Cracks starting to show?

[kildorn]

I'm a pretty lonerish player myself in all MMOs. I do my own thing, randomly 5 man it up since they don't take that much time, and generally hate to raid simply because I dislike both the commitment to not find something else shiney to do that night, or because I'm always going to call the raid 1-2 hours early because lol EST player in a majority PST guild.

That said, I've done maybe two pug raids. OH GOD THE HORROR. Casual raiding != Pug raiding. PUGs being able to clear your content means your content is probably brute-forcible. My annoyance with Cata is that in trying to make things unable to be just brute forced down, they made a lot of casual staples into "you have five seconds or insta die" and other such impossible to save yourselves from a wipe situations, which isn't fun in the other direction.

That's supposedly calmed down quite a bit with the later patches, but even with my 7 days of PLEASE COME BACK, I'm feeling like I'm detached from the game world now, and more a tourist than a player.

edit: if committing to being on time is the requirement, my guild is the least social group EVER ;)

[Fordel]

I'm totally anti-social in most games I play, but I'm also not one to bitch about "OH GAWD THE COMMUNITY" or whatever.


Ironically, I'm one of the few people in my circle that keeps general chats ON in games. 

[Malakili]

That's basically me, the player that can seemingly play 20+ hours a week in a game, but recoil in horror every time someone asks me to raid.

AV doesn't care what time I log in or for how long, but if I agree to be tonight's tank for a raid and don't show up, everyone else is fucked. If I don't want to go that night but do so anyways, then I just hate everyone as I run the instance. 


So I try to keep my in game activities as independent as possible, lets me play as much or little as I want, whenever I end up doing it. Which either means literally soloing, or large inclusive activities that don't require scheduling, BG's and RvR and etc.



Sometimes it ends up being "Jesus Fordel, have you slept yet?" and other times it goes "Did Fordel fall into a well? Where the shit did he go?"

Thats reasonable though.  You can't commit to a schedule, so you choose to do content that fits your playstyle.  That is exactly what I did in WoW after I stopped raiding and I had a fun time with it.  Maybe the fact that I *was* a hardcore raider at one point played into it, but I didn't care or expect to raid when I made my return to WoW as a non raider/community member of my raiding guild (for which they have a specific guild rank, its a hardcore raiding guild, but they like to keep the community feeling for people who want to retire as raiders).  

I guess most people will do something similar, or just leave altogether if they don't feel like there is a place for them somewhere.  What I do find much more difficult to relate to (though understand a bit) is the people who might play 3 times a week, maybe for 5 hours maybe for 20 hours, maybe not at all, who ALSO complain that the game isn't accessible enough to them.  If you take it seriously enough to be upset about, surely you have to take it seriously enough to put some time in.


Anyway, this is why I'm looking forward now (I can actually say that!) to SWTOR - it looks like it is going to have a lot to do for someone like me who can't really schedule time for gaming anymore.

[Modern Angel]

How about we start calling them "Social" and "Anti-social" players.  Because if you can't/ won't commit to a social contract like being on time you're not a social player.

This is a FAR better descriptor and let's you have a better conversation about where MMOing is headed.

[Numtini]

I've been in three different guilds that raided 2-3 times a week on very very regular schedules and in all these cases, it was literally the only time I logged into the game and the only time most of us did. We had our characters. We had our gear. At 6:50 there was one or two people on and at 7:05 there were 24 of us making the first pull. At 10 we wrapped. If we were having good luck and got the boss down to 5% and we just knew one more pull and we'd have it? We wrapped it. It was 10.

The schedule actually made the experience far more casual. There was no watching an entire evening disappear randomly with nothing actually happening. It was very much like a rec sports league.

[Malakili]

I've been in three different guilds that raided 2-3 times a week on very very regular schedules and in all these cases, it was literally the only time I logged into the game and the only time most of us did. We had our characters. We had our gear. At 6:50 there was one or two people on and at 7:05 there were 24 of us making the first pull. At 10 we wrapped. If we were having good luck and got the boss down to 5% and we just knew one more pull and we'd have it? We wrapped it. It was 10.

The schedule actually made the experience far more casual. There was no watching an entire evening disappear randomly with nothing actually happening. It was very much like a rec sports league.

The scheduling itself is what makes it not "casual" for a lot of people though, not the amount of hours.  I can probably play 9 hours of a game in a week if I want to.  But there is almost no chance I'll know what those 9 hours are in advance in a given week.  I've done 4 nights a week of 3 hours at time raiding before, and it wasn't the amount time that was EVER the problem (I had the time to burn then),  even then it was that I did have some friends that resented if it was 7:45 and I had to leave to play a video game at 8.  These are people that wasted as much time on frivolous bullshit as I did (not always on games, but besides the point), but it was the fact that I scheduled things around it that was problematic. 

