In fact, it's been bugging me a lot, after I started to read these boards.

Ahem... So we have casual players. Cool, they're welcome, they pay devs bills and run around and solo stuff. Yes, I don't understand them, but that's cool, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

But tell me... Why do you need to level and get everything so fast?

See, "casual" seems to translate these days to "instant gratificationist", when most of them pose themselves, as "busy people" who have limiteed hours of play (and time managment is a word unheard of, but let's not dig into this). Fine, limited time, say, five hours a week.

Why is it so important to you, to be able to get to the top as fast as you can? Why is it important to you, to have that "best gear"? Why can't you just enhoy the game, the way it is? Sure, you have less time and will hit the top quite behind the "elite", possibly in half a year or a full one. Why is that a problem? You get to play the game and enjoy the process. Not only that, but most of today's MMO content is manageable in 1-2 hour chunks, why not? Why do you want it faster and easier, when all you really should do is take the things slower and without the fuss?

Why is that such a big problem, whether you hit the max level in three or six months? WHY?

Simply because all those people don't really want to play an MMORPG, hell they don't even want to play an RPG imo..., all they want is a single player action/adventure game.

But... right now MMO are "in" because WoW is the biggest game ever & they don't want to feel left out or something.

So now they played WoW & think of themself has being part of the MMO banwaggon, but still to them it would be nice if it was even more casual/easy... Go figure where they'll take the genre if this continues.

Just my opinion/theory.

It's not about instant gratification. Especially solo players see a lot of the content over and over and level at a very slow pace compared to players who group. If you want to see new things, zones, mobs and get new abilities the game makes you advance.

What many (not all) MMO do is slow you down, if you haven't noticed yet. They keep players on a little leash and put a string in front of them. Want to see the next room? Follow the string and jump through all the hoops and you can see something new.

It's not "their" fault if they want to experience more gameplay and more parts of the game at a faster rate. The "smell the roses and enjoy the game" argument is bull when you aren't granted access to a majority of the game unless you progress.

I would say one of the problems is that current games focus is on, "being the best", & "having the best".

In older MMORPG's, I was content to simply be in the game world, I may not have been the best at tradeskills, but I could help you out if needed.

I guess in short, its the focus on "being the better character then everyone else", and not a living breathing part of the game world.

Originally posted by Waterlily

It's not about instant gratification. Especially solo players see a lot of the content over and over and level at a very slow pace compared to players who group. If you want to see new things, zones, mobs and get new abilities the game makes you advance.

What many (not all) MMO do is slow you down, if you haven't noticed yet. They keep players on a little leash and put a string in front of them. Want to see the next room? Follow the string and jump through all the hoops and you can see something new.

It's not "their" fault if they want to experience more gameplay and more parts of the game at a faster rate. The "smell the roses and enjoy the game" argument is bull when you aren't granted access to a majority of the game unless you progress.

In EQ? Sure. UO? Sure. LA2, FFXI, VG? Sure. But in WoW, AoC and (especially) WAR not so much. I spent more time, looking for a guild, chatting around and desperatly looking for groups in WoW, then I spent playing. And then I've realized, that I already have a mount, can kill enemies five levels higher, than me, gain a solid level per two hours of play and run trough content like crazy, without going to the instances. That's where I drew the line.

Well for one these games have flashy and ridiculous armor and weapons.  I much prefer FFXI's itemization and armor styles.  Then these games are being designed as content treadmills to get players to endgame where 100% of the development is focused with linear progression which means as a game grows older you have to find ways to keep players trying to get to the end game on a server that might have an extremely desolate population in the first 7/8th's of their world.  How do you do that?  You make leveling to end game even faster which in turn adds to the instant gratification.  Again here I much prefer FFXI's system with the jobs and NM's of all levels keeping the servers fresh and players of all levels running around.

Players will advance in the most efficient way possible.  In FFXI it's grouping, in these new casual games it's soloing, and the devs need to find a balance to draw in casual gamers but also build a tight community and keep their servers fresh.  I have high hopes on FFXIV for pulling this off, but in the end if devs can't curb RMT then instant gratification and ruined economies will plague every game in the genre.

Instead of blaming the players, have you considered that the game's structure is at fault?

