I do recall that study talking about how there was a significant correlation between playing WoW and depression.
Have they done similar studies for M:TG and addiction? Every Magic player I met in high school was a hard drug user and I'm curious if that's an anomaly or not.
I played FF XIV with the Fast Karate group not super long ago. End of last year I had a hankering for Star Wars (what with the new movie coming up at the time) and played The Old Republic for a bit. TOR is nice because you can just play it as a single player game with occasional coop. If you subscribe too they give you benefits that eliminates the grind too which is nice. I might actually go back and play it some more. The expansion is supposed to be pretty solid.
I also played FFXIV not *too* long ago (< 3yrs). I occasionally hop into Star Trek Online because I bought a lifetime sub waaay back and I'm still half-halfheartedly trying to amortize it.
I just have so much of a backlog of games to play I can't look at a game like that. The closed thing would be trying all the Survival games everyone likes. But those are two grindy for me.
Though I've been feeling going back to Planetside 2 ^_^
World of Warcraft burned all of the enthusiasm for MMOs out of my body.
I love the idea of MMOs - I love the initial period of discovering new zones and mapping out the world in my head. I love tanking and being the bulwark between a cleverly designed boss and the rest of the raid.
But I'm so done with MMOs. That's a five-year experience I could have exactly once in my life. What I really want is the methadone version that lets me jam on some execution and coordination challenge cooperatively with my friends. Just Shapes and Beats actually comes close, but my ideal version would have tanking and healing ;]
Personal favorite boss has to be Halion Heroic. Twilight Cutter (stack and move) and Twilight Division (spontaneously divide and do Phase 1 and Phase 2 separately, simultaneously, and equally - without dropping zones on top of one another) are so much coordination porn.
Bonus: video of us collecting our loot from non-heroic Arthas in WotLK. This is probably the apex of Blizzard's encounter design in terms of threading the needle between casual/hardcore. I am the bear that pulls Arthas.
Going through these old videos is like reading my high school year book. Such fond memories, I'm glad I'm never going back.
But if you handed me my character, set the whole raid at the entrance of Icecrown Citadel, and said "let's do it again for fun" I'd totally do it. I just don't want to have to deal with any of the busywork surrounding the raid encounters.
It's funny with you kids talking about the raids. Those came later, and were not a part of almost any MMO up to that point. MMOs were, for the longest time, just the grind plus quests plus PVP.
That seemed to be the only part of WoW worth doing (maybe also PvP) from many people I know who played that game obsessively. I might have liked them, but I never had the patience to get up to that point.
I also played Neverwinter Nights. It is so far removed from what anyone would recognize as an "MMORPG" today that even then people considered Meridian 59, The Realm, etc... to be an entirely new genre.
So... any of you kids still play WoW or a WoW-like game?
Kind of? I mean, maybe the closest two are Star Trek Online and The Secret World, but neither of them are very WOW-like, except in a very abstract sense.
Especially Secret World, which seems to take maybe 70-80% of what WOW does, and says "Okay, let's do the opposite of that." Picking a character class? Fuck that, let's have every skill and weapon available to everybody. Different realms, and then having to move over to play with friends in the wrong realm? Fuck that, everybody can play with everybody, server choice is almost entirely arbitrary. Gear influences what you look like? Nah, let's have a huge catalog of fashion items instead, and gear either has no visual component, or at least, none that can't be toggled or modified. Large amounts of people everywhere? Fuck that! Let's instance people into much smaller virtual shards, to maintain some atmosphere.
My friends got me into Guild Wars 2, which holds most of my MMO desires at bay, since it's buy-once-play-forever. So whenever I get the grinding itch, I boot it up, go wild for a few days, then go back to more productive things, relatively guilt-free.
See, if WoW was the game that Rym described: grind, do quests, have some pvp, I guess. Then it'd be terrible. Unfortunately most long time wow players agree that the game doesn't begin until max level when all the stuff you describe is over.
The real game is cooperating with friends to accomplish shared goals. Some of that is grinding, sure and to compete on the world stage, it's a 40 hour a week job all on its own. I did that at RIT for a bit, those were dark days.
I don't play any more but apparently a bunch of my coworkers are going to play again for the new expansion. They're trying to get me to join because I let slip that I used to be in top 100 guild (Illumaniti - Mannoroth), which was top 5 in the world in it's heyday I'm debating helping them out for a bit. They're good people.
Basically a social time sink, think facebook that costs way more and has better graphics.
So... any of you kids still play WoW or a WoW-like game?
Still subscribed. Toyed with the Legion beta, but not actively involved. It's hard to find time to play when you've got kids (who aren't themselves old enough to play, that is). The game has changed a hell of a lot, but it's always been different than I think you two have assumed.
The Grind was a very interesting show. I think you're finally realizing the role that grinding can play. It's a mechanic--like any, it can be used for good or ill.
Take the scenario you described: a low-level player encounters a high-level player. The latter, having invested more time in the game, hopelessly overpowers the former, regardless of skill.
