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Working As Intended: Change for change's sake in World of Warcraft
MMORPGs struggle to meet two contradictory goals: They want to provide stability, permanence, a world you feel you can always come home to, and they want to provide dynamism, change, a world that always has something fresh and new. Lean too hard to one side -- change too much or too little -- and the backlash from fans and former fans and future fans can be overwhelming. That's something Blizzard has never learned. With World of Warcraft, Blizzard is constantly chasing different demographics to maximize its playerbase, and those different demographics typically want different things out of the game, be they veterans or returnees or hardcores or casuals. Most of the game's expansions have retooled combat and classes and specs in some way, but in Cataclysm, and now again in Warlords of Draenor, the class revamps have been so far-reaching that they actually manage to turn off both veterans and returnees. Gamers, it seems, are willing to tolerate only so much dramatic change to their precious characters before rebelling. This is a lesson City of Heroes could have taught World of Warcraft had Blizzard been listening.
Working As Intended: There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs
A Massively community member recently wrote into the podcast to tell us that he prefers to solo, to craft for himself, to avoid group quests, and to skip guilds. Still, he told us, he loves MMOs and doesn't want to leave them to play single-player RPGs. "What the hell is wrong with me?" he asked. Nothing. Nothing at all. There's nothing wrong with soloing in MMORPGs.
The Soapbox: Let me tell you how little I want to raid
Over the past several years, Blizzard has been very attentive when it comes to making it easier for players to raid. Raid sizes have gone down, then they've moved over to a flex structure. The raid finder was added to the game. Mechanics were toned down, while getting drops has been made even easier. With the next expansion, you won't even need to toy around in difficult instances to get ready for raiding; you can just jump in pretty much from the point you hit the level cap. All of this in response to a lot of people saying that they don't want to raid -- all of this so thoroughly missing the point of that statement. This is one of those hurdles a lot of designers can't seem to conceptually get over. World of Warcraft's design team has had years of people saying this, and every response from the team has been missing the point so completely that it's almost absurd. I don't want to raid, at all, ever. End of discussion.
The Soapbox: Does Trion realize what it has in ArcheAge?
Can I share how nervous I am about the fact that ArcheAge is finally heading West? Thanks because I really need someone to talk to about this stuff. I'm going to skip over the F2P hand-wringing, both because I covered it nine months ago and because there's nothing anyone can do about it. And there's plenty of reason to fret about the rest of what's in store for starving western sandbox fans, anyway. Join me after the cut and we'll worry about it together.
The Soapbox: My hypersexualization conundrum
Every now and then here at Massively, we receive an email that isn't super nice. I know this may come as a shock to many of you -- the internet is, after all, a place of tolerance and constructive debate -- but sometimes the Massively inbox is no place any sane person would want to be. One reader recently took the opportunity to offer some choice thoughts on Massively staffers. And amidst the jumble of insults and generalizations, the reader levied the ever-powerful "hypocrisy" charge at us for claiming to care about hypersexualized designs of female characters in MMOs while simultaneously playing as those very hypersexualized characters. How could we possibly purport to care about the presentation of women in games if we're all running around in chainmail bikinis? Generally speaking, I prefer to not have my habits and behavior challenged via ad hominem attacks and false comparisons. But I have to admit that this one particular charge piqued my curiosity. Why is it that the majority of my characters are female? Am I, as a person who looks down on hypersexualized designs in games, committing an act of hypocrisy every time I create a female character? Let's sort it out. And before we begin, remember that the Soapbox, like most of our editorials, is just one person's opinion and doesn't represent the thoughts of Massively as a whole.
