It’s past 3am and I should probably be asleep by now, but I just walked in from the rain after taking my dog for his late night stroll and I figured I should get this out while it’s still percolating in my brain.
I read Tobold’s latest post earlier, entitled “Gearing up oneself or one’s guild.” As much as I’m generally a fan of Tobold’s posts, I actually felt some level of despair for the state of MMOs as I read this one. The futility of the whole process made me clearly recall why I quit playing World of Warcraft in the first place.
The subject matter is definitely a hot topic amongst raiding guilds in WoW, and even translates somewhat over to WAR (although not quite as much.) The issue I had with the article was that as much as I appreciate Tobold’s view on PvE raiding and his opinions on the various procedures that could be followed for handing out loot from a raid, the whole post depressed me. And it did so much beyond the specific matter it covered; the post reminded me that MMOs are completely broken as a genre. I don’t really know how they can be redeemed with the loot-oriented mentality the way it is.
I’m starting to see what Keen meant in his recent post discussing Darkfall Online and his excitement with respect to a level-less, class-less system where loot and gear are meaningless.
I’ll admit, I’m just as loot-whorish as the next guy; I want good gear for my characters because I can’t compete properly without it. But is running endless raids of the same dungeon or raid instance fun? Is it a mental challenge? Are you actually gaining something beyond the loot you end up with, or are you just killing time (and paying Blizzard, Mythic, etc. on a monthly basis for that luxury) until the next dungeon comes out, where you can just repeat the cycle again, and discuss the procedures for beating said raid boss ad infinitum? Are you honestly being entertained for the amount you’re spending every month? Not to mention that the previous boss or dungeon has been made totally worthless by the next one, and all of your time spent has pretty much gone out the window. Wash, rinse, repeat.
No matter how hard you try, you’ll never get out of that vicious cycle unless something changes with the way MMOs are being designed and developed.
Maybe I’m getting cynical with age, but this isn’t what I signed up for. Or maybe that’s just it: it is. MMOs are a special breed; players have become so used to grinding and killing time without actually enjoying themselves that it’s become a completely ingrained habit. Well-respected bloggers like Tobold argue that for the price you’re paying, $15 a month or thereabouts, you’re getting great value for your dollar. On the time-invested versus capital cost front, I can totally agree with this. But I can also spend nothing a month and go run my head into a wall repeatedly, which is effectively another form of grinding. At the end of it, I may not get any virtual loot, but if I can convince myself that it was time spent in a worthwhile fashion, I’ll have achieved the same goal.
I’m sorry, but sitting in a WAR public quest area (or the equivalent in any other game) and grinding mobs endlessly to gain meager amounts of XP is simply not fun. Running the same WoW raid instance or WAR dungeon over and over until I get that last piece of gear I’m missing so that I can complete the set required to participate in the next raid instance is not fun. Circling keeps in WAR without ever actually engaging the enemy, just to farm renown from undefended battle objectives is not fun. It’s just passing the time (while I watch television, listen to music, cook dinner, or discuss my upcoming nuptials with my fiancée simultaneously) until I get the “reward” that I’m after. That’s tedium. It’s not fun. And that $15 a month is supposed to be spent on entertainment. If I wanted tedium, I’d fish. Even sitting in a boat for hours, I can still read a book or get some work done at the same time. And hell, I don’t even fish!
My point here is this: we’re paying game publishers significant monthly fees (which are growing every year) and they’re not delivering on their end of the bargain. I can name any number of single-player RPGs in which I’ve had an amazing time playing from end-to-end. Oblivion. Fallout 3. Prince of Persia. Assassin’s Creed. Left 4 Dead. Hell, even Rock Band 2 or Guitar Hero World Tour. I have console games like Gears of War or the EA Sports franchise games that I still play regularly and enjoy myself in throughout the entire experience. There are even some MMOs in the past that I’ve had more fun in than what I’m having now. Without the tedium and boredom of grinding out X number of levels in order to grind out yet another Y sets of gear thereafter, in order to farm boss Z until I get amazingly bored and cancel my subscription. MMOs don’t face the same level of critique as single-player or traditional multiplayer games, and I think this practice needs to stop.
Age of Conan’s level 1-20 range in Tortage, as scripted as it was, was some of the most fun I’ve had in an MMO in years, but the game fell off badly after that, losing much of its charm as it felt completely unfinished past level 30. Guild Wars is at its heart a single-player game, and I played my first character through many of the missions in the Nightfall campaign, from level 1 to 20 and beyond in the storyline, and I barely felt like I’d scratched the surface. However, once I jumped my character into PvP, I felt like a fish out of water, requiring yet another gear grind that booted me out of the storyline and into repetitive farming to even get into a competitive state. Even the starter areas for Anarchy Online, Asheron’s Call, Lineage 2, or even WoW were more atmospheric than what we’re seeing in the so-called end-game of today’s most popular MMOs.
Even Dark Age of Camelot immersed me more in the experience because as much as a I had to work for my realm points and levels, there was that much more of a sense of community amongst the players, and every keep and every relic was hard-earned and the players really felt that they had accomplished something in having fought for them, whether attacking or defending. If it had been a little more polished, or had been re-released as a new version, I’d still be playing it. I still look for signs that WAR will become DAOC’s spiritual successor, and as slowly as that’s happening, it’s also moving in the direction of contemporary MMOs in order to please the current generation of online gamers.
Have I simply grown jaded, or has the MMO publishing community grown complacent? Is this is a symptom of the “I want it now” generation, where accumulating epic and legendary loot is more important than actually enjoying the game? Or is it a sign that a new (or old) publisher needs to take a hard look at how these games are being designed, and increase their production values or spend more time actually immersing the players in the experience?
What it boils down to is this: I want immersion. I want the joy of playing a single-player RPG, as applied to a massively multiplayer environment. I don’t want some cheap sandbox game where farming gear for the next raid boss that’ll be on “farm mode” a month down the line is the be-all and end-all. I want a game where PvP is both challenging, rewarding, and requires a modicum of skill. I want a game where the goal is not to attack undefended keeps because they give better renown than an actual fight, or to regularly throw battleground fights because we gain more honor if we lose. I want a game where every action I take is not only recorded — we’ve got that covered, as MMO developers have been spending inordinate amounts of time on achievement systems of late — but is meaningful.
I’m starting to think that a game with all of what I’m looking for is just too bloody expensive to make. Until that game turns up, I’ll keep playing the latest and greatest MMOs, hoping that at some point they’ll forego the endless loot/gear/dungeon progressions and focus on actually entertaining their players, instead of just stringing them along until the next level, the next dungeon, or the next expansion. I’m a sucker that way, or maybe I’m just idealistic.
But if that game ever turns up, I’ll rejoice. And I’ll be the first one singing its praises; that I guarantee.
