Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Azrayne said:

In classic, even if johny casual was never going to see C"Thun or step foot in naxx, just knowing there was still a fight he hadn"t beaten, something to strive towards, gives a lot of motivation to work on your character. "Aim for the stars even if you"ll never reach them.." and all that shit. Now people finish a zone and say "oh, that"s it?"

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Yep, that"s what I was getting at.

Fog, the game has never exactly been in the same spot it is right now. People may have had doomsaying comments to make before, but I cant think of a time in previous WoW history where such a huge part of the WoW population had actually completed all of the available raid content (hard modes do not count) and thirsted for more in such a way. In the past, it was usually only the bleeding edge who were bored and worried about how fast they might churn through new content. Now it feels like it"s almost the entire playerbase. I realize that isn"t completely true, probably plenty of casual people haven"t downed Malygos, but it"s certainly a larger sample than ever before.

The issue is substantiated when you consider the fact that Ulduar-10 will probably be relatively easy to break into as long as you don"t do hard modes, and this is going to completely negate the previous raids because the gear is better. Meaning everyone, causals and hardcores alike, will only really be interested in a single raid. That is never good in my opinion.

I"m still subbed to Warhammer, but I"ll say this: Mythic will never be a threat to Blizzard because their engineering process is inept. Exhibit A, the latest 1.2 patch:

- broke as many things as it fixed
- introduced server side lag that makes RVR lag worse than it did at launch
- introduced large client side rendering performance drop
- every spell in the game that has a cast time takes 1-2 seconds longer than it should. This bug has existed for months yet they still cannot fix it.

Game is fun but their technical ineptitude is surely bleeding subs. Content and balance patches mean nothing if they can"t get basic networking and performance issues fixed.

I"m not even trying to say that WoW is going to die due to Blizzard"s new stance on raiding. It obviously wont, and none of the current competition are any threat to it at all, nor would they be even if Icecrown took another year to release. That"s not the point. It"s simply a matter of making the highest quality game experience possible, and I don"t think the wotlk philosophy succeeds at providing that.

It seems like if it continues the way it is, then WoW raiding will simply become a practice of everyone in the game farming the same raid for 6 months while they wait for the next one to come out. I just don"t see the appeal in that. I like seeing different guilds and different people I know around the server at various tiers of raiding, like in vanilla and TBC. And that"s coming from a guy who was stuck in T5 content for months on end because my guild was a bunch of retards on Vashj. It didn"t matter. It was cool to see guys with glaives and hope I"d get them eventually. It actually made me want to play MORE.

First day of spring break and I am bored out of my mind. Downloaded D&D online to give it a wurl and that lasted about 30 minutes. I am now downloading FFXI. Good god why can"t there be an EQ3 or this game out for me to play 2010 is gonna be a long way coming.

p.s. Yes I have played Vanguard, War, Wow, etc etc etc.

I"m not a fan and will never be of level cap raising with all that goes along with it, nor I like much the policy Blizzard adopts of letting old content rot, but since their business plan doesn"t suffer for this, I"m quite sure we won"t see any changes for the foreseeable future.

Nonetheless, I just want to say I prefer a system closer to old EQ1 rather than WoW, follow a progression, skip what you can according to your good players/retarded player ratio and nothing else.
Take EQ1 during PoP and make every boss instanced: would it really matter if creating a new guild, you"d have to raid Tunare/Tormax/AoW in Velious alongside Ssra temple and Vex Thal for 1-2 months before jumping to PoP content?
As a matter of fact it"s more content, more useful, not wasted content, unlike MC-BWL-AQ-Naxx1-all of TBC and soon Naxx 2.

WoW is not interesting at this point, it keeps "resetting" and it"s kinda pointless to even run a zone if I know I can jump in the next and get better stuff (let alone, without even trying hard). For me it doesn"t make sense, for them it does as it means more people will resub to play in new raids. Xpac resets are already bad enough as they are, but I guess a necessary evil, raid tier resets are not that cool.

I don"t mind, they can make their diablo-style MMO game and I won"t give them my money, it"s ok, maybe one day someone will make a game worth playing.

Grave said:

.......but I cant think of a time in previous WoW history where such a huge part of the WoW population had actually completed all of the available raid content (hard modes do not count) and thirsted for more in such a way. In the past, it was usually only the bleeding edge who were bored and worried about how fast they might churn through new content.....

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The game was always going to go this way. Their aim is to grow their sub numbers. Having content that holds up a small percentage of the players as "better than the rest" does not achieve that.

Any MMO that wants massive commercial success will need to accept the lessons Blizzard had learned :

i) solo content options through all levels;

ii) do not design end game for the hard core.


