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Tuesday, August 22, 2006
Funny breaking up letter
There is a funny breaking up with WoW letter on Aeropause. The complaint is a familiar one, the writer likes to solo and is disappointed with the forced grouping of the end game. But the way in which he describes playing WoW like a romantic relationship is well done, funny, and insightful.
Soloing is a pure interaction between a player and the game. As soon as you start with groups and raids, the interaction between players come to the foreground, and the player/game interaction is less intense. Now me, and many other people, do prefer interaction between players, because players are less predictable than artificial intelligence. But you can use the same argument, players are less predictable, to explain why you would prefer a pure player/game interaction. You know where you are with a game, and the game never complains if you turn it off.
The post also mentions in passing that while the expansion will bring back soloing, that will only last a limited amount of time, and then its back to the familiar raiding end game. In a way that is inherent to games with leveling and a level cap. Leveling is transitory, and therefore more suited to soloing. At the cap there is the highest concentration of players that all have the same level, which gives you a much better probability of being able to organize large raids. World of Warcraft could not have a level 35 raid dungeon for 40 players, because by the time you have 40 playes organized for raiding it, half of them have leveled up so far that the loot in that dungeon aren't worth going there any more. So we all know that the expansion will bring solo and small group content up to level 70, and mostly group and raid content at the new cap. As Saylah said in the comments on yesterday's post on player numbers after the expansion comes out, there is a significant risk that most of the players coming back for the Burning Crusade expansion will be gone again after a few month, when the soloing content has run out again.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:26 AM Permanent Link
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Maybe that's what we need. NPCs that ruin your gaming experience in the same way as the worst PUG groups, that would drive people into being more sociable
Sounds like an idea from the Vanguard development team. ;)
If there is an answer, 40 man raids are not it.
Even Blizzard seems to agree with that statement. And most people agree that 25 man raids, plus winged (that is shorter per session) dungeons, are an improvement over 40 man raids that take 6 hours. The big question is whether these changes will be sufficient to make the end game accessible to the majority of players.
But sooner or later, breaking up the relationship with WoW is inevitable. If WoW manages to keep the average player p(l)aying for just 1 year, that would already be a huge success. We tend to blame MMORPGs for not being able to hold our attention forever, but that is kind of silly.
Sounds like an idea from the Vanguard development team. ;)
If there is an answer, 40 man raids are not it.
Even Blizzard seems to agree with that statement. And most people agree that 25 man raids, plus winged (that is shorter per session) dungeons, are an improvement over 40 man raids that take 6 hours. The big question is whether these changes will be sufficient to make the end game accessible to the majority of players.
But sooner or later, breaking up the relationship with WoW is inevitable. If WoW manages to keep the average player p(l)aying for just 1 year, that would already be a huge success. We tend to blame MMORPGs for not being able to hold our attention forever, but that is kind of silly.
I can understand why someone likes to solo, but if that is all that a player enjoys from a game, then I have to ask the question of why they would even try an MMO? I like World of Warcraft but if I had to solo my way through it with all of the chat channels turned off it would probably be the most boring experience of my life. There are lots of single player games out there that are incredibly fun without people (Oblivion) so why play a game that is designed for many players if single player depth is what the player desires? The only thing that I don't like about wow grouping is that real life does get in the way from time to time when you make commitments to your guild, and those are the times when I wish I could just look at them as NPC's when I know that isn't possible.
I can understand why someone likes to solo, but if that is all that a player enjoys from a game, then I have to ask the question of why they would even try an MMO?
Two answers. One is that WoW is both better and considerably longer than Oblivion. The other is that even people who prefer to play solo usually enjoy the indirect interaction with other people, for example seeing cities populated by real persons, or trading items in the auction house.
Two answers. One is that WoW is both better and considerably longer than Oblivion. The other is that even people who prefer to play solo usually enjoy the indirect interaction with other people, for example seeing cities populated by real persons, or trading items in the auction house.
