Journeys with Jaye

Cheese vs. Wootah

Back when I was playing EQ, there was a woman who proudly described her guild as the kind that kills for the “wootah feeling,” as if this somehow made her playstyle more noble than others who might kill for, oh, I don’t know, the loot?!

Don’t get me wrong, as I’ve said before, I love MMOs because I enjoy the whole “team” thing and being a part of individual progress, which makes the guild improve as a whole.  Weird, I know.  Loot, to me, isn’t a status thing, or a representation of self worth, as much as it’s a means to the end – guild progress.

Above:  New Tunaria in EQ2.  Gorgeous zone, zero players.

Syncaine wrote a good piece lately about how Warhammer would be a better game if there were less content, since that would prevent the population from spreading out so much that RvR suffers.  But he also criticizes the casual player, saying that they have a “sheep mentality,” not sophisticated enough to “get” the game.  In comparison, he says that beta players stuck more to the “vision” of the game, and (apparently) because of their knowledge and expertise, they played the game the way it was intended and didn’t grind scenarios like the current live population does.

The beta observation is interesting, because it brings up a good question about the value of the beta testing process.  But I’m not sure we can conclude that beta players played the game the “right way” because they are more sophisticated (and “right” is debatable but that’s a whole other blog entry).  They most likely played that way because A) they took their beta job seriously and tried to test the content as thoroughly as possible or B) they didn’t grind scenarios because it “didn’t count,” meaning that since there would be a server wipe at the end, they didn’t worry so much about racing to the level cap and gearing up.  I’m also going to assume there were some beta buff opportunities, so some beta players probably got to skip the level grind entirely, meaning scenario grinding wouldn’t have been an issue.

I’d be willing to wager that a lot of beta players are queuing up right behind the “sheep casuals” right now.  Any time that you have a game with a structured level path, and you have a reward based game with the best rewards at the end of the line, people are going to take the path of least resistance to get there.  Killing for the wootah feeling is fun like once, maybe.  But as soon as that rush is over, and you look around and realize that in the time it took you to attain it, everyone else got 10 levels, 3 supahsweet pieces of gear, and can now kick your butt 10 times over (or they’re a friend of yours and now can’t group with you because you’re too far behind), that wootah feeling evaporates pretty quickly.

At the risk of using a tired analogy, it’s like the mouse in the maze.  On one side of the maze is a glowing rainbow flower that twirls, spits glitter, and sings the best of Mylie Cyrus 24/7.  On the other side is a plain, yellow, hunk of cheese.  The mouse might bump into that flower and pause a second, having his “wootah” moment and wondering why the heck the flower sings Mylie Cyrus, but then he’s gonna go back to studying the path and grinding his way to the cheese.

So that’s why everyone right now is grinding scenarios in Warhammer.  It’s why people would form lists in lower guk and wait for hours to get a chance at one of the camps in EQ, even though there were tons of other good dungeons around.  It’s why no one groups to get to the level cap in WoW.  Heck, I think there are tons of wootah moments in Vanguard, but no one stuck around to find out.  And in a few weeks, as Tipa pointed out recently, it might be why the bulk of the EQ2 population will run the same 2 or 3 replayable dungeons in the Shadow Odyssey expansion, despite the fact that there will be about 15 to choose from.

That’s not the players fault.  Give us some cheese that is shaped like a glowing rainbow flower that spits glitter and sings Mylie Cyrus, and maybe we’ll stop our rut-like tendencies.

Posted by jayernh under Archive | Comments (6)

More Proof that Leveling is Archaic

I invited four new people into Revelry and Honor this past week.  All three seem very laid back, eager to be part of things, and fun to play with.  Thanks to things like writs and heritage quests in EQ2, they can all contribute towards leveling the guild, which brings nice perks to all members.  But they are level 32, 21,21, and 15, so it will likely be months before they are directly able to group with the bulk of the guild on a regular basis.  Sure, there is mentoring in EQ2, and many members in our guild also love to play alts, but those things fall far short from making the linear, railroad track of a leveling system acceptable.

Above:  Killing sarnaks in Chardok.

I’ve said before that I think Warhammer made some nice inroads to making grouping easier.  Public quests removed many of the typical hurdles – group limits, people being on different quest steps, the need for a balanced group that revolved around the holy trinity, etc.  But they still didn’t address the biggest one, which is levels.

So now that Warhammer has been out for a few weeks, we’re already starting to see threads from people complaining about the low level areas and scenarios being deserted.  Warhammer Alliance, Ten Ton Hammer, Gamespot, and The Greenskin, to name just a few, all contained threads discussing the topic.  The queue system just compounds the problem, because it will prevent new players from being evenly distributed across the servers.  Slow levelers are already finding things a bit sparse.  It seems that PvP servers are arguably worse when it comes to the level chasm, since high levels get turned into chickens when they enter lower level areas.  So on the odd chance that a low level player actually crosses paths with a higher level, it’ll be no different than running through Farmer McFarmer’s Farm and scurrying through the NPC livestock.  While that is an unbelieveable thrill for my 4 year old daughter, it’s not so much for the average gamer.

Above:  No, I don’t look like a mushroom, why would you say that?

WoW and EQ2 both have repeatedly streamlined the leveling process, and the path from 1 to the level cap is now much faster than it used to be.  EQ2 is about to speed things up even more with their next Game Update, and WoW created a leveling superhighway with their recent Recruit-A-Friend promotion.  The message is that leveling isn’t a journey anymore, at least for these games.  It’s a barrier that keeps new players and slow levelers from interacting with the bulk of the population.  It’s a good move to speed things up, but ultimately it’s a band-aid solution for the real problem.

What strikes me is that tons of time and resources go into creating and polishing all this lower level content, and it’s pushing daisies after only a week or two.  I mentioned this on a recent Shut Up We’re Talking, but if I logged into Age of Conan today, I’ve already missed the opportunity to see robust populations in the lower level areas.  Apparently, the same is now true for Warhammer.

It’s not glitzy or flashy, but the most innovative game feature is the ability for people to play together and both make progress, regardless of how much ass-time they’ve clocked on the old exp meter.  Please, Tunare, make it happen!

Posted by jayernh under Archive | Comments (9)