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World of Warcraft - Correspondent Article: Risk vs. Reward
In his first submission to MMORPG.com in this role, our new World of Warcraft Correspondent Darren Bridle files this article discussion risk vs. Reward in the most populated MMORPG ever created, Blizzard's World of Warcraft.
Risk Versus Reward Analysis
It’s Friday night, you’re sitting down after a long hard day at work/school, you decide to fire up World of Warcraft and try your hand at one of the heroics. Whether you do it out of a love for challenging instances with friends or you’re still progressing through the game and looking for gear upgrades, the overwhelming objective is to be rewarded for your hard work. This is risk versus reward (RIvRE). For the risk you undertake, what reward do you get at the end of it? RIvRE is everywhere, not just instances, solo play and raiding, but crafting, questing and even the auction house! Follow me now as we explore where the game does RIvRE well and … where it doesn’t.
The RIvRE “Pecking Order”
Solo Play
Strangely enough, solo play has some great rewards that are often better than group rewards and instances. For example: if you’re on the alliance side, there is a cloak quest where you have to kill a bird after stealing its egg. This cloak is hard to replace for casters, but I digress.
Group Quests
For me, the group quests have been fairly disappointing. There is a fundamental issue here with group quests. Firstly, it’s very hard to find players interested in helping you with a five-person quest, especially using the “LFG tool”. The best way to finish these quests is with a guild or friends that you group with quite a bit. After you do finally get the players you need together, the quest is fairly uneventful and not all that difficult. So, where does the risk come in? Completing the event or the time taken to achieve the goal? It is my personal opinion that both should be taken into account when giving a reward, this clearly has not happened with group quests. Medium Risk, low reward.
Instances
Speaking strictly for Burning Crusade (BC), the items that each type of class needs is spread out across several instances. Risk for instances is certainly high, with the success of the instance based entirely on player skill throughout the group, and I feel the reward is sufficient with plenty of great quest lines that wrap around the instances. This does not change for heroics. The increased difficulty with the reward of heroic badges on each boss is the perfect blend of RIvRE, but hold that thought for just a minute.
Shattered Sun Offensive
;)
With the release of patch 2.3, a new heroic badge vendor emerged. For me, this is where RIvRE takes a sharp turn in direction. This must have been a huge decision by Blizzard; weighing up adding heroic badge reward loot that was better than tier four raid loot (A tier loot based on Karazhan, Gruul and Magtheridon raid instances). On one hand, there is an option for tier five raid quality loot without stepping into raid content (Heroics). At the same time offering the raid loot at a much quicker pace by raiding Karazhan, where you can amass a large amount of heroic badges quite quickly. The balance between the two styles of player has been achieved through the RIvRE system. This is a perfect example of how RIvRE has a huge impact on the player base of a Massively Multiplayer Online game like World of Warcraft.
Fantastic! So Blizzard got it right and we can all sleep well knowing that there are no problems with the game. Well, not quite. Things get a little hazy on the crafting vs. raiding vs. raid questing.
Lets say, for arguments sake, crafting aside there are three main ways to gear your character up, from low risk to high risk. As explained above, solo play, instancing, raiding. The problem is that crafting produces better rewards than solo play and instancing and in some areas, better than the entry level raiding. What I would like to do is take a tailor crafted set and review what it takes as far as risk to create the item.
Crafting
;)
Spellstrike Hood and Pants. The pattern themselves drop in Shadow Labyrinth and Shattered Halls. The risk for these two is instance, so medium risk. The drop rate is fairly low, so the time invested is quite high. An offshoot of this, is that the pattern is bind on pickup, however the actual result is bind on equip. Therefore, anybody can make it for you.
The ingredients to make the set are a lot of spellcloth, which has a 3-day cooldown and a lot of primal mights, which also have a cooldown. So the risk is low for these since the materials to make them are solo, however the time it takes to create them is significant.
Of course, you could just save up the gold and outright buy the set. To get that much gold is quite easy in World of Wacraft, so all in all, I consider the risk in which to get a very high reward item, is low. This is an example of imbalanced RIvRE.
Raid Quest Lines
For me, this should be where the best rewards are. There should be better rewards on quest lines for raiding than the actual bosses themselves give. Lets face it, if you’re given a quest that involves you clearing an entire raid zone, your having to kill multiple bosses and spent quite a bit of time completing the quest. This hits every definition of RIvRE right at the heart. I’m going to use one of the Karazhan quest lines as an example. It involves several quests that start with talking to various NPC’s in the raid zone, then killing Shade of Aran and finally offing Nightbane, a dragon boss at the end. Your reward for clearing Karazhan is a gem, that is very similar to a non-epic gem crafted by players. This is a high risk quest line with a low reward.
;)
In contrast, the risk to get the same quality item is vastly higher, simply because you would either have to raid, or do many heroic instances for badge loot. Crafting for other items and for different skills (Blacksmithing etc), is similar in terms of RIvRE. If we were to plot this into some type of RIvRE chart, the result is as follows:
So there you have it. This is always a fun discussion when you delve even deeper into the system, this article should be sufficient to start a nice healthy debate. All in all, World of Wacraft does a good job with its RIvRE system, it does need improvement and when we all look to Wrath of the Lich King expansion, hopefully some of these issues have been addressed.
what risk?
you waste an hour of your time?
you spend 1g repairing your armour?
seriously what risk is there?
I didnt even bother to read more then afew lines from the article ... WoW having risk ? I seriously loled soo hard that I got a nose bleed.
haha Risk where?
funniest thing today
Was wondering where the risk was myself, there is none. wow is just a time sink to get rewards, nothing more.
Not a bad article, all things considered. As for risk, no doubt we will hear from the "Death must
have meaning!" crowd. The same types who loved corpse runs, lost gear and perma death
in the old days.
Its a game guys...If there isn't enough "challenge" for you, by all
means find one that provides what you are looking for.
Hehe. Nose bleed =))
Well yeah, there is RI vs RE system in WoW, that we cannot argue about. But as Stradden many times there says, the "risk" in this case is "time invested" vs reward gained. If you replace every risk-word in the post with "time invested", the whole post makes much more sense, as it would make very little sense to claim there is any kind of risk (chance of loss ((other than time)) in WoW.
So I guess its just the topic, and terms used (even tho, they're correct) are misleading =)
I was really expecting a bit more from this topic, but bleh...Timewaste-enterntainment vs Pointless-goal-archeived. I guess its a system too, definetly not a "good job", but it sells =)
"All in all, World of Warcraft does a good job with its RIvRE system, it doesn't need improvement and we all...."
Anyone need paper for their bleeding nose? =)
While I am adamant of the RIvRE idea and can relate to the opinion of the author on soloing, grouping, and raiding, I find his vision on crafting slightly short-sighted. While it is indeed true that there is little "risk" involved in the narrow sense of the word, the author did apply a broader sense of 'risk' in his analysis of grouping. I am curious whether the comparison between crafting and raiding is fuelled by a raider's frustration, rather than a 'well-rounded' player who has actually dedicated the time required to crafting.
