For the sake of argument, I will allow that the definition of raiding to be: "Something that the top percent of players do, in a group, in a 'dungeon.'" Instead of the definition being: "Several players getting together, killing things and doing a few tricks...many many many many times."

 For the record, or not for the record, whichever is better, I will say that some of this is my opinion and some is not.

 Also, for the CD, I am not a raider in VANGUARD, but in many other games I have sailed far beyond what any mere player here can comprehend., and seen things you could not even imagine, no matter what you have seen. In virtual life. Not in real life.

 As well plus some, some of this is true and some is not.

 

 a) Raiders do not care about variance in PC's. They only care about stats. If the uberest item of uber was simply a white box, they would wear it. They would also do something impossible, and wear it with both PRIDE and SHAME.

 b) Raiders are often the loudest of the community. They might create a false sense of importance to certain gameplay styles for the dev's to consider. While most players do not raid (according to most MMO's), many players (especially new to MMO's) might think that most players DO raid. I have found that most younger players think this, being that they have not played enough games to know otherwise.

 c) Raiders ARE equal opportunity. Plenty of females raid.

 d) Raiders create rifts in the community. They feel as though nothing is an accomplishment unless it is done over and over 5 times a week. This odd behaviour sends the incorrect message to the community that raiding is the only activity that matters.

 e) Raiders use teamspeak/ventrillo. Skype is hurting.

 f) Raiders use different programs to show them, via a live graph/chart, how much damage they are peaking at, and when. They need this chart because they cannot see it or feel it otherwise. In fact, this chart could be a total placebo, and they would think they could tell the difference. This creates a false sense of importance on damage, as though it can somehow be constantly controlled at a certain rate even with variables such as connection speed and times of day/night.

 g) Raiders have a false sense of population, being that they rarely see outside of their friends list/guild listing. Then, they post about the lack of community because 3 of 15 of their friends left. This creates a false sense of doom for new players.

 h) Raiders are not game loyal. Whatever game is the newest and has the newest raids, they will go to it. This creates a shaky MMO market, and has added to the failures of many games, not due to poor gameplay, but due to boredom/new game coming out.

 i) Raiders tend to very to-the-point, while avoiding true emotions like greed, lust and envy. Ths creates an entire community of individuals that have a hard time connecting and forging relationships. This makes more raiding/grouping harder, then makes more posts about lack of population more common.

 14) Raiders tend to get mad at GAMES, rather than PEOPLE. They will post about the flaws of a game LONG after they have left it, giving a false sense of current gaming value. The SWG NGE is a good example of this, although raiding is not something to be pulled out of that game: just jedi's.

 15) Raiders tend to post their own opinions, instead of posting in current threads containing the same topic. This creates a muddled forum in which nothing is taken seriously, much like this one. While I do the same, I am not a raider and therefore do not count towards the "muddling." This is a funny behaviour, being that raiders typically do not care about being unique IN GAME, yet on the boards they do.

 #24) Raiders tend to have a skewed sense of challenge. The first time you do a rubik's cube, it is hard. The 10th time it is easy. They tend to post about this, make blogs, and use other forms of modern media to talk about the "lack of challenge", giving a flase sense of what IS challenging and what isn't.

 45) Raiders like penguins, namely Emperor Penguins and their need to repeat the same march over and over, just to turn around and do it again. This creates an environment in which other animals traits, such as Sloth, are not valued. (Or at least percived this way, thanks to the forums.)

 4) Raiders tend to scan over quest text, Someone worked hard to write that. This puts writers on the job search sites, but puts poor writers on the "Hire That Guy" list.

 f) Raiders tend to look at lower levels as "not end-game", as though raiding, the acitivity that they will probably spend more hours in than any other as "end-game"even though the beginning of their raiding should actually be called "the beginning on this type of players game."

 H) Raiders tend to spend 30-40 hours a week in the same content onver and over. This creats an environment in which addictive behaviours are "ok." This creates a Cheeto/Mountain Dew monoploy, and gives shows like "Celebrity Rehab" a familiar feel.

 a) Players tend to think that raiding takes more "skill" than say, roleplay. As though "Stand here, push this and then stand there" is more challenging than "Make something up."

 That's all the facts I have for now.

 I have tested these.

Beau

In short, raiders need to warm up to a FPS game, it'll suit them better.

And yes, they're the loudest screamers in games because the largest gaming population are FPS gamers. They come to RPGs for something different (usually the anime styles, or high fantasy settings), and proceed to wreck the genre, too.

The biggest whiners about anything RPG related (like crafting and housing and anything non-combat, like simply EXPLORING NEW WORLDS!), are these types who scream for "PvP, RAID (24 man raids aren't enough anymore, let's do it BF2142 style and have 64 FORCED raids!), PvP".

