I would answer this but it would take way more than 240 characters… OH LOOK A SQUIRREL
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This is super interesting to me. Because I feel like that psychology is contradictory with what a lot of other genres are showing.
As an example. League of Legends is still super popular. And their player base has no problem dumping craploads of time into ranked play over the course of a season (which is like 8 months long) to try and climb to a higher rank than they did last season. So they are obviously capable of setting a long term goal and working at it over time. And in LOL it’s just the same game over and over, you don’t even get gear or any sort of permanent progression. And the only thing you get at the end of the season is a cosmetic to reward you for your efforts.
So in a setting where there is arguably less incentive, people are more OK with the long term investment of effort and with having to party up with randoms. Why do you think MMORPG’s are suffering from not being able to have that same kind of investment (I’ve heard that MMO’s in general are suffering right now)? Why are today’s gamers unable to apply that same kind of principle and commitment to the MMO genre?
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The primary difference is the length of a play session, the logistics to set it up to be able to even play, and the # of people (logistics to organize is exponential with increasing # of variables involved).
Herding cats just gets old, as does spamming trade chat LFM , particularly on an otherwise ‘dead’ server (game lobby).
If the game is fun or rewarding, the threshold for enduring BS goes up, generally speaking.
For those of us that have been there, and done that… it’s lower the 2nd+ time around (this is me, having done that in Vanilla and beyond, and now having less free time, fewer friends playing WoW specifically + less tolerance for BS).
I mean, people getting bored of a game is nothing new and nothing unique to WOW. That’s always going to be a thing.
My question is more along the lines of why can’t this type of game draw in crowds of new players like other games do? I mean while WOW has an unimaginable amount of content if you are looking at if from Vanilla-BFA, the entry level (as in the base line amount of game knowledge required to play and enjoy the game) is way, way lower than a game like LOL.
Think about it, if you didn’t yet have knowledge of what end game was going to look like…You would have so much fun just running around completing quests, upgrading gear, learning your character, etc. Since you haven’t yet experienced end game there is no sense of urgency to get there and begin the high end grind.
The only explanation I can think of is that leveling now is so easy that even brand new players get quickly bored. Which is why I actually think the game direction of being super alt-friendly is a bad idea. Blizz should do like they did in Vanilla-WOTLK and create a breadth and slow progression of content so robust you could easily just play 1 character for the entire xpac if you felt so inclined. If people don’t get bored on their mains, they don’t need to power level alts, and thus leveling doesn’t need to be artificially sped up.
Again, I can’t really see a downside (especially since BC-WOTLK was the peak of sub numbers). So I’m circling back to the explanation that the Activision edition of Blizzard is just not willing to put in the the level of resources it took to create further xpacs like BC and WOTLK. And have thus settled for a much smaller, simple menu of content…and then created a system that forces players to do some of everything, and then spamming reps on their main, followed by power leveling alts to then spam that same wide, but shallow, pool of content to keep themselves occupied.
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I actually think the success of WoW was more in spite of rather than because of Blizzard’s direct efforts. Which isn’t to say that WoW of that era wasn’t good (it was much better than the alternatives!!) but I think WoW’s success surprised even Blizzard and they aren’t even really sure to this day what really made it blow up, other than the popularity of its existing franchises and playerbase (from WC/SC/Diablo).
The conditions in which WoW became hugely popular (which by itself tends to have it’s own gravity and explains some pop growth as there is a lot of bandwagoning that can occur) just no longer exist. That’s why you get a lot of the nostalgia-goggle naysayer posts (of which I have been a part from time to time) about why people would even want Classic. You just can’t recreate those factors and expect to resurrect vast numbers of subs. We really can’t ever go home again. It’s not only the gameplay, although the gameplay is what most on this forum care about (see- #nochanges!!!).
