This is that EQ mentality that really makes it hard to discuss rationally. How does the quote go? "It is not enough for me to succeed. Others must fail." Tad was the king of this. One example was the whole sitting and pulling vs. dungeon crawling. He felt that sitting and pulling was superior to dungeon crawling. So when I suggested he find a few like minded individuals and sit and pull (which you can do in most modern game dungeons mind you), he scoffed and said that it's meaningless unless everybody else has to do it as well. He didn't really enjoy the concept. What he enjoyed was everybody else being forced to do it as well.
This isn't life though and you don't need to fuck the guy on content plateaus. I mean you're already going to take 1 day of real life time to accomplish what the other guy does in 5 days. Do you really need to tack on ~more~ of a penalty out of just spite? Does it really make the content less fun for you if somebody else can do in 5 days what it took you 1 day to do?
The fact that you guys think it's okay for someone to getadditionallyfucked on top of the fucking he's already taking is hilarious. There's a minimal amount of time investment for any hobby really that should be expected to be fair sure. Nobody is arguing for the other extreme where you can just log in and instantly kill the last boss on day 1. People who have less time to play still want to work for their achievements. They just want to be able to, y'know, eventually actually do it.
No one is trying to "fuck the other guy". But look at this in terms of working. What your saying is, employee Joe is at home chilling and work calls him in on his day off. He goes in, works a full shift. Someone calls in and they need him to stay late so he agrees and goes into overtime. Because he came in on his day off AND stayed to work overtime, for that day, he got paid time and a half for the 8 hour shift, and double time for the additional 4 hours making $440.00 dollars that day. He is exhausted, but goes home knowing his hard work helps him pay bills and save a little for Christmas.
Then you have employee Matt who is at home chilling and work calls him. He's on his day off though and doesn't feel like working so he ignores the phone. Now what your stating is that, it's only fair that we shouldn't punish Matt, so even though Joe worked his ass off to earn the big pay check, we should go ahead and pay Matt the same $440.00 that day so were not "fucking him over".
Now here's where you say, "this is a game not a job and Matt and Joe pay the same amount(sub) so they should receive the same rewards". Yes, I understand the argument already. But in a persistent world like a an MMO were the developers are under constant pressure to keep the game entertaining and keeping people logging in and paying that sub fee every month, purchasing new expansions etc...24 hours a day, 7 days a week 365 days a year, that's how the game is. That's what keeps people logging in. The harder you work, the more rewards you get. I don't believe that a game, at least an MMO will work if you give a player who spends 10 hours a week online the same rewards you give the player who spends 25 hours a week online. Then where is the motivation to spend longer in game? And if your not logged in, your not making friends, having fun, raiding, grouping etc. Then it's much easier to just not log in at all. And pretty soon new shiny game "MMO EXTREME" comes out, and you stop playing your current game to go try extreme.
The longer you spend ingame, the more attached you become to your friends and the more invested you become in your character. That cannot happen if you are getting all the rewards the game has to offer in a mere 10 hours a week. It's a self defeated process as a developer. By making all game content accessible regardless of time played per week, your basically developing your games expiration date. You want players logged in and playing as often as they humanly can.
