So what's the big deal?

[StGabe]

But here's the thing, many of us jaded mmorpg types have come to the realization that a truly deep and dynamic virtual world isn't really what we want, b/c of whole host of issues we're learned about by playing.  And the biggest single problem with the concept is also the one that makes it possible at all; random other people sharing your gamespace.  Having long recognized the absolute assmuchery of 90% or more of the population of ANY such game, the concept of allowing said chuckleheads to have large, meaningful impacts on my game world (b/c it is all about my and only my personal enjoyment after all) is no longer desirable.

I think the 300k players who played SWG and the 300k players playing EQ2, the however many that play DAoC, all those Lineage and FFX players disagree.  I know I do.  I'd rather just play KotOR, D2, etc., if I want a singleplayer experience.  The appeal of an MMO is entirely in the world aspect for me and I daresay I'm hardly alone.  Some people were just shocked that SWG bombed so bad with achievers.  I am shocked that it did so fricking well without achievers.  It's a game that kept a few hundred thousand players happy with exactly the sort of content you would say is bad.

While many are quick to snidely comment about the mediocrity of EQ2, I think it's clear that it has a very strong niche, that many enjoy it's style of content greatly and that those that truly don't want a dynamic virtual world can go back to more single-player flavoried experiences.  Like I said, WoW isn't some great epiphany about MMO design or an indictment of prior models.  It's just a very restricted, polished, single-player package merged with minimalistic world-like components that does succeed proving the possibility of a merger of two gaming domains if not demonstrating any need for a revolution of some sort in MMO design.

I'm not saying that WoW is a bad game.  Like I said, I thoroughly enjoyed it for at least a month and a half -- which is pretty good if compared to a singleplayer game.  I'm just saying that it should be appreciated for what it is.  I'm also saying that there are two parts of the MMO revenue model: box sales and subs.  And we have yet to see how WoW will do on the latter and I think this is the area that will prove really challenging for what they offer.  I mean the fact that blizzard sold a lot of boxes of a game is really a no-brainer.  What follows out of that is what will actually be interesting.

StGabe.

[StGabe]

But make no mistake, the market has spoken; they want GAMES not life commitments.

And naw.  I don't think so.  Like I said, it's a no-brainer that WoW got lots of box sales and initial subs.  So what?  Anecdotally I can say I've already seen players coming back to their other games and it's a process I don't think we have any reason to believe won't accelerate.  And the other MMO's are still doing just fine.  Reports of the death of EQ, et al., have been grossly exaggerated.  Blizzard is still trading heavily on their name, and on a short-term singleplayer game which has brought a lot of non-traditional gamers into the mix -- which is good for Blizzard's bottom line but not necessarily bad for the other MMO's.  If the average WoW player plays 6 months and moves on (but tries another MMO) then it could even be good for those who games who have kept to a more depth-oriented, retention-based model.

StGabe.

[WayAbvPar]

think the 300k players who played SWG and the 300k players playing EQ2, the however many that play DAoC, all those Lineage and FFX players disagree.  I know I do.  I'd rather just play KotOR, D2, etc., if I want a singleplayer experience.

That's great. Except XT didn't say that is what he wanted. He (like me, and many others) wants an interesting game experience that can be shared by other people. What I want is to be able to play by myself when I want, play with my friends when I want, and restrict the access to my gameplay experience only to those I deem necessary or deserving. I don't want to play a game that forces me to interact with every single mouthbreathing jackass that subscribes. I want to be able to experience most or all of the content at my leisure, with MY friends.

WoW works for this. You can play it like Rasix- a small group of dedicated friends who adventure together nightly. You can play it like I do- a few friends, some guildmates, several characters, and advancing at my own rate. Sure, I skip some of the instances when they are level appropriate. Why? So I don't have to deal with the fucktardery that is inherent in the vast majority of pickup groups. I wait a couple of extra levels, and do it with my buddies. Or I skip it altogether, then hit it later with another character whose level is more in line with some of the newer guildies.

Just because I don't want to play with hundreds of random assholes a night doesn't mean I want to play a single player game. Multiplayer =! ALL players.

