Originally posted by Taliasin

 

I have just started looking at Conan, so I can not make any over all comparision at this point. However, staying with the Conan example for the moment (the "real time" phrase comes from adverts for the game), both games become easier than when you started. Conan requires you to watch the screen for your targets attacks and defenses, WoW you are just watching for attacks. The "real time" phrase actually refers to the lack of auto attack/auto defense ( I understand that there may be an "auto" mode in setting somewhere, which could change things ).

There are some AoE(group) heals and some individual heals, as there are in WoW. Not sure of what the person might have been referencing. But I have played some games where facing did not matter, and it was easier then when facing mattered. And not as much fun for me.

Also, it appears that Taliasin was incorrect about the heals.  All appear to be AoE heals and in fact they all appear to be heals over time.  There are no direct heals of another player, at least that's what others have posted on the forums and they don't seem to be contradicted by anyone.  I'm assuming this means that there are no healing classes because it would seem to be pretty pointless to be a healer in my opinion.  Apparently all the classes have some sort of healing skills.

Originally posted by Pappy13

  My 4 and 5 year old grand kids play it.  They are not very good, but they can play it.  They absolutely cannot play WoW.  Not even close. 

 

My 2 cousins 5 and 8 love WoW and actually have made it to lvl 70 on 1 character each. The 8 year old uses thottbot, and the 5 year old thinks killing anything in site is fun although gets help from his brother when to go to new areas.

Maybe they arn't the best, but they do play it with a fair amount of ease. There really isn't much to do, and since grinding entertains them both so much they are pretty much near full epics from the different factions. One reason I call WoW easy. Maybe I didn't specify enough in my other post.

They think the little pets are cute so my uncle buys them all the pets that exist so they can have them follow em around. It is a very simple game in that respect. Maybe I just have genius cousins shrug.

Originally posted by namelessbob

 

Originally posted by Pappy13

  My 4 and 5 year old grand kids play it.  They are not very good, but they can play it.  They absolutely cannot play WoW.  Not even close. 

 

 

My 2 cousins 5 and 8 love WoW and actually have made it to lvl 70 on 1 character each. The 8 year old uses thottbot, and the 5 year old thinks killing anything in site is fun although gets help from his brother when to go to new areas.

Maybe they arn't the best, but they do play it with a fair amount of ease. There really isn't much to do, and since grinding entertains them both so much they are pretty much near full epics from the different factions. One reason I call WoW easy. Maybe I didn't specify enough in my other post.

They think the little pets are cute so my uncle buys them all the pets that exist so they can have them follow em around. It is a very simple game in that respect. Maybe I just have genius cousins shrug.

This could happen in any game.  Your cousins are not exactly looking for challenge.  I would be willing to bet they haven't even set foot in a level-appropriate dungeon.

That's the whole sticking point here, and why people keep confusing this issue.

WoW can be one of the easiest games on the market.  No one is disputing that.  No one will ever say that it takes anything but patience to reach level 70.  And yes, that is one of the reasons it is so popular.

But if you want a challenge and take the trouble to go looking for one, it is there.

Originally posted by Hexxeity

 

Originally posted by namelessbob

 

Originally posted by Pappy13

  My 4 and 5 year old grand kids play it.  They are not very good, but they can play it.  They absolutely cannot play WoW.  Not even close. 

 

 

My 2 cousins 5 and 8 love WoW and actually have made it to lvl 70 on 1 character each. The 8 year old uses thottbot, and the 5 year old thinks killing anything in site is fun although gets help from his brother when to go to new areas.

Maybe they arn't the best, but they do play it with a fair amount of ease. There really isn't much to do, and since grinding entertains them both so much they are pretty much near full epics from the different factions. One reason I call WoW easy. Maybe I didn't specify enough in my other post.

They think the little pets are cute so my uncle buys them all the pets that exist so they can have them follow em around. It is a very simple game in that respect. Maybe I just have genius cousins shrug.

This could happen in any game.  Your cousins are not exactly looking for challenge.  I would be willing to bet they haven't even set foot in a level-appropriate dungeon.