Let's start by explaining the broader sense of risk I referred to. I will quote the author on this where he says:
"So, where does the risk come in? Completing the event or the time taken to achieve the goal? It is my personal opinion that both should be taken into account when giving a reward..."
As we can see from this quote, the broader sense of risk includes not only the risk of failure, but also the time spent to acquire a certain reward. While the author does address this time issue for crafting as well, it is quickly dismissed under the guise of being able to just buy the entire set for a reasonable amount of gold coins. It is here that I find the author fails to realise some crucial ideas, that make crafting actually quite balanced when it comes to RIvRE.
On the one hand, it is the 'sacrifices' the crafter has to make to actually be able to craft a certain item quality. These sacrifices range from the time and money spent levelling up the crafter's skill level to the limitation of not being able to learn a different profession. Levelling crafting does not come cheap, as it requires a huge amount of money spent on materials, a lot of time harvesting the raw materials, and quite a bit of time actually crafting the items. Enchanting is a good example of a time- and money-consuming profession. Being an enchanter, your gold supply will be at a continuous low, at least until you reach the skill cap, simply because nobody is prepared to pay for anything but the highest level enchants. As for time invested, you are required to find a lot of items of green quality or higher to level up and to venture into Uldaman again and again to train your enchanting. When it comes to 'proper' enchants that might actually yield some profit, you will even need a vast amount of blue or higher quality items to disenchant.
As I indicated before, you are only able to pick two professions for your character. Being an alchemist sounds mighty fine, but the consequences of it are that you will not be able to craft yourself some decent gear and that most of your creations are not beneficial to you. A rage potion will not do a Priest much good, while a mana potion is of little use to a Warrior. This is in stark contrast with, for instance, a Leatherworker (or an Engineer, at that), whose items will mostly benefit himself. There is some proper dedication involved in crafting, be it time- and money-wise, or limitation-wise. It is this dedication that should be rewarded, too, and higher quality crafted items is just the way to do that.
On the other hand, we have the time it takes to actually acquire the required materials to craft a proper item. This includes both the ingredients and the recipes themselves. In the author's example, these ingredients are crafted materials with long cooldowns on the ability to make them. In short, they take a lot of time. Keep in mind that, while certain items may 'only' take up to a month to create, this does not only mean the crafter will have to wait a month before their item is complete, but also that they cannot use the ingredients on any other crafted item. The cooldown does not just have its effect on the end product, but also on the other products the crafter cannot create in the meantime.
As for the recipes, the ones that produce the higher quality items also take more time to acquire. Most of them have very low droprates and can only be found on certain elusive mobs. One particular instance comes to mind when I desperately wanted my Undead Warlock tailor to be able to craft his own robes for his level 30 quest. The problem was that the recipe for these robes only very rarely dropped off of two kinds of very specific mobs in two Alliance areas (namely Darkshore and Duskwood). Imagine the drudgery of grinding coupled with killing off Night Elves! Even so, this is only a level 30 recipe. The truly rare recipes that produce the most expensive items take far longer to acquire.
The author aims to set aside the above reasoning -- although he probably did not count on an account this extensive, but alas -- by introducing the relative 'ease' with which these items can be bought from the Auction House. That is to say, it is relatively easy to find enough gold and it is not that rare to see said item listed. The problem here lies in the ease with which we acquire gold, or rather, the ease with which a casual player acquires gold. I am by no means a gold farmer (and I do not assume the author to be either), but I do not raid either. This seems logical, though; if I had raided often, I would not have had the need to buy the item, because I already owned a superior one. Hence, the crafted items are not intended for raiders, but for players with a more casual play style. Along with a non-raiding play style comes a general lack of money, or a lack of substantial funds on any account. In other words, while a raider might easily enough pick up a bag of gold coins from his bank account and buy the item, gathering said bag is quite the hassle for the casual player.
The bottom-line of my response is: do not think lightly of the time invested in a crafted item. It takes time to gather the money to pay for training and to harvest the materials to produce the item, it takes dedication to a certain profession to be able to reach the skill level cap, and it takes both time and dedication to grind for that one recipe you really want. If all this sounds like too much of a bother and he prefers buying the item on the Auction House, the casual player best be prepared to know what an empty wallet feels like. Should you be a raider and money come easy, there's little holding you from buying the item, but why on Azeroth would a raider want to?
When I wrote this article, I knew it was quite a stretch, however, regardless of my opinions on Risk Vs Reward, its such a huge part of MMO's in general, I felt it needed to be looked at in WoW, no matter how little risk is there. Time investment, can be easily slotted into the category of risk. Since the death system in WoW is fairly bland and there is no real substance to failing or wiping in a raid environment, the time invested is a big part of it. The reason I didn't use time vs reward is to keep it in standard with other MMO articles based on Risk Vs Reward (I wrote one for Everquest about 5-6 years ago).
Use this article and consider it a few years from now after a few expansions, I may come back and revisit it as a comparison :)
- Darren Bridle
I read the first few lines then dropped off when I realized all that was being talked about was loot.
There is no risk in in WoW.
Risk is hunting monsters in an area known to be frequented by a guild of murderers and running for your life when you see the red names come on your screen.
Risk in WoW...... pfft.
- Haggis
You are quite right about the time invested in crafting. However saying that, when my Fiance decided to play World of Warcraft and become a raider in my guild, I had the cash to buy all of the materials needed to make her spellfire set and spellstrike set in 1 afternoon. The only investment on her part was crafting from 1-375 (about 2 hours of work).
If all the materials were no drop, then fair enough, but fact is, you can just simply buy the materials. Also, one purple drop while your out soloing could bag you anywhere from 1k-1.5k (Druid staff from SSO). For those that don't do that, my hat off to you and it will be very rewarding :)
Ultima Online: True Risk vs Reward.
There's a confusion between "Risk" and "Work" in the article.
That said... Who want to Work in a game ? Not me, and as far as i can see : noone.
Players are always taking the quickest/easiest path to get their rewards. But not all players are looking for the same kind of reward.
Some players are looking for gear upgrades for PvP.
Some players are looking for gear upgrades for PvE.
Some players want to be challenged and this challenge is a part of why they have fun, in other words : it's a part of their reward.
Some players just want to do something different than what their real life has to offer, for them things dont need to be challenging....
etc...
So... IMO, this article is old and obsolete news.
Saw the title, and though maybe they were proposing (Or better, announcing) a revision to the system of WoW to implemnt some form of risk, no matter how menial. All I can say is, what a disappointment (Article and all.)
Please help me find one because I can't. All the new releases are copying the WoW model in regards to meaningless death penalties that no one fears and therefore no risk which in turn provides no challenge.
Classic EQ doesn't exist anymore, SOE dummied it down while turning it into a raiders only game. Yes, raiding is less challenging than grouping or soloing, it's much easier to accomplish goals while riding the coattails of many others and zerging.