The Soapbox: Old content should stay relevant
The archetypal themepark MMO model, as popularised by World of Warcraft, is a race to the level cap in order to unlock the best content on offer. New content is tacked onto the endgame regularly, accompanied by improved gear and perhaps a higher level cap. It's a system that's designed to keep people playing by keeping them on a progression climb that's constantly getting steeper. As a consequence, endgame activities render older content obsolete since these outdated activities carry little real benefit for fully leveled characters. Exploring old content for the sake of experiencing it is not enough of a motivator for many players since this content simply cannot present the same challenge as it once did. Although you can technically go back and play through old dungeons, they will never be as fulfilling when tactics become optional and you can solo once-formidable opponents. In this week's Soapbox, I will mourn the loss of fantastic older content that was rendered obsolete through vertical progression, using WoW as a key example. I'll go on to suggest a solution that I think might allow for both old and new content to exist together in relevancy without significantly compromising the themepark MMO's existing progression mechanics.
The Soapbox: Novel content trumps novel mechanics
Action combat. Interactive conversations. Public quests. Voxel worlds. There are many game mechanics that developers of massively multiplayer online games crow about when promoting their games because these are the things that make their games stand out from the pack. Even if they're not the first to do it, they'll proclaim that they're doing it bigger and better than their predecessors. I don't have a problem with any of this. It's when the developers and their ardent fans gloss over the importance of the actual content these mechanics are applied to that I get annoyed. Mechanics are just a skeleton, and they can't do anything at all without some meat on the bones. Content matters, and good, fresh content will keep players interested long after the novelty of unusual mechanics has worn off.
The Soapbox: MMO 'nostalgia' isn't nostalgia
Here's the Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition of the word nostalgia. nos·tal·gia noun \nä-ˈstal-jə, nə- also nȯ-, nō-; nə-ˈstäl-\ : pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again 1 : the state of being homesick : homesickness 2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia And here's where I tell you that nostalgia is the most misused, overused, and overly simplistic word in modern MMO discourse.
The Soapbox: The Raid Finder ruined raiding
I don't typically limit myself to ranting about only one game at a time, but I decided to make an exception this week and speak out against World of Warcraft's Raid Finder mechanic. I was running a small and modestly successful raiding guild when this system was introduced, and my team definitely felt the onslaught of this guild-destroying game mechanic first hand. Raid Finder, commonly dubbed LFR by the cool kids in Orgrimmar, is a system that demolishes the competency barrier that stands in the way of freshly level-capped characters and normal raiding content. The system allows players to join a random raiding group in order to tackle a nerfed version of a normal raid and exists mainly to maximise inclusion in the game's best PvE endgame content. LFR was quite popular among casual players that were usually passed up when it came to raiding group formation, but it didn't offer much progress to seasoned raiders. The gear gained had lower stats than its corresponding normal raid counterpart, but the LFR tier simply didn't need the co-ordination required of a group tackling regular raids. A void was created somewhere in between the casual masses who could benefit from the LFR mechanic and the hardcore raiders that simply did not need help with progression. My casual raiding guild was caught in the middle and ultimately met its demise at the hands of LFR, which simultaneously depleted the PUG pool and gave our members another way to see the endgame content they wanted without putting in virtual blood, sweat, and tears.
The Soapbox: Enough with selling alpha tests already!
The dam has burst, restraint has been cast off, and caution has been thrown to the wind. Seemingly overnight, game studios all over the place have thrown the doors open to the general public to get in on alpha testing, usually as a reward for loyalty and financing. Steam has an entire Early Access section that's dominating the sales charts, offering players a chance to hop right into an anticipated game while it's still in the middle of development. Kickstarter games routinely offer alpha and beta access to their financers as part of their reward structure. Trove, Elite: Dangerous, Shroud of the Avatar, Star Citizen, and EverQuest Next Landmark are among the vanguard of upcoming MMOs that have promised alpha or early access to players willing to shell out a few bucks right now. It's not enough to covet and chase after a beta key these days; all of the cool kids are in the alpha, apparently. The willingness of developers to wield alpha access as a reward and the enthusiastic acceptance by gamers to literally buy into it has me very concerned that this could poison the industry, the community, and the future of our games.
