WoW, albeit a couple times over. And I’ve played just about everything. In every single circumstance, I peter out about midway through. But not RIFT. In homage to the last 50 levels spent running with the bulls of Telara, I thought to do a little retrospective and reflect on the highs and lows of hitting the level cap in Trion’s fledgling MMO.

In the Beginning…

In the beginning, there was Freemarch and only Freemarch. Then Regulos came in and crapped up the place. That was where I came in. Or more accurately, that was where I checked out in my time-traveling air-shimmer and popped out at Ark of the Ascended.

As an introduction, Freemarch is a decent zone. It’s big and varied with lots of rift activity. Leveling through here on my cleric never felt like a slog, though, it did last a long time. Iron Tombs came in at level 17. I was blown away. The orbs and ghosts near the end? Fantastic. This is what we see in the first dungeon? Sign me up for more, baby. And I did.

By the time I was midway through Stonefield, I knew that I was stuck. RIFT was fly tape and I was the ever-sucking fly. Mosquito. Whatever. In short, from that point onward RIFT held me close to its chest and wouldn’t let go.

The Best and Worst

My favorite zone is definitely Scarlet Gorge. It’s big, beautiful, and has a lot of nooks and crannies to explore and get lost in. You also get the excellent ‘Plop!’ achievement. I think what really endeared me to this place was that in the first few minutes of being there, I’d seen more rift activity than I’d seen in a week in Stonefield. I came in to my home base being under attack. And it didn’t stop. Over and over again, I’d find myself detouring either to avoid or circumvent rifts and invasions. On a purely aesthetic level, it’s also one of the only “red desert” zones I’ve ever really cared for. The epic story quests were also very good and kept me moving forward at a steady clip. All in all, I feel like this zone could have gone on another 5 levels for as much as I cared. I liked it.

My least favorite zone, without a doubt, is Droughtlands. It’s drear, dead, and bland. I’ve never been a fan of zones that look unnaturally bereft of life. Before anyone jumps in, I know that, well, that was kind of the point. There’s some bad stuff happening in Droughtlands and naturally it was up to me to save the day. Except by the time I got there, I was still high on Scarlet Gorge and seeing the desperation exuding from those scaly-looking trees… well, let’s just say it’s a good thing it wasn’t actually up to me to save the day. I think “meh” sums up my feelings there pretty well. Two-State Solution: Give the Defiants half and the rift monsters the other half. The Guardians can fight it out for that corner where the polluted waters like to sit and talk about the better qualities of 10w30 over 10w40.

Instances, Roles, Group Play

As a grouper, I wanted to be a tank. I got halfway there. In the open-world, I started off as DPS, switched to tank around 18, and eventually gave up and stuck it out as DPS. In instances, I still tanked unless someone else wanted to. The reason I let open-world tanking drift away is because, honestly, I got a bit lazy. As a rift/invasion tank, you spend most of your time taunting off of the other five or so aspiring meat shields in your raid, all while hoping a healer realizes that even though your taunt only sticks for .2 seconds before someone overwrites it, you were in fact still a tank and needed their love. Instead, I could just pull out my single-target build, pew pew away, and get similar rewards with less frustration. Maybe frustration is the wrong word. At times, I quite liked the threat wars — and it didn’t hurt my contribution any. Still, it was simpler for everyone to keep the tank numbers down and play DPS.

As a cleric, I never felt useless. As a calling, they are incredibly versatile and every tree offers some utility to the group. They also offer some of the strongest souls for to fill out the trinity in any given situation. Tankwise I went Inquisitor/Shaman/Justicar. Single-target was Inquisitor/Cabalist/Justicar. AoE was Inquisitor/Warden/Justicar. See a pattern here? Oh, and PvP was Inquisitor/Cabalist/Purifier. They all worked pretty well. Single target through out some decent numbers, the tank build was, well, a tank build, and PvP was majorly added by the Purifier’s main heals. What I really loved was the AoE spec, though. With this thing you could take down 3+ mobs at a time, all on your level. If they were under your level… I think my biggest pull was 8 mobs. It dramatically increased my leveling speed from 38 (when I got it) to 50.

Favorite instance? I don’t think I have one. They’ve all been fun. I’ve yet to see Realm of the Fae, Abyssal Precipice, or Charmer’s Caldera. (WTH is a caldera, anyways? And don’t wiki it. Off the top of your head, the definition of caldera. Go.).