Going beyond where Blizzard are presently at, the question that remains is how to achieve longevity.

Flight said:

ii) do not design end game for the hard core.

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But if end game is accessible to everyone, who will I look up to, what will I have to look forward to, read about throughout my days and dream about at night? End game should always be designed for the hardcore and over time trickle down to me, the casual player. Yes, I"m serious. SIGIL/TSO/ROTA etc. were my heroes on Lanys in the days of yore. I need role models in my MMORPGs. Fuck that instant gratification, sense of entitlement because I pay the same as everyone else bullshit.

Mannorai said:

But if end game is accessible to everyone, who will I look up to, what will I have to look forward to, read about throughout my days and dream about at night? End game should always be designed for the hardcore and over time trickle down to me, the casual player. Yes, I"m serious. SIGIL/TSO/ROTA etc. were my heroes on Lanys in the days of yore. I need role models in my MMORPGs. Fuck that instant gratification, sense of entitlement because I pay the same as everyone else bullshit.

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Free poopsock with every purchase!

Flight said:

The game was always going to go this way. Their aim is to grow their sub numbers. Having content that holds up a small percentage of the players as "better than the rest" does not achieve that.

Any MMO that wants massive commercial success will need to accept the lessons Blizzard had learned :

i) solo content options through all levels;

ii) do not design end game for the hard core.


Going beyond where Blizzard are presently at, the question that remains is how to achieve longevity.

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We"ll see, 1 has definitely been proven true, but it can be improved upon. WoTLK is still pretty fresh so we"ll see about #2, but Blizzard is trying to have it both ways right now. I suspect Algannon will be a successful model for hardcore players, but hard modes just don"t offer the same satisfaction.

The only people who "look up" to the hardcore players are the second-rate hardcore wanna-be"s. The rest of the player base doesn"t care about the existence of hardcore players except when complaining by the latter screws things up. The "they look up to us!" argument only exists within the minds of the hardcore players who vastly over-estimate their own importance.

Can a game cater to the driven-player mindset? Sure, but not one meant to capture the mass market. I believe that catering to such sub-groups can also be accomplished via specialized servers within a single game. For whatever reason the online role-playing games have been slow to utilize that option.

Danth

Danth said:

The only people who "look up" to the hardcore players are the second-rate hardcore wanna-be"s. The rest of the player base doesn"t care about the existence of hardcore players except when complaining by the latter screws things up. The "they look up to us!" argument only exists within the minds of the hardcore players who vastly over-estimate their own importance.

Can a game cater to the driven-player mindset? Sure, but not one meant to capture the mass market. I believe that catering to such sub-groups can also be accomplished via specialized servers within a single game. For whatever reason the online role-playing games have been slow to utilize that option.

Danth

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Intentional or unintentional, you cut me deep with this. I wanted to be hardcore so badly I quit to get married and make babies, but that"s neither here nor there. The hardcore players are gods among men in gaming communities and offer more than I think anyone realizes. They are vastly underappreciated and underestimated in my personal opinion. They are living in these virtual worlds, whereas we"re only visiting when time allows, solely for entertainment purposes. Regardless what you think of them or the real life sacrifices they make to be hardcore (and they do make them - whether you agree with them or not), they do it not only for their own personal gaming status but to make these games the best they can be.

Mannorai said:

But if end game is accessible to everyone, who will I look up to, what will I have to look forward to, read about throughout my days and dream about at night?

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I don"t know, someone who does volunteer work in their spare time?

Flight said:

The game was always going to go this way. Their aim is to grow their sub numbers. Having content that holds up a small percentage of the players as "better than the rest" does not achieve that.

Any MMO that wants massive commercial success will need to accept the lessons Blizzard had learned :

i) solo content options through all levels;

ii) do not design end game for the hard core.


Going beyond where Blizzard are presently at, the question that remains is how to achieve longevity.

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1 is obviously true, but 2? Not so sure.

People are so quick to look at Blizzard"s rising sub numbers and assume it means they are doing everything right. It doesn"t. It just means they are doing a lot of things very well, and even more things better than the competition. They always were though. If they had stuck with the TBC model of raiding, I guarantee you they"d be doing just as well as they are now. You say having content that holds some above the rest will not grow sub numbers, but it sure as hell worked out pretty well over the past couple of years before WotLK.

You can design end game for the hard core as long as you also give the casuals something to do, and give them hope that they"ll see the more difficult at some point. None of them complained that they couldn"t get into Sunwell when it was released, because they were too happy with the removal of attunements letting them see Hyjal and BT. That"s the way to do it, keep a lingering carrot in front of the players that entices them to keep playing. Just make sure you let them actually get it at some point.