[StGabe]

That's great. Except XT didn't say that is what he wanted.

Nor did I deny that he wanted what he said he wanted. *smirk*

What I was arguing against was not his personal preference but rather that WoW's current sub's are not an indidtment against other MMO models.  That WoW created it's own MMO/Singleplayer meld of sorts that created a new audience doesn't mean that there isn't still a huge audience of players interested in the more dynamic, involved styles of MMO play.

In fact it is rather my point that one shouldn't project from the fact that a certain number of players like X to saying that anything that isn't X is bad.

StGabe.

[WindupAtheist]

No, it isn't a virtual world, nor was it meant to be. You're one of THOSE types, then. Which means you belong in the group of people that includes Windup Atheist, and should go back to UO or MUD's, because nothing out there is going to satisfy you. Those of us who want to play a game will be over here, playing a game and enjoying it.

A collection of quotes from me, ranging from when I first posted here, to within the last couple days:

See, I'm almost one of those "virtual world" idealists.  Almost.  I don't want a PK madhouse, but I think these games would be much better if the designers could work just a little more "world" into their "virtual."

That's because I don't want a "true" virtual world.  A genuinely unrestricted gameworld isn't going to give birth to fledgling virtual civlizations, it's going to descend into Lord of the Flies madness until most of the players either get fed up, or just plain run out of victims.  Anyone paying attention should have realized this years ago.

For fifty bucks up front and another fifteen a month, you're goddamned right.  I'm not sure where this notion of MMOG as navel-gazing social experiment on the nature of internet dumbfuckery came from, but it sounds like something Raph Koster came up with between bouts of fiddling as UO burned.  I didn't walk into GameStop looking to buy a virtual world, I plopped down my cash for a fucking multiplayer computer game, okay?  Can some of you assclowns take a second away from theorizing on the interactive dynamics of virtual spaces long enough to deal with that?

I don't want a virtual world.  I just want a game less linear than Diablo.

[Zane0]

I too am interested in what the WoW dev team will do to aid retention.  Their decision to make a highly polished reward based PvP system, is a very good idea for holding interest and aiding the solid base from which the game is to build upwards from.  However, what is to happen afterwards in the following years?  Traditionally, we would see mudflation and more large raid-group encounters.  This isn't a problem for me, as I like that kind of stuff, but it seems to disillusion a lot of the more casual players. 

Blizzard is trying very hard to appeal to both casual and hardcore players alike, and they've broken the mold in a lot of subtle ways to do this, (Rest xp, casual questing and crafting systems) so I think I'll stick around to see what's up their sleeve.

[Riggswolfe]

Well, there's serveral reasons.  This is mostly going to be pointed at high level instances, because up through Zul Farrak, most of them were just fine. 

1.  You need 5 people.  We did every instance in the game up to Zul'Farak with 3 people.  3 people trying to take on Stratholme, BRD or BRS would get fucking eaten alive.  5 mob+ pulls are unavoidable the later you get into the game.  It's sick.

Correct. You do indeed need 5 people for the most part, but a really good team can do even high end instances with 4 sometimes.

2.  You need a priest.  A team of a couple support healers could probably handle some that a priest can, but none of them has that handy dandy shield or the aggro management abilities of a priest.  A shaman rarely also has the mana pool of a priest.

Wrong. I've had a priest in umm..maybe 2 instance runs. (They're very rare on my server.) You can easilly run instances without a priest, you just need players of hybrid classes who know what they're doing. Druids make awesome priest replacements. Paladins can do it ok, though you really need 2 to replace one priest.

3.  You need a lot of tankage. Stuff starts hitting for a LOAD of hp. You should probably have a warrior.  A guild on my server loves to rebuke that they use 3 hunters, a warlock and a priest for most of their instances.  Well, gee whiz, I hope they'd be able to tank stuff with 4 fucking pets.  I feel sorry for that priest, playing a glorified veterinarian.   The thing is, if you can't keep the mobs off your soft targets, you're going to die.  Fast.