The Curve

Not RIFT but still...

The leveling curve wasn’t that bad. 1-20 was pretty much a breeze, though I still feel like there’s a dramatic slowdown once you hit level 10 Defiant side. With that minor hurdle overcome, the game really seemed to set into a nice groove. I could get a level in a few hours, usually, up until about the mid-thirties. Then they stretched out little bit by little bit until quests seemed to hardly move the XP bar at all. That’s when I was glad I had an AoE spec. I was able to put away quests in just a few minutes each, and by level 45, I was running around Shimmersand with 20 of so complete markers in my quest log.

The bulk of that experience came from kills, however, and you should probably expect the same — which is good news for you old school folks! To put it in perspective, it took roughly 465k XP to get from 49 to 50. Quests at that level were still giving out the same XP they’d given for roughly 20 levels: 4850. That’s a lot of quests, yet, killing on-level mobs was good for about 700-1000xp each. See how AoE speeds things up?

There are a couple of strange things with RIFT’s leveling game. I was oddly perplexed at the lack of incentive there is to get players into dungeons while leveling up. You go in one time, do the quests, and get a big chunk of XP. The next time, you get only a fraction of that because all of the quests are done and completed (save the boss-kill one). Trion is making strides with this, though, so we’ll see if it gets ironed out. Then there’s the immense slowdown from 45-50. These levels seem LONG. Compared to the others, you’re doing LOTS of quests. On the plus side, you can get that XP much quicker by blending your questing with rifts and invasions.

Overall, the pacing is a little stilted, but not bad. I made it, so obviously it’s better than most others I’ve tried.

Final Thoughts on Dinging 50 and Digging into the Endgame

So the question becomes: What now? The leveling is done. When I hit there, it struck me. I had no idea what to do next. Thankfully my friend Gavin was there to point me towards some reps to work at between T1s. This is an area where RIFT could definitely improve. There is more to RIFT’s endgame than just dungeon running, and much more required than just that, too, but there is little if nothing pointing you towards it.

I have to admit, though, I’m already thinking of what character I’m going to roll next. I’m thinking mage, over on Ferrel’s server mayhaps?

My plan going ahead is this: Do all the things I put off while leveling. My armorsmithing is in the 180 range, and I’d love to be able to make some nice epic gear, so doing my dailies is becoming a priority. I’ll also be looking into organizing set dungeon runs with my guild and pull a little bit more of my weight as an officer. Apart from that, there’s artifact collecting, mount hoarding, and vanity pet ~~starving~~. Not to mention PvP, which I’m extremely interested in doing. With a guild the size of Immortal Council, getting some pre-mades geared should be a lot of fun. At the five or so hours I play a week, that should keep me occupied for a good long time.

Overall, I’m extremely happy with my time in RIFT so far. I like to call myself an MMO nomad but that’s just a nice way to say I have gamer-ADD. I like to take part in the latest and greatest, whether it’s a patch or a full release, so I often lose interest with a game temporarily only to take it up again when the shiny wears off that other thing. That didn’t happen here and the fact that, here, less than 24 hours after capping-out, I’m considering making another character to do it all over again is a testament to how much fun combat is in this game.

In short, I’m in it for the long haul and, rather than feeling like I’ve closed a chapter in m RIFT career, I feel like I’ve opened a bunch of new ones. That’s how a game should feel at the level cap. That’s good design.

05/25/11

The Multiverse – Season 02 Episode 06 – “Bone Dragons and Furry Things”

Hey Gang,

This episode was a blast to record! Both Adam and I feel that it’s our best one yet. In it, we discuss a multitude of things. Including:

The return of SOE! And why Adam and I disagree on the nature of Anonymous.
How expert dungeons have changed in RIFT and why you might be getting shortchanged. Oh… and the mini-event. Emphasis on mini.
Cryptic’s sell-off. The death of the “Cryptic Model of MMOs”.
Bone dragons and how they hell they reproduce. Bone dragons: the natural mate of the furry?

And remember, this podcast is endorsed by a guy I know, who knew a guy, who knew a guy, who once nodded cordially at a dude who helped make Diablo II.

Oh and pre-emptive apologize for me getting a little clippy at the end. I’m use a new recording set-up. Won’t happen again!

Enjoy the show!

Oh — and shoutouts to Player Vs Rift. Word to Casey.

