Only a Small But Vocal Minority Actually Loves Hard Core Grinding and Raiding

safespacecadet

Killing, looting, and upgrading gear are the barebones of an mmorpg. Actually, constantly upgrading gear is not even necessary in an mmorpg, depending on the design. In the real world, there are limits to the quality of equipment. Even in the fantasy worlds of novels, movies, and television shows, there are limits. If any developer, investor, or corporate executive involved with creating or marketing mmorpgs wants to know why a lot of games have trouble maintaining their player base, here is your answer. MMORPGs can and should offer a lot more. With today's technology, there's no reason why they can't.

I still play Neverwinter for three reasons: I like the Forgotten Realms setting, it is free-to-play, and the action combat is the most fun out of all the other mmorpgs I've tried. And I have tried every popular mmorpg out there except for Elder Scrolls Online. However, if this was pay-to-play, I would not play it. (Though I did pay $170-180 during the course of my playing this game, I can't see myself paying any more.) I've already quit five or six times over the last three years. I have a few goals I want to accomplish right now, but I have no interest in ever obtaining all the best gear and enchantments available. I don't have that kind of patience or stamina. Especially since all I'll be able to do if I got all that is do everything I can do now faster and easier. Maybe get asked to run more difficult dungeons. Doesn't seem like that great of a reward for all the time and/or money I would need to invest.

So, the answer to all the problems with the mmorpg market today is that the basic design of themepark endgames is totally flawed. I believe that a lot of people, including myself, play certain games just because everything else is just as bad or worse in comparison. It doesn't mean the games they play are actually great. Just better than watching TV.

EDIT: If you only invite long-term players to playtest your new modules and expansions, you will not get a realistic appraisal of how well the mmorpg community at large will receive it. The sort of people who play and keep playing mmorpgs from beta/alpha without a break are the ones that like grinding and raiding. I think. The only way to get realistic reviews of new mmorpgs and new expansions is to pay people to test them. Would probably even be a good idea to hire a portion of play-testers from a larger pool, as in people who aren't hard-core players of mmorpgs.

There are a lot more people who play video games than those who play mmorpgs or who only play mmorpgs. In order to expand the market for mmorpgs, mmorpgs must offer more and better things than they are offering now. This does not mean dumbing-down everything for the lowest common denominator. This means including more things for people to do besides killing, looting, exploring, crafting, and questing. As the Earth is only real world we know, we must say that all real world systems are based on the fact that people are mortal need to certain things to survive. Food, water, clothing, and shelter. Thus all politics, economics, social structures, and basically everything else in society are based on these fundamentals. In order to create a virtual world that will engage and interest a larger portion of gamers and society at large, mmorpgs must become more realistic. Someone may not enjoy killing monsters for hours, but they may enjoy planting crops and harvesting them. Someone might not enjoy forging weapons in a smithy, but they may enjoy building or repairing homes or fortifications. Another person may not enjoy wandering around in a dangerous wilderness by themselves, but they may enjoy organizing a trade caravan in order to sell their wares in a distant town or realm. But the key is, all the activities available for a player to perform in an mmorpg actually need to matter and be able to effect the game world for good or evil. Static worlds that can never be changed no matter how many monster they kill or dungeons they raid will never interest the majority of gamers or people in general.

PVP that is fair, fun, and enjoyable for all is a basic step towards realizing a viable and realistic virtual world. Unlimited or practically unlimited vertical progression in terms of player power will never work for pvp. Some amount of vertical progression for combat skills and powers may be employed, but it should be more realistic and less time consuming. There are all kinds of progression in the real world that have nothing to do with combat prowess. For example, promoting the survival and increasing the prosperity of individual families and nations have been important throughout human history. There are also things like social status, political rank, and economic status. There are also all manner of non-combat and utility skills which can be brought to play in a mmorpg. But where we have the possibility of progression, we should also have the possibility of regression. Choices can effect us negatively as well as positively.

eldeskal

I definitely remember when I finished the leveling content, and realized that Sharandar (he only mod available at the time) was "repeat these three quests each day"...I stopped playing for a while. Eventually, I found I could have fun trying to master the timing required for CW (back then) so that I could solo anything, or seeing how big of a pull I could make and kill. Or seeing if I could find a way to climb into parts of the terrain that were not intended to be reachable.

That is, I stopped enjoying the game as it was intended to be played, and started finding my own ways to make it fun.

(This is also how I noticed that they added a delay after CW teleport in tyranny. It made me relearn all the muscle memory I had developed in prior years.)

I think this is common amongst old players, and it does support safespacecadet's comments.

On the otherhand, playtest is primarly about finding UI and playability bugs, moreso than it is about testing whether the content is enjoyable, or appropriate for leveling players. E.g., "I can fall through the floor in the new dungeon", or "doesn't drop any rewards" vs. "story is boring" or "is just more 'if it moves kill it' content".

By the time content makes it to playtest, the devs have invested significant amouts of money into making that content, so it's really too late to change it in any substantial way. For reference, to run a development team of 16 people for 6 months costs about $2-3M when you consider facilities, managment, salaries, benefits, etc., at least in the U.S.

bitt3rnightmar3

safespacecadet#3341 said:

EDIT: If you only invite long-term players to playtest your new modules and expansions, you will not get a realistic appraisal of how well the mmorpg community at large will receive it. The sort of people who play and keep playing mmorpgs from beta/alpha without a break are the ones that like grinding and raiding. I think. The only way to get realistic reviews of new mmorpgs and new expansions is to pay people to test them. Would probably even be a good idea to hire a portion of play-testers from a larger pool, as in people who aren't hard-core players of mmorpgs.

