Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: Burnfall.9573

Burnfall.9573

Hello,

I found this interesting and very sad article i would like to share with you. I feel it is important to address what’s in the article because it is key problem that still exist in guild wars 2;
especially with the wvw server match ups.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/wuv/wuv/Unfair-matchups
“Unfair Match-ups”

I greatly sympathize the new players, non-hardcore player and the guilds; who are still struggling or simply ‘just given up’ because of it.

They are denied entry because they don’t have the best top armors, weapons, runes and sigils. Or, not belonging to a top server/s, guilds or a specific class.

Although we are all valuable players,.

We’ve all seen the depressing messages on the LFG tool;

- ‘no babies allowed’
-‘no newbies allowed’
-‘will kick if you are weak’
-‘only elitists allowed;
-’only heavy d/d zerk allowed’
-‘you die, kick’
-‘no___ class/s allowed’

As the saying goes, “what happens next, tells the true story”


http://spinksville.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/can-hardcore-players-destroy-a-mmo/

“I bet anyone who ever played a massively multiplayer online game has come up against the scenario where you realise that someone you are playing with (or against) is putting way more time, effort, research and social networking into the game than you are.

Maybe it’s That Guy who undercuts all your glyph auctions half a second after you have posted them. Every single time.

Maybe it’s the really powerful and organised alliance who seem to have a zillion players in every timezone.

Maybe it’s The Guy in your raid group (or LFR) who is all geared and tweaked out and times his/her rotation to the millisecond.

It’s easy to feel demoralised if you are competitive and you see a situation where you know you don’t want to put in the time/ money/ effort to compete with that. This is one of the big structural problems with MMOs: how do you have a game where a wide variety of players can all play together without breaking the game? Do you encourage the hardcore players/ guilds to be part of a separate more hardcore endgame? Do you encourage players to play alongside others of similar mindset and give them separate instances  to mess around in?

Gevlon has a good take on this in a post about RMT where he muses that if you let players cash out their earnings from the auction house, it would attract a more professional crowd (note: his opinion of professionals is a bit higher than mine).

What effect would it have on the game? Every market fully covered, leaving no trading income to casual/newbie players, only similar professional traders could compete. The simpler income sources, like doing PvE would be covered by real world corporations using minimal wage labor (after all, ratting can be done by half-illiterates), leaving absolutely no in-game income source to the real players.

He even decided to cut back on his own trading, “giving more space to other players to play in Jita”. This isn’t a case where the hardcore would be destroying the economy, it would still function fine. Just there is a theoretical case where there are enough ultra competitive players to mean that there are no niches left for casuals in that side of the game.

There are other theoretical ways in which the ultra hardcore could push a game into a stasis from which it could never escape. You could imagine a turf holding game where all the turf ends up belonging to a few large alliances who have mutual non aggression pacts.

The only way out would be if the ruling alliances deliberately cut back on their expansionary plans (much like Gevlon describes in his trading) in order to promote a more ‘healthy’ ecosystem in the game. Where ‘healthy’ could mean anything from ‘more welcoming to new players’ to ‘more likely to give us some fun territory fights in the future.’

In a themepark game, this is all largely irrelevant (I think it’s mostly theoretical in most sandboxes too). There simply are fewer parts of the game where players would have this much control that a large powerful guild could simply win the game. But it’s interesting I think to compare with RL – sometimes looking to the long term good of the community might be worth more than going for pure domination.

Have you ever played a game where you felt you or your faction dominated so hard that it wasn’t fun any more, or where you gave up because you felt the hardcore players meant there was no point?"

Advocate of Justice, Liberty and Truth

(edited by Burnfall.9573)

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: Calae.1738

Calae.1738

I think hardcores will be the only market to target for the MMO genre at some point in time.

Casual players can very easily disappear. They’re not as passionate as hardcore players are. They won’t exploit, test new builds, theory craft, manage guilds, create community sites, host tournaments… nothing.

A casual player can very easily swing to a facebook game tomorrow morning and disappear without a trace. Developing a game for this market is very risky.

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: chemiclord.3978

chemiclord.3978

Precisely. As much as it pains “casual” players, an MMO pretty much HAS to target the “hardcore” audience to remain solvent.

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: Travis the Terrible.4739

Travis the Terrible.4739

The problem with wvw isn’t so much of skill as it is player availability. Higher tier servers like blackgate just have the playerbase to just steamroll 24/7.

There is a reason why transferring to servers with lower player population costs less than higher populations. Think transferring to anvil rock from black gate and then blackgate to anvil rock one is going to cost you more and queue times on black gate where as anvil rock really doesn’t have a queue from what I’ve heard.

Follow the darkness into the depths, it’s more fun than the light can provide.

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: Zanshin.5379

Zanshin.5379

I think hardcores will be the only market to target for the MMO genre at some point in time.