I am hoping Horizons or Ryzom launch a new server or will play the new DAoC server when it launches.
WOW isn't designed to punish a player but to encourage him to keep on trying and have fun. I would like to see other mmorpgs with more risk but you can't shit all over a game because it doesn't make you lose a level or items everytime you die. It's clear to see that WOW wasn't designed for that with it's fast and fun PVP which if you lost a level or item each time you'd die then PVP would become annoying in WOW....... it's not like EVE which is designed for that gameplay.
But EVE is a RMT sponsored game because the developers allow trading game cards for in-game currency. Since players can replace lost items with a simple credit card transaction there is no real risk in EVE either.
The whole risk verse reward is a common misconception. There is no more risk raiding than there is soloing.
In reality I died alot more doing hard solo instances like splitpaw in EQ2 than raiding in WOW. Although I was never on the cutting edge. Raiding is just a time sink.
I get the impression now that developers realise they need to cater to all playstyles.
Lots of people like me just like to solo or play in small groups with friends. Any game that only has ecent rewards for raiders loses my cash very quickly.
I got to agree with this stranger here. Current offerings in MMORPG field for games with competitive nature (PVP, Community, or otherwise competitive) are few and far apart.
WoW in question is based on PVE as its main goal in game, its only competition factors are found in sandbox PVP (small groups) and instanced PVE archievements with no real change to enviroment (raiding guilds). And as that, it cant really have that high built in risk factors, as there is nothing really that matters if ya lose it (individually). In games like that (that for sadly are the flawor of the year it seems), the risks are pretty much the different ways of time invested, may it be crafting time, corpse runs, grinding something, organization upkeeping and ofcourse playing together with friends. To most I guess that is plenty enough reason to keep on playing.
Other type of people exist, and they demand competitive games, and MMORPG style of delivering them. Games where risk means the chance of actually losing something, stealing/destroying something from the other team, gaining ranks/levels/name that matters in the big picture. Completely different approach to the whole MMORPG genre I would say. (And most debates are between these 2 archetypes above?)
DAoC has it, communities evolving, competing on each others in a friendly way, and against 3 other factions waging war where you actually gained real peoples appriciation, or hatred. EQ quite similary was built by its communities and competition. Risks in these were not the death's toll, but losing, to the others, those pesky others who bettered you. Losing the keep your guild owned, and paid for.
EVE has it, corporations, coalitions, alliances. Each ship destryoed is actually destroyed, and new has to be built. Each station stolen, area conquered, got your name on a map : "My Alliance holds this space." Each victory had it smell.
What I want to say is that these game types are completely different in _PURPOSE_, they're made for different kind of people with different wishes for a game they want to play. Thats why my nose bleeds too after laughing so much when the word "risk" was in same sentence with WoW =)
Well said there tho, that its just the name of the system and was needed to be used.
Thank god we got Warhammer Online coming. =) (or is there others?)
(( Dirty : Death is only one very small part of the meaning of risk in a mmo ))
Two comments:
1) You completely forgot PvP in your article...
2) The right formula is not Risk vs Reward, but (Risk+Time) vs Reward.
It was about WoW, there is no real PVP =)
just had to say....
It was about WoW, there is no real PVP =)
just had to say....
Your own (and my) definition of "right PvP" doesn't really matter...
You can get gear through other methods than what is described in the article, and that is called PvP in WoW, be it BGs or arenas.
A lot of heated opinions on this thread. I think many of you completely miss his point. Time is your greatest enemy, running from a bunch of reds is not risk when compared to time.
A game is to be enjoyed, some don't get enjoyment from doing what the author did. That is fine, play another game. Just don't mock his enjoyment, that just shows ignorance.
Heh, EQ1 was the same way once people learned how to raid correctly (and summon corpse spell was added to the game). Once the cleric epic weapon was added, it might as well have been WoW.
All these MMO's boil down to "time invested" vs reward. Eve? Big losses really mean "I must now farm PvE missions on my alt to pay for my PvP losses." So, what risk is there besides time wasted? Same with Lineage 2...., you die, you might lose some armor costing miilions... which you then must farm (or just buy....) to get another piece.... risk? Time wasted.
So, people need to open their eyes and smell just exactly what they're shoveling when criticizing WoW with the "No risk, only time invested" mantra... its exactly the same as every other game, just varying degrees of "time wasted".
BTW, WoW's PvP is more PvP than Eve's Blob PvP....just had to say.
A time sink is not equal to a "Risk" you are not "Risking" your time when you sub to a game, or log in, any more than you are risking anything more than a paper cut by breaking out some playing cards and laying out a game of solitaire. Games of old did hav some risk... which has been greatly reduced or even removed now even in the older games. If their is not "Potential loss" there is no real "Risk" involved. Be it loss of experience, or a penalty to future experience gains and some stat loss temporary or permanent... perhaps a percentile chance of losing some gear... some potential loss needs to be incurred for their to be actual risk equated. I am really looking forward to the upcoming launch of WAR, but this is one of the things that will kill the game sooner for me. I understand their concept of trying to keep people back in the action of the game, but when death is made meaningless it tends to foster the mindless 8 year old zerg mentality, rather than fostering mindful cooperative community. This is not something that only WoW fails in. Many games do because of the pathetic "Give me stuff now" mentality of society. People need to reconsider what "Risk" really is before the argument can be made either way tho. WoW over all fails at any form of Risk however (In my not so humble opinion)
You sir don't realize that all of those things just mean MORE time wasted per death. The only risk is time. Or would you like a game to cut off your toe or take your first-born child when you die in-game?
You can get those items or experience back... they just require more time... So really WoW just have less time wasted per death - which I am all for.
I hated dieing in games with exp/item loss because I had to repeat all the same crap to get to the same place - a huge waste of time. I mean in some games I've played dieing once at a high-ish level was enough to make me want to quit rather than do the same thing over.
This is the first pure crap article I've read on this site. Gratz new guy!
The only risk in WoW is cancelling your subscription before they charge you for the next month.
Quite the nonsense discussion, if you ask me...
The guy wrote an article that was not about the distinction between time invested and risk, but about what you had to risk to gain a reward. Yes, you take a risk when venturing into a dungeon with a five-man PUG. There's no telling whether people will ninja your loot or turn out to be level 60 warrior tanks who missed picking up Defensive Stance back at level 10 (infamous reference of which I cannot remember the original author). The risk is having to start over again, maybe even to start over finding a group altogether. Whether you like that risk -- as it doesn't actually make you lose any in-game items/levels/experience/whatever -- is completely beside the point.
My girlfriend would never have played WoW with me if there had been a risk of losing what you earned before. That alone is proof that there are people that want this kind of 'risk' or no-risk, whatever you want to call it. You cannot judge on something being "better", "more hardcore" or whichever nonsense term you wish to apply to the idea just because YOU do not like it. My girlfriend would probably think you are lifeless dorks who can do little else than drool over their MMORPG experiences. Say one of you were dumped into a room full of girlfriends, they're quite likely to think the same. Bottom-line: It's quite easy to pick on a game in a room full of people who don't really like that game. Doing so does not "prove" anything or leave you anywhere different than where you were before.