Danth said:

The only people who "look up" to the hardcore players are the second-rate hardcore wanna-be"s. The rest of the player base doesn"t care about the existence of hardcore players except when complaining by the latter screws things up. The "they look up to us!" argument only exists within the minds of the hardcore players who vastly over-estimate their own importance.

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It"s really not so much "looking up to" the hardcore players, but more them acting as a visual stimulant to the lower end players. They"re standing in Ironforge at the auction house and the guy in full tier 6 with warglaives on his back and Illidan"s blindfold on walks up. They notice that shit. They want it. That"s a huge part of what MMOs are about and why the DIKU model is so successful, it thrives on the desire to have cooler/better gear. That guy without the tier 6 immediately feels the desire to continue advancing so he may someday get that gear and feels his time investment into the game is worth it because he"s striving for something he wants. Compare this to WotLK, there"s no effort to get through heroics, no effort to get through Naxxramas. If a guy sees a player in cool armor or something, he need only LFG Naxx25 PUG and he will have it too.

As I said once before on the topic, "when you give everyone everything, soon no one will care about anything."

FoghornDeadhorn said:

I don"t know, someone who does volunteer work in their spare time?

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Isn"t that what I"m talking about?

Grave said:

keep a lingering carrot in front of the players that entices them to keep playing. Just make sure you let them actually get it at some point.

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This is the only important issue here really, I think. "Hardcore" players and at this point even semi-hardcore players don"t have much of a carrot in front of them. I picked up WoTLK about a month ago, got my DK to 80 slowly over a few weeks, and 2-3 weeks after that I"m wearing best-in-slot gear in over half my slots and the rest are 200+ ilevel epics. During this time I"ve heard endless complaints from friends about the lack of shit to do, and now I can see why. At this point I login an hour or so each day to do cooking/jc/bs dailies along with other random boring stuff.

The treadmill for hardcore players is basically broken. If you have any friends willing to help or get lucky in a pug, you can go from full quest/auctionhouse gear at 80 to full 200+ ilevel epics very quickly. I haven"t even done half of the WoTLK 5man heroics yet and the most of the ones I have done so far were simply to see them. ie there was no real need for gear or heroic badges. The problem there is that I was easily able to skip far too much content. Even when I do go back and play through it, I"ll be doing it in too powerful of gear so I won"t experience it properly. (admittedly though, this is partially due to me entering the expansion so late)

It"s really not so much "looking up to" the hardcore players, but more them acting as a visual stimulant to the lower end players. They"re standing in Ironforge at the auction house and the guy in full tier 6 with warglaives on his back and Illidan"s blindfold on walks up. They notice that shit. They want it. That"s a huge part of what MMOs are about and why the DIKU model is so successful, it thrives on the desire to have cooler/better gear. That guy without the tier 6 immediately feels the desire to continue advancing so he may someday get that gear and feels his time investment into the game is worth it because he"s striving for something he wants. Compare this to WotLK, there"s no effort to get through heroics, no effort to get through Naxxramas. If a guy sees a player in cool armor or something, he need only LFG Naxx25 PUG and he will have it too.

As I said once before on the topic, "when you give everyone everything, soon no one will care about anything."

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This is where I disagree. I think the game right now is probably a casual/semi-casual players dream. The carrots are there for them in every conceivable direction. I see quickly made Naxx/OS/Maly pugs each night, but they aren"t in any real danger of running through the content completely before 3.1. It really is a nice setup for them and I don"t think many of them would trade that for seeing people in town wearing gear they won"t have a chance at for at least a few months. The "visual stimulant" idea is real but it"s not nearly that valuable IMO.

Again, the problem is that there isn"t a sufficient hardcore game atm and it is leaving the more dedicated players feeling left out, pissed off and most importantly BORED. Hard modes/achievements/3 Drakes etc are small steps in the right direction but I doubt if they are meaningful enough to satisfy hardcores (certainly not longterm). The thing is, no other game is going after hardcores. I can either do one or two nights of easy raiding in WoW once a week or... what exactly? Go take another chance on another shitty MMO? There"s not many viable options out there and Blizzard knows it. That is probably why they shifted so far in this direction at this point in time.

EDIT: I rambled but the only point I was trying to make was that going back to "structured exclusion of casuals" is probably not the best way to fix this problem. The game is in great shape for them and that shouldn"t be underestimated. There is surely ways to give hardcore players meaningful content while leaving the game so wide open for other players.

Mannorai said:

But if end game is accessible to everyone, who will I look up to, what will I have to look forward to, read about throughout my days and dream about at night? End game should always be designed for the hardcore and over time trickle down to me, the casual player. Yes, I"m serious. SIGIL/TSO/ROTA etc. were my heroes on Lanys in the days of yore. I need role models in my MMORPGs. Fuck that instant gratification, sense of entitlement because I pay the same as everyone else bullshit.

