Guild Wars 2

I have a dream

Where rewards in MMOs are directly proportional to the fun you have. I don’t know how to measure it, maybe a blood pressure usb device, or a bluetooth pill injection. I leave this to the scientists. That ain’t the point as this is more about an utopian MMO, about what a Guild Wars Utopia could be (no pun intended).

Take a hardcore guy. He strings along a raid of 200 people to combat one of the world dragons and downs it. Such a feat is hugely satisfying to a certain kind of people and they get tons of karma and gear for it. However, there’s also a deluded casual in the mix who, through years of playing other MMOs, thinks this is the only way for success although he thoroughly hates it. He will get nothing, and if he persists in this unfun activity, he may even lose levels and gold instead.

Take the man who comes home from work, logs in for 10 minutes and strolls around Southsun Cove before dinner. That’s all he is able to play yet it is exactly what he needs to get his mind off work. He immediately gets his daily rewards and some crafting material to kickstart the next day.

Another guy really likes one particular dungeon, even more so when he has that dungeon on farm. In the end, to some it is really fun to own hard content and hard content becomes even more fun when he can start steamrolling it. This guy gets increasing token rewards the better he gets at said dungeon.

Yet there’s this guy who likes the social aspect most and is rewarded the most for simply standing in LA and reading the chat, posting an occassional comment. The trader guy gets a bonus on every money-making trade he does. On the other hand, the einselganger has increased rewards for doing events in virtually empty zones.

The hardcore pvp’er gets rewards for completely roflstomping other teams, yet casual pvp’er get rewards for enjoying whatever they are doing. A zerg-vs-zerg can be immensely fun even if you wipe. Those who hate pvp on the other hand step into WvW, get map completion instantly and lose gold per second if they stay.

Wouldn’t such a reward system be the most perfect thing in the world? Too bad perfection only exists on paper.

Having fun already is the reward system.

Anyone who is playing a game to “get better rewards” is shorting themselves.

The reward of games is to have fun, not get better items.