Our typical instance groups look like this: 2 Paladins, a mage, a rogue, and a druid. We do ok. Sometimes if it gets chaotic things go badly but in general it's alright. Lot of ressing power in that group so it's rarely a party wipe. Sometimes the druid has to go bear form to hold aggro but it all works out. We've gone all the way through umm..everything except Molten Core this way.

4.  They are very time consuming.  Most instances are at least 2 hour affairs.  Some like Mauradon and on up can take much much longer.   I don't like very time consuming dungeon crawls.  I get back EQ flashbacks: "Can't sleep, froglocks will eat me!"  "No, shithead, don't pull Trak there. Ohh fuck, there went the raid. Good job, assneck."   I have at most 3 hours to play each nice. 

Damn straight. Some of the later instances pretty much eat up an entire weekend day.

Most of the neurological surgeons on my server take at least 30 minutes to an hour to get a group into an instance.  These people can't organize or communicate worth shit.  My 3 man group would take as much time as it took to fly and run to an instance, no more, no less.  No fucking around for 10 minutes and then realizing "ohh geeze, maybe I should hurry the fuck up".   Going from instant organization and great coordinate to the "hell that is other people" just took the damn wind out of my sails.

This is frustrating to me also. The other Pally and the mage and I are usually ready and spend 30 minutes waiting on the druid and rogue.

[Jayce]

Blizzard is still trading heavily on their name, and on a short-term singleplayer game which has brought a lot of non-traditional gamers into the mix -- which is good for Blizzard's bottom line but not necessarily bad for the other MMO's.

You think SWG isn't trading heavily on their name? If not for that name, and SOE's marketing muscle, I suspect they would have gone the way of Earth and Beyond long ago.

Also I am not in agreement with this characterization as single-player game.  Solo friendly != single player.  Forced grouping, while it has its good points, isn't the only game in town.  I thought you people were the ones wanting innovation.  Well, solo friendliness is an innovation given what this genre has come up with up until now.

[StGabe]

You think SWG isn't trading heavily on their name?

Absolutely it was.  And while that got people into the game it didn't keep them there.  While many concentrate on the failures of SWG (and oh my they are there), that has to be balanced by the fact that they actually did keep a lot of players with what they did offer (which was more than just the SW license).

I thought you people...

You people?  Umm, who are they and why am I one of them.  Whatever you "think" about me is likely wrong.

Also I am not in agreement with this characterization as single-player game. ... Well, solo friendliness is an innovation given what this genre has come up with up until now.

I said that WoW uses successful characteristics from single-player style games heavily and merges them with world-like features.  I didn't say that isn't an innovation of a sort (although I think we have to careful -- mixing two known quantities is a different sort of innovation than trying to tackle completely new problems which is a lot of what some of the edgier games are trying to do).  In short I think we're saying roughly the same thing here.  Genre-mixing of this sort certainly can work.  But mixing genres or making new ones doesn't necessarily reflect or alter the course of the past genres.  That WoW made a more solo-friendly MMO and is at least having an initial success with it doesn't mean that the MMO industry prior to this was a failure or that the MMO industry of the future must mimic Blizzard (which is being implicitly stated by a lot of people who tout WoW over EQ or more "virtual worldy" type games).

I am not saying that WoW is not fun, that people who think it is fun are somehow stupid or wrong to like it, etc.  I am only saying that its successes should be taken with a grain of salt.  Being a different sort of beast, WoW provides different sorts of things, to an audience of players much of whom are new to the MMO scene, and will face different sorts of challenges (like retention).  And it probably won't displace SOE, et al.  It may even help them in the long run by bringing new players into the MMO gaming world who will leave WoW after a while and go on to try out some of the more deep offerings in the field.

Also, EQ2 is actually fairly solo friendly too these days (I made level 20 in 20 hours for example, almost completely solo).  When it comes to the SOE games, everyone seems to want to talk only in absolutes and bring a lot of preconceived notions to the table.  And in so doing they completely avoid actually talking about what these games really have in them.

StGabe.

[Ironwood]

Well said.

