This article is just a voice for casual clearly the guy is not a fan of hardcore and want to shut us up becouse his narrowminded view tell us hardcore are 14year old screaming bastards who shout nonsens.

And he dont want that becouse then he and his fellow casuals/carebears have a hardtime playing, but i dont understand his concerns almost all games today are easy casual and carebear.

Originally posted by forest-nl

This article is just a voice for casual clearly the guy is not a fan of hardcore and want to shut us up becouse his narrowminded view tell us hardcore are 14year old screaming bastards who shout nonsens.

And he dont want that becouse then he and his fellow casuals/carebears have a hardtime playing, but i dont understand his concerns almost all games today are easy casual and carebear.

There is that term "Care bear" again. I find the term somewhat insulting so I am going to start refering to PVP fans as GPers. Now I know what GP stands for so I won't spell it out here so this post won't get deleted. Now I consider my self a "Hardcore" gamer because I play many different games and I play every chance I get. If your definition of "hardcore" is only people that are GPers and not "care bears" , because they only play one game and only every now and again and throw flower petals at each other when they are playing then you are sadly mistaken.

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Originally posted by gestalt11
They are simply not reliable because they are wrapped up in their own world. They are in fact usually the worst people to listen to because they have the least understaind of other people's perspectives. Further their perspective is a distinct minority.

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Please stop generalizing... You sound like an idiot when doing so.

I agree with the author.

Designing a game is not easy.  It takes a great game designer to make a great game.  Not anyone off the street can design a game.  Just because you play them doesn’t mean you know how to design them.
 
Yes a designer should get input from others, but not 10,000 randoms.

Game design is not a democracy.  It takes a clear and focused vision.  And you can’t please everyone all the time, so you have to have a vision and a direction and you have to stick with them.

The fans don’t all won’t the same things, they will pull you in different directions.

If the fans are better game designers then the designer, that designer should not be a designer.

Originally posted by Orca

 

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Originally posted by gestalt11
They are simply not reliable because they are wrapped up in their own world. They are in fact usually the worst people to listen to because they have the least understaind of other people's perspectives. Further their perspective is a distinct minority.

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Please stop generalizing... You sound like an idiot when doing so.

And how do you propose that he avoid generalization of one degree or another? Is he supposed to talk to every single player that defines themselves as "hardcore" and then place percentage qualifiers next to all of his statements? Maybe list the names of every "hardcore" player that feels this specific way?

It's all fine and good to tell people not to generalize, but the alternatives are too time consuming and downright unrealistic for casual conversation. You would sound less like an idiot by understanding that the stated generalization is based upon the experiences of the person making it. The fact that many other people have made the same generalization based upon their experience lends some credibility to the statement. What are the odds of even twenty some odd people having roughly the same opinion of "hardcore" players based on their experience in the same place at the same time?

Seriously, grow up.

Originally posted by GreenChaos

I agree with the author.

Designing a game is not easy.  It takes a great game designer to make a great game.  Not anyone off the street can design a game.  Just because you play them doesn’t mean you know how to design them.
 
Yes a designer should get input from others, but not 10,000 randoms.

Game design is not a democracy.  It takes a clear and focused vision.  And you can’t please everyone all the time, so you have to have a vision and a direction and you have to stick with them.

The fans don’t all won’t the same things, they will pull you in different directions.

If the fans are better game designers then the designer, that designer should not be a designer.

Yep, that sums up my opinion as well. If you feel that you can do a better job than the development team, go make your own game. Whip up a working demo and start courting investors. With your superior design insight, you should have no problem hooking investors once  you get them to actually play your prototype (/sarcasm).

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

 

 

Yep, that sums up my opinion as well. If you feel that you can do a better job than the development team, go make your own game. Whip up a working demo and start courting investors. With your superior design insight, you should have no problem hooking investors once  you get them to actually play your prototype (/sarcasm).

 

Sarcastic or not, that’s what I’m doing.  Instead of spending hours on forums telling developers how to do their job.  I took all the ideas I had and wrote them down / worked them out. 

And being a software architect (non-gaming) for 15 years I’m ready to get started on my own games.  I even have a business plan to start with smaller projects to starting building a company.  Now it’s just a matter of time and hard work.

Which will probably never happen because I spend too much time playing games.  

Originally posted by gestalt11

 

Of course not.  Why would you put great stock in the views of a minority whose habits clearly do not reflect the majority.

 

The only reason Developers do this is because many of them are hardcore themselves and developr an echo chamber.

 That doesn't mean they should completely ignore but they are clearly a minority and clearly have an agenda.  And should be treated as such.