Now, I'll put aside the fact that this scenario is laughably out of date as of 2004. As someone who's been ganked at the northeast gate of Leinster, and at various jumpgates in low-sec space, I know what you're talking about. It was a frustrating aspect of early MMOs, and one of the things WoW put to bed for good. PvE servers just don't have that kind of thing happen. Non-level-matched PvP is not a thing in modern MMOs, and hasn't been for well over a decade.
But what if you wanted it to be?
As you said, in a world of skill-based games with perfect match-making, you would win exactly 50% of games. That would be boring. One possible purpose of games is to determine who is the most skilled--eSports are good at that--but that isn't their only purpose, nor even their primary purpose. If you were the best golfer in the world, or tennis player, or swordsman, or what-have-you, would you abstain from your craft all year long, except for the one or two world championships that could remotely challenge you?
I don't play on PvP servers, but I imagine a big part of the draw is exactly the scenario you describe. You're out there, leveling up, minding your own business, when out of nowhere comes another player, twice your level. You're hopelessly overmatched. He's clearly spent more time making numbers go up than you have. You're doomed, right?
Well, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you've been playing this for a decade and he's been at it for three hours. Maybe you'd like to prove that the skills you've accumulated over that time trump even the overwhelming math his character can throw at you. In a straight-up fight, you would trash him and everyone who looks like him. Only this scenario offers even a hope of challenge.
The reality of modern MMOs is that grinding is a thing of the past. As of 2004, the chief abilities tested by an MMO are whether or not you can organize (or at least participate in) a large effort by 10-40 people, whether or not you can master your class (non-trivial, but hardly rocket science), and whether or not you can figure out when or when not to stand in fire. The former is the most important, for endgame content is the yardstick by which all MMOs are measured--it's the reason WoW survived and all the others failed--and leveling up is a completely insignificant part of the experience (a regrettable loss, perhaps, but that's another discussion).
Being multiplayer is orthagonal to grindiness. At my guild's peak, I played for 3-4 hours per week at most, while raid leading heroic 10-mans in a top-10 progression guild (translation: uber-leetness). "Work smarter, not harder" applies to MMOs too.
Hopefully, if nothing else, it's become clear that there's more to grinding than "making numbers go up". Game theory is complex--it's a beautiful marriage of mathematics and human psychology, after all--and sometimes, like any great science, the findings it produces are counter-intuitive. Any game mechanic can be used for good or ill, as you say.
World of Warcraft burned all of the enthusiasm for MMOs out of my body.
I love the idea of MMOs - I love the initial period of discovering new zones and mapping out the world in my head. I love tanking and being the bulwark between a cleverly designed boss and the rest of the raid.
But I'm so done with MMOs. That's a five-year experience I could have exactly once in my life. What I really want is the methadone version that lets me jam on some execution and coordination challenge cooperatively with my friends. Just Shapes and Beats actually comes close, but my ideal version would have tanking and healing ;]
Personal favorite boss has to be Halion Heroic. Twilight Cutter (stack and move) and Twilight Division (spontaneously divide and do Phase 1 and Phase 2 separately, simultaneously, and equally - without dropping zones on top of one another) are so much coordination porn.
Bonus: video of us collecting our loot from non-heroic Arthas in WotLK. This is probably the apex of Blizzard's encounter design in terms of threading the needle between casual/hardcore. I am the bear that pulls Arthas.
Finding someone who actually liked Halion should be like the last phase of completing the WoW equivalent of an EGOT. I raided that pink SOB once and LOLed my way out of there.
100% onboard with WotLK as peak encounter design, though I lean toward Ulduar and less ICC.
Somewhere, in one of these WoW discussions, Scott asks (to paraphrase) "if WoW is all about socialization, why not just jump on a forum or chat room with said friends?". I think your post nails it. I can chat with friends on a forum, sure. But I can't stand between them and the fricking Lich King. I can't save 24 people from the brink of death with a well-timed Tranquility. You might just as well ask "why play D&D / Burning Wheel / Carcassone / whateverthefuck with your friends at PAX Prime when you can just sit around discussing the weather?"
I don't know, Scott, maybe because I'm a giant nerd? ;-P
Comments
5. A religious fat wow player?
Crazy.
Haven't even thought about the game in years.
Though I've been feeling going back to Planetside 2 ^_^
I love the idea of MMOs - I love the initial period of discovering new zones and mapping out the world in my head. I love tanking and being the bulwark between a cleverly designed boss and the rest of the raid.
But I'm so done with MMOs. That's a five-year experience I could have exactly once in my life. What I really want is the methadone version that lets me jam on some execution and coordination challenge cooperatively with my friends. Just Shapes and Beats actually comes close, but my ideal version would have tanking and healing ;]
Personal favorite boss has to be Halion Heroic. Twilight Cutter (stack and move) and Twilight Division (spontaneously divide and do Phase 1 and Phase 2 separately, simultaneously, and equally - without dropping zones on top of one another) are so much coordination porn.
