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Last week, Austin made an article on the current, sorry state of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. Reading this spawned some thought into me as well, as I also have accounts on a lot of MMOs, or have tried out a lot of different MMOs in my time. As Austin said, MMOs have changed over the course of time, and MMOs tend to change over their lifetime as well, as they have to try and change in order to attract new audiences, and/or keep their currently/previous audience playing. For some games this means adding full amounts of content which significantly change the game, for others it just means adding new features or areas that will keep players playing enough for them to have to pay for another month.

World of Warcraft

As shocking as it may seem to the hardcore game playing community out there, I actually do not play, nor do I like World of Warcraft. Of course, that’s not to say that I don’t know a thing or two about the game, as most of my friends play it. It just never hooked me though. And especially with how the game has changed, I don’t think it ever will either. As Austin said in his article, being able to level and get to the content which was once just for higher level players so much faster doesn’t exactly make the game better to play. Unfortunately I understand why Blizzard did such a move. At this point, most people who have heard about the game and aren’t playing it yet have heard from their friends all of the cool stuff that you can obtain in the higher levels. So when one of those people finally get into the game, they’re eager to get to that content sooner than later. In order to keep them hooked sooner, Blizzard just makes it easier for them to get that stuff, and then the player is happy.

In some cases though, they don’t purposely make the game easier for new players, but it just happens, at least, to the best of the consumer’s knowledge. That being said, I look towards Guild Wars, which technically is actually a CORPG, or Competitive Online Role-Playing Game, which is a term that was actually coined by ArenaNet, the developer of Guild Wars, themselves. To continue on Austin’s train of thought, with each campaign that was released, they added some sort of new feature which made the games easier to complete, and since each expansion campaign just adds to the map more or less, you can travel back to the original games with those features and be even more powerful than before. In the biggest case, the feature was called Heroes, which were customizable AI players which fought with you. I played Guild Wars on Day One, and it was awesome how people worked together to get through missions, and using the original AI players that you could add called Henchman was a challenge, as they weren’t that powerful. Now with the addition of Heroes, the idea of the game being multiplayer has somewhat gone out the window.

Guild Wars

Now of course, to every rule, there is an exception. Even though we complain about all of these different things which hinders the game in our eyes, there is one game that, at least in my own opinion, has done nothing but improve over the course of their lifetime. That game would be CCP’s own EVE Online. EVE Online is one of those special cases because, honestly, it doesn’t have the kind of user base that these other MMOs have. That doesn’t stop it from being one of the most social and impactful MMOs on the market today. Every expansion that has been released for EVE Online, which is now up to ten plus, is a free expansion. In saying “expansion” though, I don’t mean in the amount of explorable space, but rather, the feature list. Over the course of the past years, EVE Online has not only improved in gameplay, but graphically as well, at an amazing rate. Most MMOs that you see leave their game where it is, and just go for adding content, which, in most cases, is what people want more. And the fact is, EVE does that, but also makes the game look just that much better in the process. It’s amazing what they’ve done with their game, and this is why I play it. And of course, it’s hard. Not TOO hard, but it’s difficult. There is no easy button in EVE, even for new players, which is half of the reason why is chases most new players away.

There are tons of MMOs out there, more than what one person could play at a time. Using Austin as an example though, you can still play multiple MMOs with only paying one subscription fee by hopping. And that seems, in the cases listed, that it might be the best idea. After time, people become bored with a game, especially one that they have to play for an extended period of time in order to get further in it. But when it comes to the developers’ choices in order to make the game more appealing, both for new players and for previous players, some of them could be better. Making the game easier may work for some people, but for others, we are just looking for more content, or improved features upon what the game already has.

EVE Online

Now of course, on the flip side, there are times when the developers DO make the game harder for players, which brings in the idea of “nerfing”, or changing what an ability does to not make it impossibly overpowered in many cases. Unfortunately, this doesn’t help make the player base exactly happy, although nine times out of ten it’s just the players complaining because they have to choose a new strategy to be able to beat a boss, or a certain area, etc. There are a ton of MMOs out there, and they are run differently in one way or another, yet at the same time, in some way, they all are run similar, as MMOs must follow a certain progression style in order to attract peoples’ attentions. Finding the right one for you, that doesn’t feel like it’s insulting your intelligence with how easy it is, but isn’t making you want to throw your computer out of a window with how hard it is, is the ultimate challenge of the MMO player.