 Finally the real nail in the coffin is the following.  Hardcore type people tend mistake matters of preference or opinion as matters of fact.  They are the sort of star trek type nerd that will argue with a writer or cast member about how two episodes are inconsistent as if anyone cared.

Case in point is death penalties many hardcore types believe this these objectively given "meaning" because they find meaning in such things.  The fact is they are wrong, many people find a death penalty simply annoying or even depressing.  They believe that their point of logic that the loss implies meaning is superior when actual facts of people's reactions say something else.

They are simply not reliable because they are wrapped up in their own world.  They are in fact usually the worst people to listen to because they have the least understaind of other people's perspectives.  Further their perspective is a distinct minority.

 You could actually find someone who belonged to some minority, like say RPers, and get far better feedback.  One would assume a decent RPers is at least capable of seeing things from other points of view even if they believe in the primacy of RP and also have an agenda.

 Hardcores are willfully blind.  Often frighteningly so.  I have rarely seen the kind of willful blindness like exists in the raiding cults. 

I 100% agree with you.  I think anyone to make something their life it will consume them, it's almost like a religion(no logic needed). 

Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

 

Originally posted by GreenChaos

I agree with the author.

Designing a game is not easy.  It takes a great game designer to make a great game.  Not anyone off the street can design a game.  Just because you play them doesn’t mean you know how to design them.
 
Yes a designer should get input from others, but not 10,000 randoms.

Game design is not a democracy.  It takes a clear and focused vision.  And you can’t please everyone all the time, so you have to have a vision and a direction and you have to stick with them.

The fans don’t all won’t the same things, they will pull you in different directions.

If the fans are better game designers then the designer, that designer should not be a designer.

 

Yep, that sums up my opinion as well. If you feel that you can do a better job than the development team, go make your own game. Whip up a working demo and start courting investors. With your superior design insight, you should have no problem hooking investors once  you get them to actually play your prototype (/sarcasm).

 

Its right in that yes many people do not really understand exactly what and why something is the case and they simply dislike a barrier of some sort but may like the effects of the barrier.   Of course sometimes they do are right and it should just be taken out, but the point is they either do not fully understand or have not been fully informed by the devs and may provide highly misleading input.  Even in the best of cases where they are realatively fair people without much of an agenda.

In this case listening to them may actually make them more unhappy not less.

At the same time its wrong because Developers are often wrong especially when it comes down to  matters of personl preference.  In this case it is very wise to a get sampling.  This is what happned in CoX and also what happened in WoW with raiding.

In WoW the former raider designers assumed that what they though was great was at the very least fun for others.  They were wrong, so wrong people actually purposely avoided their content.

Similarly in CoX there are actually multiple things like this, but an easy one is the matter of alts.  When CoX was first made it was assumed most people would play a main for long periods of time.  What actually happened is most people played multiple alts some even playing many so many they had to cross servers to get more slots.

In both cases it took the company multiple years to accept this and/ir figure it.  And in both cases they could have saved themselves a lot of time and effort and made a better game if they had listened.

And really in some cases being wrong was good.  For CoX the devs feel much less pressure to raise the level cap because they now know that people play tons of alts anyway.

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Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

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Originally posted by Orca

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Originally posted by gestalt11
They are simply not reliable because they are wrapped up in their own world. They are in fact usually the worst people to listen to because they have the least understaind of other people's perspectives. Further their perspective is a distinct minority.

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Please stop generalizing... You sound like an idiot when doing so.

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And how do you propose that he avoid generalization of one degree or another? Is he supposed to talk to every single player that defines themselves as "hardcore" and then place percentage qualifiers next to all of his statements? Maybe list the names of every "hardcore" player that feels this specific way?
It's all fine and good to tell people not to generalize, but the alternatives are too time consuming and downright unrealistic for casual conversation. You would sound less like an idiot by understanding that the stated generalization is based upon the experiences of the person making it. The fact that many other people have made the same generalization based upon their experience lends some credibility to the statement. What are the odds of even twenty some odd people having roughly the same opinion of "hardcore" players based on their experience in the same place at the same time?
Seriously, grow up.

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If you read his statement. He was talking about "hardcore" people, being narrowminded and none objective.

If you go to the WOW forums(Where the devs listens to the crowd) you would see alot of constructive post from very hardcore people. So I would like to see some facts about the general population of the hardcore crowd, being narrowsightet and only care for themselves...

You know, relying on a focus group makes a really bad assumption; that your focus group will give you useful feedback.  Look at SWG, that used focus groups to sabotage their own game with the NGE.

My impression of the article is that, like most here, I can see the author's points, relate to them, but not fully agree.

