f13.net

Paelos interviews "Badthing" and "Killbotx" to remind us why we love and hate World of Warcraft. (http://www.f13.net/index2.php?subaction=showfull&id=1135706697&archive=&start_from=&ucat=1&)

Good stuff. I swear the raider guy quotes are taken directly from the WoW boards. Scary when no comedic license needs to be taken in order to make them sound ridiculous.

Good work, Paelos!

Ooh! I needed a new sig. Easy 'intarview', though. Coulda been EQ, really. But Paelos brings teh funnay, and that's what really matters. That and my [Earthshaker].

(I had to go look that up)

You made that up didn't you?

I enjoyed the read.  Quite amusing.

And sadly, all too true.

Yes, it's a made-up interview. I based the raider on various people i've met in-game and on the boards in WoW.

That's good stuff.

badthing's position deserves more ridicule (but not as much as killbotx's.) If people like badthing always got their way, it make MMOGs as bland and formulaic as TV. 

Plus I don't like how the argument is framed.  It basically turns WoW into a content delivery system and we are fighting over which demographic should get more content.  I am looking for more than canned content; as such,  I feel left in the cold.

(Not criticizing the article, GJ JM, just making comments on the topic)

I agree with you. The argument is not supposed to be good v. evil or right v. wrong. It's more about the absurdity of the two points at loggerheads and neither side really represents the whole. People like Badthing scream that they represent the casuals, but they don't. Instead they are just vociferous. People like Killbotx don't represent all raiders, but the douchebags seem to find their way into the public eye more than the cool ones.

The arguement is essentially your basic WoW Forum argument, which while funny, doesn't help the game.

Did you just copy-pasted PKs vs RPs chat from long-time-ago in UO and changed key words?

All too true. Look at what happened to UO.

I never played UO, so no. I wouldn't doubt though that the more things "change" in MMOGs the more they stay the same.

I think the stand of the non-raiders is not so much the demand for easy epics, but rather to have an optional path to gear advancement beyond the current PVE raid grind/non-stop BGs.

Some players are on low population server where its very difficult to form up for 40men raids if you are not in one of the large exclusive guilds. Some players did manage to run MC, but find the raiding process extremely tedious. Some players just have erratic playing hours, and very few hardcore raid guilds tolerate players quitting mid-raid.

The thing is, Wow levels 1-59 is something that allows multiple play styles : solo, grouped, small time increments, large time chunk grindings etc. But once you reach 60, the only way to improve your character is by gear, and the only way to get good gear is by large PVE raids or by PVPing. By PVPing, it means that one have to run an endless grind of BGs, clearing the same instance over and over again - preferably in a guild group running roughshod over PUGs and /afking when meeting decent opposition. And if you are a working adult you can forget about getting beyond rank 10. No pvp purples unless you are getting at least 200k honour weekly.

The non-raiders are not asking for free purples. What they hope for, is epic quests without items that need to be farmed from 40men raids; what they ask for, is more 5 men raid instances that drop level 60 blues; what they wish for is more stuff to do now that they are 60, beyond huge raids and rerunning the same pvp BG 100000 times.

Most real casuals usually don't care about the leetness of the loot, they care about attainable new goals. My sister and her husband were happy with the occasional blue items while my old Everquest gang hauled purples out of Molten Core. What you people refer to are what we called "Time starved Powergamers".

On the other hand they quit WoW once they were 60 after a few weeks because they had nothing to do but farm a few single group instances. No epic quests that didn't need raid strength. The occasional single group attainable goal here and there would have kept them a bit longer in the game I guess.

Ah what I could have been if life hadn't interfered. Great term.

Too late. Also, the mass market likes bland pablum.


PVE MMOG's ARE content delivery systems, especially mass market ones. It is a content delivery service. The content doesn't have to be unchallenging, it just most often is in MMOG's. We all feel left in the cold. That's why places like f13, CorpNews and Lum's site exist(ed).

It was worth reading for this one terrific line:

K: Keep crying. I polish my armor with your tears.

I seem to recall an interview with someone at Blizzard (someone high up in the ladder, I think) that basically compared WoW's philosphy as trying to be like a theme park with lots of rides rather than a virtual world.  So basically, you get on your ride and you get off once you've had your fun.  No consequences.

From this viewpoint, it seems that WoW may fit the content delivery system analogy pretty well.  At least, WoW fits that model as opposed to something like EVE, where the players are supposed to make up their own content.

The concept may be that they keep building new rides in the theme park to convince people to stay.

The average human doesn't get together with 40+ people every other day to work on a hobby.  It is not naturaul.  Why the fuck MMORPG developers think that is what the majority of gamers want is beyond me.  With rising costs to develop, build, and maintain MMORPGs they have no choice but to shoot for a larger audience. 

Raiding is a niche market and it always has been.  Raiding will never be mainstream.  Casual will always be mainstream.  Small group based and solo gameplay will always be a better experience.  Its simple... play the game with a few close friends or get a headache waiting for 40+ aquaintances.  There is no game being developed that has gotten this point.  Ultima Onlina which was one of the first games out offered a great example of what can be done without catassing the game.  I would even wager people were logged into UO longer and more often than they were into EQ and other DIKU derrived MMOs.

The fact remains... people like to play with their friends.  They don't like having to make 40+ friends and bending their schedule to meet the raiding schedule.

I would also wager that developers waste a lot of hours working on raid content that is balanced, challenging, and MOST OF ALL offers a role for EVERYONE.  On top of this the endless debate of time vs. reward has to be addressed or players will just give up playing your game.  The fewer players the easier it is to develop.  The possible number of inputs is far less and everyone in the group is VALUED.  In a raid... there can be any number of people that are relegated to nothing.

Blah...

You earn one of these:

(http://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/images/lblackwell/2005/03/01/thread_necromancer.png)

In more recent times, we discussed raids and casual play quite extensively here (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=5800.105). Welcome.