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Getting burned out on WoW.
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Post by
Rankkor
The key to TOR is going to be whether or not it connects with the adult/mature crowd.
wrong dude.
Maybe you haven't really seen much of the demographics, but recently, Children, teens and pre-teens outnumber the adults by a very large margin. Its only logical, human population has taken a very VERY steep sharp increase ever since "Anti-conceptive methods" were introduced, that allowed many to believe that sex woudn't necesarily lead to pregnancy during the mid 80's and 90's.
As a result, there's a LOT more children today, than there are adults or elderly put together. So, in order for a product to be successful they need to apeal to the younger minds. They key though is keeping the attention, as its a known Psychology fact that children tend to lose interest in something FAR QUICKER than the adults, thus while they outnumber the adults, they also move on to something else faster than we old pokes do. A good MMO would not only apeal to them, but would also need to move fast to keep them focused and avoid them getting bored.
Bioware is a great company, and they've clearly shown in the past 15 years that they mean business when it comes to RPGs, they got more than 6 best-selling intellectual properties in their pockets ( more than half of them ORIGINAL intellectual properties) so of course I wish them the best, but still, their success is NOT guaranteed.
its a coin still up in the air.
I also find it interesting that you mixed "Adult and Mature" in the same sentence. The former doesn't necesarily goes side-by-side with the latter. Just saying, even in these very forums i've met some 12 year olds that are REALLY mature and far more polite and educated than others who almost double their age. Even me, at the age of 32 must recognize that I not allways act in a polite and mature way, and at some points in the past I kinda have acted like a jerk (a bit)
Heck I'm a passionate Yankee fan...just look at the passion soccer fans show(outside the USA :P)
ejem, as said in my profile I'm a huge soccer fan =D (Real madrid FTW, those Barça *bleep* can go *bleep* themselves)
Should their team fail to play well..logic has it to just walk away..
wait what? NO that's excactly the oposite of what a passionate fan would do. A REAL fan would continue to watch their favorite sport even if their team didn't won. Look at the Red Soxs of boston, who spent one longest championship droughts in baseball history, from their world championship in 1918, to over
86-year
later till the team's sixth World Championship in 2004. (Slight clarification :P as a sports enthusiast I kinda got my head a bit inside each sport, but I'm not quite a fan of Baseball, however in Venezuela, the 2 king sports across the nation are both Soccer and Baseball, so yhea..... kinda hard not to know certain facts xD)
A fake fan would had walked away after a couple of decades of lackluster performance, while a real fan would continue to support them against all odds.
And I agree that wow has created for itself a comunity that rivals (if not equals) that of all the multiple international sports comunities across the globe. THIS has not died, regardless of all the unwise desitions made by activision, and at its core, wow remains the same fun experience it has ever been.
Post by
CoolWind
in vanilla only dedicated people could do something
in tbc things got balanced,everyone could do something,itemization was fixed,buff stacking was fixed,you still had to be somewhat dedicated to do hyjal/bt/swp
since wotlk it all went downhill and commercial,even the dumbest or most unexperienced people can play it now,class homogenization is at a point where no class is unique,you dont have to travel or find people to do anything
the player base at vanilla release were mostly diablo 2 or warcraft 3 players,as the game continued to get popular all kinds of people started playing it
all kinds of people playing it and the average age going down(an 12 year old couldn't possibly play wow back in the day,now its super easy so they can) tripled/quadrupled the amount of people you can't put up with (noobs/stupid people/jerks/kidos)
so we went from a hardcore game with a player base that knows the lore and is somewhat reasonable to an easy game that everyone can play,with a player base that reflects humanity
make no mistake blizzard is running a business,once they realized the potential of wow they strategically turned it into its current state,we can't blame them for wanting to make money
if the current state of the game is not your cup of tea why play it ?
Post by
Rankkor
so we went from a
hardcore
game with a player base that knows the lore and is somewhat reasonable to an easy game that everyone can play,with a player base that reflects humanity
hardcore? /LAUGHS
wow even back on vanilla was FAR from "hard-core"
Wanna try hardcore? try some korean MMOs THOSE are for the hardcore. Even japanese MMOs. In fact lets leave it at Asian MMOs in general ok?
pff, wow hardcore xD that's a good one.
Ohh yhea look at me, I go to an instance and get a copy of a boss exclusive to my party. In the meantime, every other MMO had exclusively world-bosses that you had to FIGHT FOR against THOUSANDS of other players to see them, not to mention camping their spawn-spot AND DEFENDING IT for real-time hours.
now THAT IS HARDCORE.
