difficult-content
Latest
The Soapbox: Decent challenge
Disclaimer: The Soapbox column is entirely the opinion of this week's writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of Massively as a whole. If you're afraid of opinions other than your own, you might want to skip this column. The ancestors of modern humans had a lot to contend with, but I'm willing to bet that the seeds of MMO gamers existed even in those days. There had to have been at least one person who looked at a wooly mammoth, a titantic mass of tree-trunk limbs and tusks and fur, and announced "I bet you get great loot for killing that thing!" And as it turned out, he was right, assuming "great loot" means "meat for food and fur for clothing." I'm exaggerating, naturally; everyone knows that ancient humanity spoke Norwegian, not English, and it's a well-known fact that the term "loot" was first coined in the Canterbury Tales along with "spawn camper." But that need for a challenge is still there, the central idea that in order to get something really awesome you have to overcome a big obstacle. Which is why challenge is such a thorny issue for MMOs and always has been, because one person's challenge is another person's irritation.
