Endgame freedom?
“It’s amazing how free you feel once you decide that you don’t want to get tied into the endgame grind.”
That made me rock back in my chair a little. What a concept: reaching the endgame and then… enjoying the world. No badge grinds for gear, stat upgrades, LFD or PUG raiding. Just fishing, crafting, noodling around. For this approach to work, the game has to support that kind of play. And it sounds like LotRO does exactly that, with a combination of epic lore based book quests, virtues and deeds, and the well received skirmish system (that scales the same content from solo to raid groups).
“Go play a single player game” you might argue. But one of the attractions of an MMO is chatting away to friends online whilst you noodle. And MMOs have the huge advantage of being an ever (slowly) changing landscape - each new addition to the game gives new content to explore and share. This is especially true in LotRO, where the new content advances the Fellowship storyline. If you’re not tied up in endgame progression and ‘keeping up’, MMOs allow you to park your toon for a while then come back when some new content is offered up. DLC can offer some of that for single player games, but the sharing and social aspects aren’t there.
Between Spinks' post and Syp’s re-entry into Middle Earth, LotRO sounds very tempting. My gamer group tried it briefly once, but quickly retreated back to Warcraft, mainly due to not having the energy to reinvest in a new MMO. But the Spinks perspective is enough to make me consider rolling around Hobbiton solo-MMO style. If it was free-to-play I’d be in there now, but committing to a sub takes a bit more consideration - and I can’t turn off WoW, I’ve got to keep up ;-)
Numbers or Names?
Surely it would be possible to design a game so that the numbers are more hidden, at least to the casual masses. EJs will still want to min-max based on figures, but I’d be surprised if the majority wouldn’t prefer titles or visual indicators once they reached certain milestones. Achievements allow that in a way. You can see each step to Epic for example, so why not also have some non-numeric means of letting people see their progress toward key statistical milestones.
It could be something like the paper doll that shows when your gear is broken - but instead of showing damage, it shows how close each piece is to the magical goals. It would get pretty complicated with all the myriad stats, but with the coming Cataclysm stat simplification, surely it would be possible. I’d bet the vast majority of the player base would have no idea that their are certain numeric goals for each stat. Which leads to fail PUGs and finger pointing. But if you could work it so that it was more obvious, and more intuitive, then more players would be at least equipped well enough to hold their own.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy crunching spreadsheets, working out gear rankings, and planning upgrades. But all of that work is a meta-game, and it’s all for the minority of players. Better to put the basics in game, make it visual so people can see what they’re aiming for, and reward players for reaching those goals.
MMO Exclusivity
Before WoW (WoW-BC) I would play games like NWN, KotoR, HL2, etc. Post WoW (WoW-AD) those kind of games are all languishing in my Steam queue unplayed. I still buy the occasional game (hello Dragon Age) with the intent to play them, but never seem to get around to it - the siren call of WoW always wins. This is probably not a good thing. And yet I can’t seem to find the time required to invest in a new game (which is not an FPS or something of similar pick-up-and-play simplicity) and also keep Warcraft chugging along.
The only other game I play regularly is Civ4, and that is only as a participant in a PBEM game with a few friends - in other words, about 1 minute of play every few days. This kind of MMO-obsession, or MMO-exclusivity, is nothing new. It’s probably even an official affliction these days, like being Tiger Woods. It is strange however that one game can absorb all your gaming time and needs. Sometimes I resent it, which is also not a good thing.
I’m not sure what the conclusion here is, and maybe one game is enough. But I can’t help feeling like I’m missing out on all that other gaming action that people rave about - Mass Effect 2 being the latest. In fact, I’m going to fire up Steam right now, and download Mass Effect 1 (I’m a series completionist at heart). And I’m determined to actually play it. Lok’tar!
I believe there is something out there watching us
Deep thoughts from the week past:
- Tankspot founder Ciderhelm emerges from a long silence with a detailed analysis of the future of raiding. Well worth the read, including thoughtful responses from Lore (who disagrees) and others.
- On a similar topic, Spinks thinks it might be time to bring back 40 man raiding - otherwise cross-server raid PUGs are doomed. Spinks also chimes into Cider’s discussion with some well argued points.
- Another developer twitter chat covered at wow.com.
- There’s a reference in the chat to the wow fan at the Winter Olympics who wants Ghostcrawler’s promised Moose. Apparently not fake!
- Gravity takes on the chat challenge and investigates is threat fun?
- Veneretio defends Gearscore for PUGs - or says at least it’s no worse that what we used to have
- Anyone been to GM island?
For the aspiring wordsmiths out there, the Guardian polls authors for their Ten Rules for Writing Fiction - apparently the first 12 years are the worst…
Old skool PVP
Whilst the question is broad, the discussion revolves around the pros and cons of the Player Killer, aka PVP. In UO, it sounds like everywhere was a PVP zone, other than the cities. So the minute you stepped outside a city, you were a target. That is pretty hardcore, and no doubt led to a lot of rage quitting by the more PVE oriented crowd before the non PK shard was created. There was even a feature which was meant to discourage PKers by eventually giving them a title so all could see what a horrible ganker they were. Which of course failed miserably as a discouragement, as what PKer wouldn’t want to the world to know just how nasty they are??
I played most of my WoW career on a PVP server (Barthilas), before transferring to Feathermoon (RP-PVE). I’m a poor excuse for a PVP player, and would just sit and take it when being ripped apart in Ganklethorn Vale or mining in Sholazar. Meeting outside dungeons was always a fraught experience, with places like Nexus and UK often dissolving into a PVP battle just to get in the door. Even after a 9 months on Feathermoon, I’m still surprised when I can compete in the STV fishing comp and not need a guild escort to keep the gankers away.
And whilst I never really participated in that kind of world PVP, it’s funny how I kind of miss it. It added an edge to the game that PVE realms simply don’t have. You never quite felt safe, and the cries for help on chat were often met with swift main-swapping to rid The Barrens of an Alliance camper destroying baby Horde toons. And of course you occasionally encountered famous gankers, who would always demand your immediate attention - one tormentor of our guild, who went by the handle lolpewpew (the name alone tells the story!) still has a standing kill order despite being on another realm :-)
PVP realms are the minority, partly due to the Sheep/Wolf ratio discussed at Slashdot, and partly due to the almost guaranteed gear level difference in random PVP which means the target of the attack will most likely not be in a position to fight back. Even in gear-balanced controlled-duel environments such as RogueRogue sets up, it is very difficult for the non-fight-opener to recover for a victory.
Despite all of the balance issues and a general lack of PVP skill, most of our guild members sound almost wistful when they reflect on our days on Barthilas. It wasn’t the PVP itself, or the victory rush or red rage, it was the edge given by unpredictability - and unpredictability is something to be treasured in an MMO world which is otherwise so tightly controlled.