RPG was never about racing to the top of heap, it's the shared experience of a party. It may take 5 years to progress, but the joy in progressing in RPGs is the many things to do to get there -- not powerleveling 15 levels in 2hrs, then to brag about the "lewtz" they got from doing so. So sick of that FPS mindset that's plaguing RPGs from SP to MMOs.

It's gotten to the point that yes, pen and paper RPGs maybe the last way gamers will ever like RPGing again. It's been so polluted in computer games now that I doubt it can recover, as devs feed these FPS types the genre's children for a quick buck, even.

Originally posted by beauturkey

Also, for the CD, I am not a raider in VANGUARD, but in many other games I have sailed far beyond what any mere player here can comprehend., and seen things you could not even imagine, no matter what you have seen. In virtual life. Not in real life. 

OK there Neo....

I think you forgot, for the record by the way (or CD), an important caveat: "A false sense of awesomeness and an inexplicable sense of self-importance tends to lend itself to those who try to globally categorize and compartmentalize the play style of others; e.g.: PVP'ers, Raiders, PVE'ers, etc..."

Well done though... :)
 

Originally posted by UNATCOII

The biggest whiners about anything RPG related (like crafting and housing and anything non-combat, like simply EXPLORING NEW WORLDS!), are these types who scream for "PvP, RAID (24 man raids aren't enough anymore, let's do it BF2142 style and have 64 FORCED raids!), PvP".

I find this statement incredibly odd as raids have been shrinking, not growing, in recent years. WoW started with 40 man raids, but dropped it to 25 mans in TBC, and now has the 25 mans, but also 10 man versions of each 25 man in WotLK. So I have no idea what you are talking about.

I've raided in EQ for 3 years and even I don't know what your point is or what this thread is about.

More stereotypes please.

Originally posted by Waterlily

I've raided in EQ for 3 years and even I don't know what your point is or what this thread is about.

More stereotypes please.

The genre is full of them, but some have a basis of truth (much like if RMT will become more "mainstream" will give MMOs later).

Originally posted by Abrahmm

Originally posted by UNATCOII

The biggest whiners about anything RPG related (like crafting and housing and anything non-combat, like simply EXPLORING NEW WORLDS!), are these types who scream for "PvP, RAID (24 man raids aren't enough anymore, let's do it BF2142 style and have 64 FORCED raids!), PvP".

 

I find this statement incredibly odd as raids have been shrinking, not growing, in recent years. WoW started with 40 man raids, but dropped it to 25 mans in TBC, and now has the 25 mans, but also 10 man versions of each 25 man in WotLK. So I have no idea what you are talking about.

Because the player base is shrinking, not by design. Just ask SoE to fix the lower level dungeons of their epicx2 and epicx4 content (that no one wants to kill anymore, not just because it's lower content, but because there's not enough players to hold even a 12 man raid!).

Then ask yourself why the player base is shrinking (and no, it's not because there's 1001 MMOs to rob the genre of players). It shrinks because the main people who play RPGs aren't getting their RPG fix. MMORPGs have become fantasy FPS games. 

I was a raider for about 3 years (Yep, WoW) and I found it to be an incredibly unrewarding and tedious method of wasting my evenings. There's very little challenge in reading a "raid-by-numbers" strategy guide from one of the "pro-guilds" then spending two weeks attempting to ape them down to the last detail so that we could get our shiny purplez too.

I met some nice people who were raiders; hell, I like to think I'm a nice person myself.. but there are also a large number who weren't. The longer I raided, the more of a chore it became so eventually I just quit, and am much happier for doing so.

I don't think theres anything worng with raiding.

I'm all for giving games more play options and don't mind my games having a raid game as long as its optional and People that don't do it can still progress characters.

Don't see how raiding a feature that lets players work to gether in co-op dungeons for bragging rights and items/mats drops are a bad thing.

Raiders who dont have to kill their enemy in order to raid are playing the wrong game ;)

Part of me wants to make some witty comment, the other has nothing but pity for this thread.

I'm not entirely sure to take it seriously. You came to an MMORPG forum thread where a large community of MMORPG players gather and expect to "impress" people with using such phrases as "I've seen things you cannot comprehend.."??

Following my knee-jerk reaction, I'll nicely say.

I REALLY hope this is some form of sarcasm...

I ten to agree with the last poster.... christ but I will commend you on one thing, i haven't read such an arrogant post ina LONG time.  Thanks for the entertainment.