[Amaron]

The scheduling itself is what makes it not "casual" for a lot of people though, not the amount of hours. 

This is what I getting at.   The amount of time per raid is a big problem too.    Plus if not everyone is super pro the raid takes longer.    Which creates the weird situation where the more hardcore you are the less time you have to put in.   

[Modern Angel]

That's almost verbatim what I said.

[Merusk]

A time commitment doesn't make something "Not casual."  That's why we keep going back to the intramural leagues.  You're not going to call them  Hardcore players of sport <x> just because they set aside time for it a few nights a week.  Ditto these raiders.   They're agreeing to a social contract the same as a softball/ bowling league or hell, even my kid's Cub Scouts.  "I'll be here from x to y on z nights"

It's also why the term needs to be something else. It's total nonsense to call Numtini's guild "Hardcore Catasses" while the players on 50+ hours a week are "casual players" simply because they never set foot in a raid instance with a regular group.

[Rendakor]

almost verbatim

[Paelos]

Yall really took this thread places while I was at the lake.

[Typhon]

They need to get the fuck out of it, so I can get back to enjoying you being pissed off at Blizzard for Cataclysm.  More quit posts!   

[Malakili]

They need to get the fuck out of it, so I can get back to enjoying you being pissed off at Blizzard for Cataclysm.  More quit posts!   

I quit cataclysm because I was logging in for 3 minutes, fiddling around stormwind and logging out.  There, are you happy?

[WindupAtheist]

I could never bring myself to say "Sorry guys, I can't make it tonight. I have important business on the internet killing dragons." without feeling like a giant toolbox, no matter how many people try to compare it to non-laughingstock activities like sports.

No matter how much or how little time I burn on a game, it's secondary to even the least important real-life activity. That's why I'm casual.

[Rendakor]

After years of making schedules to kill paper-and-dice dragons, setting aside a few hours to kill internet dragons isn't very difficult for me.

[Paelos]

An early morning FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT! because I didn't get it done yesterday due to my birthday.

Whydotjpeg is quitting because of the community, and because he chose such a stupid name he couldn't soldier on with his badness.

[Sjofn]

After years of making schedules to kill paper-and-dice dragons, setting aside a few hours to kill internet dragons isn't very difficult for me.

Yep.


EDIT: I mean shit, I've begged off of killing paper-and-dice dragons because a new Sims expansion came out and I want to play with my little fake people instead of real ones. And yet those real people are still my friends.

I think.

 

[Miasma]

Now that we're in 4.2 I have to either force myself to run troll dungeons for valor or fall behind and be a weak healer in even my casual raid group.  I really hate the troll dungeons and forsee a ragequit in my future.  Probably on jin'do.

[Paelos]

Now that we're in 4.2 I have to either force myself to run troll dungeons for valor or fall behind and be a weak healer in even my casual raid group.  I really hate the troll dungeons and forsee a ragequit in my future.  Probably on jin'do.

Let me know when you ragequit in the WoW general forum. I'll make you the FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT! for the day.

[Paelos]

New Blizz email for 7 free days due to 4.2:


I got a solid guffaw out the "PUG-friendly raids"

[Fabricated]

They literally are telling casual players and mediocre guilds to run 7 month-old content. lol. How fucking hard is it to spend some of your $Texas bankroll to hire some more staff to develop content for your cash cow? Do you seriously need to pocket every extra dime you can get when you're pulling the GDP of the third-world every month?

[Ingmar]

If you've never set foot in it and it isn't deprecated content (IE level 70 stuff at level 80) what's the big deal about the content's age? The gear is still better than what you get out of troll instances.

[Soulflame]

It means that casuals are separate but equal.   

Oddly enough, the majority of the playerbase doesn't like being discriminated against.

Put as much tongue in your cheek as necessary.

[Sjofn]

I'd be more concerned if it didn't sound like Firelands is a lot gentler. So the nerfed older raids get you geared up, then you can go right into Firelands as a casual. Big whoop.

They really, really need to put content out faster, though. Which I know is what everyone keeps saying. But that is the most obvious problem WoW has right now to me, not any of this mew mew mew it's hard (because it isn't any more) or mew mew mew they hate casuals (they don't).

[SurfD]

I got a solid guffaw out the "PUG-friendly raids"

Actually, If my experience this week is any indicator, First Tier normal raids are pretty damn pug friendly.

I hopped into a pug 10 man BWD raid out of trade chat, and we pretty handily oneshot 5 bosses, often with some pretty sloppy play going on (like, needing to battle rez a tank half way through a fight, or having someone die and just leaving them dead), and then procieded to essentially 3 shot Neff with 2 people in the raid who had never done the fight before, one being the tank who was doing Ony / Adds in p3.

Before the patch, you would be lucky to oneshot 2 or 3 bosses, and pretty much never did Neff in a full pug.