A nicly, well thought out article even if most, including myself, disagree in the fact that WoW is a time sink and has no risk vs reward. Regardless, nice article Darren and dont give up, alot of us here HATE wow and will argue with you about every aspect of it to our dying breath
You sir don't realize that all of those things just mean MORE time wasted per death. The only risk is time. Or would you like a game to cut off your toe or take your first-born child when you die in-game?
You can get those items or experience back... they just require more time... So really WoW just have less time wasted per death - which I am all for.
I hated dieing in games with exp/item loss because I had to repeat all the same crap to get to the same place - a huge waste of time. I mean in some games I've played dieing once at a high-ish level was enough to make me want to quit rather than do the same thing over.
So instead you prefer to not loose exp or items and still grind and grind....and grind....and grind....and grind for no real reason except to get that new (only verry slightly better) shiny.
Not saying your right or wrong, its all personal taste. I prefer body runs (hate exp loss). You prefer a few silver in repairs. Corpse runs in asherons call where some of the most fun times I ever had. Anyway like I said, personal taste neither of us is right or wrong.
Sorry for going offtopic :P
There are a few things to say. I only played WOW a few weeks, it wasnt my kind of game basically because of the graphics. What I see is, there is an irrational behavior every time we talk about WOW. Maybe a giant success like this (in terms of money output) it invokes extreme reactions. For me WOW is just one other MMO like many with some good and some bad things.
What WOW did likely good is to give people with many different levels of skills and different time scales an opportunity to gain some nice rewards. I know from friends who play WOW as pro raiders and PVPers who played a lot of other MMOs as well that there are enough places and things to do in WOW which are very difficult and take a lot of dedication. Just for the sake of comparision, I guess it takes much longer time and effort to get the highest goals in WOW than in Vanguard. But what many other MMOs miss, is giving some small rewards for people with less time to dedicate, and value other playstyles than raid people.
On the other hand what WOW in my opinion did utterly wrong was the strong value of raids. For me as old pen and paper gamer the heart of every MMO is a group, not a solo game not a raid. Its the classic adventerer group and I see both raids and solo as mere appendices to the idea of a MMO. The only reason games added massive raids is to keep people playing beyond their natural interest span in a game, and in that WOW has really been very evil. They always added new raid and even newer, higher gear and new factions with insidious high faction levels to grind. For nothing but a mindless grind it became.
For what is it those raid guilds do? They go in the same instances over and over and over to gather the gear sets for everyone. The grind the same endlessly, just to get the insidiously high faction values needed. In that there is neither adventure nor challange, it merely becomes a time sink, and most MMOs started to keep their players in similar fashion.
When I recall a D&D pen and paper evening, we had a group and one adventure, like a story we went through. But as the re-run of the movie isnt the same, we hardly made the same adventure a second time, for it was only so entertaining doing it once. And thats were the entire tedium of MMOs come from. You no longer play to experience the way, you play to reach a goal, a new level and new tier of armor whatever carrot is hooked in front of you, and WOW has imo brought this to insidious expanses.
It is a precious balance. Sure, everyone wants to get a near little something at the end of the day and the end of the quest and not just trash. But if you give people too much you just stirr them to want things they themselves would naturally want, you incite them by greed, envy and other less than virtuous motivators. Thats where I found city of heroes which has neither money nor loot MUCH more relaxing, tbh, where you gear is only influence by your personal creativity in making it. But WOW was very successful in playing on the peoples darker ambitions.
Games like WoW and it's ilk (eq2 lotro aoc vanguard) have very little risk, and huge rewards. The genre has been seriously pussified by WoW, and talking about risk vs reward in regards to WoW is just absurd to anyone who played MMOs before 2004.
You want some risk vs reward? play EQ1 2001 version. Games with harsh penalties, where if you mess up and die... you have a serious freakin problem.
EQ1, you are in a dungeon with a group farming at a camp hoping for a rare drop, group wipes because of some retard ranger, everyone logs off in disgust (this wouldn't usually happen as most people will go out of their way to help you recover your corpse, but say its a pug of total jerks). Your warrior is lying there dead, deep in a dungeon. You revive and notice you lost a level... a dong as they were called, not only that you are naked. You have a few options, get another group together that can clear their way through the dungeon or find and pay a necromancer to take an hour of his time to come summon your corpse. Now you need to find and pay a cleric, high enough of a level to give you at least a 90% exp rez so you can get your level back. If you fail to get your corpse back within 2 weeks, all your gear rots...
Thats a risk! losing 5 mins running back in ghost form is not a risk!
You clearly know what classic EQ was like when it was a good game. Please tell me you know of a current game that is challenging like EQ was back in the day.
Until some intrepid game company invents a method that can shock you to death when you "die" in a game, the only thing you risk in any of these games is time. Regardless of how much of a setback your avatar takes (money, equipment, XP, etc), these can all, -without exception-, be earned back after enough time is spent re-performing the tasks it took to earn them in the first place.
The only succesful MMO at this moment that has a TRUE "RISK" vs "REWARD" system is EVE Online. Period!
As in EVE Online you will be blown up, lose your ship and even end up podded and maybe lose some implants and skillpoints (if you were stupid and forgot to upgrade your clone regularly).
That's TRUE risk!
All other MMO's don't have risk, only Time Sinks.
Cheers
I want there to be a Hardcore server, like from D2. Your character dies, YOU die forever. Sure you can make a new character but you get my point. How would this hurt WoW, I don't understand? Make ONE server hardcore, what do they have to lose? The millions that hate it can play on one of the other 999 servers.
Also, there is risk in older games. I played UO and I went to Fel to get my ore because less people were there farming ore. But my risk was a red would come along and kill me and take my ore. Now while it was really only time I lost, that is a risk to me. Doing a raid vs doing BG is not a risk, its just something different to do. Both ways lead you to EPICZ, in UO that led me to being SOL.
But that risk = a thrill for some, like me ... its not a thrill to risk raiding and doing BG instead.
While this is all obviously an opinion about what risk means, from your perspective there is no risk in putting all your money in the stock market than either. Because really money is just gained through an investment in time so really there is NO risks at all besides dying in real life or getting hurt beyond repair.
But I have a feeling you don't have all your funds invested in the stock market or in gambling because you in fact do believe in risk.
There is no real risk in WOW. YOu dont loose items dying - you dont even loose gold while playing PVP matches. WoW is first and formost about effort. How much time you put into it. Thats how a good MMO should be. And ofc the more ppl that are working together - the more rewards it should be giving. Thats the case in PVE content. But in PVP its not quite so easy. Some call it skills.... But unless all the skilled ppl are playing restro druids and the other healing classes haver total retarded nubs - then we know this is not true.
Now... Risk.... Let me see...