The irony is that raiding is not what will destroy the MMORPG industry.  Instead, I anticipate payment schemes and content designed around it will.  Moreover, innovation is dry in the area of immersion (evolving world, sophisticated/complex/unique character customization, player tools to design content/Quests, etc.) but by advancing in increments in the area of PvP.

MMORPG "Evolution"

1. Deep Worlds
   
   • Group cooperative gameplay;
   • Community guilds. 
2. Raid Focus
   
   • 40+ content;
   • Raid guilds.
3. Accessibility
   
   • Solo-ability;
   • Disparate guilds.
4. PvP Focus (failure)
   • Disparate content;
   • PvP guilds.
5. Payment Schemes
   • Content designed around payment schemes;
   • No guilds.

I am currently not subscribed to any MMORPG.  My background, and indeed real-life interests, have nothing to do -at all- with gaming.  I have been fascinated with gaming my whole life. 

• We have tolerated raiding;
• We have tolerated "accessibility" taken to lows of mindlessness;
• We have tolerated forced-Questing;
• We have tolerated PvP;
• We will NOT tolerate payment schemes (scams).

MMORPG Raiders get too much attention by developers (developers like to raid).

MMOPRG PvPers get too much attention by developers (developers, too, like to PvP).

Immersion MMORPG gamers --deep, complex worlds; customizable characters; and so forth-- are totally neglected by developers.  Why? I do not know.

Originally posted by declaredemer

Immersion MMORPG gamers --deep, complex worlds; customizable characters; and so forth-- are totally neglected by developers.  Why? I do not know.

Oh, that's an easy question!

To make an immersive and complex environment, you need imagination and innovation.

That's like.. hard.

Much easier to stick to making more dragons that drop purples and endlessly tweaking an inherently broken PvP system; you can always just say that the game is balanced around group PvP to explain away the overpowered classes!

Oh the Irony, how I love these miss guided threads.

The backlash against raid centric titles (ala EQ) has resulted in the rash of craptastic theme park nonsense we have now.

But hey that's a good thing right?!? 

Today we've people reaching raid level in MMO's not understanding their characters limits, skills or spells. We've people who have no idea how to function in a group much less a raid. No understanding of  Rage or off  tanking, building or transfering aggro, parking mobs etc.  But hey it's RAIDING that's killing MMO's.

Riiiiight....

These posts are so out there it's like the "I can see Russia from my house" quote only in paragraph form.

Originally posted by Zarraa

Today we've people reaching raid level in MMO's not understanding their characters limits, skills or spells. We've people who have no idea how to function in a group much less a raid. No understanding of  Rage or off  tanking, building or transfering aggro, parking mobs etc.  But hey it's RAIDING that's killing MMO's.

Let's be honest, there are a fair few people who've been raiding for months/years and still don't know their characters limits, skills or spells. If three years of being in a progressive raid guild taught me anything, it's that raiding is more a matter of repetition than skill.

I can't speak for other games, but raiding on my WoW server declined very heavily once it became possible to achieve gear of (almost) equal power through more casual means like heroic badge farming and PVP/Arena points, which was a solid indication that lots of people weren't raiding because they enjoyed it; but because it was the only way to get good gear.

Originally posted by Calind0r

Raiders who dont have to kill their enemy in order to raid are playing the wrong game ;)

hahaha yeah. is there a game like that?

---

Originally posted by declaredemer

MMORPG Raiders get too much attention by developers (developers like to raid).
MMOPRG PvPers get too much attention by developers (developers, too, like to PvP).
Immersion MMORPG gamers --deep, complex worlds; customizable characters; and so forth-- are totally neglected by developers.  Why? I do not know.

---

Part of the problem -- and I'll say most of the problem in general -- is that the devs are players themselves. They spend their development time hosting (or being a member of) raid guilds. So from that focus, they'll see little else and prioritize raiding development.

With EQ2 they have a dev who works on the player/fighting mechanics named Aeralik. He's a raider type running in a guild and taking that experience to plan on some game BREAKING changes to the fighting model. For example, his view is that Paladins need to be more of a single-target fighter. Why? Because these damn devs can't figure their ahole from their piehole, they keep changing the roles of the fighters until they're even clueless of what a class does. He got an idea that now Beserkers will be a primary OT/AoE (area-of-effect) tank. Why? He plays a Beserker.

Screw other classes and players who've spent months to years getting their mains together to lick those named mobs.

It's that type of MMO development that kills a game, and helps to destroy the genre. If it isn't EvE's devs living in and unethically helping guilds they're in; it's the EQ2 devs who are clueless and looking for a mass exodus of players -- which likely will happen with the Fighter 2.0 changes (as finally, that'll affect those types that complain -- "I don't see how that hurts anyone", as their level 80 mythical decked out raider is reduced to trash).