For me back then, what pulled me over from EQ and DAoC (both of which I played with the same offline guild) to WoW was specifically that I could do things by myself when a critical mass of people wasn’t online (that and the first time I charged a boar as a warrior in Mulgore). WoW was like EQ with all the parts I didn’t like for the most part removed, and one of those was that I literally could not do anything meaningful in EQ as a warrior without a group. I’d log in and ask in guild, ‘so… what are people doing tonight or want to do?’ … crickets, /log off.
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No it wasn’t.
WoW was successful because of how accessible the game was. The majority of players didn’t care about end game in the slightest. The leveling and the ability to do it solo is a key part of why Vanilla was so successful and broke the genre wide open.
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Oh please. Yes there were IF posers. That does not discount those that respected what it took to get certain gear.
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I think a lot of people also don’t understand time commitments in Vanilla to their potential. When you’re in an end-game guild it takes time to do stuff. Everyone knows that. But when you take mastery of the game as a whole and approach it, spending that time when you can to prepare for the end game, the easement is there.
I might spend 4 months ranking to 14, playing an unholy amount of time. I might take a few more months getting BiS gear for raiding. But as people have learned on private servers, the content is downright destroyed when prepared for. Our guilds that speed ran MC and BWL, like Dreamstate, Grizzly, Salad Bakers, Scuba Cops, etc, did so by spending a lot of time in game early on. Making these sacrifices early on led to stuff being easy, and giving you way more time.
Would you rather go through the content uber casual and spend 2 or 3 years to do it? Maybe never attaining your goals or feeling burned out? Or would you rather devour it early, and pave the way for 2 hour ENTIRE raid content clears in 1 night? We got to the point where we worked so hard and played so often early, that we could do MC, BWL, Onyxia, and AQ40, all in under 4 hours total. This opened up so much free time for alts, irl obligations, PvP ranking, etc.
It’s why I really hold speed running and this structure of exclusivity at the top and paramount.
Not everyone will get the time to do the content in that fashion, and it does suck. But life isn’t fair. To diminish a core aspect of a game and relegate it lollipop gameplay serves no one except the uber casual. And as we’ve seen, that destroys the fabric and integrity of the game. Some stuff is meant to take time, because that makes the juice worth the squeeze.
I will allot myself 40 to 50 hours per week to again master content, but I also won’t hold my peers to the same standard. I won’t begrudge or belittle someone or act elite because someone is raising 4 children working for $20/hour. I will do in my own power to help that person out, even if it is chain-pulling a dungeon and leaving them behind to loot mobs while Johnny and Sally scream for dinner.
People view the elitists as such, but there are others who want to do content as efficiently as possible to open up the other wonders that the game has to offer. When you relegate gameplay to this standard that it won’t be doable because you don’t have time, you’re giving up on your dreams. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently spoke to a community about time management and goal expectations. He worked out 5 hours a day after 10 hours of working construction, took acting classes 4 days a week, and set his standards high. It paid it’s dividends as we all know.
I think if people hold themselves accountable and the standard is as it is in Vanilla, you have nowhere to look but at yourself in the mirror. When you budget those working days and feeding kids and do all the things the rest of us do, maybe you will get a bit more time to play WoW, and then galavant around Ironforge or Orgrimmar decked out in purples.
Just food for thought. Strive for success. Even in a game where you’re meant to have fun. Be above the low-hanging fruit. You’re capable. <3
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Amen to all of this. Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well.
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I’d say it’s a compounding issue. Some of it was story content locked behind raids. Then there was population limitations on some servers causing scarcity of tanks. The devs saw only small percentage of players seeing their content and wanted more players to see it.
This ultimately lead to LFR which is currently reviled by most raider. At least the ones that have a guild group to raid with.
Thing is, the idea of LFR isn’t bad; a story mode raid to see the content. Unfortunately, the execution was terrible.
What’s funny is that that FF14 has their own version of LFR and it actually works pretty well and has a fair challenge. Might just be the community is more patient and willing to teach and learn.
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I’ve a sense that around Wrath, as children became the prime demographic of WoW, was when this illusion became widespread.