Try to play Legend of Mir: 3 Heros for example. The death penalty is possible loss of an item. Even weapon that took you 3 -4 months to get. And... another person can pick it up if he kills you !!!...
Now thats risk !!
Ofc there has to be balance. But in terms of casual gameplay - building a good game where you gradually create your own goals based on time you have spare and the effort you can put in - is pretty much the perfect MMO atm. And thats why WOW is so populare. Like it or hate it. Its the perfect formula for a MMO game.
I understand that everyone should be able to enjoy online-games, but it is a shame. What about us hardcore gamers? That have been paying MMO's years before anyone knew they even existed? What about us that were the Anti-pk's and the Dreadlords? Most gaming companies don't care about us because we are the few, sometimes they toss us a cookie and create a single server that they don't even put any effort into.
It's a shame, because if it wasn't for people like myself that were around in the beining, the genre "may" have gone the way side.
Honestly, the elitism and stupidity of many of these comments is just comic.
So the time spent farming for gold to pay for repairs isn't a huge risk because it won't take you very long to do it.
But the time spent grinding out lost XP, lost items, or finding someone to rez you (or you'll lose your stuff) is a huge risk.
It's all time-based risks though! But because a person in game A has to farm something for an hour while game B requires *gasp* TWO HOURS, somehow the time in game A isn't a risk but time in B is. So what if it took you four months to farm this one item? It's still just time.
If you take loss of time as a risk out of the formula, then even things like paying someone to rez you isn't a risk.
If you follow this, then even losing a character isn't a real risk because it's just a loss of time.
So what is risk then? Whatever you want to define it. So stop criticizing people for defining risk differently. Just because you think that a day of work lost isn't a real risk doesn't mean that everyone has the same amount of time, and risk, to spare.
It seems that mmorpg.com is the land of whatever the opposite of a WoW fanboi is. Both sides of the spectrum are just as blinded by their own opinions.
Either way, WoW does have a light death penalty, but remember - its ease of use is what allowed it its popularity. Sorry to say, but you hardcore death people are a very VERY small minority in the grand spectrum of things.
I spent 2 years as a Anti- pirate in 0.0 space in EVE.
played WoW for 2 years doing Pre-made BG, Arena 5v5.
I'm sorry to tell you this but WoW is an absolute joke when it comes to pvp.
EVE, UO, DAoC, Guild Wars > WoW in pvp game play, risk v reward and balance.
WoW is a spectacular game if ur a hardcore 5 man dungeon/raid guy but Pvp is tacked on.
I'm a big fan of Blizzards other games (diablo,SC, WC rts) and blizzard did a great job on designing instances.
I don't hate WoW i played for a while and have 5 70's two with very high tier raid gear but saying WoW is better than Eve in PVP is crazy talk
Risk is that you have a chance to LOSE something! Like in EVE online that your ship can be blown right out of the sky.
If it's a T1 frigate then it's not such a biggie, but if someone flies around in a T2 ship (can cost between 80million to couple hundred million ISK loss if blown up! As you cannot insure T2 ships).
That's what I call RISK!
Losing time is a lame excuse, as if you feel you are losing time, then you shouldn't be playing in the first place.
So World of Warcraft, how you try to put it, it just doesn't have any RISK! Nothing, Nada!
So like many other posters say. Article would have been more credible and logical if they changed RISK into Time Spend or Effort so to say.
Cheers
Anyone who starts off their post talking about elitism and stupidity and follows it up with something so stupid is definately a stupid elitist. :p
Farming effortless monsters for an hour with no likely cause of death or consequences is not the same type of penalty as a game with a real risk of loss. First of all the time involved to recover is much higher in old games like EQ1... Secondly the death penalties had much more to it than just spending 1 hour grinding mindlessly ez monsters. You had to rely on.... other people...
Risk is that you have a chance to LOSE something! Like in EVE online that your ship can be blown right out of the sky.
If it's a T1 frigate then it's not such a biggie, but if someone flies around in a T2 ship (can cost between 80million to couple hundred million ISK loss if blown up! As you cannot insure T2 ships).
That's what I call RISK!
Losing time is a lame excuse, as if you feel you are losing time, then you shouldn't be playing in the first place.
So World of Warcraft, how you try to put it, it just doesn't have any RISK! Nothing, Nada!
So like many other posters say. Article would have been more credible and logical if they changed RISK into Time Spend or Effort so to say.
Cheers
Oh so so wrong, losing time is the ONLY risk, nothing else is a risk. You have risk in any game because you lose time doing it. The only reward is your enjoyment of such. Some of you are so blinded by what you consign to risk you can't think outside the box. Try stepping back and using that thing inside your head.
What, pray tell, is stopping you from rerolling your toon when you die? You can have this risk at any time.
But the problem is, the other players aren't doing that, are they? Which drives you bonkers.
It's not about your risk and reward, obviously. It's about everyone elses. Misery not only love company, misery DEMANDS it.
What, pray tell, is stopping you from rerolling your toon when you die? You can have this risk at any time.
But the problem is, the other players aren't doing that, are they? Which drives you bonkers.
It's not about your risk and reward, obviously. It's about everyone elses. Misery not only love company, misery DEMANDS it.
Exactly. Permanent death is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of, and anyone who wants it really REALLY needs to get their priorities in life straight. If you would absolutely love to put time into something and have it just become a complete waste after one mistake, to do the same thing again, you have WAY too much time on your hands.
What, pray tell, is stopping you from rerolling your toon when you die? You can have this risk at any time.
But the problem is, the other players aren't doing that, are they? Which drives you bonkers.
It's not about your risk and reward, obviously. It's about everyone elses. Misery not only love company, misery DEMANDS it.
You fail to understand that part of the challenge is healthy competition. Most MMOGs are item centric or goal centric so healthy competition is part of the design, especially with PvP. It is just plain stupid to suggest players wishing for more challenge assign a more difficult ruleset for themselves if other players are not subject to the same ruleset.
You fail to understand that part of the challenge is healthy competition. Most MMOGs are item centric or goal centric so healthy competition is part of the design, especially with PvP. It is just plain stupid to suggest players wishing for more challenge assign a more difficult ruleset for themselves if other players are not subject to the same ruleset.
Obviously, some people don't want a real challenge. They want the ruleset to equalize everyone in the same way so that they don't have to work to hard to pwn the n00bies.
If the death penalty obsessed were really interested in a challenge, they'd willingly reroll every single time they die and desperately grind to catch up with those who do not. To demonstrate their inate superiority.
But they don't. I wonder why? Why is it that these people are so concerned about how others play the game?
Why are these people INSISTING that WoW change to accomodate them? They've got the reroll on death option available to them at all times.
Here's the deal: obviously market research has demonstrated that for many casual players, severe death penalties are a turn off. As in a "screw this shit, I'm not paying $9.99 a month for this sort of abuse" kind of reaction.
Which is not good for MMOs as an ongoing business concern.