The Soapbox: Launching with a subscription is still a good idea
The massively multiplayer online game industry is constantly changing, but one thing about it never will so long as capitalism stands: MMOs have ongoing costs, and those costs are passed on to the end user. Exactly how they're passed on is one of the things that has been changing, but new methods don't mean old methods don't have their place. New isn't good because it's new. New is good because it can provide solutions to old problems. When an old method is seen as the source of a problem actually caused by something unrelated, shoving a new method in there can just create new problems. So why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over games trying out a subscription before they move onto other models? And why all the wailing and gnashing of teeth in retaliation to this opinion?
The Soapbox: My MMO resolutions
Today is the last day of 2013, a long year of extended betas, early access pre-purchases, and soft launch nonsense. The release slate for 2014, however, brings slightly more excitement. 2014 is the year we'll (hopefully) first set foot into Elder Scrolls Online, EverQuest Next Landmark, Destiny, Star Citizen, WildStar, and more. It's the year in which a record number of MMOs will go live on consoles. And most importantly, it's likely the year in which consumers will decide whether the traditional MMO is dead or just in need of a good kick in the pants. Ordinarily I'm not the type to make New Year's resolutions. It seems arbitrary to hang important life changes on a date on the calendar. But the end of the year does bring a nice opportunity to look back on my gaming habits over the last 12 months and provides me with an opportunity to draft a list of things I'd like to do better moving forward. 2014 will be an MMO year like no other, so perhaps it warrants a few adjustments in behavior. With that in mind, these are my 2014 MMO resolutions.
The Soapbox: The horror of embargoes
We're right on the cusp of one big holiday or another. Festivus, I think? I don't really pay attention to the calendar. So we're going to take this opportunity to talk about something near and dear to our hearts that a lot of you don't even know exists because you aren't working here. It's the magical miracle known as the press embargo. Embargoes work something like this. Let's say that Bungie is hard at work developing My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Online, and the company wants to reveal a new piece of information on August 9th. The company sends a lot of different press outlets a release with all of the information on August 2nd, mentioning exactly when the embargo lifts. So on August 9th, everyone can cover it at the same time! It sounds like a great way to ensure that the press knows things in advance and that every big revelation is nicely coordinated across all media. In practice, though, it's something less than beneficial due to failures to communicate and the very nature of the beast. Giving more time between the information and release just means more space for things to go wrong.
The Soapbox: There's nothing wrong with easy
The word "easy" gets a really bad reputation in gaming, an unfair reputation, at that, because there's absolutely nothing wrong with something's being easy. A while back, we hosted a great column about how we tend to call things easy when they really aren't. (Seriously, go read that.) That's all well and good, but that's also not what I'm talking about here. Gaming as a community seems to have decided that easy is just plain bad, that it's a horrible insult, and a game being easy is like saying that a game is worthless. But easy isn't bad. Playing a single-player game on easy difficulties isn't a mark of weakness, and having an MMO that's easy on a whole doesn't mean it's a bad game. Having easy content isn't just an acceptable thing; it's an outright good thing for a lot of player. There is absolutely nothing wrong with easy.
The Soapbox: World of Warcraft isn't back, and that's fine
So. That Warlords of Draenor, huh? To take the narrative that a lot of people have constructed, World of Warcraft has been sort of floundering for the past few years. It released one expansion (Cataclysm) that consistently ranks as the worst expansion in the game's history, coming behind the launch game, The Burning Crusade, and Alganon. Then it released another one that turned out to actually be pretty good but with a premise that turned a lot of people off right out of the gate. Mists of Pandaria's quality doesn't matter in the face of the game losing five million subscriptions in three years. But then, Warlords of Draenor was announced, and suddenly hope returned to the faithful. There's this thought that the game has suddenly returned from the brink, that Blizzard hit the big red button labeled "Save World of Warcraft" and the game will be catapulted back into prominence once again. Except that I think that portion of the story isn't just premature -- it's making a stab in the dark about a game that isn't back and can't, in fact, be back.
