Hyper Noob real or not?

Ok guys I don't normally write on the forums, but its late I can't sleep and I am pondering the game. Firstly I couldn't find any section which exactly fit a topic like this so if I have over looked something a mod can feel free to move the topic. Secondly I want to state before I start this I mean it to be an intellectual discussion. I do not want a troll fest, or an all out argument of one point of view trying to dominate the other and be forced upon someone, just to hear other peoples well thought out and concise opinions in an effort to perhaps tweak my own prospective. Should things sway too far away from this I will abandon the discussion for lack of wanting to be banned on my first topic XD.


Since the first time I began to read about the introduction of these Hyper stones I have heard the term Hyper noob tossed around. I don't want to debate the legitimacy of a player who hypers over a player who doesn't but I will say I see the difference in high level players from when I started to now a lot more mistakes are made etc from my experience. But the plain cold fact is, someone who worked their *** off before these stones is always gonna feel slighted by someone who blows through what they worked hard to do. Meanwhile the person who is doing it wont care they will see it as a quick way to the top, and many will just lie and say they have been playing X number of years thus avoiding the situation entirely unless they stink horribly or someones entirely too nosy. The only people I see breaking even on that argument are those who had gotten to a high level with things how they used to be and found themselves at a loss on how to advance further for them I feel hypers are likely a must. Me myself I like the feeling of knowing I actually played the game put my time in, and knowing I'm not gonna rush to the top and run out of things to do because I love this game. This is not even mentioning the gears which are now much easier to acquire but I am gonna stop that there, and go to the meat of the topic, the things which inevitably lead to this seeming old school vs new school speed vs honest labor imagined or not in almost every aspect of gaming.


First lets start with the old school point of view( or at least mine). I like many people did not grow up in a family that could afford the latest and greatest so i always had the older consoles in fact my good old sega genesis and super nintendo were a staple in my room long after sony debuted the almighty psx. I suppose this gave me the prospective of having experienced many years of game development all in a short span of time. Some of you may be wondering how these old dino consoles relate to an online game, well we have to start with some foundation. Many of the games for these consoles were extremely intricate at least on the game play level offering many hours of game play and even replay ability, I mean how many of you likely beat chrono trigger for instance more than ten times in your life, or for some even play it now, or spent hours learning the combos on mortal combat to the point you knew them by rot to shock or embarrass your friends. Or maybe in my case somehow got hooked on a real classic hidden inside MK and memorized this code for it. C, right,A,left,A,UP, points to anyone who can tell me the Mk game that code goes to and the name of the game it unlocked. But in the Psx era we came to an intersection of these with hits like FF7 Star ocean the second story, Tekken, Tenchu to name a few were these intricate stories met high end graphics for utterly engrossing game play. This my friends was the era when I imagine leaving your console on till it burned up became a real common occurrence. Yet near the end of this era or middle correct my timeline is when this trend really started to take effect in gaming of wanting to get everything easier faster. Sure with Game genie you could make mario fly to the end of all the stages but that got boring real quick. What im talking about is the mentality which lead to the introduction of devices like gameshark , action replay, and their subsequent popularity. I mean having actual control over the game to do what you want. Since those days the argument of weather beating the game without help, or taking a shortcut is better has raged like wildfire.


Flash forward to today I rarely buy a new game, because all I get is high end cinematics and maybe about 8 hours of good game play, unless I want to play a shooter which pretty much all of them seem to play like halo in one way or another now though fanboys of each franchise will tell you otherwise, ive played em all, and fail to see the difference beyond new details due to better technology and marginally better back stories. Of course there are a few exceptions, but for the most part thats how it plays out for me i find the modern generation of games easy and find myself spending more time playing classics. I myself have argued in the passed that the games stink because peoples standards are lower and no one wants to spend the time making a masterpiece someone is gonna **** to death with a cheat device and beat in 8 hours. I have also on occasion gone off on a tangent about how this generation wants everything handed to them in every aspect and it just ruined games.


