Gaming Signal: Everything I need to know I learned in WOW???

Everything I need to know I learned in WOW???

This is probably not a true statement, and is echoed by this Gamasutra post. The author makes a number of very good points about excellence has very little to do with actual skill and more about mass numbers and grind times. One thing to note is that Guild Wars does not suffer from these, but it is also not played on the same level as WOW. I know I have uttered simlilar frustrations about these games in that they reward the players who are on constantly and not rewarding the longer term customers who play every day and ultimately invest more into the company and the game.

[ jibberish deleted... ]

Possibly the only thing that I agree with was what he said about loopholes. It should never be the player's fault; it's ALWAY the developers' fault. Period.

Post retracted by commenter for being a complete idiot citing a mental imbalance due to the lack of lunch. In other words: Yeah, I was an idiot -- disregard everything I said... I shouldn't have hit "Post." I tried to <strike> through it so Tim's comments can still make sense, but alas, MT doesn't let me do that...

Posted by Peter on Thursday February 23, 2006 at 3:45 PM

His problem is not that the game is not realistic - his problem is that the game rewards people not for being smarter or better at playing the game - just being in the world longer. And your argument is flawed in that many times its not what you know, or what you did that got you that raise or that new job. Its who you know - we have all seen folks rise to power without a freaking clue on how things work or how to do thier job.

And yes, life is unfair - we know that, but a game is not supposed to be like that. The best times I have ever had were not on 40 man raids for a piece of loot I will never see. It was the small group work we did to see "how far can we get in this dungeon".

I seriously suggest you re-read his article and you will see that he is not trying to make the game "real". He is wanting a game company to come along and reward folks for completing content. The rewards are skewed to time in the grade - not time spent well in that grade. Any poor fool can spend 3 months playing marginally to become High Commander of the Alliance - heck they never have to even win a PVP game. That is fundamentally flawed....

Also, I will again reiterate my statement that the most money per subscriber is obtained not from the guy who plays 4 - 6 hours a night, but from the guys who play less than 2. Since they will play longer and ultimately spend more on the game in the long run... Those are the people who should be rewarded...

Posted by Tim on Thursday February 23, 2006 at 6:52 PM

I agree with the comments about game flaws being the fault of the game and not the gamer. I always thought this was silly - the game allows you to do something, but if you do it - you're out. But it's a private club and the club owners are allowed to have whatever membership requirements they like.

But I don't like this article for many other reasons. Don't we want to teach our kids that they will be rewarded for hard work? Why does the reveiwer feel the need to have uber items? In other words, what can you do solo or 5-man with uber gear that you can't do without it? If the answer is only that it's easier with the uber gear then tough.

I guess I'm alone in that I don't measure my fun in an MMO based on what other people are doing. I don't care that there are people in my guild or on my server (or on other servers) who have better looking or operating gear than I do. So what? Maybe they got lucky or maybe they spend 100 hours to get it. I spend my 100 hours doing whatever I want.

Posted by Scottsh on Friday February 24, 2006 at 5:16 PM

Now don't get me wrong Scott, but I believe he is saying that its not about hard work. Its about putting in time - thats really all that is required in the cases he discusses. Going from Rank 10 to Rank 16 has very little to do with being a good PVPer - its about being in the game longer. This is why the Alliance likes Arathi Basin, you get honor no matter whether you win or not, and I have to agree with what he is saying. The result of spending X number of hours in the game equal X reward. Sorry thats just a bad model and does not reflect my abilities and how well I can play my class.

Ultimately, I prefer small group tactics and try to see if I can complete a given engagement with the non-preferred group of folks. Thats more of a challenge, and that demonstrates our ability to do what folks claim could not be done. Why should I be forced to do a major raid as "end game content" - and yes I know I am not forced. See I am one of those silly people that think that I paid for the game - I would like to see everything the game has to offer. This is why I continued to play EQ since I wanted to see things like Planes of Power and other high end instances since I paid for the additional content. I was never about the gear - its about the experience of fighting something beyond the rat_01.

