LFG

Fascinating blog - guy makes WoW seem far more addictive and grind oriented than EQ2 ever was:

Read:

http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/20...-from-top.html

and

http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/20...top-redux.html

__________________

Snark

70 days /played?

this guy is weaksauce

__________________


http://heyandy.ytmnd.com/
http://acceptable.tv/videos/769-Cirque-Du-Soleil
http://www.break.com/index/sheep-wea...ares-herd.html

Pinski

Welcome to /.'s laughing joke of a post.

Click here for a nice long thread about it.

__________________
How many times do you hear it? It goes on all day long
Everyone knows everything And no one's ever wrong
Until later...
Who can you believe? It's hard to play it safe
But apart from a few good friends We don't take anything on faith
Until later..

LFG

Smed writes about this same thing in his blog today:

http://stationblog.wordpress.com/200...esponsibility/

As is typical of Smed, he completely mischaracterizes what the author of the original blog article said:

The author of the blog piece Smed is misquoting said nothing of the sort. Instead I quote from the OP's followup piece:

And:

It is just too easy for Smed to scan things and opine on them in a superficial way. I think Smed's still a little chaffed over this incident and lawsuit:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in525965.shtml

Now, I don't think EQ2 is that addictive. The reason I say that is right now, it's boring as hell. We raid about 8 to 10 hours per WEEK in total atm. I'd rather clean my bathroom than level another alt, so I do other things when not raiding. I don't have any overpowering urge to play EQ2 every night, and certainly not to the extent I felt such an overpowering urge with EverQuest years ago.

But isn't WoW more addictive than EQ2? I don't know, I haven't played that game. But from what I hear, isn't progression in that game designed so that to move to the next level, you basically MUST farm things and do other activities that require 20+ hours per week, and even up to 50+?

The reason EQ2 isn't as addictive, IMO, is because EQ2 has no progression and the worst itemization in any major MMO. There isn't a whole lot of difference in difficulty raiding with noob gear in EQ2 and with the finest drops in game. I've previously shown that I can get within 10 percent of the stats, hp and power of the best equipped players in game on an alt with crap gear - based on quest drops I can obtain duoing, and stuff I can buy off the broker and from crafters. So players aren't on a constant progression grind in EQ2, because there is no real progression except for every ten level tier. Progression just isn't built into EQ2 in the same way as in WoW, and that's what I think makes WoW more addicting.

Am I wrong? Please tell me.

Thanks

__________________

Khalan

Nah I think your slightly right.

I used to be major fiend for Diablo 2 and Literally Spent Months doing Mephisto runs to "finish" my item (curse you Tal'Rashas Vestaments) sets or get that Amazing Unique Item.

Basically, the "carrot" was always their making me want to log on and play, their was REAL item rarity in that game (before widespread duping) and if you wanted that stuff you had to spend lots of time to get it, either farming for SoJ's to trade for it or Actually Farming the mobs to get it.

I used to even keep a log of every Meph run I did over the course of months with different % Magic Find Gear to see what worked best.

EQ2 has none of that, their is absolutely 0 Item Rarity.

If SOE is smart, they will make the set items super rare in EQ2, this way people will have to do lots of loot runs/raids to complete them, thus creating that carrot that people want.

I'd hate for people to be fully setted out in Epic and legendary sets in 1 month then why would they ever log in?


Diablo 2 is still an amazing game to this day, Fuck Blizzard makes awesome games and D2 had so much ground breaking awesome stuff (Item Sets, Socketing, etc..)

__________________

Telpacpaw

I used pindlebot for like a month. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and looking over, just watching my sorceress wank Pindleskin over and over and over. Ahh, good times.

Then I finally got caught and i lost a lvl 99. I pretty much stopped playing after that ;)

__________________

Deson

I agree with you on the loot thing and hope they go back and fix it.In an itemcentric game, it's a no-brainer that rare/ultra-rare loot is a draw.I remember every VT run hoping for the splurt shoulders on my necro and never seeing them or Emps/Aten's Robe. I still want to log in just to say I got them.

I read the article the same way Smed did;you can go on forever that you don't blame something for what happened and that it's your fault, but when everything else you say makes the product out to be an evil life destroyer, those statements of assuming responsibilty are empty.

Reading the article, I wanted to quote the whole thing but thats what links are for. Those paragraphs stick out to me the most though. His mention of WoW should have remained purely base descriptive and the rest should have stayed on the point of his perosnal failings. While he says he assumes responsibilty in the post and hints at it in the quotes, he still, in the article, goes into how empty the game is from honor aquisition to gear.WoW didn't take a toll on him, his lack of balancing it with the things he wanted to do in life did.He makes it sound like the game took his life and he only reclaimed it when he left.

