There's a thread in the forums about WoW players that don't get to see end-game content. What follows was my (epic as usual) response to it. Thought I'd make it my first blog instead.
Doesn't this all boil down simply to how much you want to do something? I mean if you really want to go out for a meal with friends and family then you'll find the time, make the plans and do it. You might arrange a sitter or have the kids have a night or two at the grandparents. Whatever, if you want some free time to do what you want to do then you'll find that time. Won't you?
When you have a job and family, there are always less hours in the day, even weekends. The poster who thought 3 hours for 3 nights at a commitment of only 9 hours was perfectly reasonable has clearly never experienced life on anyone else's terms but their own. The poster who cited the family that plays together as some kind of shining example of what can be accomplished seems to be defining a 24 year old as a 'kid', which shows the level of understanding being demonstrated. The fact this 'kid' still lives with his parents does not alter the fact you are not dealing with a demanding child and his adult parents but, instead, just three adults. To think one and the other are the same is almost comically absurd.
Where I think the 'casual' gamer is a victim of their own attitude, though, is in planning. 'Casual' isn't the right word for this type of WoW player; 'convenient' is more apt. They want the game to offer that hard to find see content when they're available to experience it and, regardless of how quick and painless organising raids has become, it takes more than the time spent doing the raid. If you just throw out a call to put together, say, even a 10 man, then the chances of getting 9 people instantly put forward is minimal at best. So let's say it takes, generously, 20 mins to find the 9. What's the chances the 9 will be the right mix of tanking, dps and healing? Minimal at best judging by the amount of specific requests that go out. And then there's the ones who need to get their other armour or weapons or pet. I'm not saying these are common, but they do happen. That's the trouble with PUGs; everyone's usually doing something else. Add all of this to even the easiest of raids and it adds up. Then consider wipes, drop-outs, afk-ers. It all takes time.
Which is why guilds book dates on the calendar, so everyone knows where and when and there's little or no messing around. So all that remains is to find and reserve the time. If both want to play, no problem; kids to stay a night or two with family, phone off the hoook and let's go raiding. But if you and not your partner consider this worth doing, how do you explain to them that the quiet night in will be spent with one of you playing a game for most of the evening?
So what's left is the gamer who wants the convenience of seeing the high end content and maybe laying their hands on some cool loot without really wanting to invest much time in it. In this case, I have to side with the 'hardcore' player and say, basically, tough luck. You can't, or at least shouldn't be able to, have your cake and eat it, too. If you want to do these things bad enough then you will find the time; if you don't then you'll have to wait until the next expansion to raise the cap enough that you can duo or solo the content.
Which, by the way, is how I got to see a lot of the game. Even though I was an 'hours a night' WoW player at one point, it was never about the content for me; it was about the guild I was in and playing with those friends. The only thing we had on farm was vaguely inebriated laughter. Even the leetest loot only lasts until the next expansion so, really, who cares?
It's not about belittling the hardcore players who run the same instance time after time , night after night, looking for that one drop. If that's what they want to spend their time doing, good luck to them.
And nor is it about dismissing the casual player who lacks either opportunity or inclination to set aside that much of his life to what he, or others, see as 'just a game'.
What it is about is seeing that WoW does try very hard to accomodate both to a degree, but it really only works well when you understand you have to meet the game at least partway to see the high-end content it has to offer.
See? You got all this way to find my conclusion was neither revelatory nor worth the effort. You put the time and effort into it and came away feeling short-changed and unimpressed. Which is exactly what I thought when I finally got to the high-end stuff anyway.
Ha!
MMORPG.com writes:
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