Eventually, I think the problem of gear from major bosses will be solved when MMOs go free and we are able to buy gear. I still think that the Guild Wars guys have figured it out with respect to end game and demonstrating skill to prove how well you have mastered the game. Today, everybody thinks the end game needs to match what EQ did and that means 40 man raids taking 3+ hours to set up and complete. Which is not a demonstration of how well you play - it just shows that you can follow the orders and know what buttons to click.

And Pete, I am not sure why you took my comments as a personal attack - they were not. I never implied you were an idiot and if you took that as what was said - I am sorry. Also, I know for a fact that a simple little prompt of some folks here can get your post re-instated just for arguments sake.

Posted by Tim on Friday February 24, 2006 at 9:26 PM

LOL...

Tim, I didn't take it as a personal attack at all. I happened to agree with you that I mis-read much of the article. I called myself the idiot because I got off-track debating it and argued the wrong point. Right before I clicked "Post" on my original comments, a little part of me asked, "wait, are you reading the article correctly?" and I should have listened and changed my arguments or not posted at all. But since I did post it, I wanted to just strike through the text so at least your rebuttal text would make sense for those who didn't see the original post. Believe me, I'm trying to preserve the integrity of the blog while admitting that I was hasty in my original comments.

I restored the one part of the original post that did make sense.

It's all good.

Posted by Peter on Saturday February 25, 2006 at 10:23 AM

The problem comes in when you want to compare yourself to somebody else - thus pointing to the feelings of 'he has a better rank than me but I can beat him'. Ultimately, I'm just not competitive this way, so it doesn't apply to me personally. I do understand how competitive others are though. Because my in-game status doesn't mean anything to me, I also happen to be biased against those who do have their egos wrapped up in their game character's stature. If you feel you personally are a better person because your character has the rank of Knight, then I think you better take a good look in the mirror - a real-life mirror - and recognize you've got your priortized messed up.

Tim wrote:
Why should I be forced to do a major raid as "end game content" - and yes I know I am not forced. See I am one of those silly people that think that I paid for the game - I would like to see everything the game has to offer.

OK I guess I'm now confused, Tim. Are you saying that the game shouldn't have any content that requires a 40-man raid? Is it that you want all content to scale to whatever group goes to do it - allowing you to solo or single-group or raid depending on your preference? If so, how should it differ between those 3 types of group?

I think the game gets these concepts NOT from EQ or any historical precedent, but more from a desire to do something epic. The game designers decided that they wanted to have an epic level encounter - and to make it relatively rare and special. They felt that the big raid group was the way to go to achieve these ends. I believe they added this style of play not because they personally wanted it, but because they believed there is a large group of customers who want it.

Perhaps the problem with WoW specifically is that the only content in the end-game requires a big raid group. I don't know this - just guessing. WoW certainly isn't the perfect MMO. It tricks people into believing that they are at 'max level' when they get to 60 when in fact this isn't true. There are just other things to go get levels in (like faction and ability to do certain content.)

I wonder if a system that allowed PvP ranking but prevented the use of rewards from that ranking during PvP would help. In other words, you can win rewards from PvP (like gear or abilities) from increasing your rank, but that can't be used in events that lead to ranking. You can use them in PvE or PvP outside the ranking events, but during those events you're restricted to certain gear only. This is kind of like how M:TG restricts tournement play to certain cards only - leveling the playing field towards skill and away from those who happen to have bought the best cards.

Posted by Scott on Sunday February 26, 2006 at 1:56 AM

This discussion touches (maybe :-p) on a problem I have with the over-used level system in general. It would not be difficult to produce a more 'realistic' system (do we really want to insert reality into fanstasy? :p) where characters are 'born' with the maximum health they will ever obtain. Your character progression should be based on expanding your abilities and NPC fights are determined by those skills and abilities. When you fight a goblin early in your life and then again later in your life, your bare skinned selves should be equally physically matched. The only difference should be your trained character skills.

I think Ultima Online was the closest that came to this with their skills or talent based system where you exercised a particular skill until you reached a cap of sorts. It's been so long ago that I don't remember if it was paired with a character level, more hp model but I don't think it was.