Again Internet reference. Internets to you for laughing at it :D

So, MMORPGs. We love them, we hate them, we spend days on them, there have been GIANT studies on how they are destroying the lives of children in the world. I am a big fan of these games personally. I really enjoy playing them. Yes I said “them”. I have accounts for the following MMOs: Guild Wars, World of Warcraft, EVE Online, Star Wars Galaxies and Champions Online. Now you are probably wondering, “Wait a minute there Mr. Jennings, you have four games listed there, that cost 15 bucks a month, at least! How are you playing all of them at the same time!?” That is a valid question, and the answer is, I don’t pay for them all. I jump around. Currently my EVE is active, and my Galaxies is active. That’s it. I like to keep my options because to be honest, I jump around. I will probably NEVER have a level 80 UBER Shaman in WoW, the main reason being I haven’t bought Burning Crusade or WOTLK. It is SO not the games fault either. I am the biggest ADD gamer ever. I will be in the middle of a boss fight in… Metroid Prime we will say, and I will turn it off to go play something else, because I get reminded of something in another game so I go play it. This is what I do with MMOs. I’ll keep a subscription going for a few months, then just let it expire, and go off to another game.

This frustrates my guild mates sometimes LET ME TELL YOU! So yes now to get to the point of this wonderful little editorial. MMOs are getting too easy, with the exception of EVE, and it’s not that it’s hard, it’s just deep. I have friends in all the games I play that have been around for years, and I have been told countless times that “vanilla” WoW was something reasonably difficult. It was level 40 before you got something to ride on, and level 60 before you got to get a faster one! These days, you get your basic mount at 20, and your epic at 40 (I am near certain). It very much seems that they rush you through level 1-60 just to get you to the outland so you can have REAL fun. My level 80 friends say that the game gets way more fun in the outland. It’s awesome blah blah blah. Now keep in mind, if you want to go through the dark portal, and ACTUALLY be in outland, you’re dropping at least another $20, just to get Burning Crusade. Plus another $30 if you want to pick up Wrath of the Lich King! So to do some math, your paying $15 a month, plus $20 for BC, plus $30 for WOTLK. And you are not going to get to level 80 in one month. I mean, sure it;s possible… but highly unlikely. There are power leveling sites you can use, but that costs hundreds of dollars, and breaks the WoW EULA. Good luck with THAT.

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (WOTLK)

OK, seems my last paragraph turned into a rant on prices of WoW. It’s still a valid point, but that’s not what I wanted to get at. Money is money. It costs to keep these games running and, with the exception of Guild Wars, they all need a fee to keep running. The reason the money frustrates me in WoW is because they made the original kind of worthless with out the other two expansions. Level 60 is pretty low in the WoW world, and short of the battlegrounds, the chance for you to get ganked ["gank" definition] by a level 80 is huge if you stick to the basic WoW. I have a Warlock on Stormscale, and it’s level 50, or 52, something like that, and most of it I soloed. I mean, I had a few good runs through the Scarlett Monastery, that helped, and a friend who ran me through the Deadmines more times than I can count, but as far as questing goes, I did it all by myself. I have a Shaman on Dentarg, that I have up to level 30… maybe 25, that I soloed. The first 30 levels go by like nothing. And the latter 30, up to where I am at now, have been cake. And people still complain about how slow leveling is. I mean ’scuse me? WTF? It bothered me when I was in a city and folks were whining that with the newest patch they actually made a few things HARDER. Oh noez, you actually have to get geared and take on Onixya with a reasonable amount of skill. WOE IS ME!!!!!!1!1!1!!!!!!!!1111! Lame.