Vagary Homepage
Subscribe to the Show
iTunes Feed
Download/Listen Here

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

04/15/11

What MMOs Can Learn From Super Meat Boy

This past week has been spent in a single-player haze, entrenched in the annals of Ferelden and Kirkwall, Seacrest County, Croatia, London, and Baja, and perhaps most dedicatedly in Super Meat Land (TM). It’s been a pretty incredible trip — and I’m not exaggerating — made possible in no small part by the 3D Vision, which is also the sole reason for this diversion from RIFT (3D Review column coming soon at Vagary). It’s also been pretty enlightening. What I’d like to talk about today is Super Meat Boy and how MMOs could standard to learn a thing or two from the 2-man team that is Team Meat.

For those of you that haven’t played it (and Yogi has a great write-up here), SMB is a platformer harkening back to the NES days of brutal difficulty, requiring precision in timing and speed, and one that relishes in blood-spattered gore of your perpetual defeat. For a while. See, the thing about Super Meat Boy is it EXPECTS you to fail and tells you as much. When you die, you instantly respawn and are ready to go again. There is no delay, no punishment. In every conceivable way, SMB tells you, “try, try again.” That is its motto — or should be. And when you finally do succeed, reacting out of muscle memory and a highly developed skill that will carry you through successively more difficult levels, you’re rewarded with a replay of every single attempt playing through at once; twenty, thirty, a hundred Meat Boy’s all running across the screen, jumping, leaping, and dying gloriously until a single one remains with Bandage Girl (the princess).

The other characteristic which takes the otherwise unbearably difficult game into the realms of addictively good fun is the precision of controls. Meat Boy moves with an accuracy of motion that has little to do with physics and everything to do with that indescrible rightness that so qualifies the best platformers of the past twenty years. Meat Boy moves just as he should move: with a lightness that allows you to fly through a super-jump then change your mind in mid-flight and land right at the edge of a precipitous cliff.

You’re probably wondering what this has to do with MMOs. It’s pretty simple. MMOs have long used two factors to create challenge: Organization and time. The hardest part of any raid is getting enough people together and then convincing them to be herded around like a bunch of cats. It’s not about quick reactions so much as it is about reacting in general. Consider for a moment what would happen if players were to die the instant they touched fire. No forgiveness, no strategy, just reaction. It wouldn’t work in today’s MMO, nor should it.

Then there’s time. For some reason, developers decided that they would gate content based upon multi-hour commitments. That’s not challenge. I’m sorry, it’s not. There is no challenge in staying logged in for two hours, it’s just a yes or no question. At it’s core, it is the illusion of challenge. Yet tied with organization, we can begin to see why raiding became an elite activity and why Wrath so willingly burst open the doors on that playstyle (and why it’s so puzzling for Blizzard to have gone the other direction in Cataclysm).

What I’m getting at is this: MMO end-game is being designed in a box. There isn’t room for any real challenge because the dance mechanics of trench raid-fare have given the whole industry tunnel-vision. Raids are challenging for a small selection of people: raid leaders and world-firsters. Everyone else listens on vent or finds a strategy online while they overcome their own personal challenge not imposed by the game. Overcoming tunnel-vision and recognizing ability animations isn’t what makes an encounter difficult; rather, it’s the periphery, the inter-dependent “musts,” that create the illusions of grandeur.

So what can MMOs learn from Super Meat Boy? Simply this: People want real challenge but they don’t want to be punished for trying. Where SMB succeeds is positive reinforcement. The more times you fail, the more humorous the ending scene. You die, you’re rewarded with another attempt. In MMORPGs, death means a corpse run and probably a few minutes waiting on a debuff. The impetus in MMOs is not “learn” but rather “don’t die.” It creates stress. Some players may thrive on that but many others may simply see another locked gate in front of the rest of the game.

We can design end-game to be better than it is today. It doesn’t need to be organization dependent or strategyless. If Cataclysm has shown us anything, it’s that people WANT challenge, they just don’t want to devote two hours to the trying. My theory is this: we ramp up difficulty, as in “real” difficulty (sequences of events, strategic attacks, class interdepence, specific actions at specific times NOT cued by boss invulnerability, environmental interactions) and lower the barriers to entry. We remove the punishments for death and acknowledge that, yes, you’re going to die a lot. Take what we’re doing today and revolutionize it.

The death of 25-man raiding in WoW only shows us that raiding isn’t fun on its own merit. The payoff to herding those 24 other cats isn’t big enough. You’d think the game would justify itself and you’d raid because it’s fun. But that’s the thing, organization and time are more chores than challenges — and that’s exactly what needs to change.