The Soapbox: Seriously, we have enough fantasy MMOs
Let's play a game. I'm thinking of an MMO that features magic, monsters, humans, and a vast fantasy world full of steamy swamps, grassy plains, and deep, dark dungeons -- can you tell me which MMO it is? If you answered RIFT, you're right. You're also right if you answered TERA. Or World of Warcraft. Or Guild Wars 2. Or Neverwinter. Or... you get the idea. We're people who play MMOs. Our hard drives are practically bulging with games featuring wizards and warriors. We've plunged our swords into millions of orcs and gnolls. We've looted more imaginary copper pieces than anyone could possible imagine. We've even slain so many dragons that you have to wonder why dragons even bother showing up anymore. It's not the gameplay but the setting that can make the whole exercise so soul-crushingly boring.
The Soapbox: Developers build MMOs backward
How many of you MMOs players have ever maxed out a character's combat level then stood around wondering, "What do I do now?" I would venture to guess that a vast majority of you at one time or another have done that, and I'd also guess that it's been recently. That's because developers have built your game backward. Far too many MMOs rely on the leveling process to be the primary content for the game, and everything after max level appears to be an afterthought tacked on to the game until the developers can come up with new stuff for you to do. I propose that if developers would start building a game's endgame first, we would be looking at a very different kind of game, a more enjoyable game. If a game is intended to be played for months, then developers should spend the most time on the content that players will spend the most time on. It's only logical to me. However, if you ask most developers they will likely tell you that the most expensive or time-consuming part of the game is the leveling process. Why is that?
The Soapbox: Instant high-level characters are a terrible, horrible, very bad, no good idea
While handing players the keys to a high-level character isn't something brand-new that studios are doing, it does seem to be more en vogue these days, from TERA to EverQuest II and now to World of Warcraft. It's a topic that has caused a lot of discussion and debate in the community, not to mention a lot of disquiet and dismay in my heart. In last week's Soapbox, Massively's Mike Foster advocated instant leveling by saying, "There is no downside to giving players a chance to skip to the start of new content." With much love and respect to my fellow Massively writer, I think Mike is completely wrong on this front, as are others that are giving a thumbs-up to any MMO that allows players to jump past content and into a high-level character. It has nothing to do with elitism and ego, as was suggested, but has everything to do with cheapening our mutual experience and the very foundation of MMOs. There are many, many downsides to this disturbing trend, and I need to get this off my chest so that at least I've said it somewhere.
The Soapbox: Instant leveling and the whining fringe
Over the weekend at Blizzcon 2013, Blizzard Entertainment announced the fifth World of Warcraft expansion, Warlords of Draenor. The content add-on brings most of the things one might expect from an expansion -- new zone, new features, new quests, new dungeons -- but perhaps most notably includes the option to instantly raise any one of your characters to WoW's current level cap of 90. While you'll still face 10 levels of Warlords of Draenor questing, killing, and fetching if you opt to take the insta-level, the feature has re-ignited the argument among MMO fans as to whether offering players a maxed-out character somehow violates the core rules of the MMO genre. Should developers really provide high-level characters just to get/keep players in the game? The short answer, of course, is "duh." Here's the long answer.
The Soapbox: No, 'we' don't hate the subscription model
If you're a casual reader of Massively and read a post or two from a few writers about business models, then you might get the impression that the Massively staff does not like the subscription model. While it's true that some of us praise some games for the choices their publishers have made regarding pricing models, others of us believe still other games have missed the mark. Lately, the subscription model has fallen under some hard scrutiny, but that doesn't mean that all of us dislike the subscription model completely, nor should a few writers' opinions be misconstrued as the opinion of the site as a whole, as if the site were some sentient thing to begin with. Economists have made extremely persuasive arguments in favor of the subscription model, citing its cost-effectiveness with hard numbers and statistics. We've also seen free-to-play and buy-to-play models allowing companies to revitalize their game, and most importantly for the people employed by the developer, doubling and sometimes tripling their revenue. So at what point does the subscription work?