Being a PK would mean your gear randomly droped to the ground if you died, turning you into a piñata if you werent careful in Lineage II, THAT is hardcore, none of this soulbound crap.
Crafting high-end gear meant having a 40% fail chance, in which case all the mats would be lost, THAT is hardcore. Not to mention that the list of materials was high enough that you'd have to spend the better part of a year to get them (which I did)
dont come here chest-puffed up preaching that wow used to be hardcore, because from day 1 wow had a lot of commodities that made it WAY EASIER than every other MMO in the market. Soulbound gear, instanced bosses, honor-gear, "safe-zones" where oposing players cant hurt you, PVE realms, Faction protection (Only people of the oposite faction can hurt you, in Lineage II and other MMOs EVERY PLAYER (even from your own guild) could gank you) mounts (in most other MMOs at the time you had to WALK, no mounts at all) and so many other stuff to make your life easier.
Post by
lonewarrior
@Rankkorr
I think in your rush to counter what I am saying your completely misinterpreting it. Read again please and follow the bouncing ball.
I use Adult/mature the way I did because it is exactly what I meant to say in regards to having young people being very mature in how they play this game. I had a guild full of them. Adults for the most part act as adults.
The sport example was to counter those people who seem to tell someone like the OP to just walk away. "It's just a game" and other quotes like that. I was just saying it's ok to be passionate about this game. Oh and by the way the Red Soxs.=sucks.
Now as for your opening about contraceptives and demographics....not sure what you were doing when you though that one up and maybe I don't want to know, but I'm guessing you were talking to Lucy in the sky with her diamonds.
Post by
lonewarrior
so we went from a
hardcore
game with a player base that knows the lore and is somewhat reasonable to an easy game that everyone can play,with a player base that reflects humanity
hardcore? /LAUGHS
wow even back on vanilla was FAR from "hard-core"
Wanna try hardcore? try some korean MMOs THOSE are for the hardcore. Even japanese MMOs. In fact lets leave it at Asian MMOs in general ok?
pff, wow hardcore xD that's a good one.
Ohh yhea look at me, I go to an instance and get a copy of a boss exclusive to my party. In the meantime, every other MMO had exclusively world-bosses that you had to FIGHT FOR against THOUSANDS of other players to see them, not to mention camping their spawn-spot AND DEFENDING IT for real-time hours.
now THAT IS HARDCORE.
Being a PK would mean your gear randomly droped to the ground if you died, turning you into a piñata if you werent careful in Lineage II, THAT is hardcore, none of this soulbound crap.
Crafting high-end gear meant having a 40% fail chance, in which case all the mats would be lost, THAT is hardcore. Not to mention that the list of materials was high enough that you'd have to spend the better part of a year to get them (which I did)
dont come here chest-puffed up preaching that wow used to be hardcore, because from day 1 wow had a lot of commodities that made it WAY EASIER than every other MMO in the market. Soulbound gear, instanced bosses, honor-gear, "safe-zones" where oposing players cant hurt you, PVE realms, Faction protection (Only people of the oposite faction can hurt you, in Lineage II and other MMOs EVERY PLAYER (even from your own guild) could gank you) mounts (in most other MMOs at the time you had to WALK, no mounts at all) and so many other stuff to make your life easier.
I don't get your mentality...your bashing WoW on it's difficulty ..praising Lineage...but you play WoW? Was Lineage to tough for you? The game you describe doesn't even sound fun...sounds like a population of scumbags trying to screw each other....yeah those sure sound like the people I want to spend my precious hours with.
Your the one pounding your chest what a "REAL" MMO should be like and it's embarrassing.
Post by
Rankkor
I don't get your mentality...your bashing WoW on it's difficulty ..praising Lineage...but you play WoW? Was Lineage to tough for you? The game you describe doesn't even sound fun...sounds like a population of scumbags trying to screw each other....yeah those sure sound like the people I want to spend my precious hours with.
Your the one pounding your chest what a "REAL" MMO should be like and it's embarrassing.
ohh no, I'm not bashing wow's difficulty, I'm simply saying this game was never hardcore not even in vanilla. Back in vanilla it was more time-consuming perhaps but not hardcore. And yes, there was once upon a time when lineage WAS better than wow (Back when wow was in vanilla actually, wow became just as good as lineage on TBC, and flat-out WAY BETTER as of WOTLK onwards) Notice that AT NO POINT in that post I said wow "should" be like the asian MMOs. I said that wow was not hardcore. Simple as that. you're the one who said I wish it was harder (I dont, I like wow's difficulty as it is)
I didn't left lineage because it was too tough, the reasons are far too complex to explain in this post (maybe I would make a post about it on off-topic, but meh, what's the point, what's done is done, let the past in the past) And lineage despite its VERY HARDCORE difficulty WAS a fun game (Much more strategy-driven than wow believe it or not). If I left it is because the changes made to it were too radical, I was no longer happy about it, the difficulty remained hard, but the sweet fun at endgame was over, so rather than make a scene, and type long-winded posts in the official forums about how the devs dont care I just walked away.