Let's look at WoW as an example, seeing as it's very popular. I don't see Blizzard glorifying and advertising their low level content, do you? No. It's all about end-game. They make those raid dungeons look so awesome, they promise all this great loot, but, oh wait, you have to be level 80! Don't blame people for wanting to rush through the "unimportant" things like leveling. The gear is usually worse, the quests are usually worse, the dungeons at those lower levels are usually empty, the battlegrounds are not as populated, etc., etc. This isn't as severe in WoW only because it has so many subs, but if you take any other game that is similar but has less subs, you start seeing the picture.

MMOs today are all about "the grass is greener when you're max level". Some like it, some don't. If you try to have the game start at level 1, you'll end up being criticized because "you're doing the same thing at level 1 as you are at level 40!" Of course, some of those same people later on cry, "Why should there be levels? Why should I have to be XX level in order to do something?" Hypocrisy at its best.

I've met many casuals who look at WoW and other MMOs as just a way to relax, like you mentioned, because they have limited time to play. Sure, they want to feel like they accomplish something even if they don't have much time, and that may be what you're linking "instant gratification" to. If you want timesinks, by all means, MMO devs are capable of giving them to you.

Originally posted by urbanmech

I would say one of the problems is that current games focus is on, "being the best", & "having the best".

In older MMORPG's, I was content to simply be in the game world, I may not have been the best at tradeskills, but I could help you out if needed.

I guess in short, its the focus on "being the better character then everyone else", and not a living breathing part of the game world.

For every person who just wants to "be", there are 5 or 10 or more who want to be the best.  Sad to say.  Remember when MMOs originally came out, just "being in the game world" was cool and new, even if it was empty and boring to look at.  Not anymore.   Now it has to entertain us.  Just chatting and entertaining ourselves isn't going to cut it.  I dont' blame people for wanting more.

Originally posted by Goronian

In EQ? Sure. UO? Sure. LA2, FFXI, VG? Sure. But in WoW, AoC and (especially) WAR not so much. I spent more time, looking for a guild, chatting around and desperatly looking for groups in WoW, then I spent playing. And then I've realized, that I already have a mount, can kill enemies five levels higher, than me, gain a solid level per two hours of play and run trough content like crazy, without going to the instances. That's where I drew the line.

Well that's another argument entirely, you're saying there's noth enough cooperation within the game and not enough incentive for players to group? I agree with that.

But you also claim that solo players should be exempt from leveling or progressing so fast. I completely disagree with that. Realise that leveling was made popular in MMO, not because it's a good concept, but because slowing players down and not giving them all the abilities at once forces them to "level" and pay up the monthly fee.

Players demanding faster progression and getting those abilities at a more enjoyable rate is completely fair, MMO imo are way too slow still. Way too many timesinks and way too many roadblocks to slow players down. The reason people grouped in EQ and in FFXI wasn't because the game was slow, it's just because grouping was easier, the players were different and a lot more time was spent chatting in the game. 

Originally posted by Comnitus

Instead of blaming the players, have you considered that the game's structure is at fault?

Let's look at WoW as an example, seeing as it's very popular. I don't see Blizzard glorifying and advertising their low level content, do you? No. It's all about end-game. They make those raid dungeons look so awesome, they promise all this great loot, but, oh wait, you have to be level 80! Don't blame people for wanting to rush through the "unimportant" things like leveling. The gear is usually worse, the quests are usually worse, the dungeons at those lower levels are usually empty, the battlegrounds are not as populated, etc., etc. This isn't as severe in WoW only because it has so many subs, but if you take any other game that is similar but has less subs, you start seeing the picture.

MMOs today are all about "the grass is greener when you're max level". Some like it, some don't. If you try to have the game start at level 1, you'll end up being criticized because "you're doing the same thing at level 1 as you are at level 40!" Of course, some of those same people later on cry, "Why should there be levels? Why should I have to be XX level in order to do something?" Hypocrisy at its best.

I've met many casuals who look at WoW and other MMOs as just a way to relax, like you mentioned, because they have limited time to play. Sure, they want to feel like they accomplish something even if they don't have much time, and that may be what you're linking "instant gratification" to. If you want timesinks, by all means, MMO devs are capable of giving them to you.

 

But you can't have MMOs without timesinks of some kind, since devs need those sub money you pay. So they NEED you to waste your time and keep you in, all at the same time. But instead of making the ride enjoyable, they make it a carrot on a bloody stick. It's just... Strange.

I'm a big advocate of allowing people to play games however they want, and it's nice for the game developers to try to cater to everybody. However, it's hard to play like you want when you want to find a group and make friends, but most players would rather solo, or never even speak to the group when you do invite them. It's just my opinion, but I believe that gear progression has alot to do with this, which relates to instant gratification somewhat. The emphasis has moved away from the community as a whole, and is now focused on individual statistics to a very large degree in alot of current games.