.

Think he likes "hardcore" players?Any competetive or social activity in general can bring out any and everything he mentioned and everyone has their potential when presented with the right environment whether it be a cyber chat room or the school's lead jock,whatever-doesn't matter whether he's talking about how many touchdowns he scored or his epic or anything else.


I like his former guildmate's post though-

http://soulkerfuffle.blogspot.com/20...t-of-view.html

this is an example of a person who assumes real responsibilty for what he's decided to do.

I think you are a little rough on Smed considering his position and that he probably has to deal with emails and other such(like the story you linked), blaming the products he oversees for the destruction of lives and I'm certain the comments recieved in that article or the one posted on the EQ2 official boards didn't help either.Smed to me didn't mischaracterize the article and probably didn't even see the followup since it's buried under quite a few comments in the first and the followup article that you linked had all those bizarre comments in it. He took it the way I, and many others did I'd wager and made it into a broader post on personal responsibility much the same way someone would use another event as a segueway into a broader dsicussion. The author's followup isnt as clear cut an admission to me and includes alot of what I percive to be the same double talk in the article in that, while he refers to his personal failings and should be commended for the resposibilty he takes, alot of his comments still focus around how the game mechanics are part fo the problem and speaks about the social aspects as if they are really all that different from the same ones you deal with in real life.

All in all, I do like the articles in the set and respect the author for writing of his experiences and pitfalls. I just think they could have been presented in a more clearcut manner to prevent the confusion/misconception that he blames the game for his problems. The way it is now and even in the followup, it makes it sound like he escaped more than retook control/corrected a problem.

LFG

I always enjoy reading a well thought out and written contrary view to my own. I think you have many valid points.

It always surprises me when people read the exact same thing and come away from it with opposite perceptions about what the author wrote.

Setting aside ideas of personal responsibility for this point, and just talking about scope and intensity of a particular addiction to an addiction prone person, I believe EQ2 is less addicting than WoW. And that's because of the differences in WoW progression and EQ2 progression. In WoW, progression seems continual, and in EQ2, it only happens once per expansion.

So, just while some drugs are more habit forming than others, I think MMOs can be considered the same way.

I also think some people are more strongly prone to addictions than others. I'd bet many people who've previously had drug and alchohol problems are the most prone to becoming addicted to a MMO.

But I'd also like to suggest that the addictive nature of many MMOs can be positive for many people, and this is not always a negative thing. For example, you aren't out drinking and driving when you're playing EQ2. You also aren't emptying the ATM to buy dope. And that's because MMOs allow many to be addicted in a less harmful way than without MMOs.

So to the extent some people are unlikely to ever be addiction free, I think it's best to steer their addiction in the least harmful direction possible. So, in my opinion, an addiction isn't necessarily bad if it replaces a more harmful addiction.

I joke about this all the time, but as I like to say, if it weren't for EQ2, I'd probably be out spending $1k+ a month at strip clubs. That's not nightly visits, and I'm not sure whether that's an addiction of mine. But the fact that I'm more interested in playing EQ2 than drinking heavily and handing $20s to naked women by itself makes EQ2 a healthier and and more positive activity for me.

__________________

Broomhilde

IMO WOW is more addictive and progression you have mentioned is certainly one of the reasons. I am currently playing WOW and leveling up a Shadow Priest. I love it. Me, probably one of the biggest WOW haters out there at one time, playing WOW and having a blast. I am eating my words. I will never judge a game without playing it to a respectful level again.

I have made other observations about it as well. My priest is approaching her 40's and I find that she is as unique and individual as one could possibly wish their character to be. WHen I inspect other priests her level 90 percent of what they are wearing is usually different from my priests gear. I find that uniqueness very attractive. It is also the soloability of the game that perhaps contributes to more hours logged. Many times I have logged on to eq2 only to find that without a group I have a very limited amount of things to do. When you log into WOW there is always something meaningful one can do and accomplish on their own or with a duo/group...perhaps making the game more playable...more often? Hence more addictive? I don't feel I am addicted, I still have my dinner parties, I'm still going back to europe at the end of the month, I am still doing everything I want to do in other areas of my life, but for me, that has always been the case. I would say for those that get addicted to games, I can certainly see why WOW would be far more addicting than a game like eq2. I am sure there are other reasons why WOW may be more addicting, but for me the uniqeness of characters and the soloability are the main reasons I have observed so far. Once my character is raid level I am sure I'll have more to say on that.