I think it's great that neverwinter has a preview shard and invites EVERYONE on PC to test out their content that is yet to be realeased. The last playtest with recruited players in a closed test that I know of (because I was in it) was mod 9.

I agree that if you only invite the elite of a game to test it out you wouldn't get an accurate representation of what the average player thinks. Sure, the company could give some kind of even cosmetic incentive for testing on their preview shard for each mod that might draw in more people to give their opinion. As it is right now- most of the people giving feedback or looking ahead at future content are people who are serious about playing the game. These would be your hardcore grinders and people who know their stuff. Sure- on the one hand it's great that they can have a conversation about specifics to the devs and give them actually facts/mathematical feedback alot better than the average casual player.

I guess the question I'm left with is WHY would someone who doesn't play MMORPGs hardcore want to be a playtester of a game they rarely play or don't play at a hard level? Would a company really be better served by hiring people who aren't experienced players to play a game and tell them what's wrong or how it could be fixed?

I don't think I qualify as a hardcore player of this game~ but according to you since I've been here from the beginning and have completed everything they have ever put out multiple times on multiple characters I would be considered such?

chemjeff

bitt3rnightmar3 said:

Would a company really be better served by hiring people who aren't experienced players to play a game and tell them what's wrong or how it could be fixed?

YES. The experienced crowd takes a number of implicit assumptions into consideration when evaluating content. The new players have fewer of these assumptions and can give an evaluation that is less contaminated by them.

For example, if you wanted to know if the refining system is confusing or not, don't ask an experienced player who has seen it evolve since it was first introduced. Ask a new player who will give you a more forthright assessment about how it is perceived right now.

safespacecadet

@bitt3rnightmar3 - A lot of people like rpgs who aren't hardcore mmorpg players. There are also more casual mmorpg players than there are hardcore mmorpg players. If they had some sort of financial incentive for testing a game, these people would be more motivated to do so. I've played this game on and off for three years, and a cosmetic item is not going to motivate me to spend my time testing a new module. I've actually never played in alpha/beta or on a preview server for any mmorpg or game ever. As this game is already basically pay-to-win or pay-to-succeed, might as well hand out more valuable things to reward people who report bugs during preview and such. However, in general, I think that providing people with in-game advantages in return for money or testing games is bad for mmorpgs. If the game has any pvp at all anyway. But that's not the point of this thread.

safespacecadet

@eldeskal - I started either at the tail end of mod 3 or at the very beginning of mod 4, not sure which. Leveled a GWF and a TR to 60. I was impressed by the game and had a lot of fun. Actually, this is the last mmorpg I've played that made me feel really excited to play. And I've tried many since. The only popular mmorpg I have not yet tried is ESO. Anyway, I was so sick of grinding from Everquest 2 that I quit after running my TR through Dread Ring and Sharandar for a week. Didn't come back to the game until six months later, when I finally succumbed to the mmorpg bug I had at the time.

bitt3rnightmar3

chemjeff said:

bitt3rnightmar3 said:

Would a company really be better served by hiring people who aren't experienced players to play a game and tell them what's wrong or how it could be fixed?

YES. The experienced crowd takes a number of implicit assumptions into consideration when evaluating content. The new players have fewer of these assumptions and can give an evaluation that is less contaminated by them.

For example, if you wanted to know if the refining system is confusing or not, don't ask an experienced player who has seen it evolve since it was first introduced. Ask a new player who will give you a more forthright assessment about how it is perceived right now.

I see your point I have alot of assumptions about the game and alot of things that I wish would go back to the way it was rather than seeing outside the box sometimes.

safespacecadet

An important point occurred to me. The free-to-play model is part of what holds Neverwinter back from being a better game than it is today. The developers are basically forced to monetize everything they can in order to make enough profit to keep the game running and to provide enough capital to produce new content. At the very least, there will be pressure from the financiers and investors to do so. This isn't just true for Neverwinter, it is true for all free-to-play games. Even though the number of paying players compared to the number of non-paying players is small, free-to-play games make more money than subscription games. Unless, of course, the particular game with a monthly subscription has a very large customer/player base.

Unfortunately, when it comes to free-to-play mmorpgs, a large part of the income is provided by people paying to grind less or to obtain items or services which it is not possible to earn in-game by playing. This means two things. The developers are actually encouraged to create more grind at the expense of making the game more fun. It also means that people who pay will almost always have an advantage over those who do not. And those who pay more will have an advantage over those who pay less. This doesn't matter so much in a purely PVE game, but it matters very much if there is any PVP at all. Of course, in a subscription game as well as a free-to-play game, those who play more or have played longer will generally have a large advantage over those who play less or who have not played as long. Not there's anything wrong with someone who has played a game longer having more acquired skill and knowledge which allows them to play a game better. But it is an issue in pvp when someone can win a match or a battle simply by means of having higher levels or better gear. This has been a fundamental flaw in the pvp present in mmorpgs for twenty years now.

This is all not to say that there aren't any problems with the subscription model. In many cases, developers purposefully designed activities to take a considerable amount of time in order to keep people playing and paying their monthly subscription. The worst offender, of course, is the endgame. Grinding for loot in dungeons and raids in order to increase power. Power with which the player can then only use to raid more or kill other players in pvp. However, I do believe the subscription model is better overall for developers and players alike. (Developers are not as limited by financial considerations -depending on whether the game is good enough to attract enough subscribers to support it- and players are on more of an equal footing with each other. If the game doesn't also allow players to purchase in-game advantages in a cash shop.) I only hope that developers, investors, and corporations will soon realize that themepark mmorpgs with basically pointless endgame grind (such as Everquest, Everquest II and World of Warcraft) are not the only way to make mmorpgs. In my humble opinion, they are far from the best way to make them.