Ignoring the "this sucks!" people is a good idea.  But many of your vocal, "hardcore" players are not in the emo mode.  Many have pretty good ideas, or are trying to understand the intent of the designers, that the designers often are not able of articulating very well, or fall back on catchphrases as answers to questions.  Remember how in SWG for a long time player questions about combat issues were repeatedly answered "that will be addressed in the combat revamp", but once the CU was published the issue was in fact not addressed at all?  This practice only intensifies player frustration.

Developers need to intelligently assess and address hardcore player raised questions.  I know this is asking a lot from some developers, but if their vision isn't obvious to the players, who feel compelled to ask questions or complain,  then they've got bigger problems with their design than they think.

Resisting the braying of the marketing types to show off the toys is necessary, but you know how these things go.  The suits want their ROI, and they want it yesterday, and the marketing droids want to sell something, and the fact that it's raw and unshaped overall isn't going to deter them.  Iv'e seen this in telecom where products are being sold that the product designers don't even know are being sold, all because of the constant pressure to sell product.  This leads to customers complaining that the product sucks.  Too many MMORPGs are developed in this way.  You want to entice potential customers to buy your product, and expectations are created that may have nothing to do with the game you're designing.

The main point is that the gaming community is pretty diverse.  And people, being human, tend to project their own perspectives onto others, rather than empathizing with the perspectives of others, so we end up talking past each other, generally.  This happens in virtually all human contexts, and games are no exception.

Originally posted by Orca

 

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Originally posted by Jimmy_Scythe

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Originally posted by Orca

 

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Originally posted by gestalt11
They are simply not reliable because they are wrapped up in their own world. They are in fact usually the worst people to listen to because they have the least understaind of other people's perspectives. Further their perspective is a distinct minority.

---

Please stop generalizing... You sound like an idiot when doing so.

---

And how do you propose that he avoid generalization of one degree or another? Is he supposed to talk to every single player that defines themselves as "hardcore" and then place percentage qualifiers next to all of his statements? Maybe list the names of every "hardcore" player that feels this specific way?
It's all fine and good to tell people not to generalize, but the alternatives are too time consuming and downright unrealistic for casual conversation. You would sound less like an idiot by understanding that the stated generalization is based upon the experiences of the person making it. The fact that many other people have made the same generalization based upon their experience lends some credibility to the statement. What are the odds of even twenty some odd people having roughly the same opinion of "hardcore" players based on their experience in the same place at the same time?
Seriously, grow up.

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If you read his statement. He was talking about "hardcore" people, being narrowminded and none objective.

If you go to the WOW forums(Where the devs listens to the crowd) you would see alot of constructive post from very hardcore people. So I would like to see some facts about the general population of the hardcore crowd, being narrowsightet and only care for themselves...

But of course most people realize that when speaking in generalities there is certain amount of  error or leeway involved.   And most reasonable people will talk in generalities because they can be highly useful as long as both sides accept the caveats that there is that understanding of variance.

Especially when the topic itself is based around general ideas.

If you wan't me to gather statistics to back up my opinion on general trends then too bad because I have no desire to do so.  You are of course free to disagree.

This has been my expereince with people who call themselves hardcore.  I wouldn't actually call them hardcore but that is what they call themselves.

The main problem i see with game design is the lack of leadership and focus. If a game developer doesn't understand the wants and wishes of gamers he must be a f'ing idiot. Vanguard had two major problems in game design. They didn't add enough visable content so the only people who could be bothered to play were extreme group players who helped each other find the content and explorer type players who could be bothered to grind run the continents. The other blatent problem with vanguard was the performance.

I don't believe the fault lies with the a community but it's the people who decide what opinion counts. Game developers can find the 'majority" interested in any opinion they want. If they don't agree with the gamers on there own forums they will look at other forums and say it must be the majorities view.

Developers have to listen to there own opinion. Most gamers don't even have a clue what makes a good game so listening to them is dangerous.

Originally posted by Novaseeker

The main point is that the gaming community is pretty diverse.  And people, being human, tend to project their own perspectives onto others, rather than empathizing with the perspectives of others, so we end up talking past each other, generally.  This happens in virtually all human contexts, and games are no exception.

However it is possible to find a pretty group of people who can talk fairly objectively about things or even people with an agenda who can freely admit they have one and set it aside. 

I have seen a number of RPers able to do this.  Where they right up front say if it were me I would do such and such because I love RP, but I know that this and that is really liked by a lot of people etc etc.  This sort of person can be very useful. 

Contrast that to people with an endgame raider agenda and they usually try to say that its a fact handed down from on high that it must be in the game and all games fail without uber loot but that isn't what's its all about,  its about making friends but I still won't do it without the uber loot.   This sort of person you simply should avoid getting input from. 

