Behind the Curtain:Slow it down

by Craig Withers on Oct 3rd 2008 8:30AM

World of Warcraft, Fantasy, Culture, Game mechanics, Guilds, Endgame, Warhammer Online, PvE, Opinion, Behind the Curtain

So – Altdorf is burning. That didn't take long, did it? Fifteen days to hit the end-game of one of the most hotly-anticipated MMOs in recent memory? I know I shouldn't lol, but I did, and heartily. The more I thought about it though, the more I worried that it's simply symptomatic of the way we approach and play MMOs just now.

Is this what we've come to? I started World of Warcraft a little late in its lifetime, but I'm pretty sure that the end-game target/ideal/objective hadn't been reached and breached two weeks after the first players logged on. Such does not seem to be the case with Warhammer Online.

There's more than one reason behind the speed with which this happened. From what I'm seeing, it's partly due to the Destruction players in question making use of (exploiting?) a bug wherein they gained access to the central part of Altdorf via the 'back door'. Said door is supposed to only be accessible by Order players. Not only that, but the raid took place late at night, when most players are logged off, taking full advantage of the fact that Destruction players seem to outnumber Order players as a rule. Apparently, it was little more than a gank-fest as the Destruction players rolled over what little PC defence there was.

As much as I wish I didn't care about this, I do. I don't play WAR, and I'm not likely to start any time soon – my hectic, playboy lifestyle simply doesn't afford me the time. Still, I am immensely disappointed. Are we at the point now where games are either being released in a state where players are able to burn their way through content at ridiculous speeds, and reach end-game in a matter of days? Or is it simply that we, as players, have somehow fallen into the way of thinking that if you're not at the end-game, then you're just not playing the game properly?

I'm swaying towards believing the latter there. WAR obviously has bugs, what MMO release hasn't? Some are worse than others, obviously, and while WAR is afflicted, I doubt that the bugs are such that they can shoulder all of the blame here. At what point is it that we started thinking of MMOs in terms of the end-game being the be-all and end-all? Boss kill videos, world and server first kills, and speed-levelling records grab huge numbers of page views and plenty of attention from gamers, but is that all there is to MMOs? At what point was there a sea-change in thinking that dictated that if you weren't progressing through the end-game, if you weren't downing bosses, then you were almost like a second-class player?

I don't mean to get all Norman Rockwell on you, but what happened to taking the time to foster a sense a community in the game? Exactly how many guilds in WAR right now are simply taking the time to get to know one another instead of ganking the other side? How many people playing right now have stopped using the term 'guildies' and settled on 'friends'? Where are the stories about people taking the time to help out strangers for no reason other than it being the right thing to do? I'm reading a lot about how Public Quests make the grind a lot easier, but less about how you can kick them off and make a few impromptu friends when said quest gets a bit hairy.

The answer is either that these things just aren't happening, or that they are happening and that we - MMO players in general - don't want to hear about it. I'm not sure which of those options is less palatable, quite frankly.

I've suggested before that I'm being naïve, and perhaps I'm simply being so again. I realise there are plenty of players out there who have no problem with this. There will be people who think nothing of burning through content as fast as they can, never stopping to enjoy the game around them. That's fair enough – I suppose there's something to be said of picking up an MMO, and shooting straight for the end-game before your free month is up. It's just not the way I play MMOs. Putting that aside, there are probably a fair few people out there who are already firm friends with their guildies, and that's fair enough too.

And yes, I am of course aware that the game isn't 'finished', and that Altdorf being razed on one server does not spell the end of the game in its entirety, but it still doesn't stop me from being disappointed that it happened so damned quickly.

Tags: behind-the-curtain, end-game, war, warhammer-online, world-of-warcraft, wow

Reader Comments (26)

I understand your concern. But I don't think this is anything new, to be perfectly honest.

It does amuse me to see that we've been at this for so long that some old hands are starting to develop nostalgia for a bygone era in gaming. Invoking Norman Rockwell does seem quite apt. *winks*

But once we get past the romantic notions of ages past we realise quite simply: T'was ever thus. We've always gamed hard- the utter craziness of hyper powergaming is part of the charm our quirky and mildly psychotic community is possessed of. Really, at worst I would say this incident with Altdorf was the result of a failure of imagination Mythic's part.