10/20/10

TOR Might Wind Up a “Clone”– Why Is That Bad, Again?

It’s been interesting to watch how the public interpretation of The Old Republic has changed since it was announced. It went from godsend, to F2P (oh noes!), to godsend, to the current point of “It’s a WoW clone” disappointment. On one hand, I empathize with people that want something new and are tired of the same, rehashed diku tropes that have dragged the industry into the Great Stagnation of 2010. Then again, I have to wonder if people really know what they want at all. The cattle call is “different.” As in, “give us something different” and “I already played WoW, I want something different!”

Yet, the majority of MMO players began their MMO careers with WoW and have only fleeting tried other games, if at all. These players, bitter as some may be, expect new MMOs to be like WoW, if not in form than in function. I hate to generalize like that but it’s human nature, isn’t it? We compare to what we know. If we like one MP3 player, we expect our next to be pretty much the same with a little extra shine.

But, that expectation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I mean, WoW is a little basic, but can we really argue that it’s a “bad” game? What’s not worth copying there? Alright, a carbon copy wouldn’t be a good idea – there’s always room for improvement, after all – but there is a core of a very good, addictive experience there. Copying the WoW formula would be the smartest decision Bioware could make if they want a successful game.

Say what you want about the endgame, but how many hours does the average player spend chasing that eternal carrot through instance and raid dungeon? 100? 1000? You don’t get to be the market lead – and stay there for five years – by making a bad game. I understand that people get bored and sometimes feel burnt when it’s time to move on, but most of us can admit to having enjoyed WoW at some point. Could it be deeper, look better, stand a change of pace or a few more options at the level cap? Of course, but that doesn’t negate the hundreds of hours and millions of XP we’ve earned over the years.

So, when people knock on TOR for coming off as a WoW clone with an added fourth pillar, I can’t quite say I agree or would be upset if that turned out to be the case. If TOR turns out to be half the game WoW is, it will be doing alright. That means quality PvE, fun dungeons, and a long life past the level cap. That’s exactly what a PvE game needs to be.

Let’s not forget that even if it takes its cues from WoW, it’s only a starting point. Add in story, add in depth, add in all of the originality and polish that’s given Bioware its name, and you can see the Blizzard Approach in practice: take what works and make it great; make it your own, and add to it. The playstyle of WoW may not be what every MMO player wants, but it seems to be what the mainstreamer enjoys, and that’s what Bioware is after.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need SW:TOR to reinvent the wheel. I need it to be a fun game with a great story. I think they’re on track with that. Maybe you don’t like WoW. If the millions of hours we’ve spent there, and the millions more others will spend there, say anything, it’s that most people do. It’s easy to forget that the playerbase of WoW more than likely outnumbers those of every other major MMO combined. Building from there, targeting the highest density of players, and expanding on the familiar, how is that a bad thing?

Maybe you can enlighten me, though, as to why I’m wrong. The rocky reception of FFXIV can be attribute to a clunky interface, but I think another part of it is just that’s is so starkly different from what we’re used to. Is that the direction we’d want TOR to go? Action bars and well thought out dungeons are no reason to disregard a potentially fun game, IMO.

02/5/10

What’s the lasting appeal of Guild Wars?

I’m hoping someone can really answer this for me because I’m at a loss.

With more and more excitement building for Guild Wars too, dedicated Guild Wars fans are popping out of the woodwork. That’s great but what exactly does the game offer to the long term player?

I’ve tried to get into it several times and enjoyed each attempt, so there’s no snark in this post. Every time though, I was reminded that if you didn’t want to PvP, the game was pretty much static. Sure, there are three boxes and an expansion pack, but there’s no big patches bringing in new dungeons or things to do (holiday events, aside).

One of the defining characteristics about MMOs is that they’re ever changing. In a game like Guild Wars, it seems like, at this point, the PvE game would be long beat. After that, what’s there to keep you occupied? In this way, I’m always a little baffled when I hear from players that play GW, and have played, for some time.

I guess I’ve always looked at it more as a CORPG (cooperative online RPG) than an MMO. Don’t get me wrong, I love that concept. Except, I also love other single player RPGs and don’t find myself playing them once their beat.

Guild Wars 2 looks awesome but I don’t want to get excited expecting the game to be something it’s not. Can someone explain this for me?