I can't agree with you more Nick. I fall firmly into the category of players who likes playing solo in a world full of other people that I can observe, talk to, group with and interact with as the occasion arises. I see direct comparison to my real world social behaviour. I consider myself a social creature enjoy interaction with friends and work colleagues but nevertheless I am also jealous of my own personal space and I like having time to pursue my own objectives. I think this is fairly typical human social behaviour and like you I am surprised that people still question this mode of playing MMORPGs. Of course you can get more out of the game through serious involvement in guilds and raiding but that extra payback comes at too high a price for me.
# posted by 
: 23/8/06 11:23
: 23/8/06 11:23
Actually in terms of sales, I suspect the most important "solo" behaviour is pairing. People who might otherwise have curled up together and watched a movie, are now in WoW playing pairs of characters who level together. The other people in the world are, well, about as important as the other people in a movie theatre. Look how well WoW facilitates this play style ...
* I can install my WoW CDs onto my girlfriend's Mac, and get her into the free trial
* Then I can create a new character on my main server, or a new server and get her onto the same server and start location trivially
* We can usefully group right from the start
* We can actually roleplay (on the RP servers at least) if we want to without being ridiculed
* All the early loot is BoE so we can share nice drops
* WoW classes offer a lot of sensible pairs
* Ditto gathering/ crafting, you can make more than twice as much stuff easily with two people
* After a week or so of this, Blizzard makes another sale when she hits the trial limits and still wants to play.
Even some things which are missing from WoW look alright for a couple playing in this way. No built-in voice chat? She can hear you from the other end of the bed, or across the room. Poor facilities for automatic groups? You have a ready made group that knows your playing style intimately.
With the exception of dungeons, most of WoW's content is suitable for a well balanced pair at the right level. You might have to do some Elite quests later than usual, and you won't be able to participate in the raiding end game but you can get months and months of fun out of playing together.
Unlike A Tale In The Desert, where relationships are part of the game, and thus can get hurt by in-game dynamics in WoW it's just fluff. There's no in game benefit to having one of the rare drop/ high priced romantic items like wedding rings. There's no reason for anyone to sit in a quiet inn and drink booze together except that it's fun. If you break up in real life, your characters can go on to have productive solo careers or be deleted summarily with little consequence after posting their best stuff to a new alt.
Nearly all the non-MMO games are terrible for pair co-operative multiplayer. It's a lot of extra work for a seemingly small market so it may start off on the wish list but it's likely to get badly cut or eliminated altogether from the final game. Blizzard didn't have to make tough choices here though, they needed multiplayer content anyway, it was just a matter of some tuning to ensure it was fun for the minimum case, two players.
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* I can install my WoW CDs onto my girlfriend's Mac, and get her into the free trial
* Then I can create a new character on my main server, or a new server and get her onto the same server and start location trivially
* We can usefully group right from the start
* We can actually roleplay (on the RP servers at least) if we want to without being ridiculed
* All the early loot is BoE so we can share nice drops
* WoW classes offer a lot of sensible pairs
* Ditto gathering/ crafting, you can make more than twice as much stuff easily with two people
* After a week or so of this, Blizzard makes another sale when she hits the trial limits and still wants to play.
Even some things which are missing from WoW look alright for a couple playing in this way. No built-in voice chat? She can hear you from the other end of the bed, or across the room. Poor facilities for automatic groups? You have a ready made group that knows your playing style intimately.
With the exception of dungeons, most of WoW's content is suitable for a well balanced pair at the right level. You might have to do some Elite quests later than usual, and you won't be able to participate in the raiding end game but you can get months and months of fun out of playing together.
Unlike A Tale In The Desert, where relationships are part of the game, and thus can get hurt by in-game dynamics in WoW it's just fluff. There's no in game benefit to having one of the rare drop/ high priced romantic items like wedding rings. There's no reason for anyone to sit in a quiet inn and drink booze together except that it's fun. If you break up in real life, your characters can go on to have productive solo careers or be deleted summarily with little consequence after posting their best stuff to a new alt.
Nearly all the non-MMO games are terrible for pair co-operative multiplayer. It's a lot of extra work for a seemingly small market so it may start off on the wish list but it's likely to get badly cut or eliminated altogether from the final game. Blizzard didn't have to make tough choices here though, they needed multiplayer content anyway, it was just a matter of some tuning to ensure it was fun for the minimum case, two players.
# posted by : 24/8/06 15:17
: 24/8/06 15:17<< Home