 

That's the whole sticking point here, and why people keep confusing this issue.

WoW can be one of the easiest games on the market.  No one is disputing that.  No one will ever say that it takes anything but patience to reach level 70.  And yes, that is one of the reasons it is so popular.

But if you want a challenge and take the trouble to go looking for one, it is there.

Any MMO can be easy if you make it easy. So people don't understand what is easy and what isn't easy. That's the problem with mmos. Your playstyle makes a game difficult or easy. Not the game design, which is the case with single player games.

Originally posted by namelessbob

 

Originally posted by Pappy13

  My 4 and 5 year old grand kids play it.  They are not very good, but they can play it.  They absolutely cannot play WoW.  Not even close. 

 

 

My 2 cousins 5 and 8 love WoW and actually have made it to lvl 70 on 1 character each. The 8 year old uses thottbot, and the 5 year old thinks killing anything in site is fun although gets help from his brother when to go to new areas.

Maybe they arn't the best, but they do play it with a fair amount of ease. There really isn't much to do, and since grinding entertains them both so much they are pretty much near full epics from the different factions. One reason I call WoW easy. Maybe I didn't specify enough in my other post.

They think the little pets are cute so my uncle buys them all the pets that exist so they can have them follow em around. It is a very simple game in that respect. Maybe I just have genius cousins shrug.

There's a HUGE difference between an 8 year old and 5 year old.  I'll bet the 5 year old needs quite a bit of help playing WoW.  My 4 year old grandson needs no help in playing CoX except for me to put in my userid and password.  He even creates his own characters.  He needs a bit of help naming them, but that's all.

Besides this isn't about the differences between my grandkids and your cousins.  This is about the differences between WoW and CoX.  My Grandkids CANNOT play one, they CAN play the other.  That was my point.  Maybe your cousins are just that good.

Have your cousins played any other MMO and found it impossible?

After lvl 20, it gets easier.. Plus, they did away with some of the Elites.

Even before this.. to me, it was a easier learning curve than some of the other MMO's I have played over the years.

IMHO anyway

Originally posted by ThaneB

Any MMO can be easy if you make it easy. So people don't understand what is easy and what isn't easy. That's the problem with mmos. Your playstyle makes a game difficult or easy. Not the game design, which is the case with single player games.

Naw, FFXI is not an easy game. Nor was UO. A lot of games are not easy, and do not allow for children of extremely young ages to even play them.

Instances became repeats in TBC and lost all challenge. Yeah WoW was semi-difficult before its expansion after it though it has lost all originality in its raid scripts. Difficulty out there in WoW? naw it doesn't exist anymore.

Originally posted by namelessbob

 

Originally posted by ThaneB

Any MMO can be easy if you make it easy. So people don't understand what is easy and what isn't easy. That's the problem with mmos. Your playstyle makes a game difficult or easy. Not the game design, which is the case with single player games.

 

Naw, FFXI is not an easy game. Nor was UO. A lot of games are not easy, and do not allow for children of extremely young ages to even play them.

Instances became repeats in TBC and lost all challenge. Yeah WoW was semi-difficult before its expansion after it though it has lost all originality in its raid scripts. Difficulty out there in WoW? naw it doesn't exist anymore.

I have not played FFXI nor have I played UO.  Please explain to someone who has never played either of these games what made them tough.  In other words don't mention Instance X or Quest Y because I have never done them and have nothing to base it on.  Just put it into your own words.

Originally posted by Pappy13

I have not played FFXI nor have I played UO.  Please explain to someone who has never played either of these games what made them tough.  In other words don't mention Instance X or Quest Y because I have never done them and have nothing to base it on.  Just put it into your own words.

