ah hell, I know yall have fun. People have fun watching "Flava of Love" and I give them a hard time too. The name for my site actually came from a conversation with a friend of mine (he was on the second podcast actually) who is big into WoW. Ironically I got him started. He actually put together a really cool duelling tourney on his server, which was a cool self set goal that did actualize nicely.
But anyways. Enough with the nice nice. Need to drink me some haterade real quick and respond:
Yes, that is why Blizzard is making a whole expansion around the 1-85 game?
only took them 5 years. I'll believe it when I see it. The entire culture of the game is focused on the level cap. To be fair this isn't just a problem with WoW, its a problem with many MMOs.
Have fun getting blown up by a newb, I really don't desire that.
If I get killed by a newb I would definitely be having fun. It would be really impressive. Take Lord Rendar, one of our locals. In his first week he popped 2 miners asleep at the wheel. That's a major accomplishment that has impressed both myself and another veteran player friend of mine. No level 10 would ever impress a lvl cap dude. That's because in EvE we respect player skill above everything, whereas in WoWtypes people only respect "paying your dues" / playing ridiculous hours to grind the level cap.
A good game should reward skill instead of time invested. I think that's hard to argue against.
Ah, so in truth you are just a bitter, jaded individual that wants his own game to be more popular then it is. Got to "hate the man" right? Sorry, but I don't stand by the idea that one must hate a game because one does not like it. Ask people to try EvE, it is a good game, but don't go rampaging about how crappy WoW is when you simply don't like the style of gameplay, a style that millions around the world disagree with you about. (Oh, but they are just sheeple right? )
There's no bitterness. This is about giving. I am like the shaman that comes into your mud huts and shows you how to make fire. Honest to god, I love nothing more than introducing a good game to someone and seeing them love it.
Also, consensus is a classical logical fallacy (although so are all my ad hominems, well technically they are not fallacies just crappy rhetoric). Are you going to tell me that Lineage 2 is a good game simply because a bunch of people play it? Or that American Idol is a good show because lots of people watch it? And its not that they are sheeple. It's that they just haven't been "shown the way". That's what I am trying to do here, prostyletize (sp?). If only i could use old styles of burning heretics to get my point across,
That is called a "gear reset" and is something we ask for. It allows us as players to start fresh, to start in a "new age" of the game without everyone on top staying always on top.
One of the things that makes me the massive hater that I am is an obsession with game design. I don't care dick about graphics or story or any of that shit. Just flat out design. This whole concept of "Gear Reset" as being the only way to level the playing field is such a huge indication of bad design that it appalls me other people don't see it. The necessity of this indicates a single vector of progress. If the game had more than 1 type of progress (and to be fair it does have like 1.1 with pvp rewards) then this would never be an issue.
Say, for instance, if there was a remotely stable economy with a remotely well implemented crafting system. If that was the case then people who raid and people who pvp would have to rely on people who craft. We could get more fine tuned and say that the people who craft would have to rely on people who gather, or on other people who craft. These interdependicies create an MMO ecosystem of sorts that would maintain itself without constant fiddling at the level blizzard does.
So.....something yall asked for is actually indicative of terrible design. This is why I must preach the faith. I don't actually care if its EvE you come to, and I don't really care if its WoW that you leave. My real issue is that people need to start seeing these elements of bad design for what they are. That acceptance just leads to lazier and lazier design that I really do think will end up with us all playing Heroin Hero if we aren't careful.
You may think we are playing "for nothing" but that is far from the truth. Get this, we play the WoW for the same reason you play EvE, we have fun. Odd concept, I know.
Hey man, jerking off is fun too but I still think its better to go out and get laid. EvE isn't just fun, its challenging, and there is a big difference. Having to invest X amount of time to succeed is not challenging, having to design a MS Access database to be competitive in the market is. The reward you get from accomplishing something that is both fun and challenging is far greater than something that is just fun.
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Anyways, bring it on. This is actually a good conversation cause I am trying to figure out an article I am going to write on this subject and this is really helping me figure out my points.
Edit: Missed one
Ah, what was that words you just said? Oh... "they don't have the motivation to come up personal goals", that sounds interesting. Want in on a little secret? Players in WoW can come up with goals to. You always will have the mindless idiots, the automotan, the robots killing boars over and over. Then you will have the players questing, enjoying themselves, teaming for dailies or running a raid. Maybe I will arena, who know? That is what is nice about goals, we make them.
EvE can be a grind game. Saying "there is no grind" and then saying people do grind, even with veiled insults to why they grind, does not means there is no grinding. Nice try though.
See, unlike your relationship with EvE I have played a lot of WoW. Here are the goals that exist in WoW:
Raid top level dungeons
Be badass at pvp
Build a group of good players to do the previous 2
Have fun with friends
How do you get good at raiding? Hit the level cap, get the best gear, raid a lot
How do you get badass at pvp? Hit the level cap, get the best gearll, pvp a lot
the other 2 are assumed in any MMO.
Aside from exotic goals like my friend had there isn't much else out there. Seriously, what did you spend your last month of playing doing? And with the exotic goals (like my pals), those are almost always focused on metagaming, and, while interesting they have very little to do with the game design.
Now, in EvE. Here's some goals:
Mining
Trading
Production
Research
0.0 logistics
0.0 fleet pvp
piracy
0.0 production (moon mining)
ratting
character trading
running missions
Small group pvp (wolfpacks)
Wormhole/exploration
I know I mentioned a couple different types of PvP, but they are varied enough that they simply have to be listed seperately. It may be fair to break up pvp in WoW to open world vs BG pvp, but there really is no motivation for open world pvp except for just griefing right? Plus, unlike here, being good at one type of PvP in wow means your good at all of it. Very one dimensional. Being a good pirate is VERY different than being a good fleet pvper which is also very different from wolfpack pvp.
a couple of these could become grindy (mission running, ratting, and mining) but if you are doing nothing but running missions or ratting you are just doing it wrong. Missions earn money. Money is used to do one of those other things. Mining can be grindy (pun), but only if you aren't doing any analyses on your mining operation to improve your profit margins, on the premise of eventually getting into 0.0 mining/moon mining.
