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Originally Posted by Daywolf
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Yeah, that can eat up a lot of your time. We started a guild in UO some years ago, and after a year the leader decided to step down. So we elected this guy that was a medical doctor hah, and a co-leader (two in charge). I guess he was not into golf lol So spent his free time playing mmo's instead.
I never really gave any attention to time consumption, I mean other than raids that can be time consuming. Be it a game like this or another that is "casual", people still spend as much time playing for the most part.
It's just the lure of faster rewards and quicker progression for casual games, where as something like classic EQ that comes much slower which is irritating for some people. But this is a long-term game, not something to put away in a few months. A lot of the casual mmo's suffer, because after a few months there is nothing left to do but maybe wait for the next expansion, so they look for other games to fill their time.
So as far as for finding people that play casual or less time dedicated, that is pretty normal I think. I mean just like in casual games, the power-gamers (as the game makes them all to be) hit the cap and fade away, while the long-term players keep going along for years, week after week. But here you have mostly people that played EQ on live for years, not really hopping from one game to the next, and specifically here in the emu's for a play-style that can't be found anyplace else any longer. So yeah, plenty of people here that are not power-gamers.
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(bolded text) Not true for people who play less than 10 hours per week. For them it will take a full expansion cycle to progress. Someone who can play 30 hours per week will probably get it done in a 3rd of the time or more, but that's because the game was not made for them. Games that're made for people who play less than 10 hours per week will work on similar time scales. Just because you play greater than 15 hours per week does not mean expansion cycles will be longer. For example, if the game has 70 levels, and player A has 10 hours per week to invest and player B has 20 hours per week, a game that caters to player B will probably either have a slower level gain or more difficult content. BUT they will both have 6 month expansion cycles (or thereabout).
Now, time to progress is different from difficulty of content, but not always. For instance, if content is more difficult, that will sometimes mean you have to spend more time learning it. Just like a skill. Sometimes it's just memorizing. A hardcore game is inclined to have more details: more skills, bigger maps, more stats and more mobs. And all of it has to be memorized which means you need to invest more time. Difficulty does not always mean more time. Sometimes content can be standardized so you don't have to learn it everytime you try something new. The phrase, "If you've played one rpg, you've played them all," explains it succinctly. But it will make you think harder. And sometimes it's just plain old IQ. In other words, there's a pattern in the content that you must solve, kind of like a puzzle. So time is not always proportional to difficulty, but it can be.
It's hard to argue, though, that hardcore games shouldn't require more time. Why shouldn't they? The more detail that you add to them, the more time players need to invest. That's just a given, unless they standardize to the point that the game is no longer original, and thusly, no longer enjoyable by a veteran. And the more details there're, the longer it takes you to form an effective strategy. Sometimes there're so may details that it's impossible to respond timely, and that's when a player quits out of frustration. I think I've seen raids like that in eq, but most of the time people quit because of being burned out by the game.
I read this link and mostly agreed:
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cf...297538#3297538
I like to play a game that doesn't attempt to prevent me from failing or making mistakes - game breaking mistakes are the exception. I like to do most things on my own. Just because it takes me 5x longer to level does not matter to me. In fact, I like to level slower because I want to "take in" the environment and the people I meet. It's harder to enjoy it if I am being pushed along by friends or forced by the game to move forward.
Most of the single players games I like are non-linear. They let you do what you want to do.
Games like: Daggerfall (love this one), Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 1/2/3, Frontier: Elite II, etc. The goal of these games is dependent on you. They all have a central plot, but you're free to make your own.
I like to play at the hardest difficulty, or near it, from the beginning, too. Just me.
The question everyone should be asking is not whether hardcore games are legitimately difficult or not time consuming just to be time consuming, but instead whether people should be spending so much time playing a game??? I mean, if it was as good as the matrix movies, how would that be any better? The best example I can think of is WOW. Ok, so there's less downtime, but how is that better? Teenagers play WOW just as much as teenagers played everquest. People still get addicted. So the situation is still the same. How is it better? If anything, it's worse because now we have more adults playing these games and getting stuck on them.
Have a look:
http://www.wowdetox.com/
And:
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualw...urrentPage=all
Quote:
When I rolled my new Paladin, I had to spend the next eight hours planted at my desk, repetitively clicking through the same tasks as if I were an industrial robot making car parts on the Chrysler line. I slaughtered wolves, bears, a few more wolves, some creepy little Kobold humanoids, then -- hey -- some more wolves. I rooted around in their corpses for random junk. (Woo! A candlestick!) Then I did it again. And again. And again. Until 3 a.m., actually.
This is of the most-prodigious mysteries of the gamer soul. Theoretically, we love multiplayer games because they offer a dramatic alternative to our shades-of-beige meatspace lives. They let us cast off our mundane existence and become a colorful, empowered hero. And what do we do with this second life?
We behave like obedient workers in a Soviet collective outside Stalingrad, circa 1971. Comrade, your job is to collect potatoes. For seven years. We pay $20 a month for this privilege.
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At some point, people need to get a message similar to this one:
http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/200...ultimate-game/
What game is better than the game of life? They're just pathetic attempts at mirroring its glory.
We may never shake this flea off our backs. I think the best compromise is a matrix mmo. One that tries to mirror the exact conditions of the real world. The same countries, relationships, history, geography, etc. So that, at least, when people play it, they will learn about real world things. I mean, if we can't stop people from playing games, then lets make them play something that remotely resembles reality.
What would you be in an MMO that's a mirror image of earth, circa 2010?