I saw this coming, as did many others. We knew someone, somewhere would do it. Primarily for the lulz, I'm sure. But do it all the same. It's certainly not good for the image of faction imbalance in Warhammer and does highlight some serious endgame bugs that need mending.

But beyond that, I do not think this is an example of a dark trend in gaming. We've had the best and worst of humankind in this genre since the days of AOL-NWN, and powergamers have always been here. WoW's early days saw much hardcore gaming- though much of this has been lost to the ether of history.

As to your worries about the PQ system, that's legitimate. But I would console you with the fact that Mythic's intent here is lull antisocial gamers into working with other people while not pressuring them into doing so. The hope is that it'll warm people up to being helpful and community oriented without bludgeoning them over the head with the cudgel of LFG.

In the end, that's an eminently good thing for us all.

What a wonderful take on something that seems to be such a growing trend in MMO's. I think that's one of the reasons that I loved Final Fantasy XI so much. Yes, the game was a grind-fest. And yes, soloing wasn't a viable option during the early years. This forced you to find a group, meet new people, and slowly make your way through all the content and locales throughout the game. It was through that process that I made many of my friends that traveled with me from level 20 through 75. Even after 60 days of playtime I still had not reached the level cap and experienced the massive amounts of end game content available. The majority of that was spent meeting new players or exploring the world with my guildmates.

I think it's because of that experience that every other MMO I have tried has been lackluster, because I have not found the community feel that I had there. I hope that a game rolls out that encourages and even builds that type of environment into its core mechanics.

I think it has more to do with the game's target audience. More difficult MMOs tend to be unsuccessful while WoW is geared toward more casual players. Players hit 60 two weeks after launch and pulled 1-70 in something like 3 days after Burning Crusade.

The player that gets their jollies from Vanguard are going to get there fast. It's a good thing for the rest of us because they'll move on long before the bulk of the server gets to the end game. We'll have good siege experiences because we took our time enjoying the experience to get there, thus having an actual opponent.

Playing games with cheats is boring, same goes with a one sided RvR fight.

Besides, Destruction's popularity is irrelevant, the server is full on both sides. These super nerds happened to pick destruction.

For WoW, players found a way to reach lvl 70 one month after the release of the Burning Crusade expension. Blizzard did hope it would take one year before doing so. Are your story really new?

both of those comments are off. Someone hit 70 within 4 days of release...and Blizzard said they would have another xpack out a year after the first; there was no way they hoped it would take a year to get 70. I am not even a very hardcore player and i hit 70 in early February of 07, right at a month after release. Blizzard plays right into the idea that endgame is THE game. Hence arenas at 70, no lower-level raids, etc.

No they didn't... They never expected 10 levels to take even the most casual of player 1 full year. They also knew that the hardcore would burn right thru it just for the sake of leveling.

They knew how much experience they awarded for every quest and every mob. They knew it was not impossible to grind in a week.

But you can't tune it for the people who will grind it in a week, screw them.

As a couple of people have already pointed out, the power-levelers have been with us from the beginning. But I can answer one of your questions, I think, the one about why don't people slow down and get to know some people. One trend I noticed a couple of years ago that's only gotten more pronounced is the rise of the permanent migratory mega-guilds. When you and 100 or 200 of your friends migrate from one MMO to another, it certainly does help the power-leveling, and the race to the end-game content is certainly made faster by the fact that all you have to do to schedule a 96-man raid is put it on the calendar in the week's usual "raid in whatever MMO we're playing this month" time slot.

"Well, I suppose the idea of remarkability ties in with a desire for fame, which I SUSPECT is merely a corruption of wanting to be respected."
http://www.qwantz.com/archive/000723.html

That right there mirrors my thoughts on this.

Great article, on point in many ways.

I think the MMO market is obviously only going to keep growing. Just like there is a flavor for every palette, there is going to be many playstyle choices in the MMO space.

While the trend is to make they "easy easy easy" and all about the end game, I think the benefit of this is you will also see a backlash which will spawn a new breed to "experiential" MMOs, where it's not about speed and loot and easy.