Dev teams that focus on raid content to the exclusion of content of the rest of the world, is the fastest way to sink a game, as MMOs are MUCH more than fighting and especially raiding.

Until such dev teams realize this, MMOs will remain a stagmented wannabe FPS game, with not even 10% of the gaming population interested in them. Dumbing down MMOs to attract more raiders and PvP types does NOT help, as the FPS market has what keeps MOST fighter types happy, and at no extra cost but the buying the game once!

Originally posted by UNATCOII

Part of the problem -- and I'll say most of the problem in general -- is that the devs are players themselves. They spend their development time hosting (or being a member of) raid guilds. So from that focus, they'll see little else and prioritize raiding development.

Similar thing with WoW, one of the developers (the one responsible for game balance, character classes, combat, items and PVP) was also well publicised to buff his preferred classes (lit. the ones he played) to the eyeballs.

If I was running a development team, you can bet y'bum I'd give the "class balance" job to a non-gamer.

Originally posted by Zarraa

Today we've people reaching raid level in MMO's not understanding their characters limits, skills or spells. We've people who have no idea how to function in a group much less a raid. No understanding of  Rage or off  tanking, building or transfering aggro, parking mobs etc.  But hey it's RAIDING that's killing MMO's.

Riiiiight....

Trying to prove the point of the thread?  Better than anyone else?

Well done, sir.

Originally posted by TeflonEddie

Originally posted by UNATCOII

Part of the problem -- and I'll say most of the problem in general -- is that the devs are players themselves. They spend their development time hosting (or being a member of) raid guilds. So from that focus, they'll see little else and prioritize raiding development.

 

Similar thing with WoW, one of the developers (the one responsible for game balance, character classes, combat, items and PVP) was also well publicised to buff his preferred classes (lit. the ones he played) to the eyeballs.

If I was running a development team, you can bet y'bum I'd give the "class balance" job to a non-gamer.

Objectivity is lost when devs play characters for too long, too. Gamers want their devs to play so to understand what they're creating, but spending so much time on mains, closes their minds to what else the game has to offer.

I want Aeralik to take over Domino's spot (she's the tradeskilling dev), and Domino to rotate to raiding/pvp/combat development. This will force the Aeraliks (and the other raiding type EQ2 devs) to see beyond their nose, and how every aspect of the game needs to dovetail together. It'll also make the tradeskill and other devs handling other issues (like that most godawful UI in gaming history) see how and why better models and even textures help with "end-game" playing.

MMOs need more objective developers, who can see the larger picture. Not make demands and draw lines in the sand (e.g., like Guardians will be the main tank, end of story) as the only model. Such closed mindness only makes gamers more disenchanted.

Instead of telling players to be "flexible" the devs need to take their own advice.

Ahh, I remembered that whole WoW fiasco where the Class lead *not saying who* didn't even PLAY the class he was a lead of! Yet he dictates what changes affect said class in terms of game play balance..

The Death of MMORPGs *Any, in my opinion* is the LACK of RPG elements. Those that are having no issues with the current template of how things are done are probably more of an FPS crowd *nothing wrong with that out of context* However RPG players want a few things like..

1.Story - An interactive story *IE We saved gnomeregan..so why are the gnomes STILL in Ironforge..?* that players can change. And change again. Sure there will be that one group of heroes that did something no one else will ever be able to do again, but have the developer make "patches" that updates new developments in the game world that will let players do new stuff.

2.Interaction - More of this. WIth npcs, with the enviroment. Let players THINK creatively. Let rogues set up trip wires in alleyways and mug people, or wizards levitate objects around them to block a door way*to prevent said rogue from stabbing them?*

3.Exploration - Even most RPGs could take a lesson here. Give players reasons to explore, throw out hints of vast treasure somewhere in the mountains blah blah.

4.Dungeon Design - EverQuest did one thing right. The use of invisible walls and other traps made dungeons in that game feel really neat. Design a better dungeon please, because I want to feel terrified when I enter. While I got that feeling from EQ*Probably because death = VERY bad*, I never got that from World of Warcraft.

Well that was a lengthy post, I apologize.

Oh, generally*I stress emphasis on the word generally* Raiding = Drudgery, Group content*on hard* = Challenging and fun.

I generally play games where PvP and PvE are integrated (raiding = PvE)...like say you want to kill a raid boss, but so does another clan/faction, well the game is setup for competition, so the opposing sides will have to fight in order to win the raid boss...its makes it about 10 times funner, you have real reward/loss for a PvP, and the PvP isnt some stupid instanced arena/scenario that feels like CS, when you're connected to a server with thousands of ppl.