Casual players can very easily disappear. They’re not as passionate as hardcore players are. They won’t exploit, test new builds, theory craft, manage guilds, create community sites, host tournaments… nothing.

A casual player can very easily swing to a facebook game tomorrow morning and disappear without a trace. Developing a game for this market is very risky.

As a company that wants to make money, would you rather keep 10 hardcore players, who will most likely buy all their gems with gold since gold is easy to get for them, or 200 casuals?

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: kokiman.2364

kokiman.2364

Although we are all valuable players,.

Stopped reading there because that isn’t true at all. There are so many people out there who contribute nothing to the community. They use the mapchat as an interactive event-timer or wiki, they are not interessted in playing with other players for the sake of teamplay, they just want to reach their own goals (see frostgorge/queensdale champfarm). Those people are not valuable, but sadly they are the majority.

GuildWars 2

Currently playing Heart of Thorns.

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: tolunart.2095

tolunart.2095

Precisely. As much as it pains “casual” players, an MMO pretty much HAS to target the “hardcore” audience to remain solvent.

I don’t really understand where this idea comes from. Hardcore players tend to be extremely demanding, rush through content much faster than developers can possibly provide it, and spend a minimum amount of money on the game compared to how much they play it.

Such as, I’ve heard that in Eve you can pay your sub fee by trading in game-currency, called Isk or something. That’s something beyond the reach of a casual player, but I would imagine many hardcores essentially play the game for free.

Likewise in GW2, if you know where to farm or how to play the TP, and put enough time and effort into it, you will never feel compelled to spend real money on gems. The rising cost of gems as it relates to game-currency gold is due to this tendency for many players to avoid spending real money on the cash shop.

This game is extremely casual-friendly. When there are multiple players in an area, everyone can complete hearts, gather from nodes, obtain drops and rewards from bosses, etc. without competition from other players. The items in the cash shop are generally “looking cool” and convenience items, not content unlocks or must-have gear for competition.

There are no open-world PvP servers, and competitive play modes are locked away in their own sections of the game where players can go if they want to, or easily avoid if they don’t.

This is the most casual-friendly MMO that I know of. Beyond a very minor gear grind for ascended > exotic stats, there really isn’t a lot for hardcore players to focus on, but plenty of things for casuals who can pick up and put down the game at any time without falling behind.

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: Finnway.2183

Finnway.2183

The fact is hardcore gamers, even if they are more hostile, are more skilled then soft-core players and they stay around longer. Softcore players might play for a year and then leave. Hardcore usually stay around longer and hence help to build up the game’s community (which every online game needs to succeed),

This game is not about out-DPSing you. It’s about out-flashing you.

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: Calae.1738

Calae.1738

I think hardcores will be the only market to target for the MMO genre at some point in time.

Casual players can very easily disappear. They’re not as passionate as hardcore players are. They won’t exploit, test new builds, theory craft, manage guilds, create community sites, host tournaments… nothing.

A casual player can very easily swing to a facebook game tomorrow morning and disappear without a trace. Developing a game for this market is very risky.

As a company that wants to make money, would you rather keep 10 hardcore players, who will most likely buy all their gems with gold since gold is easy to get for them, or 200 casuals?

Ferrari makes cars to less than 100 people and they make insane profits. GM makes cars for everyone and they went bankrupt.

EVE has shown that an MMO for a specific niche market can be very profitable.

I would argue that an MMO that tries to have broad market appeal is more interested in people’s money than making quality content. Shareholder profits are all that matter to them. It wouldn’t surprise me that NCsoft is milking the GW2 playerbase until the last drop.

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: KiritoBR.9783

KiritoBR.9783

i’m not a hardcore player… my girlfriend and i, we just play to have fun and explore…. anyone who like that kind of play can join us o/

just send me a message or a mail in the game… and we will have fun together ^^

ps: we did some dungeons a few times…. with people like those hardcore gamers that you said… and… we where just left behind… because they knew all the ways… and just rush for the boss…

we love to explore the game and we love to play to have fun ^^

i created a guild to help players who need… so… if anyone wanna join us.. just mail me XD

Can hardcore players destroy a MMO?

in Community Creations

Posted by: Sadistis.4257

Sadistis.4257

Counter Point, I’m a hardcore player, do youtube and the whole bit. Contribute builds regularly to websites, ect. However I’m very happy playing with Casuals and even helping them understand the game better. And I’m not on 23/7 due to family, work, ect. But I play the game and comprehend on the level. A lot of “Casuals” just don’t take the time to dig into the game and learn the inner workings causing them to not understand the inner workings of a dungeon/tournament match/wvw what have you. But I learned from playing EvE Online, Another MMO mentioned here that is severely geared to hardcore gamers, that if you take the time to actually play with and know people they will be good players and fun people to play with regardless of casuality or hardcore.

[NMG] Noir Mercenary Guild
-Sorrow’s Furnace WvW/tPvP