That's not to say they'll be grindy... far from it. New mechanics will be developed, things like MMORPG/Sim hybrids, that will allow that set of players to partake in a sandbox style adventure on their terms.

Make no mistake the MMO market is growing, but I think WoW is the first and last game we will see for quite some time with that kind of singular success. But again, that's a good thing. There will be more a variety of games and playstyles, and playing with a million players (maybe all on the same server someday) is just as good as playing with 11 million if you love the game.

The funniest part is, the burning of a capital has such a negligible effect on the opposing side. "What? The capital is being sacked? Huh. So you ready to queue for another scenario? Cool."

Not to sound trollish, but perhaps writing about a game you don't play is a bit presumptuous? Once I read you weren't even playing WAR, your opinion sort of lost its meaning.

I don't understand why this makes you sad if you've already acknowledged that this is not the way YOU play.

If you are one of the people who plays the way I do, taking your time and enjoying the lore, the exploration, and the social aspects of the game, why should you concern yourself with the shenanigans of the race-to-the-end crowd?

Those types will always be around, but so will our type. It's just a matter of picking the right crowd to spend your time with.

Frankly, I would have been VERY surprised if this hadn't happened within the first month. But does it mean the game is a bad one? No, it means it's a good one because it allows those people to play the game their way and me to play it mine, all at the same time.

There are people out there who have nothing else but games to elevate themselves by. These games to many of us are just a fun way to spend freetime instead of watching lame reality tv shows. To others they are a sort of social strata all to themselves. You can see the evidence of this on any given message board. Just look for at the signatures of the people posting. You will see numerous lists of characters at max level for various games, pc specs, and any well known accomplishments put on display for all to see. It is basically a cry of "Look what I did! Someone notice me!" Sometimes they will throw in their pc system specs for a added ego boost. For these people reaching lvl whatever isn't enough, they have to be among the FIRST to do so.
Reminds me of a player on my old wow server, once he hit 60 (well ahead of the majority) he immediately headed for the message boards to pontiffy to us uneducated low levels. The end result was he just looked really sad to the majority of us.
Anyone can level fast in a mmo. All it takes is constant focused quest and monster grinding. If your dedicated to your goal its really not that hard. WaR is the slowest leveling I have experienced since everquest 1. To me it seems like marching through jello. To others with a need for greater challenge and the renown that follows it may be too fast.
I don't tell others how to play their games though, if that's what you like, good on ya.

The unopposed siege of Altdorf -- even without using exploits -- reminds me of late-night ninja relic raids in DAoC (usually with the help of some cross-teaming spies and the Odin's Eye hack). Good job, guys, you are truly elite RvRers. /golfclap

Let's see you do it again during primetime when there are sufficient T4 Order players to actually put up a defense. The fact that many Order players wanted to help but could not due to a physical level restriction suggests that Mythic should have blocked enemy access to capital cities for one month after the game went live. This would have given enough players -- on both sides -- a chance to have a T4 character and make T4 RvR challenging.

What is RvR without opposing players? PvE-lite.

Your comments are almost right on target. However the endgame mentality is the failure of game design. When you place a target of 40 levels for players to achieve, a small minority race to that target as fast as possible. Once that is achieved, players who then become aware of that fact, look for ways to mimic that behavior; Which you can see from all the posts in most MMO’s “How do I level faster, to compete”.

There are ways to avoid this, which would include non-level based games such as UO, however they have their own design flaws. The end game in UO was focused around player made content, which overtime became victim to exploits.

WAR has a greater problem in this area as it is an RVR game where high level characters can determine the course of an entire server balance. This breeds an ever greater desire to get to the “endgame”

However, WAR itself is a flawed experience, a step back from the lessons they should have learned from of DAoC, with a vast array of basic design flaws, major bugs and client stability issues.

While I still believe level based designs are predominate in today’s MMO’s for good reasons, WAR is the wrong case study, due to both the combination of RVR and careless implementation.

This article is misinformed just as much as the "altdorf is burning" one. Destruction players used the postern doow in one of the fortresses defending the capital, not in the capital itself. There's no "back door" to gain access to altdorf. The capital siege itself works plenty fine.