Deson

I think, good or ill, it has alot to do with what EQ2 was trying to be. As stated in many a press release pre-lauch, EQ2 was supposed to be a item-centric, group-centric MMO that's primary goal was to pick up tose players that EQ1 either turned off or burned out. That meant a far more accessible game when it came to loot and a host of other things right down to the near non-existent race diversity and dearth of truly compelling content. Hopefully that's changing- http://radio.ogaming.com/data/4235%7...ayHartsman.php

By contrast WoW is unabashedly EQ1(up to GoD) v2. While the mechanics may be friendlier and the leveling much faster, it holds to many the core tenents of EQ, namely rare loot and endless grinds. Funny for me, I'm a huge Blizzard fan and have alot of respect for them and was litterally minutes from a pre-order of WoW until I stumbled across an interview with one of the producers that sounded like this to me-" We made leveling fast and painless so people can get to the real game-the end game- faster without all the boring stuff in the middle". I pretty sure that's near exact what he said, and to me that killed it.

EQ2 was trying to be something for everyone and failed spectacularly at each segment. It's got it's high points like Nek castle but, in trying to avoid the pitfalls of EQ, it went too far in the other direction.

I cant speak on raiding since I dont but, for grouping, in trying to keep the game accesssible to mediocre players, they don't have much compelling content like the Nek's and Nizara. When they do come up with such content, it usually has to be nerfed or was simply a matter of things hitting too hard. Very few puzzles or thinking areas on the whole it's just kill, kill, kill.

For solo(which I do mostly) it's empty and alot of what you end up doing feels pointless.I don't expect to get big epic storylines or uberloot, that's silly and I'm certainly opposed to anything that could create another Harclave but, I'd still like soemthing entertaining and story based to do that can be started and finished the same way. EQ2 advertised itself as friendly to solo players but because it lacks content like this or springs surprises like raids up, it turns people off.

Crafting, from all the things I can see and read, SWG's crafting database issues killed alot of promise in EQ2's system and the way they had the old itemization lined crafting up for some serious shots later in game. In exchange for making crafters feel valued for doing nothing but grinding, they robbed adventurers of a sense of accomplishment by making the best gear in game(short of raiding) harvested rare crafted and then, when they decided to try and fix it, they went too far the other way and tried to make every adventurer feel special by massively increasing loot rates and making far too high a quality drops accessible.

I'm not touching mechanics because to me it's secondary to core philosophy. As long as the mechanics work, people will bitch and moan but they arent going anywhere because deep down they really like what they are doing. If your philosophies are jacked up though, it shows and even great products can die because of it. To me, alot of EQ2 is like a jigsaw puzzle with pieces cut the wrong way- you know what it's supposed to look like, you can even put most of the puzzle together but because those few pieces are jacked, the whole thing is ruined.

I think the picture is abit skewed though from Blizzards' ungodly way of yanking in new players(by design). Alot of the players I knew in EQ that left for WoW were back in the year. Alot of other players that I I either know or met in passing usually fit in three spots-1. Couldn't get EQ2 to run on thier machine, 2. EQ(2) wha? 3. Raids.Actually add a 4th- EQ2 doesn have the PvP they want, namely a worldwide battlegrounds.Really makes me wonder where that population wil sit in the western world in a few years as their customers become more discerning/versed on other games. Think it was Aggro Me that had the post about EQ2 being a good trap door for WoW but I digresss...

The biggest issues to me affecting EQ2 are trying to get loot and content balance straight. At launch loot was rare and there was no solo content to speak of.Midway through, Solo content was added and loot tables started to be revamped to be more generous. Now, crafting is almost out of the equation for equipment, doing a few runs in easy instances can get you gear you can be very satisfied with even when compared to raid gear.And, in all this, group zones just dont seem to have a non-loot draw to them like Nek castle. I think the biggest deal though is people see all the potential EQ2 has and just cant figure why it's not better-Bloodlines probably being the best example.

(I don't count the asian market- not to be dismissive but having seen alot of asain games that failed/didn't make it in the west, I'm convinced they'll play anything and are extremely obssessive about it)

On addictions, everyone has something that will click them and as we come up with new ways to amuse ourselves, everyone will find a new poison at some point. While MMO's may be better than heroin, addiction in all forms is still something that needs alot of support. Think the irony of ebing addicted to MMO's is that the people most likely to convince you you have a problem, are the people you are playing with.

Cheapskate. I'd burn at least 2g's on ass and titties