Risk?? What risk? WoW got no risk, WoW only got timesinks. There is no penalty dying in WoW, except the passing of time. The gold you need for repairs are easilly earned back doing a few dailys. Its pvp got no risk. If you die while pvp'ing it only means you need to spend a little more time getting the same reward at the end.
To be honest, true risk dont fit well into todays mmo's. Permadeath, xp-loss, itemloss and all those things that made mmo'ers tiptoe through their mmo-worlds aint welcome but by the minority in todays mmo market. Allthough quite vocal at times they're hardly even a niche. That go for singleplayer games today too. Nowadays you bind quicksave and quickload to the left and right mousebutton.
Gone are the days when if you died, you be stripped of all powerups, sent back to the start of the level or any other hash punishment for dying.
While this is all obviously an opinion about what risk means, from your perspective there is no risk in putting all your money in the stock market than either. Because really money is just gained through an investment in time so really there is NO risks at all besides dying in real life or getting hurt beyond repair.
But I have a feeling you don't have all your funds invested in the stock market or in gambling because you in fact do believe in risk.
What can you buy with gold from (insert your current MMORPG here) in real life? Zilch. Cash, however, is used to buy food, shelter, medicine, etc. In the case of the stock market there is some real risk, as lack of cash will indirectly cause you harm.
And yes, I do have money invested.
Even a timesink involves risk, because you're putting your time into it when you could be putting your time into something else.
Obviously, many players value the time they put into a game. The entire level treadmill concept is based on this. You put this much time into the game, you get a cookie in the form of the next level, with some additional abilities perhaps as a reward.
Frankly, it's enough of an annoyance for me to die in SWG or WoW or any other MMORPG because I'll lose something I've put the time into. It's a pain to travel back to where you were from the cloner or the graveyard. Buffs will be gone, you'll have to spend time getting those back. You might have to repair some damage to your gear to give you the best chance of completing that quest. Some quests are timed, you'll have to start all over from the start on those. Likewise, you got that boss down to like 10% before you snuffed it, now you'll have to go through all that again.
What the designers are looking to do is make it so you'll come back and keep playing the game even after you die. For most players, having too low a frustration threshold means they'll reach for that cancel button, which means developers don't get paycheck at end of month. The developers are playing the risk vs. reward game, too, you know, but for higher stakes than the players are.
What can you buy with gold from (insert your current MMORPG here) in real life? Zilch. Cash, however, is used to buy food, shelter, medicine, etc. In the case of the stock market there is some real risk, as lack of cash will indirectly cause you harm.
And yes, I do have money invested.
Good you fell on page to what I am saying, though you didn't realize. Cash is important to you therefore there is a risk. A MMO character is very important to people (not me or you, but to some people it is)therefore it is a risk to lose things they have. While one is a game and one is real life, they both equate to a risk in perception.
Or we can go the simple route: Time = Money = Risk :)
But in any case, since the idea of risk is a perception and really an opinion, its hard to win an arguement 100% defending either side.
For the first time ever I’m going to commit two of the cardinal sins of forum posting simultaneously, I’m going to comment on something I did not read properly, and I did not read any of the other peoples reply’s to the article properly either.
This article should be renamed Time vs. Reward, there’s no Risk in WoW, that’s one of the fundamental reasons why its so popular and accessible to such a large number of people.
I’m sorry but I wont read an article about WoW that is titled Risk vs. Reward because I cant take it credibly.
"RIvRE is everywhere, not just instances, solo play and raiding, but crafting, questing and even the auction house!"
Hold the phone! Since when did they implement Butt Crafting?!? lol.
p.s. I'm making a joke, and not grilling the author like so many others are doing. Lighten up people he already commented on why he titled it that.
WORST THREAD EVER!!
As I said earlier, it is clear that folks like you are the majority now, so have fun. I highly doubt the genre as currently assembled will miss those of us who have moved on from mmogs. It is yours now. More power to the way you like things, eh? :)
Can any of you people read?
Evidently not, as the article was NOT about how hard a death penalty a game has but about time commitment.
Nothing like completely sidetracking a discussion because you did not read the article.
Er, I did read the article.
I happen to think it is ok if interesting conversation branches off in to other sub-conversations. As a matter of fact, a discussion of what risk is seems appropriate in a topic that makes comments on risk vs reward.
I'm sorry if that's a little much for you to handle.
Regardless of wether were talking about time loss or a death penalty truth is that no mmorpg in the actual times is hardcore enough to cater to a self respecting mmorpg lover. When your character dies, not only should he stay permanently dead and permacancel your account; your pc should explode, jagging pieces of monitor into your brain and setting your house on fire. Anything below that level is carebear for me.
Uhhh, there's zero risk in WoW.
There's only a "reward proportional to time invested" correlation. That's it. Zero risk.
Sorry, but terribly titled article. Remove the word "risk" from it and it's just an article about gear. Meh.
i'm sorry. is this an April 1st prank article?
risk vs reward... in wow...
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAAHAH
risk. what risk is there in wow? you lose, and i quote, "precious time running back to your body, that's 5 or 6 minutes i could've been killing things".
maybe you could just do those daily quest things and get lots of gold stockpiled, so when you die that 6th or 7th time (probably because the other heroes weren't up to snuff and didn't know their choreographed routine very well for THIS dungeon), you can pay the little repair robot (from engineering), in the middle of the dungeon, to repair all your gear.
risk.
in wow.
that is bloody classic.
This article is a load of poppycock and most likely Blizzard propaganda. There is no risk vs reward in WOW, as you are rewarded even for failure.
As for the section on crafting, nice job picking the one exception of a useful crafted item. Most other classes in WOW dont get the benefit of the spellstrike set. Yet consolation rewards (badge loot) offer far superior items to most crafted gear.
Pure marketing is all this article is.
dude, wow is your game. that is EXACTLY what happens if you die. haven't you been watching the news for the past year? all those house fires aren't the result of raging forest fires out west. it's the result of little kids not doing so good in wow.
news discussion >> world of warcraft: correspondent article: risk vs reward
i can sure as heck read that.
does it say time commitment in there ANYWHERE?
nope, it says r i s k.
it then starts off with: Risk Versus Reward Analysis
time commitment.. nope, r i s k.
let's read the first paragraph, shall we?
It’s Friday night, you’re sitting down after a long hard day at work/school, you decide to fire up World of Warcraft and try your hand at one of the heroics. Whether you do it out of a love for challenging instances with friends or you’re still progressing through the game and looking for gear upgrades, the overwhelming objective is to be rewarded for your hard work. This is risk versus reward (RIvRE). For the risk you undertake, what reward do you get at the end of it? RIvRE is everywhere, not just instances, solo play and raiding, but crafting, questing and even the auction house! Follow me now as we explore where the game does RIvRE well and … where it doesn’t.
risk risk risk vs reward. dude even put RIvRE. for the risk you undertake... what reward do you get at the end of it? rivre is everywhere... i'm re-reading that paragraph as i type this.
reading comprehension is a lost skill.
