Quote (Eep @ Dec 12 2010 04:26am)
Well, time invested certainly is a factor in some of these things, though I don't think time invested actually does a good job separating the casuals and hardcore gamers that much.
(Note: from here on, I am talking about games with the option for PvP)
My reason is this: A casual can play a game for 2 years and over that time span finally get as geared as the guy who played it for 1....
the problem therein lies: Once the grinding is done (assuming a cap)....what next?
Next, logically, comes the skill of the players.
I am a firm believer in skill above everything, personally. If you are good at something, if you can run circles around fools with your strategies and bind work, then that is the peak of gaming.
Just investing an ungodly of amount of time and pressing 2 buttons to win every fight vs less grinded people doesn't necessarily make you a good player.
And IMO, to be hardcore you should be able to invest time AND be a good player. And I don't just mean random knowledge of the game, but skill at controlling your character, dealing with latency, improvising etc.
yeah, but grind isn't only applicable to xp.
once u cap in lvl, u still need gear, and all that extra shiny shit.
in aion (as the most recent example of p2p mmo), once u capped lvl, u still had to worry about money, enchant stones, manastones, and AP/PVP gear - which should never have been made available thru pve, but i digress.
getting all the extra shit is like a 1+ year grind, even more so because they substitute RNG for content.
wanmei had a decent enchant system, where you could risk enchanting (with a +15% chance stone, or nobreakonfail stone) or pay an ungodly amount of gold for a guaranteed +1. something like this reduces the reliance on RNG, but still maintains cost.
i dont think "skill" can count for everything. play a large part sure, but if you're lvl 80 going against some guy who's lvl 140, there's no skill involved that should let you kill that dude. bending lvl/game mechanics to supplement time invested is silly.
shit gear equal level, sure.
Quote (Aydar @ Dec 12 2010 04:18am)
You got it here, that's where I agree with you.
But I will never, ever again mindlessly grind my ass off just to have a little fun.
I wish they'd find some less boring way to actually seperate casuals from organised and devoted to the game people.
I played WAR for sometime after it's release and it was damn good.
You could level up via pvp and that's what I liked the most.
I sort of regret not trying warhammer, but the graphics and b2p just turned me off. i just blew an assload of money on my pc when it released and i cbf paying for the game
always laughed when my friends were telling me of what they did that day ingame.
the fucking bright mage (or w/e they were called) exploit at castle sieges was hilarious.
Quote (Eep @ Dec 12 2010 04:11am)
what brought people was the name, bar none. Blizzard had made a name for themselves up to that point, a big name....and people were ACTUALLY INTERESTED to see what they would release next.
And there do exist, like I said, some good hardcore games. My old clan plays Darkfall online, pretty much the only good hardcore mmo out there.
As for the bold, is it really that funny? Aside from the sects of korean MMO players and Japanese kids scoring 9billion on gradius, the west pretty much defined the idea of hardcore gaming. What other countries had the money to offer prizes for big tournaments and/or feats of insanity?
edit: in the 80's/90's
It certainly wasn't europe, or the middle east. Japan was still in the final stages of recovery from WW2 and China was China...too busy being communist to worry about the entertainment of the people.
edit2: don't quote me on that though...
e: well uh, fuck that last paragraph. that read back stupider than i remember writing it.
but this isnt the 80s, 90s, mmos are prevalent only 2000+, and it doesnt matter who defined it - i was talking about at current times. the last 5 years to now have been, and will continue to be, heavily dominated by the east.
Quote
.you'd be surprised how many people attempt to 'buy skill'
In game shop perks, better equipment, entire characters...
Fact is, you cannot purchase skill. You can purchase an arbitrary amount of virtual items, stat upgrades, etc....but you will never get the hang of not pressing the back key to move away from people...
i wasn't arguing against this, idk why you brought it up.
but i'll happily continue to sell people "skill", as it's v.profitable.
This post was edited by Xenon[KoA] on Dec 11 2010 10:49pm