But, as a company, they're still the Devil, right ?

[Jayce]

I thought you people...
You people?  Umm, who are they and why am I one of them.  Whatever you "think" about me is likely wrong.

Whoa there, no need to get defensive.  In this case it was more of a sideways crack at Windup, referencing he and my earlier conversations.

That WoW made a more solo-friendly MMO and is at least having an initial success with it doesn't mean that the MMO industry prior to this was a failure or that the MMO industry of the future must mimic Blizzard (which is being implicitly stated by a lot of people who tout WoW over EQ or more "virtual worldy" type games).

I guess there is a good chance that we are saying the same thing.  I definitely don't think all games should be like WoW in the future. And previous MMOGs are certainly not failures, though I think they failed to live up to their potentials for reasons that have been hashed and rehashed here and elsewhere. 

But I do think that WoW's innovative idea of making the game fun from the start, as opposed to having to work to get to the fun, might retain enough new players to expand the space and make it worthwhile for people to spend money making really innovative and interesting new additions to the space.

[Toast]

And in so doing they completely avoid actually talking about what these games really have in them.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. Most of us bought and played Everquest 2. It did release first, after all, and it had that shiney preview demo. Very few of us made it past the initial month.

It's amusing to see the rise in EQ2 fanboi-ism lately. SOE's patch rate combined with Blizzard's execution problems has really energized their base.

[StGabe]

But I do think that WoW's innovative idea of making the game fun from the start, as opposed to having to work to get to the fun

See here's where I think a lot of people get it wrong.

There are a significant number of people who really enjoy the early levels of EQ, et al.  I am one of them, as an example, although I'm trying to speak for more than just my experience.  It's not that these games aren't fun until you get to the end.  It's that these games are not fun to some people who don't feel that they can have fun until they get to the end.

Accessibility just does it for some people.  A greater sense of achievement/challenge does it for others.  EQ shines in the latter, sometimes at a cost to the former.

I think a big problem with discussing these games is that everyone is so plugged into their own conception of what "fun" means that they fail to consider other ways in which other people have fun.  Which is really the whole point.  To those who like WoW, great.  But the "fun" you experience with it isn't somehow a "better" fun than EQ, it is just one that appeals to a different set of people.

StGabe.

[StGabe]

It's amusing to see the rise in EQ2 fanboi-ism lately. SOE's patch rate combined with Blizzard's execution problems has really energized their base.

I hope you're not calling me a fanboy -- because if I am I'm probably a Rogue fanboy or a ROM fanboy and certainly not an EQ2 fanboy. 

But the thing is, the patches are helping a lot and have actually removed a lot of the things that people are still complaining about and so those complaints are obsolete.  Solo'ing is a lot better for example (as I referenced in my post).  A lot of the more arbitrary restrictions like access timers are gone.  The stuff remaining is largely there for real game reasons that have to do with balance and challenge and not foisting arbitrary gates on players.

And yes I realize that people played EQ2.  I'm just not sure that they have followed the changes since release or that they were really open to the EQ2 experience even when they were playing it.  There was such a huge willingness/readiness to condemn EQ2 and almost all of the opinions you see about it are extreme and exaggerate greatly.  Just as there was a huge willingness/readiness to embrace anyting Blizzard put out.  I admit that even I got swept up by the latter, I expected to be playing WoW at this point -- but I got into beta and got bored before it was even done.  Even now few people are willing to admit how wrong they were when tthey put forth claims that Blizzard would finally release a bug-free MMO with no release hitches, all the promised content, etc. (huge DB problems, huge queues & downtimes, no meaningful PvP, little character customization, and many other features went missing).

Anyway, there are a ton of misconceptions about EQ2.  You don't have to be a fanboy to point those out.  I think we're seeing a sort of anti-fanboy dynamic creeping up.  Instead of the typical fanboy that cannot fathon that anything about their beloved game is imperfect, the anti-fanboy cannot conceive that anything about a game works or that anything they didn't like actually did have a purpose and might have created fun for a lot of other players or a better longterm game.

StGabe.