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Lets be clear here, I wasn"t stating personal preference. Once again, we are considering 38S and they are aiming for massive commercial success.

Grave said:

People are so quick to look at Blizzard"s rising sub numbers and assume it means they are doing everything right. It doesn"t. It just means they are doing a lot of things very well, and even more things better than the competition. They always were though. If they had stuck with the TBC model of raiding, I guarantee you they"d be doing just as well as they are now.

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Actually at the moment I am massively critical of Blizz; I don"t for a second think they are doing everything right.

I"ve repeatedly said, Blizz should be the baseline for this industry and not the pinnacle.

The most important lessons everyone should take from Blizzard are :

i) make it fun or don"t bother doing it; and,
ii) invest massively in QM and empower them.


Now I agree with you - they would be doing just as well if WotLK had followed the path of TBC. But the point is here, they don"t want to stay as successful. They want to be MORE successful; they are aiming to grow their player base and this is the strat they need to use to achieve it.


The lesson is you can not stand still, particularly when you are at the top of the food chain. You either seek to constantly grow and improve or you tail off and die.


Unfortunately, the measures of improvement for the vast majority of the player base does not consist of the same criteria as the average joe on this forum. We have to get our heads around the fact the game (38S are producing) isn"t being designed specifically for us on here - their game will be closer to WotLK than EQ1 or it will be failboat.

Danth said:

The only people who "look up" to the hardcore players are the second-rate hardcore wanna-be"s. The rest of the player base doesn"t care about the existence of hardcore players except when complaining by the latter screws things up. The "they look up to us!" argument only exists within the minds of the hardcore players who vastly over-estimate their own importance.

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Actually, I"d go further than that. I"d say a lot of the player base dislike or even subconsciously despise the existence of hard core players.

For a start, if we are playing in a universe where we are the hero, how can we be the hero if we have these "uber" characetrs to look up to, knowing we can"t achieve what they have ?


edit : To take into context what I am saying, you have to include the last sentence of my post - and this is where Blizz have failed with WotLK. What I said was :

Flight said:

Going beyond where Blizzard are presently at, the question that remains is how to achieve longevity.

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Flight said:

We have to get our heads around the fact the game (38S are producing) isn"t being designed specifically for us on here - their game will be closer to WotLK than EQ1 or it will be failboat.

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Well, that"s going a little far in the other direction. I never asked for EQ1, and cited it specifically as keeping raid content around and necessary for too long. I fully support more "user-friendly" gameplay and content so to speak, I just don"t see the value in making it so easily and readily accessible to everyone. I think a sense of progression is a good thing for all player types.

Flight said:

For a start, if we are playing in a universe where we are the hero, how can we be the hero if we have these "uber" characetrs to look up to, knowing we can"t achieve what they have ?

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We"ve had "hero" discussions often in this thread before. The player doesn"t have to have the best gear from the last zone in the game to feel heroic. You can impart that in other ways. Designers should be making the player feel heroic at level 1.

If we"re just talking gear here, you could make a cool set of class armor that was obtainable through single-group content or even crafting. Instead of making single group gear dreadfully bland as it is in WotLK (yes, we wanted items to match a little more than the circus outfits that were TBC, but we didn"t want them to ALL look exactly the same either) you could actually make some of them cool and worth obtaining.
If I can get a badass hood and cloak and a couple of nice magic daggers for my Assassin from group content, I"m not going to mind that much when I see someone in a better guild trod by in better gear. I might still inspect him and think "Sweet, I hope I can get that soon!" but my own experience is not diminished by him. The important part is to let players obtain items that are actually cool even if they are casual, rather than making them boring and obviously stepping stone items.

I don"t think casuals mind not having best in slot gear. They just want cool stuff, tier armor with nice graphics and cool looking weapons, and so on. Give them that, combined with unlocking/nerfing raid zones as time passes so they too can progress, and I don"t think anything more is necessary.

I also think the only time people hate the hardcore guys is if they act like it actually makes them such better players and take that kind of attitude to public channels. Otherwise, they are just another part of the society of the game.

Giving the casuals access to all content is not necessary for the game to continue to grow. Giving casualsinterestingcontent is necessary, that"s all.

Sorry to diverge from the thread for a moment, but I just saw the news of Curt"s retirement from baseball. For anyone that knows the game, you know that when the stakes were the highest, Curt was always at his best. He is the best big-game/post-season pitcher ever... Period.

Thanks for the memories that will last a lifetime, Hall of Famer.