FFXI mainly due to the constant required group. The class break down prior to the last expansion was very straight forward. DPS did a lot of dmg but was very frail. Tanks could take a beating, but were not dps at all, same for healers as they could heal very well but nothing else (Could not absorb damage or dish it out). The strategy for each fight was a bit tedious, and I don't really consider that a difficult part, but I do consider the constant watch over your group factor the difficult part. There is a lot of ways to die, and set back your entire group hours, along with deleveling with the loss of xp. It is a much more rigid game that requires more attention payed towards it, and it rewarding in its own right for it. The job and sub job system is very interesting, which if I got into it alone it would be an entire reply but it makes the person playing pay attention to how they are going to play off eachother. A White mage would want a blue mage sub job due to the extra mana and buff abilities as a ninja may want a thief for their ability to backstab. It is complicated in its own right, and can be similarly compared to that of the skill tree WoW has if you do it right your golden, but if you don't you won't have the synergies. The game has in depth story lines and quests similar to WoW, but has lock outs if you fail as opposed to WoW which does not.

The over all penalties I believe are what make a game difficult along with the challenge they present. Don't get me wrong Killing Kel'Thuzad was probly my most rewarding experience of any MMo I have played to date, but the challenge went away with TBC with the re-used raid fights.

Ultima Online is a beast of its own. The full loot, kill anyone you want anywhere you want alone made it a very difficult game. Want to kill someone in a town? You could, just make sure you could beat out someone calling guards on you. Want to kill someone after they just downed one of the most difficult monsters in the game? Sure go ahead and kill em, and take their rewards. (Note this was prior to the addition of a different facet which prevented this style of play. It became a very easy game when the risk of being killed anywhere and losing everything went away). The skill system was also very unique in that you had to work skills not levels. Everyone had a max of 225 stats, and 700 skills distributed among as many skills they wanted. Normally people stuck with being a 7x 100 skill template and some mixed combination of str, dex, and intelligence. All spells required reagents to cast, and if you ran out you were done till you restocked. The absence of any over powering items in the game that threw it out of balance for those who played longer or more than others did not exist. It was truly a game of skill the player had.

Again, I am not saying anything negative about WoW as I did enjoy it a lot until I believe they ruined it with TBC, but that isn't important. The important thing is that risk vs reward systems are the games that I see more difficult than time = reward.

Hardcores love the tedious, time wasting mechanics of old school MMOs, thank gawd most of the rest of us are sane and won't put up with that kind of crap anymore.  Sadly, developers still pay too much attention to hardcore whiners on bulletin boards along with too many of them being hardcore themselves.

-Obviously... Sense of accomplishment... time + effort = reward? Put it in this light... if you worked one year to buy a dodge neon, or worked for five years to buy a corvette... which would be more fulfilling to an average person?

Diversity is a good thing, but it's becoming really irritating to see old schoolers coming into casual games and whining to developers to make the game more hardcore and make sure that the hardcore elements get rewarded better than any other play style.  They've done this in WoW (original concept was little to no raiding with status rewards, not best rewards) and are really ramping it up in LOTRO (really starting to focus on adding raid content and yet again giving them the best rewards). 

-Games have to cater to the end game to an extent, I don't know anyone who wants to hit max level, be finished, and then be forced to re-roll a new character just because they are out of content... which is exactly what you are promoting... that prevents game longevity

All of this crap about WoW being so easy is exactly that, crap.  There is challenge in the game and it's not just from raiding.  People die all the time, solo and in groups, that indicates challenge to me.  Forced grouping does not indicate challenge.  Death penalties do not add challenge.

-How about this... you said people die all the time... that does not indicate challenge, that indicates that people don't give a shit about dying because NOTHING bad happens when they die... I know personally it is easy to stay alive... I played a character from 1 to 60 in 12 days played pre-BC without dying... Take dying in EQ1 for example... if you died you had to worry about  respawns therefore making it difficult to get back to your corpse, or losing the experience you worked hard to gain, or someone ganking you on your way to your corpse, or even someone taking over the camp that you failed to hold...

I'll be a very happy camper when a development team with real backbone, makes a casual game that caters only to casuals and actually makes casual playing the most rewarding and ignores all the hardcore whining.

-Casuals don't keep games alive... Players that stick with a game do...For example... If I work out once every two weeks or five days per week... after 25 sessions in the gym, who is going to be in better shape?... What  you are saying here is that minimal effort should = maximal reward (welfare? lol)... I find that disgusting both in game and in real life...