The sport example was to counter those people who seem to tell someone like the OP to just walk away. "It's just a game" and other quotes like that. I was just saying it's ok to be passionate about this game. Oh and by the way the Red Soxs.=sucks.
like this.
Its ok to be passionate about a sport, but if your favorite team is suddenly disbanded, (or replaced entirely by a bunch of morons) what's so wrong about still being a fan of said sport, but supporting a new team? This is what I did, I love MMOs, I used to love Lineage, when the game was no longer fun, I just moved from one MMO to another (Namely wow) with no regrets.
and about the soxs, I wound't know about that, I'm a soccer fan :P (Real Madrid FTW)
Now as for your opening about contraceptives and demographics....not sure what you were doing when you though that one up and maybe I don't want to know, but I'm guessing you were talking to Lucy in the sky with her diamonds.
=/ I think I may have gotten a bit offtopic there, but yes, that was to emphatize my point that there are more kids and teenagers these days than adults and elderly combined, so its only natural that game companies try to please the larger demographics. At least in Venezuela (my country) acording to the most recent census, there's over 20 teenagers for every 1 adult.
So, your "key" to success in an mmo (trying to please the adult crowd) kinda doesn't meshes with the business model most corporations use today. Kids outnumber adults (In several countriess 10 to 1) so natturally, they get a priority. We older geezers must either suck it up, move to something else, or just adapt. I adapted to the sudden drop in difficulty when moving from Lineage to Wow just fine.
ohh and by-the-by I never said Wow should be like Lineage 2 (or korean MMOs in general) PERISH THE TOUGHT, but that being said, some gameplay features of lineage would had been awesome in wow (Such as the cursed weapons, castle-sieges, land ownership, coliseum battles, pet taming, and an art team capable of designing weapons and armor that dont look like complete and utter sh1t, but rather look cool, ya know, like
like this
or
this
)
(pst, that's a glimpse of how Weapons and Armor look in lineage, as well as more detailed realistic character models, see the contrast to the cartoonish, clownish character/armor design of wow? where only 1 every 20th set of armor actually looks nice? I gotta say, wow outshines lineage in almost every single way, but as far as gear design, lineage beats the crap out of most MMOs)
Post by
lonewarrior
As for my key to success...In my guild that I started in Jan of 2008 at it's peak was almost all adults. They out numbers teens by at least 3 to 1. But my young players were wonderful people and added to the mix of the guild. I am familiar with 3 other guilds that have and 18+ over age policy and one that has a 29+ over age policy to join. They have been around for years and are the one or two remaining guilds from when I first started playing. They are absorbing just about the last remaining adults who can no longer sustain a similar type guild and who don't want to listen to the rants of kiddies.
While the kiddies come and go with each raid wipe the adult minded player provides longevity.
I think that speaks volume on who they should be courting as customers.
My points was/is because Activision chose to take WoW down a more simplistic path that sought out the younger/less mature crowd(xbox crowd) that they are now suffering their Sub losses.
It's the adults that pay the bills and who have longevity as a customer. The base may be smaller..but you can count on them not to disappear every time a new version of an Xbox game is released.
Like in the article I posted...the author noted that in truth the sub numbers Actiblizz were posting for the last couple of years were probably bogus.
As for Lineage and your Asian mmo's...what you say may be true...but to demean someone who posted about WoW's difficulty was uncalled for. To that person(or myself) who may not have experienced those other games...the point of reference can only be WoW....so to bring up those other MMO's in comparison is pointless.
I'm sure having a jock-strap full of thumb tacks or having drug crazed monkeys tearing at your flesh do make the Asian MMO's extremely difficult to play, but they only have relevance to some one who has played them.
PS. AC Milan>Real Madrid :)
Post by
lankybrit
PS. AC Milan>Real Madrid :)
P.S. Man Utd > AC Milan > Real Madrid :)
Cheers.
Post by
517094
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Rankkor
While the kiddies come and go with each raid wipe the adult minded player provides longevity.