In this topic though I wanna put all of that aside and dissect both sides to see if I can find the root of things. I am going to lay out one logical set of circumstances and see if others care to expound upon it. Maybe its desensitization, to our generation these things were new and exciting, to this generation they are the norm, they can kid themselves all they want but ours was the hardcore gamer generation. Some of us spent more time with our consoles than we did our girlfriends lol, more intricate content was required to keep us amused because we spent much more time scrutinizing the games and playing them testing their limits. This era shaped our tastes and were always looking for something game changing that pushes the envelope so to speak that is what impresses us. Thus we have this sense that these games are to be admired and part of admiring the game and paying tribute to the work the designers do is not slaughtering that work in five minutes by taking a shortcut. And in that we feel that going through everything as it was meant to be done and seen makes us superior and more classy and even more knowledgeable than the ones who cheat as we say.. I wont budge on that its true damn true BUT the thing we miss is it doesn't matter to this generation it functions on different values for the most part.In this era these games are just that games, the kids grew up with them, they are nothing extraordinary they are just devices to pass the time, and one of many between the internet, and the plethora of other things vying for their attention video games are lucky to have survived at all. With all of this its no wonder they don't have the patients to focus on one thing for too long. Not to mention they just live in a faster world, slow and steady wins the race is becoming out dated a lot of times the hard workers, who don't necessarily do anything else ( meaning network, make friends, KISS ***, what ever you wanna call it, get no were except staying right were they are working hard and turning the gears, so its no wonder the value of doing something the hard way is lost on them. In their world it barely makes sense let alone works. The games can take 8 hours to beat and sure if they somehow lose everything else to do they might beat it and complain, but thats unlikely because they are always being bombarded with new things to do. Games just aren't as relevant to their generation.

Now were mmos strike a delicate balance in this is the fact that they have to keep people playing in the long term to get paid, thus they use a lot of old style thought processes and game devices in the early days of mmos like everquest this was enough to lure the old timer gamers from their consoles into a massive world that gave them the best of both worlds, but of course any good business man will tell you you have to look to the future and while the older demographic will give you a foundation to build on the future is with the kids. Thus that era gave way to faster paced mmos like wow even the once mighty king eq itself gave way to a faster less complicated version. Pw has a very odd balance incorporating elements of both Ill admit it was the older elements which hooked me. But what they cash in on is the I WANT IT NOW mentality the old timers grinding away at their mobs, stacking their coins are butts in the seats for them but they want those younger ones who want the shortcuts its how they get paid. For a while pw was mildly resistant to that trend keeping a balance between the two appeasing both sides, but they have to make their money or no game, and it would make little sense to be stubborn. So the real question to ask is why do we fight over it, is it because were out dated ourselves, and feel left behind, or feel disrespected? Maybe its the new generation fighting to prove its own relevantness in all things.

So to sum my argument up in short, this generation doesn't see these things as cheating or of lesser value, because the games are less relevant only mild amusements and things to fill time, as well as this generation being more oriented on the result than how you get there, while ours valued the whole path taken, and respected the time put in, to them its just someone being slow. Now I am going to forgo the usual speech about the degradation of moral fiber etc and close objectively. I am always going to know in my heart I am a better player, than someone with 30 lvls on me who did it in a quarter of the time, I will always know I am better at my job than someone who went and got a six month degree from an online school for the same thing I do for the time I spent in a real collage. But to me while it does **** me off to be talked down to by someone who's lvl 80 and cant even use all the chat functions correctly, and i might lose my cool on em a few times, its those supposed Hyper Noobs and cheaters that pay for the game over all, and i know my measly contribution is a drop in the bucket by comparison besides its an age old battle between old and new, we wont win it time will win it for em, and big business knowns it. So me I will continue to do my old outdated grind fest go through my quests enjoy the content etc and reap my hours and hours years of good gameplay out of the game, long after the people who wizz by me have quit and gotten bored, and be thankful for their contribution to my good time. In fact ill tell them right here thank you for paying so a dinosaur like me can play, don't see the point of how you play but lets agree to disagree eh?


In the meantime theres my meager attempt at intellectually explaining and maybe even putting the age old dispute in prospective. I am extremely interested in what others have to say, and think. Note as i said before this is just a thought pool, and I do not wan't a troll fest, nor am I attempting to prove one side over the other I simply stated the side to which I belong, and then attempted to objectively, justify both sides, and I hope those who POSSIBLY post after me assuming you bother to read this mess and join the conversation, will attempt to do the same. Again if it doesn't interest you and dissecting this sort of thing isn't fun for you just don't post that simple no flaming.