The illusion is that MORE people/gamers today are instant gratification oriented. That’s a common misimpression every new “old” generation has when looking back on the younger generation, but it’s the same for each generation as it starts to examine the younger one.
There hasn’t really been much of a change in the degree of instant gratification seekers in the American gamer scene, beyond some inevitable drift. But the focus on them has changed drastically. We older gamers now play directly beside the children, watch their gameplay, and read their forum tantrums.
It’s easy and common to mistake what we have just started to see for something that just started to happen.
By the mid 2000s the shift was already under way, and even Vanilla WoW was part of it. It has a lot to do with the average player and the idea of “appealing to a wider audience”.
First it was about breaking down the barrier to entry for new players. A lot of games in the 90s were… really bad for being user friendly, especially RPGs. That’s not to say that they’re bad games, they’re just hard for the average player to get into.
Which is what Vanilla WoW broke with the MMO genre: It was the MMO that the casual could play and feel like they could actually accomplish things. That’s how it was often described in 2004.
Then in TBC Blizzard made raiding easier, with the reason for that being stated that they didn’t like that they put all that effort into Naxxramas only for less than 1% of the playerbase to clear it.
In WotLK Blizzard did another major change: They would now have 2 difficulties of raiding. One for the hardcore, and for the average player.
With Cata they added in the design philosophy of revamping entire systems or classes because they “wanted to keep it feeling fresh” or because they simply didn’t like how it worked.
Since then they’ve just been doubling down on those couple of philosophies: Gutting and revamping systems, and making more things accessible to the average player.
The shift is more so catering to the average player rather than the hardcore player like developers used to. The carrot was never enough for the average player, because the whole point of the carrot is that you want to have it too.
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I agree with you that we disproportionally say that the generation below is all about instant gratification.
BUT…here is the rub for me. I think that in the past 5 years or so game devs have bought into the illusion that the majority of their playerbase do in fact fit that immediate gratification, entitled model. And so have begun pandering to that type of player resulting in vicious cycle and endless spiral of degradation of quality across the board.
The people controlling the direction of the game and what the devs are allowed to plan/execute, they missed the memo that players are not vastly entitled crybabies, it just seems that way because of the increasing ease of communication and visibility of online platforms.
They flat-out said it was. The 5% or so of players seeing endgame content (raids) wasn’t justifying the cost.
You also need to look at social factors that exist outside the game. People say the change for them started in Wrath. Wrath came out in 2008. What happened in 2008? Recession. Getting more bang for your buck became more important, and hasn’t stopped.
There’s also more pressure to “use your time wisely”, with everything from “keeping in touch” with your employment when on vacation, to mobile games and smart phones that can act as a second computer.
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It’s not necessarily an illusion. Wildstar’s core mechanics concept was the old attunement system. That wasn’t enough to keep players.
Players don’t always admit it, but what they want to do and what they can do change over time. The two concepts don’t always go hand-in-hand, either.
Just exclusivity was never good enough, people play video games to have fun. When people stop having fun they stop playing so when a game wants to offer only exclusive content they can expect people to stop playing instead of sitting there playing knowing there’s something they’ll never have.
That certainly doesn’t rule out there being exclusive content in games but there also has to be plenty of inclusive content as well to keep people interested.
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Probably because gaming itself became mainstream. Twenty years ago you were a nerd if you spent a significant amount of your free time hooked into your PC.
Video games today are an established form of entertainment, and thus reflect ideals suited to mass appeal.
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Your telling me the first time you entered a major city and saw someone with sick raiding gear, you didn’t cream your pants and aspire to be like them? Get outta here with that bag full of lies.
Fear. Plain and simple.
The fear of not having. The fear of falling behind. The fear of inequality.
And on and on.
Which leads to revenue loss, which is what companies fear.
Thus, you get a mediocre product because everything is handed to you.
I thought it was the first time you entered a major city and saw a naked night elf dancing on a mailbox that you creamed your pants.