I think that speaks volume on who they should be courting as customers.
look, believe it or not, I "somewhat" agree with you, but corporations dont. They don't care much if you stay or not, they see that kids outnumber adults, and thus try to apease them, not us. If the kids leave due to their lack of patience (which is completely normal, I was a hot-headed impatient guy when I was a teen) there's more where those came from, and every time they release new content those same kids will come back with their money.
Heck, I've done that too, I took a 4 month break from wow in 2009, then came back when 3.3 was released, then took another 5 month break after I was tired of farming ICC, and came back just a month before cata was released. As long as their clients come back (and the majority that leaves ALLWAYS DO when they add something new) they are happy.
from their business model, this is what they've decided, and there's little say we have in the matter. Lamenting it wont make it go away. Part of being an adult is to know how to keep your cool when things go sour. I for one plan to stay on wow, and the day this game no longer entertains me, I'll just do what I did with Linage 2, I'll just hunt down another MMO that can fill the gap wow will inevitably leave, and move there. From that point onwards is just a matter of adapting. That's it really.
As for Lineage and your Asian mmo's...what you say may be true...but to demean someone who posted about WoW's difficulty was uncalled for.
demean? its not like I insulted the guy ya know? I didn't called him any names, I simply stated that wow has never been hardcore. The fact that him (or you, or anyone else for that matter) haven't played asian MMOs, doesn't change the fact that they exist, and vanilla wow when compared to the other products that rivaled it, was WAY easier than the competition (at the time, the main juggernaughts wow had to conquer when it made its debut were Lineage 2, Silkroad, and MU online in north america, Ragnarok online and MU online in latin america).
So I just reminded him that wow has never EVER been hardcore, just time-consuming at best, but certainly giving from day 1 a lot of commodities other MMO's didnt.
that's not demeaning or berating as far as I'm concerned.
PS. AC Milan>Real Madrid :)
ohhh *bleep* you >=( real madrid > everyone else.
(was only kidding with the censored F word xD)
Post by
856883
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Sweetscot
I actually agree with the statement about the future of wow being if it continues to please the more mature crowd within it (although that doesn't always mean adults lol)
The kiddies will rush in, but they get bored fast and leave again..and usually DON'T come back.
The more mature wow players either stay for very long periods of time, or sub/unsub/resub but overall are a long-term customer.
I don't believe wow can appeal to enough sequential iterations of kiddies to stay in business, while such businesses DO exist, I don't think wow will work within that frame only (currently they have a mix of new kiddies every few years and a long term crowd..I just think the long term crowd provides more income and more STABLE income)
For example there's a pool hall in town, every few years the young crowd changes...always those in 9th-a year or 2 after high school go to hang out there, but eventually people reach the age where they don't mesh so well with the crowd, their friends move on to real clubs in the bigger cities or move off to college or get jobs and don't want to go hang out in a run down building with pay-per-use pool tables.
What the young crowd seldom notices is the handful of older people in the back of the building...that are there almost all day nearly every day. They don't make as much noise, don't seem so "cool", and if you asked the kids they don't make any difference to the owners of the place...boy would they be WRONG. That old but steady crowd is the real driving force behind the business...the kids provide alot of welcome income, but they wouldn't keep the doors open and the rent paid.
So while the owner might bring in some video game rentals or some arcade games if the kiddies seem thin on the ground, they wouldn't make any changes that would upset the older group (like say putting a rebecca black cd in the jukebox) because thats where the real gravy is.
Post by
CoolWind
where did you get the impression i was chest pounding ?
by hardcore i meant time consuming and bit more complex than your average game
you must have bottled up stuff if you take words written on a forum this seriously =)
Post by
25556
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
lonewarrior
demean? its not like I insulted the guy ya know? I didn't called him any names, I simply stated that wow has never been hardcore. The fact that him (or you, or anyone else for that matter) haven't played asian MMOs, doesn't change the fact that they exist, and vanilla wow when compared to the other products that rivaled it, was WAY easier than the competition (at the time, the main juggernaughts wow had to conquer when it made its debut were Lineage 2, Silkroad, and MU online in north america, Ragnarok online and MU online in latin america).
To try and clarify my point..someone who has played those games could post here and say to you
"you must joking"..since those games are easy to him and then go on to mention some obscure underground MMO...that asks for payment in real blood if you fail. It's all relevant to each person's point of view. If you never played that obscure game...how you couldn't have a fair position to comment on it so why bring it up.
Now since you and I and whoever else wants to post, do play WoW..we could debate the difficulties or lack of it there of.
AC Milan>everyone...read it and weep boys :P
Post by
819424
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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