Ran across a forum post and felt compelled to respond earlier this morning. The OP’s post in purple and my thoughts below. from http://bit.ly/eXu8C1 :
“People will spout off nonsense about how casuals make up a certain large percentage of an MMO. For the most part, they are probably right. Casuals do make up a larger percentage than hardcore players do. When I say hardcore players I mean the ones that play the game to be challenged, don’t expect equal rewards for logging on an hour a day to accept and complete mindless quests, and most importantly want to GROUP up to tackle new adventures.
Hardcore people albiet make up a minority now, are still the most vocal when it comes to their games. If the hardcore players are not satisfied with a game, and subsequently leave, what happends to the game? Even a game like vangaurd with a devoited following of semi to hardcore players manages to survive. We are the ones that come up with the good specs, the strategies to defeat end game content in the most effiecent way possible, ways to pvp well, and we are usually the ones sending bug reports and feedback into the devs.
What does all of this mean? It means the devs shouldn’t listen to all this pander about casual gear and causual that. If you dont’ have time to play an MMO then there are other hobbies you can enjoy and get more from. Hardcore players are the ones which will always truely keep a game afloat…every game has them. Just because you can’t meet the system requirements of the game, (which along with a dual core processor should include 20+ hours a week of game time) you shouldn’t impose your watered down gameplay mechanics on all of us that want to play this game in a state that is actually concitered to be entertainment.
Thank you for listening to my rant!!”
remember OP – the ‘hardcore’ provide for the casuals an image of something they can never have. Its important to generate envy as a form of desire – “it should have been me, it should belong to me”… keeps them subs goin.
You’re not going to please both camps entirely when both follow the same pattern of loot lust and longing; and gone are the days where people put more time into their mmo than they do into their career / education / lives. This is not true for everybody, but a likely majority. I don’t think people have the attention span for such things any more, let alone the time. For the majority, like it or not, an mmo which requires 4-8 hours a day 7 days a week to be properly competitive with regard to progression has become an obscenity.
As the gaming populace continues to expand, the hardcore of the early 2000s and before move into career / familial / blah responsibilities that require their attention to the point where it impacts such devotion to a game. New folk come in, with a different mindset and fully aware of the hundreds of virtual worlds they can pay / free-to-play. As a concept, the online world is diluted, and no one of them is as unique as it used to be. When such wide choice exists, and with time as a constraint, the casuals seek maximum fulfillment per unit time invested. They’re going to pick the wow over the aion, if you catch my drift. Designers are of course aware of this.
Additionally we have artists and creators as game developers and the plethora of disciplines that surround creating such a complex system. Those creators are likely to want people to see their works. they’re going to lower the bar.
At best you’re going to get a world that is tolerable to the spectrum of playerbase (extreme fluff casual <-> darkest of hardcore). That’s going to require a flattening of requirement / complexity / what it takes time wise as investment to achieve goals.
As designers shift away from things like attunements, hard gap tiering etc. the hardcore player might feel disillusioned. but they’re forgetting something – status fades. if you want the best stuff available now then you need to work your ass off for it. but guess what?! in 6-8 months at most it’ll be garbage.
the system must continue to provide incentive. the most powerful incentive is loot.
the casual sees the Bugati the hardcore is driving around in and longs for that power… and now they can get it, it just takes longer and when they do they find the hardcore has the newer model with 10% more horsepower or whatever. stupid analogy aside the wheel of progression must continue to rotate for all players. just as the hardcore must compete with themselves and stay ahead of the scrubs, so exist multiple other tiers trying to do the same at all levels of player skill / time / capability. Hardcore chase the dragon, casuals chase your shadow.
least that’s why I think we see a flattening.
All hail the addiction engine! casuals and hardcore alike.
Dissemination Machine 