Bonus: video of us collecting our loot from non-heroic Arthas in WotLK. This is probably the apex of Blizzard's encounter design in terms of threading the needle between casual/hardcore. I am the bear that pulls Arthas.
But if you handed me my character, set the whole raid at the entrance of Icecrown Citadel, and said "let's do it again for fun" I'd totally do it. I just don't want to have to deal with any of the busywork surrounding the raid encounters.
Never again.
Meridian 59 was close, but Sierra's The Realm beat it to market.
I was in elementary school when you started this podcast and started listening in middle school.
Especially Secret World, which seems to take maybe 70-80% of what WOW does, and says "Okay, let's do the opposite of that." Picking a character class? Fuck that, let's have every skill and weapon available to everybody. Different realms, and then having to move over to play with friends in the wrong realm? Fuck that, everybody can play with everybody, server choice is almost entirely arbitrary. Gear influences what you look like? Nah, let's have a huge catalog of fashion items instead, and gear either has no visual component, or at least, none that can't be toggled or modified. Large amounts of people everywhere? Fuck that! Let's instance people into much smaller virtual shards, to maintain some atmosphere.
The real game is cooperating with friends to accomplish shared goals. Some of that is grinding, sure and to compete on the world stage, it's a 40 hour a week job all on its own. I did that at RIT for a bit, those were dark days.
I don't play any more but apparently a bunch of my coworkers are going to play again for the new expansion. They're trying to get me to join because I let slip that I used to be in top 100 guild (Illumaniti - Mannoroth), which was top 5 in the world in it's heyday I'm debating helping them out for a bit. They're good people.
Basically a social time sink, think facebook that costs way more and has better graphics.
The Grind was a very interesting show. I think you're finally realizing the role that grinding can play. It's a mechanic--like any, it can be used for good or ill.
Take the scenario you described: a low-level player encounters a high-level player. The latter, having invested more time in the game, hopelessly overpowers the former, regardless of skill.
Now, I'll put aside the fact that this scenario is laughably out of date as of 2004. As someone who's been ganked at the northeast gate of Leinster, and at various jumpgates in low-sec space, I know what you're talking about. It was a frustrating aspect of early MMOs, and one of the things WoW put to bed for good. PvE servers just don't have that kind of thing happen. Non-level-matched PvP is not a thing in modern MMOs, and hasn't been for well over a decade.
But what if you wanted it to be?
As you said, in a world of skill-based games with perfect match-making, you would win exactly 50% of games. That would be boring. One possible purpose of games is to determine who is the most skilled--eSports are good at that--but that isn't their only purpose, nor even their primary purpose. If you were the best golfer in the world, or tennis player, or swordsman, or what-have-you, would you abstain from your craft all year long, except for the one or two world championships that could remotely challenge you?
I don't play on PvP servers, but I imagine a big part of the draw is exactly the scenario you describe. You're out there, leveling up, minding your own business, when out of nowhere comes another player, twice your level. You're hopelessly overmatched. He's clearly spent more time making numbers go up than you have. You're doomed, right?
Well, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe you've been playing this for a decade and he's been at it for three hours. Maybe you'd like to prove that the skills you've accumulated over that time trump even the overwhelming math his character can throw at you. In a straight-up fight, you would trash him and everyone who looks like him. Only this scenario offers even a hope of challenge.
The reality of modern MMOs is that grinding is a thing of the past. As of 2004, the chief abilities tested by an MMO are whether or not you can organize (or at least participate in) a large effort by 10-40 people, whether or not you can master your class (non-trivial, but hardly rocket science), and whether or not you can figure out when or when not to stand in fire. The former is the most important, for endgame content is the yardstick by which all MMOs are measured--it's the reason WoW survived and all the others failed--and leveling up is a completely insignificant part of the experience (a regrettable loss, perhaps, but that's another discussion).
Being multiplayer is orthagonal to grindiness. At my guild's peak, I played for 3-4 hours per week at most, while raid leading heroic 10-mans in a top-10 progression guild (translation: uber-leetness). "Work smarter, not harder" applies to MMOs too.
Hopefully, if nothing else, it's become clear that there's more to grinding than "making numbers go up". Game theory is complex--it's a beautiful marriage of mathematics and human psychology, after all--and sometimes, like any great science, the findings it produces are counter-intuitive. Any game mechanic can be used for good or ill, as you say.
It may be time for that WoW podcast after all.
100% onboard with WotLK as peak encounter design, though I lean toward Ulduar and less ICC.
Somewhere, in one of these WoW discussions, Scott asks (to paraphrase) "if WoW is all about socialization, why not just jump on a forum or chat room with said friends?". I think your post nails it. I can chat with friends on a forum, sure. But I can't stand between them and the fricking Lich King. I can't save 24 people from the brink of death with a well-timed Tranquility. You might just as well ask "why play D&D / Burning Wheel / Carcassone / whateverthefuck with your friends at PAX Prime when you can just sit around discussing the weather?"
I don't know, Scott, maybe because I'm a giant nerd? ;-P