Post by Morreion on Feb 19, 2010 9:07:11 GMT -5
Justin Webb: That's What She Said (MMORPG.com)
MMORPG.com columnist Justin Webb writes this week's article on difficulty in games, looking back at a past where games were just... harder.
I think we pretty much are stuck with easy games now. Perhaps there will be a niche game here and there that are hard, but the mainstream fanbase isn't looking for that these days.
MMORPG.com columnist Justin Webb writes this week's article on difficulty in games, looking back at a past where games were just... harder.
...MMOs too have not been immune to this trend. The first MUD I really invested any time in was Terris (originally on AOL). It was quite forgiving compared to the other popular MUD variants, but still had brutal features that you wouldn’t be able to get away with today. In addition to having to contend with human sysops killing you whenever they drunkenly felt like it, when I first started playing, you lost XP when you died, and you died a lot. However, I loved it, and Terris cemented my love of the MMORPG. Back then, MUDs had features that really punished players. But it was expected. Video games were supposed to be hard, so why should MUDs be any different, right?
...Then WoW came out … and, with it, MMO easy mode, marking the end of dicking around your player base for no good reason and expecting to make any money. It soon became obvious that Blizzard had made a big list of every feature in Everquest that pissed people off, and replaced them all with more forgiving versions. And that’s one of the reasons why, in November 2004, WoW demolished EQ2.
While we can argue the merits of the perceived simplicity of WoW versus Everquest, what cannot be contended is the fact that since the mid-nineties, the general MMO landscape has become easier and easier to navigate … less pointy and more “accessible”. There’s that word again. As an example of a recent AAA MMO release, Star Trek Online is phenomenally easy, to the point that it’s actually quite difficult to die while playing, at least during the first 11 levels that I played.
Of course though, there is room for niche product. EVE Online is a great example of a successful game that hasn’t pandered to the easy trend. And Conan appears to be making a comparative comeback too. I’m sure WoW raids are very challenging too, but that’s endgame, and not representative of the game’s overall difficulty experience.
So where does that leave us? Are we just stuck with easy MMOs now? Can we expect to see any face-meltingly difficult MMOs any time soon? Or should we leave those painful experiences back in 1995 where they belong? Should MMOs make a stand and revert back to their back-breakingly difficult roots, or should insanely hard MMOs be jettisoned into space along with their beard-stroking aficionados?
...Then WoW came out … and, with it, MMO easy mode, marking the end of dicking around your player base for no good reason and expecting to make any money. It soon became obvious that Blizzard had made a big list of every feature in Everquest that pissed people off, and replaced them all with more forgiving versions. And that’s one of the reasons why, in November 2004, WoW demolished EQ2.
While we can argue the merits of the perceived simplicity of WoW versus Everquest, what cannot be contended is the fact that since the mid-nineties, the general MMO landscape has become easier and easier to navigate … less pointy and more “accessible”. There’s that word again. As an example of a recent AAA MMO release, Star Trek Online is phenomenally easy, to the point that it’s actually quite difficult to die while playing, at least during the first 11 levels that I played.
Of course though, there is room for niche product. EVE Online is a great example of a successful game that hasn’t pandered to the easy trend. And Conan appears to be making a comparative comeback too. I’m sure WoW raids are very challenging too, but that’s endgame, and not representative of the game’s overall difficulty experience.
So where does that leave us? Are we just stuck with easy MMOs now? Can we expect to see any face-meltingly difficult MMOs any time soon? Or should we leave those painful experiences back in 1995 where they belong? Should MMOs make a stand and revert back to their back-breakingly difficult roots, or should insanely hard MMOs be jettisoned into space along with their beard-stroking aficionados?
I think we pretty much are stuck with easy games now. Perhaps there will be a niche game here and there that are hard, but the mainstream fanbase isn't looking for that these days.