The other game I play that has gotten stupid easy is Star Wars Galaxies. I started playing it back in 2006 and I loved it. I could have my own ship fly out bust some ties (Rebellion FTW) and it was easy when I started. There is a quest line that took me all the way to level 60. I mean it was one long aspirations quest, but still one quest group. Now the space is still challenging, you have to gear your own fighter go into space, fly patrols, blast ships. It’s awesome. I am now level 75, and most of those levels were achieved doing TADS, in-game lingo, AKA Ten a Days – they are little missions that you take from a terminal, and you go out kill two guys and blow up a flagpole. After the flag is blown up you get somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 thousand credits, and a huge chunk of XP. Enough XP that if you do ten of these missions, you typically get one level, almost two. It’s kinda silly. I mean it really is, with these terminals found the core of recent MMO’s. Run out, kill the NPC, get XP. Get to max level, own the people lower than you. That is what it seems like in WoW and Galaxies. Just blasting your way to max level just to beat on other players. Now I do know that there are RP servers in WoW, I have never personally played on one, but I am sure they stick to their story. Heck, maybe if I want to enjoy it more I should play there…

Star Wars Galaxies

Now then, Guild Wars. I love this game, but I have to say, it has gotten easier with each expansion. The original GW Campaign was tough, and getting skills was a reward for doing well in game. You had to use what you had, or pay to get new skills. It was tough and it was fun. You have to plan your strategy and know what skills will work the best for the NPC enemies you will be fighting. Same goes for PvP, which in this author’s opinion is the best out there. I love the PvP in GW. It is smooth and fun, and very enjoyable. But the later “campaigns” have gotten much easier. I started playing in the Factions game, and it was awesome, I loved it. When I picked up Prophecies, I realized how tough the game used to be. Then Nightfall hit the shelves and man it got EASY. Compared to the first game even it was quick. In Prophecies I am still working on a character that is level 18 or 19, the max level being 20, but in Nightfall, I think I hit 20 within about two weeks. It was fast. and it was much easier. They added in these Hero characters that you can customize, and they also level with you, instead of the “Henchmen” that you used to use in the game. These henchmen were capped at the lowest level you could be to enter the zone, or something like that. You can fully customize the Hero’s right down to the weapons they carry, and its kinda nice I have to admit. Instead of spending time trying to find a group and get people together to go do a boss, OH WAIT IT’S AN MMO!!!!! You are SUPPOSED to get people together and take on bosses! Yes GW tends to lean towards the single player but come on! That game, as all MMOs, are so much more fun when you are playing with others!

And that may be why they are getting faster and faster in moving you to max level. People do not want to work to get a group together of people that do not know each other. It seems that the focus of these games, have become “PVP AT MAX LEVEL” and not work with others towards a common goal. I know that in Guild Wars it seems that the only groups I hear of are ones that are people charging in game money to “Taxi” other players to other cities. I am even guilty of it. I use my Heroes first because I know that I can rely on them. I know that they wont drop out on me in the middle of a fight. Which is probably why people are moving away from player groups unless the ACTUALLY know the player at the other end of the Internet. I understand it. MMOs take a degree of commitment. You have to know going into it that you are going to have to spend some time on it. Which leads me to another point.

EVE Online

People don’t want to devote time to these games. They feel that if they have to pay monthly then they better get the reward right out. No working at your character, no spending months attempting to get to max level. I paid my $14.99, I want my max level! I don’t want to work for it! GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE! That and the plague of Gold farmers and sellers, it’s totally screwing the in-game economy. Players that want instant max level are using their real money to buy in-game items, just to get themselves to the  max fastest. On Stormscale where I keep my Warlock, prices for things are out of whack. I can sell a stack of 20 bronze bars for 20 gold. Thats right folks one gold, for one bar of BRONZE. On other servers the economy is not that crazy. Dentarg, where I keep my Shaman, things are normal. Stuff sells at reasonable prices, and the expensive items are actually good items that you would want to spend some gold on. I hate gold farmers, and sellers. That and they fill my inbox and chat with ads! I hate them. Let me say that again, I. HATE. GOLD. FARMERS. (And ISK farmers, and credit farmers, YOU GET IT.)

Champions Online, I don’t know much about you. I HOPE YOU ARE TAKING LESSONS ON WHAT NOT TO DO.

This also goes for you Star Trek Online. TAKE NOTES, AND DON’T SUCK.

So that’s how I roll. MMORPGs are AWESOME and they can be really fun. Until they get nerfed ["nerf" definition] to hell because of whiny lazy players. That’s the gist of it.

- Austin J.