There are of course reasonable and unreasonable people in both camps but I have seen far more reasonable RPers.  There are of course the RP facsists who are in some ways even more galling than the raid cultists. 

In the end it probably simply has somethign to do with the amout of attention and care they get.  A raider in WoW two years ago sees themselves as the top-dog, validated by the developers and past history.  So of course there stuff is right.  Whereas in most MMORPG RPers are a minority who may or may not get a special server and in the end they have to adapt and deal with others especially if they live on a non-official RP server.

If things were reversed you would probably see the same crazy non-arguments from many RPers instead of raiders.  Which is why it pays to only get feedback from people who can separate themselves from their agenda, because you can get highly irrational and socially ingrained stuff that has no real value or merit, but which they will insist is an obvious truth arrived at through careful deliberation. 

At the same time it is also useless to get feedback from people who have no real opinion.  So people who have solid opinions about raiding or RP or crafting, can be good if used right and able to separate themselves from from their agenda.

In General getting feedback from a True Believer is at best worhtless and possibly harmful.  Getting it from some schmo with no real opinion who has put little thought into it is also fairly worhtless or even just frustrating.  The best you can do really is to get a couple reasonable advocates for each point of view and see waht kind of reasonable justifications or critiques or suggestion they can come up with. 

The trick here is that you must be knowledable and objective enough to get a good canvas of just what various groups there are such that each important viewpoint is represented, because it is not the other advocates will run over it rough shod and not really even realize it.  You can ask people to be reasonable but you can't expect any one adovcate to cover all bases.

And finally you need a good objective Developer to guide and arbitrate the discussion with pointed questions some of which are designed to see how one camp will respond to another camp.  And this developer must be willing to basic analyze the proceedings based solely on these people's reactions.  Not what he think the various behavioral manipulation mechanism they may put in the game will be. 

You can lead a horse to water but you can make them drink.  And that is one of the biggest uses for this sort of thing figuring out what people will drink and how that will affect others.

Which is of course where focus groups tend to fall down.  Especially when you have some dumb suit putting all his chips on the mystical magicall voodoo of a focus group and having no idea how it was populated.  If you get a bunch of Star Trek fans to talk about Star War Galaxies who knows what kind of crazy stuff they will come up with?

The problem I see with this entire thread is people are confusing "Hardcore Gamer" with "Hardcore Forum Warrior". When the author referred to the "Hardcore" crowd he wasn't talking about hardcore gamers. He was referring to Hardcore Board Warriors like most of the people arguing in this thread, myself included. If any of you were hardcore gamers you wouldn't even be here posting, you'd be playing some game somewhere.

Bren

Originally posted by Brenelael

The problem I see with this entire thread is people are confusing "Hardcore Gamer" with "Hardcore Forum Warrior". When the author referred to the "Hardcore" crowd he wasn't talking about hardcore gamers. He was referring to Hardcore Board Warriors like most of the people arguing in this thread, myself included. If any of you were hardcore gamers you wouldn't even be here posting, you'd be playing some game somewhere.

 

Bren

I see people say this sort of thing regularly and while it may be tempting to assume its true I don't think it really is.  First off I think a number of people who play alot do not think of themselves as "hardcore".  And of the ones who do there are a number who do only just play the game.  But there are certainly a significant number who play a lot , call themselves hardcore and do a lot of forum warfare.  They are not that hard to find really.  Also those people who consider themselves hardcore are usually part of a community of people who also call themselves hardcore and are therefore aware of waht goes on in various forums such as FOH etc.

If anything the statement is more apt for casual gamers.  They tend to not care or not even realize there are forums and the idea of spending any amount of time on them is a little off to them or just a pain in the ass.  In my experience a regular player is far more likely to be aware of what goes on in a relevant forum than a casual player. 

It really isn't about how busy you are, its more about how involved you are in the game.  People who play a lot of more involved and therefore more likely to be involved on the forums.  They may not be the majority of people on the forums because generally people who call themselves hardcore are a minority.  So you would need a great percentage of them to take over forum.

That is not to say there are not a lot of keyboard jockies of course, because there are.

In fact it seems to me the organized "hardcore" guilds make active efforts to sway games via being hardcore and organized forum warriors.

In the end though it doesn't matter, because you can't tell and whether they are or are not doesn't really matter.  What is important is if they can come up with a cogent point to support their view.  

Unless of course you are just doing surveys and polls, and frankly those aren't much use.  Even political pundits don't put a lot of stock into those.

using some forum or another is a requirment for hardcore MMOers