Originally posted by Goronian 

But you can't have MMOs without timesinks of some kind, since devs need those sub money you pay. So they NEED you to waste your time and keep you in, all at the same time. But instead of making the ride enjoyable, they make it a carrot on a bloody stick. It's just... Strange.

It's not strange really, it's just much, much easier to dump a treadmill in front of a player rather than construct proper, enjoyable levelling content. With early MMORPGs that was a straight-up experience grind; you can spawns for hours, murder thousands of hapless varmints to get that next "ding!".

Then came the quest-based progression that more modern MMORPGs offer; mainly shallow and underwhelming tales of a farmer who needs you to kill 10 boars and bring him the meat to make into a pie to feed his starving family; but it has to be a specific type (and level) of boar, and (for some strange unknown reason) many of the boars you kill don't have any meat for you to loot.

It's moving in the right direction, but it still has a ways to go.

Both Palebane and Ilvaldyr are correct in their previous postings.

Gear, and the gear treadmill along with a level grind (another treadmill) hidden by quest grinding are the name of the game now.

Funny the first best MMO I played had neither. How far we've come.

There are two extremes.. almost every sandbox title, and then all of the new casual quest based soloable instant gratification MMO's.  I have been telling my friends in a drunken stooper for years that if a dev can find a way to get a good blend of the two they could be insanely successful.  As gamers play games for years and years I think more and more want a more free experience that sandbox games can offer, but a lot of the time they don't want the full pvp and sandbox to the extreme that almost every sandbox game has taken it to.

I think if you give a sandbox world where content isn't plowed through on a treadmill, but the whole world is used on a daily basis by all levels of players(Something like FFXI with 3 starting nations and the central city of Jeuno before Aht Urghan), with a very single player like experience for players starting with an in depth tutorial, and quests taking the player throughout the quests in the starting towns and slowly introducing them to the sandbox elements of the game while still having an overarching story it could really be something special.

It is just almost all sandbox games to date drop you in the world leaving many players scratching their heads while on the other end they drop you in the world giving you so little freedom that after a month or two you have to ask yourself wtf are you doing.

There is a happy medium.

Originally posted by ProfRed

There are two extremes.. almost every sandbox title, and then all of the new casual quest based soloable instant gratification MMO's.  I have been telling my friends in a drunken stooper for years that if a dev can find a way to get a good blend of the two they could be insanely successful.  As gamers play games for years and years I think more and more want a more free experience that sandbox games can offer, but a lot of the time they don't want the full pvp and sandbox to the extreme that almost every sandbox game has taken it to.

I think if you give a sandbox world where content isn't plowed through on a treadmill, but the whole world is used on a daily basis by all levels of players(Something like FFXI with 3 starting nations and the central city of Jeuno before Aht Urghan), with a very single player like experience for players starting with an in depth tutorial, and quests taking the player throughout the quests in the starting towns and slowly introducing them to the sandbox elements of the game while still having an overarching story it could really be something special.

It is just almost all sandbox games to date drop you in the world leaving many players scratching their heads while on the other end they drop you in the world giving you so little freedom that after a month or two you have to ask yourself wtf are you doing.

There is a happy medium.

I want to play that game of yours. Sadly, there probably will never be one.

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

Originally posted by MarL

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

 

It's like saying i'd rather take 2 steps and then be at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro rather than spending 2 weeks climbing it.  How special would anything in life be without the journey there?  If you don't want to mountain climb then just take a helicopter ride to the top.  If you don't want to play MMO's and just want to be at end game in some arena then why not play a CoD or Starcraft or Demigod or one of the other thousand arena based games?

Originally posted by MarL

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

 

Somehow, your comment makes me really sad... is this what we've come to

Originally posted by ProfRed

Originally posted by MarL

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

 

 

It's like saying i'd rather take 2 steps and then be at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro rather than spending 2 weeks climbing it.  How special would anything in life be without the journey there?  If you don't want to mountain climb then just take a helicopter ride to the top.  If you don't want to play MMO's and just want to be at end game in some arena then why not play a CoD or Starcraft or Demigod or one of the other thousand arena based games?

I don't play MMO to beat endgame and to "climb the Kilimanjaro". Lately MMO restrict more and more abilities behind levels and timesinks and 99% of the game is hidden behind progression, only MMO do this.

