The Daily Grind: How should MMOs appeal to both hardcore and casual players?

It's a good question without an easy answer. But I think *variety* is key. There should be a lot of different things you can do for advancement: crafting, pvp, pve, lots of skills like maybe - diplomacy...

Please, just don't let it be a gear grind. Let's do something else. Let crafters matter, for example. Then I think a game would have a diverse community of players. They would have different projects to work on when they have time.

Easy to learn, hard to master.

Yes and indeed no.

Really, vapid hollywood blockbusters need to cater to the lowest common denominator to pack in the dollar bills.

While unintelligable and worthy arthouse needs to pander to a niche crowd to ensure their survival.

Ocassionally one will cross the devide ... very occasionally that is.

...variety and degrees of complexity are necessary...I don't think I articulated this well. Hardcore players can get involved learning what they need to excel in multiple areas, while casual players can access more themepark like content.

I think what we will see in the not to distant future is a sandbox-themepark blend of a game. Is there a name for that yet?

Is Archeage going to be something like that?

I don't know, it's an interesting question, but whatever game can do this is the next big thing.

When I was at Gamescon had a Blizzard rep tell me that actual hardcore gamers are very small in number but are extremely vocal, and there are a significant amount of Trolls on the forum who aren't hardcore in the slightest in actual gameplay, but get off on making Pro Hardcore posts on the forums ( Baddies just need to die stop making the game easy for the scrubs etc)

He said those posts has a significant effect on the "Average" player who wants a moderate challenge but not a faceroll. The Bioware rep said that their answer was to look to see how many actual people were clearing the hard content, and ban Trolls who scream about easy mode yet has never once stepped inside a Raid.

Hard core is another way of saying addicted. And for the addicted there is no such thing as an overdose. They can never be satisfied; only temporarily appeased.

It makes sense to allocate development resources in proportion to the revenue contribution of various kinds of players. If addicts generate 10% of your game's revenue then allocate no more than 10% of your development budget to keeping them happy. Inasmuch as they are addicted you can probably short-change them and get away with it. Just throw them a bone once in awhile.

The biggest problem I see with making a game alluring for both groups is the ingrained tendency among MMO developers to give rewards that increase a character's performance.

This means that the hardcore player, the one that has beaten every bit of content and explored every nook and crank of the maps, who have the best gear it's possible to obtain in the game, is actually playing an easier game, while the casual gamer, with it's patchwork gear, is playing a harder game. It's the complete opposite of what would be needed to appease both groups; real hardcore players want hard games, games that make them really work hard to beat, while casuals want games they can just log, play a few minutes, and feel like they have progressed in some way.

Not sure what can be done about it, though. There are some interesting concepts from non-MMO games, such as Chrono Cross (where the effective character power was decided more by where in the story the player was, with level grind playing a small role), Zelda (hardcore players for the most part only get more life), and a few others.

the only thing I'm certain is that, for both hardcore and casual players to be really happy, the relative difficulty of the game needs to be flipped over. "Beating" the game needs to be made easier for casuals than for hardcore players. This might mean hardcore-only modes with increased difficulty, ways for casuals to obtain gear that is equivalent in performance to the best gear hardcore players can get, training instances where casuals could practice for group content without the pressure of wasting other player's time, etc.

Streamline, but don't simplify. Look at Guild Wars 2, and how it handles skills. Instead of having 4 skillbars worth of skills, you have one. Instead, the skills can be used in a variety of ways (charging them up, combining them with other skills). You have the same (possibly more) depth, but the you reduce needless clutter.

It's the same way games like Tetris or Zelda draw in both the casual and the hardcore audiences.