How did I get here? Epic encounters. They are scaled into the realm of silliness based on the HP, level model that most MMO's have implemented. Keep your physical attributes the same throughout your lifespan then the epic encounters don't have to be 100k hp 100k mana creatures. They just have to hit harder than normal world mobs. The tactics then shift from throw as many dps people into the frey to how do we keep everyone (except Tim) alive while we battle this fire breathing dragon. We should build our own game ;)

Posted by Bob on Sunday February 26, 2006 at 8:00 AM

When it comes to the level system, I think SWG had the best one that I've ever seen. You don't have character levels, you have skill levels. Because, after all, you are the summation of your skills (in MMO world, that is). Level are advanced through use and are capped until some else brings you to the next "grade" -- this motivates people to help each other. I see some of these elements in WoW in that people often offer to enchant items for free because it helps them to help others. I'm very much surprised that no other MMO has adopt this system in a more pervasive way since SWG.

Posted by Peter on Sunday February 26, 2006 at 7:00 PM

I have been thinking a bit about what Scott was saying and I still disagree that a 40 man raid as being an "epic" encounter, but I will table that for a second. Do I believe that end game content should scale? Yes, I do. Great items and titles are fine, and I like them. It is not so much as to compare myself to somebody else or ratify my gaming existence, but is a goal to achieve in the game. Current thinking is that if the creature doesn't have 1 million (Dr. Evil pose) hitpoints and some area effect death spell - it won't be a proper boss. I harken back to some games where the big boss was nothing more than a series of puzzles that eventually made him vunerable and that figuring those puzzles out is what made the encounter challenging. Throwing 40 folks a monster and having complete heal chains and tanks that can gain agro and then walk away is nothing more than a bad design.

Maybe Bob is right, but I don't know. I keep falling back to Dungeons and Dragons in they have a scalable system. This requires more work for the creator and I am not sure there is a system out there setup to handle this type of work. At the top end of the level system there, a party of five folks can take on a dragon or some other truely epic creature, and maybe that is the experience I am looking for. Maybe I should give up on the MMO and stick to single player experiences where I am not limited by my playtime or the ability of my guild. I can level and complete everything thrown at me.

The bottom line for me is that I want to play the game in every aspect and at least experience each area, zone, dungeon, combat once. Thats why I have played PVP in WOW in both Alterac Valley and Arathi Basin, and it is why I continued playing Everquest for well over 6 years since I wanted to experience all the content and see every zone. MMOs are not the best fit for me, and I know that. I have a family and school and work and all those are balanced with my desire to play games. So I continue to play MMOs in the hope that someday I will find one that really matches my capabilites and delivers on what I want, but until then I keep playing WOW and trying the others as they show up...

Posted by Tim on Sunday February 26, 2006 at 10:28 PM

I don't have the answer either - if it were easy it would have been done .

I know I don't want everybody in the game to look alike. That was the case in EQ2 at the start and I didnt like it at all.

EQ2 got one element of the game right - the player crafted items were almost always better than the loot drops at the level they were designed for. This meant crafters could really enjoy the reward side for putting up with the totally lame grind. Now this did cause people to look alike, it was really unfortunate (of course, in my opinion they should have made the player crafted items look like the army uniforms for that side - meaning that if they had to look alike at least look part of a uniform faction.)

I suppose the instances in WoW could scale to the group doing them - including scaling back the loot. That would mean you wouldn't have to have special gear to do a particular zone, but it would also mean that if you go it solo or with a 5-man group, you're not going to get the same reward as the larger raid. It would still provide an incentive to raid, but wouldn't prevent you from seeing the encounter at all.

At the end of the day I don't wonder if Guild Wars style play won't infect other MMOs. We'll have to see.

Posted by Scott on Monday February 27, 2006 at 12:21 AM

I agree Bob - CoH's mission scaling system was great. Unfortunate it was all too generic. There needs to be a mixture - I can imaging WoW instances that changed the level of the mobs based on the level of the participant. Unfortunately you do have to change the rewards to the right level as well.

I just don't see how you can hand out the same reward to the solo gamer that you hand out at the end of an epic event only doable with a 40-man raid.

Posted by Scott on Tuesday February 28, 2006 at 2:35 PM