If you don't play a game and don't even know it's basic mechanics maybe you shouldn't write about it.

Lol. Your first MMO was WoW, right? WoW was the first MMO to limit it's endgame to ONLY the hardcore players. Granted, Blizz is taking leaps and bounds to make WotLK more casually-endgame-accesssible, but it will still be months and months before you get there.

WAR, on the other hand, IS NOT WOW. I think this point should be stressed. STOP COMPARING GAMES TO WOW; IT WASN'T THE FIRST, IT WON'T BE THE LAST.

WAR's endgame isn't the siege of the capital cities; it's RvR; the struggle is constant. Do you really think that after sacking the city players will stop playing, saying "oh, well I've seen the endgame"?

I'd bet money no one in that siege was RR80 and I'll be everyone on the Order side of that fight is working their tails off to shove it back down Destruction's throat. This is how Mythic games operate; dynamic RvR. WoW players constantly complain that they want their actions to "have an effect on the world as a whole." In an RvR, or PvP, centric game, such as WAR, DAoC, GW, etc., all actions in taking strategic points, losing these points, AND, most importantly, the epic battle in between for points change EVERYTHING.

To say WAR players involved in that siege have "reached" the END of the game, as WoW's endgame was, is asinine. To say they've reached max PvE level is more accurate. WAR players will not be the content starved WoW'ites clamoring for new content AS SOON AS they've accomplished one "endgame" feat.

"However, WAR itself is a flawed experience, a step back from the lessons they should have learned from of DAoC, with a vast array of basic design flaws, major bugs and client stability issues."

Just a big LOL at this. You didn't even try it, did you? There are no gamebreaking bugs trough the game, no basic design flaws (it flows very well, and it's fun), and the one about client stability issues is the most funny of all. It's one of the most stable clients at release of the whole history of MMORPGs.
Maybe, like the author of the article, which is completely misinformed, you should get your facts straight before writing.

In all honesty I find the fact that you don't, and apparently never have, played WAR destroy the entire point of this article.

The destruction players in question EXPLOITED there way into the city. On top of that they had power leveled themselves up way ahead of the game, so it was easy pickings for you.

Let me tell you something now though, once both sides get their level 40's more balanced out (instead of most still in T2-T3 right now) the difficulty in sacking a capital will be huge.

I have taken place in around 3 or 4 large scale keep sieges, and let me just say that with a formidable defense (I'm talking maybe 35-50 players) they can hold that thing incredibly well, even against a zerg. The constant back and forth movement of the points will mean that it will be very difficult to get to the end game sieging.

And, in all honesty, I just see this as a WoW players way of snickering at the newcomer. Either way I don't understand what you are complaining about. Every MMO since the beginning of time has had players who rush through content, and those that don't. In WoW players rushed to end game to raid and obtain gear that made them much more powerful then any of the newbie level 60's, or 70's in BC.

It's a mainstream game. It's going to attract lots of different playstyles. Draw a normal curve. You're going to have a bunch of fast levelers, a bunch of slow ones, and the majority in the middle. That's life.

One group getting their jollies from being "first!" does not mean everyone is like that. The world is not changing on you.

People are different. They value different things. Anyone playing an MMO should have figured this out long ago. And we tend to hang with the people most like us. So go find 'em.

For WAR, there's a lot of carebear majority zerg-y action where the bulk of the server levels are. The competitive pvp'ers are usually a tier higher. And the obsessively firsts are level 40. Figure out what you find fun and be there.

Popular MMO design makes sure all these different people are happy so that they keep subscribing. Niche MMOs cater to a subset, so you either fit that playstyle or you're unhappy and quit.

I'm more concerned about why you feel the need to be concerned with other people, doing what they like, that doesn't infringe on what you like to do, in a game that you're not even playing. :)

For the record, the WAR community is fine. Lots of people do help each other and work together. It's just not headline making or controversial, is it? That's the nature of news. Far better to point out the extremes and make fun of people behaving like idiots (of which, there are the amount you'd expect in a mainstream game.)

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Behind the Curtain:Slow it down

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