The same argument you use is used by others to justify poor experiences at the beginning of the game. I knocked Aion for sucking for 20 levels and all the counterarguments can be summed up in one sentence: "the game only starts around level X".

Well I'm not playing games to start having fun at point X, I play them to have fun the minute I start them up. If that makes me part of the "instant gratification" crowd, so be it, but I play games for fun, not to show off.

I used to play like that in EQ, but realised that the carrot on a stick approach limits gameplay on purpose.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Originally posted by ProfRed

Originally posted by MarL

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

 

 

It's like saying i'd rather take 2 steps and then be at the top of Mount Kilimanjaro rather than spending 2 weeks climbing it.  How special would anything in life be without the journey there?  If you don't want to mountain climb then just take a helicopter ride to the top.  If you don't want to play MMO's and just want to be at end game in some arena then why not play a CoD or Starcraft or Demigod or one of the other thousand arena based games?

I don't play MMO to beat endgame and to "climb the Kilimanjaro". Lately MMO restrict more and more abilities behind levels and timesinks and 99% of the game is hidden behind progression, only MMO do this.

The same argument you use is used by others to justify poor experiences at the beginning of the game. I knocked Aion for sucking for 20 levels and all the counterarguments can be summed up in one sentence: "the game only starts around level X".

Well I'm not playing games to start having fun at point X, I play them to have fun the minute I start them up. If that makes me part of the "instant gratification" crowd, so be it, but I play games for fun, not to show off.

Actually, by definition, you can't be called a part of "instant gratification" part, if you want to enjoy the ride. Seriously, there WILL be a lot of people, who just want to get as uber as possible in the game with the most enjoyable ride. And they will demand it to be given to them as soon, as possible, without any knid of effort. 

It seems MMO players, and MMO developers forgot, that there's stuff to do before the level cap.

EDIT: I think you've actually missed his point as well. "If you didn't enjoy the ride, why the hell are you even at the top?"

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Originally posted by MarL

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

 

 

Somehow, your comment makes me really sad... is this what we've come to

Really? It makes complete sense for me as gaming is something I do as a form of entertainment. I also realize not everyone enjoys the same things, so forcing everyone to do things in a single manner is stupid.

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Originally posted by MarL

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

 

 

Somehow, your comment makes me really sad... is this what we've come to

What we come too? Look at my join date....

My first MMO and favorite mmo EVER was 10six in 2000, and  there was no levels. You could do everything on day 1.

Guess what its still alive today and i can go make a new account and kill somoene today that started playing 5 years ago.

So i guess i care more about the gameplay/skill and you care about time played.......is this what weve come to?

Originally posted by kalaren

Originally posted by Hyanmen

Originally posted by MarL

Why would anyone not want instant gratification, ya id rather spend two weeks grinding something to pretend like im having fun.

 

 

Somehow, your comment makes me really sad... is this what we've come to

 

Really? It makes complete sense for me as gaming is something I do as a form of entertainment. I also realize not everyone enjoys the same things, so forcing everyone to do things in a single manner is stupid.

That kind of gratification is missing the accomplishment. You didn't work for it, it feels like nothing. What's the purpose then, when you get really nothing out of it after a while?

Instant gratification is not real (In the way its used here). Its a term that players have created to make themselves feel better about spending way to long truly grinding things in older MMO's, and to attempt to feel elite because "In the old days".

There is not a single game out that automatically hands you thing, or lack challenge. Work, tedium, and needless time sinks to not = Challenge.

It's only in your head.

People play games for entrainment.

If you look at the Guild Wars model you will see it's not so far off from what WoW is turning into.  They give you a chance to experience the largely single player/coop portion of the game to get to max level, or start as an end game toon in the arenas.  WoW as less and less players are rerolling and they continue to make getting end game that much faster with everyone rushing to arena the lines can start to really blur together if you take a step back and look at what has been going on.

This is a step away from what I have always dreamed MMO's could be and what their potential was.  I'm not a bitter hater or anything.  Glad people have fun in the games.  It just makes me sad.  I have high hopes for FFXIV, the supposed elder scrolls MMO, and I am glad that EVE has been as successful as it is and hope that Mortal Online finds success so maybe a large budget project can adopt some of the sandbox elements and mix it with the ridicoulous amount of instant grat and hand holding that is going on in most of the MMO's releasing these days. 

One day it will happen.  Players can only play so many end game based treadmill MMO's as warrior/mage/priest/scout preset class before they start to want something deeper with more freedom and a more dynamic world.