I'd be more concerned if it didn't sound like Firelands is a lot gentler. So the nerfed older raids get you geared up, then you can go right into Firelands as a casual. Big whoop.

Not sure if firelands Normals are a lot gentler.  I dont have a lot of raid experience in there yet, but the two fights i have done seem somehwat harder then pre-nerf normals.   

Beth'tilac (spider queen) seems to be a pretty hefty dps check fight, as her phase 2 has a fairly nasty soft enrage. The group I was with only got her down after about 5 wipes because the mage Iceblocked and dots killed her.  Unless we were doing something fairly wrong with the general strat, the p2 burn would probably stop most poorly geared groups dead.

Shannox (the Salamander Hunter guy) seemed pretty easy.  It's a pure mechanics fight, with 90% of the fight being about situational awareness, which will probably facestomp a lot of pugs.   I would say he is something like atramedes, just with more shit to watch out for on the ground.

[Amaron]

One reason doing old content is fail is because nobody is on it anymore.    The large majority of the population isn't on super heavy populated raid server.   Not to mention a bunch of assorted reasons like Water Cooler factor etc.

[Paelos]

I got a solid guffaw out the "PUG-friendly raids"

Actually, If my experience this week is any indicator, First Tier normal raids are pretty damn pug friendly.

I totally agree that the first level of content is probably puggable. The way that the email presented it is this big bullet point that says, PUG-FRIENDLY RAIDS!!!

Then you read the rest of it and they are talking about shit that came out in December. They took a complaint that a lot of players had, presented it like they've fixed it, and in reality they have continued to propegate the issue in their most recent form of content. Fixing a past problem only matters if you don't continue to pull the same bullshit over and over again. Players won't come back to run stuff you've intentionally put on the back burner.

[Kageru]

Deleted the e-mail without reading it. These days once I'm gone because of the game, rather than my own time constraints, that's pretty much it. Just too many other ways to waste time and I've left enough MMO's behind I know they are not forever. And what the heck are you going to do in 7 days anyway? get your aged gear up to speed and find a successful PUG? Not worth the effort.

[amiable]

I think the real issue with Cata was that it just honestly wasn't any fun.  Our guild heroics fell apart after repeated wipes.  Granted we aren't the best players but we weren't terrible, and in general everyone was pretty good at following instructions.  We did ok in arenas ( I think we were up to 1800 at some point) but it was just a constant barrage of unfun stress as every game devolved into who got off the most crowd control. 

I sometimes think ghostcrawler would ask himself before any design decision:"how could I make this less fun?"

[Paelos]

One good way to have much less fun is to have encounters with low enrage timers or unavoidable damage. That usually does it.

[Rokal]

Intro Firelands fights seem comparable to intro T11 fights (at least on 10-man normal). Difficulty hasn't really changed, though I maintain that most people were probably capable of doing T11 too. It's all a matter of perception. They'd have been better off throwing an easy fight or two into Firelands, but that would have meant adding another two bosses to the zone.

Not really digging the Firelands dailies. It's super gated, and after getting to the second quest hub the quests didn't become more interesting. Still just the staples you've come to expect from questing (Kill X of Y, heal some NPCs on the ground, etc.). After 3 days of quests with the second hub open I realized it was going to take more than a month of doing unexceptional dailies every day to open up the vendors, and I stopped. I liked that they added cosmetic/fluff items to the vendors at the end, but I don't like how they shamelessly make you open the vendors 3 times (125 tokens to unlock each vendor) to gain access to all of the items.

The fights in Firelands have been decent so far, but I don't get the impression that the quality is twice as high on them as the T11 fights. This has been the first 'big' content patch for Cataclysm, and it's not very big.

[Ingmar]

I think it takes exactly 30 days to open them all.

[Paelos]

Today in FUCK YOU CATA, I'M OUT! Velrius sadly thinks the rest of you lack the "know how" to make his game fun. He also lacked the "know how" to craft a sentence.

[Ashamanchill]

Lol, it's not me, it's YOU!

[Dren]

They really, really need to put content out faster, though. Which I know is what everyone keeps saying. But that is the most obvious problem WoW has right now to me, not any of this mew mew mew it's hard (because it isn't any more) or mew mew mew they hate casuals (they don't).

Those are related.  It isn't that the game is too hard for casuals.  It was too hard for too long for casuals.  If they had kept the stream of content going by releasing new stuff at the hard level for hardcores and lowering the "hardness" of the older content for the casuals at a decent pace, there probably would be much less issues.  As it was, they came out with changes/content too slow and it killed the casual guilds.  People get bored being kept at the lower tiers for too long and found other things to do.  Myself included.  It's great that they made the game more casual friendly.  Doesn't matter though, I already quit.

Making the content easier for casuals is something that would have kept my money coming in.  It isn't enough to make me come back.  If they have a major expansion that looks interesting, I might give it a try again.