Games are meant to be fun. If you are having fun whilst aiming for a particular reward then the "risk" is much lower, because you won't mind doing it again if you lose that reward. The problem is that with all MMO's the activities required to get the reward may start fun but get repetitive and boring after a while. So the thought of having to go through it all again is not very appealing, hence why most gamers don't want harsh death penalties.
Let me start by saying I have played: EQ2 for 1.5 years, LOTRO, FFXI for 3 years, Eve, AOC, TSO, Tabula Rasa, SWG for 1 year, and WoW for 3.5 years and many more, so I do have some mmorpg experince. I know alot of ppl my disagree with this as I used to myself before I got to truly end game in Wow T5+. However the reason WoW has over 12 million players, and the next cloest one only has 1 million is WoW at this point is still the best mmorpg on the market, as it is by far the most complete. As far as I see WoW only has one major flaw the community is kinda weak, but if you play on a RP server it is better even if your like me and do not like to RP for some reason the ppl are nicer. In any case this is just imo, and everone should play what they find fun, as for me: WoW#1 FFXI#2 followed cloesly by EQ2#3. PS: I hope warhammer online gives us all another great mmorpg, but you never know as I was not near as impressed with AOC as I thought I would be
the Everquest one is good. this one was well written its just your choice of game could have been better, or your choice of words (time vs rewards).
wow have risk the risk of knowing your gear going be the worst after lvl cap raise in few months
There is great risk.
The risk is wasting your precious time which you could use to become a "better" human beign.
The risk is, considering what I said above, you not beign able to lead the life you want to. Or maybe not beign able to fulfill your dreams (which often require $).
Anyway, very silly calling it Risk vs Reward. Should be "time wasted vs. reward". Anyway, the article is kinda right.
I agree there isn't much risk in WoW... but the people that complain that they want more risk are the same people that quit hunting in Felucca when Trammel came out in UO. The question... why keep playing a game you think has no risk and is boring? You can always go play another game with risk in pvp but guess what happens then? You complain about getting camped,looted and not being able to level so it's all nice when you aren't getting killed but we all know what happens when you do. I suggest looking at the pvp servers on WoW and they are empty because there isn't any risk to pvp but people don't like being killed and if there were pvp'ers that thought different the pvp servers would be packed... don't use the bg's as a reason because pvp isn't all about loot. Waste of life?? I can say that about most things...drinking,paying bills,sitting in traffic, etc... but life is about what you enjoy and you decided to play, that's like casual players talking about it's not fair that he plays more than me.
Um not everyone who wants a real death penalty is a PVP player. A lot of us are PVE oriented. I myself love a stiff death penalty. I am having way more fun playing my one level 10 warrior in FFXI which has experience loss and level loss than any of my high level characters in any of the other games I have played like WOW. After looking for a real gameto play after the dumbing down of EQ, I had forgotten how nice it was to actually have gaining a level mean something. And don't get me started on how much fun I am having in not being led around by a ring in my nose from quest to quest. .
The lack of a real death penalty. I.E. experience loss at a minimum is why I won't even bother buying WAR especially after my dismal experience in AOC.
Only "risk" I can think of is that Blizzard needs to take a risk and create dynamic dungeons like they do in Diablo but then for WoW. Each time you enter a instance the map is changed, the mobs have changed their places. The boss is in another spot etc etc...
Playing WoW is no risk. Maybe. You risk losing a lot of friends or family if you play it too much.
You clearly know what classic EQ was like when it was a good game. Please tell me you know of a current game that is challenging like EQ was back in the day.
I would say EQ1 yeah? But I don't really know what EQ1 is like anymore. I think I quit around 2002 when the Planes of Poop came out. I think they make retro progression servers once in a while, that might be fun to check out.
If not EQ1, someday, somewhere, some studio is going to make a good ol' awesome early EQ style game with graphics like LOTRO :) Keep the faith!
The only "risk" that exist in WoW
1) time wasted
2) losing your girlfriend, your friend and your pet dog
3) money spend ( not your WoW gold )
4) all the EPIC armor you wearing now will be meaningless in the next expansion ( think WOTLK )
5) losing your beauty sleep
6) losing your job
"reward"????
- Technical Support staffs are your only friend??
- online girlfriend whose real name is Chuck Noris??
This post was like a beacon to the WoW haters.. like flies on sh*t.
WoW has always been about the risk, and dieing is part of the game, I must of died 10 or more times trying to solo that elite giant in burning steps, but after a few deaths I figured it out and I downed him.. that was my reward.. although his loot was hardly worth it =D
Kinda funny reading their replies.. sadly most wont be happy untill a game comes along that has perma-death and also when you die you have to;
1. uninstall windows
2. partition your hard drive into 4 parts
3. installing windows...
4. call microsoft and beg as you have re-activited windows to many times.
5. Buy a new copy of windows
6. download the game at 1kb/s
7. re-register your account and wait upto a week for it to be approved
8. email the company a month later as you have not recieved your activation key
9. get the key via hacking the companies database
10. spend 5 years in prison
11. get bugged by several prisoners and warders for 5 years
12. download a huge patch at 1kb/s
13. get into the game at start at lvl 1 again with only 1 hit point in a zone where even the grass hits you got 500 hit points.
.... now that is risk.
this article wins the pulitzer for bullshit
Risk? What's at risk? Some gold for repairs? Please.
There is no "risk" in World of Warcraft. There is only Time Spent. Because Time is what limits everything I do. If I had infinite time, I could do everything in the game. I don't have infinite time, so I have to pick and choose where I spend mine.
The badge system introduced in 2.3 is great. It gets people running heroics and doing something else other than standing around inside Shatt between raids. It's a way to augment getting gear. More gear, less time, and Heroics give me something to do. Win, win, win.
The thing I hate the most is people who can't do their job in WoW. 240 DPS from a warlock in a heroic - they do not belong there. They wasted my time for joining the group, they wasted my time for getting us killed because I couldn't heal for 25 mins while we tried to kill one boss... They wasted my time. I don't care about getting killed, really. Do some dailies (again just TIME spent) and repair bills are irrelevant.
The only "risk" is wasting time. The only thing that ever causes me to waste time is people who can't play their characters. Sadly, this game is filled with them.
So go ahead and try to balance that out... Getting a group together for a really easy 5 man quest with a crappy reward can be the most frustrating thing in the world because the 4 people you got have no @#$^ing clue what they're doing. Time Spent = HIGH, Reward = Low. Or maybe there's a really hard quest that has a really great reward... You grab 4 FRIENDS and breeze through it. Time Spent = Low, Reward = High. It's all about the other people in your group.
I hear you can lose a Dreadnaught or a Mothership......seriously the only risk is time wasted.
every time i read a bitter post like this, i can only think 'the tears of your weakness bring me joy'.
risk vs. reward is a very common concept in gaming. period. when it's pointed out that some games do not have a risk vs. reward system, you somehow get replies like the quoted. which, as i said, those tears bring me joy. people that can't wrap their consciousness around such a simple concept -- they deserve wow. and i hope they continue to play wow and wow alone.
Reward vs Reward.....
So you only kill one boss and your group disbands, eh well you still got an honor token. Keep on chugging along and you'll get yours eventually because failure is not punished in WoW. You're always accumulating something, whether it be rep, or honor tokens, or whatever.. you play you win. This is the perfect model for people who have plenty of time on their hand and lack the skill to play in a system that punishes you for failure.
A casual gamer with skill would be better off playing in a true 'Risk vs Reward' system because they would get the most out of their time. Sad that nobody can see that.
Risk just means the amount of real life time you waste for a reward. Crafting like he said, takes an enormous amount of time to solo craft a spellstrike hood. where as you can just run kara or some heroics and get equal gear at a badge vendor. geez people use your f'ing brain.
Time is a risk? Wait because you're a Chinese gold farmer, and time is money in gaming? Its like saying that going to see a movie is a risk because you chance not being entertained. If you didn't have time in excess, then you wouldn't be paying for entertainment that by design is going to take up a huge amount of your time. But again, time is a risk here? What is the payoff for not losing time in a big timesink? More gear more quickly, so you can then *risk* time getting new gear to replace that gear, and then risk again. Hahaha
I see a bunch of talk about rewards, but is there truthfully any probability for loss or negative impact? You can't fail a craft in WoW, and aside from a lockout in some places, you can't fail a quest or instance in a way that negates any progress. You might say repairs, but you still have the same level, gear, rep, and no potential to lose any of that. Grouping gets you better rewards, but I can't find risk in any of it.. other than playing the time game with the loot tables while waiting for your item to drop week after week. Risk? lol
Time vs. Gratification.. this is more like it.
The only risk to playing WoW is the real life opportunities you're missing everyday you spend time playing the game. So yeah, I guess there is a lot of risk associated with playing WoW.. such as ending up one of the biggest losers on the face of the planet.
If your time was such a precious thing, then you wouldn't be wasting it in a game where all you get in the end is entertainment and lost time.
peace. :p
the only thing u RISK on wow is your social life
your social life = 10 epic items or some like that . . . stop farming jeez
theres no risk versus reward in wow
Well nothing like a discussion with a bang. I understand the "WoW haters", there is nothing really wrong with that. Something that I think is very clear to everyone, even if its hard to utter the words; everybody who played and put their heart into Everquest (8 years here), will never experience another MMO in the same way.
Everquest is a dead breed, a breed of game that catered for a very small percentage of - at the time - a hugely untapped genre of the gaming industry. Blizzard tapped it, and tapped it hard. Other game companies and publishers see how successful the genre can be, MMO's start popping up all over the place, trying to cater to as many players as possible. Sony started it, Blizzard improved on it and now the shape of MMO's has changed forever. If anything the response for this article proves this. This is a discussion that has been beaten to death.
An interesting "Welcome back" to writing for mmorpg.com. This would be my 5th or 6th article, I had to stop due to moving back to my home country. I'm looking forward to many more discussions like this, its great reading, even if its not all positive and constructive, its still very strong opinions that keep the genre strong :)
I think you are wrong in your assessment of why WoW is such a big success. When you say Everquest is a dead breed, I assume you are implying that the difficulty level and harsh penalties, very little solo content aspects of that game are dead. This is just not true.
In my opinion WoWs success has more to do with the fact anyone with p3 800 or better can run the game, and the fact that it actually looks really good for the low specs involved. Also it has the smoothest gameplay of any game out there.
So, accessibility is the most important reason.
Quality is the 2nd most important.
EZ mode for n00bs is probably a distant 3rd.
And by no means is a difficult MMO that relys on group play and has harsher penalties something that can't be done well again and be a huge success. They just need to fit the first 2 requirements. There is a huge market out there. And all anyone wants is a quality game they can actually play on their computer without replacing it.
I submit this question to you, what other games, that have been released since WoW meet these requirements? LOTRO is about it. It's not like there has been any serious competition for WoW yet, and I believe, if someone did release a game that was as difficult as EQ1 with similar risk vs reward... if it had the same quality and accessibility as WoW (along with blizzards marketing campaign) it would be as successful or more successful than WoW is, especially if blizzard did it themselves!
"In my opinion WoWs success has more to do with the fact anyone with p3 800 or better can run the game, and the fact that it actually looks really good for the low specs involved."
Anyone can run EverQuest with the same specs and I don't see a ton of people when I log into EQ these days...
You aren't applying the 2nd part of my sentence to your comparison. Not to mention how hard it would be for someone to just start playing EQ... EQ is dead (to newcomers), but not the basic foundation of ideas that made it good (at first)
Ghettobooste - "I think you are wrong in your assessment of why WoW is such a big success. When you say Everquest is a dead breed, I assume you are implying that the difficulty level and harsh penalties, very little solo content aspects of that game are dead. This is just not true."
In no way was my article commenting on why wow is successful, it was merely looking into the risk/time vs reward system.
There has been no game since Everquest with the same strict risk vs reward system and unique feel that Everquest gave us, that is why I say its a dead breed, I just don't feel - or at least for moment - that we will ever get the kind of intense feeling that Everquest gave us in the early days. MMO caters for an entirerly different audience, an audience that pays the bills. It makes me sad as I invested a huge part of my life into Everquest and I keep wishing I will get something to fill the void around each corner.
With all that being said, even with the RIvsRE there is a fun factor that some of the players get. For example, myself even knowing that i go into an instance that will drop an item with a very low drop rate, i do it. Even if i know that the chance of the item dropping is low, i enjoy just doing the instance and making mistakes with them. Even if the time is waste knowingly i do it.
As i havnt play Everquest, i wouldnt know how the risk and reawrd is like but i have to say, comparing it to WoW is far different. How fun would it be to have created another MMO just like one in the pass. That isnt orginal, WoW puts a different feel into playing MMOs and it attacts a more aduience not just ones that have played Everquest. And even if you dont get that void feeled you shouldnt have you hopes up, you should look into geting a new persective of one games reward system.
Its always different with every game, you never know what to expect or when to for that matter. And sometimes you might not like the system at first but part of you needs to adapt into or move on with another game. Thats just how things are even if its the sad truth.
*Downs the last pint in a 6-pack of Anchor Porter*
Bah phuk allaya. WoW may have trivial flaws here and there and everywhere but OVERALL it's still far more enjoyable than any 3 other mmogs combined. Years after being in the open beta i still want to play the game and try new stuff.
so i played the game and well it was fun but what risk
i mean come on there is no risk o no i have one more loss to pvp or o no i lost a item,
it was fun meh ill look for better games where rewards come with real and rewarding risks
Not sure how long you played but the risk is time. There isnt much of a risk besides time, it takes tons of time to get an reward that you want. If your only halfway into WoW you wouldnt really understand as much of the endgame players would since all they do is look for rewards.
I am just sick of the game. I can sit here and say in how many ways I am sick of it.
But why........
What new stuff?
You're addicted...face it.