[P2P = Good Game, F2P = Bad Game?]

Gavin (Yogi) over at MMO Voices has written an interesting article rethinking the old stereotype many Pay-to-Play folks have that games can be neatly divided into 'good' and 'bad' based primarily on their payment designs (something that even I was guilty of in the past):

"When I first started playing MMOs I thought of the genre had two distinct sub-genres: P2P and F2P. These two were also conveniently defined also as Good MMO and Bad MMO. F2P always seemed to have less quality, more grinding, and annoying cash shop requirements to make the game fun. Call it my wow fan boy mentality (at the time) or just shrugging off of certain titles in the name of ignorance. However I or you choose to look at it, I threw the blanket statement over all F2P games. They suck.

This thought has begun to change."

He goes on to describe the changes in his life that have led him to appreciate 'having fun' rather than 'beating' a game, and how it's opened up more options in his gaming routine. The paragraph that really has summed up my own change in playstyle is this:

"I came to the conclusion that what used to make me happy while playing games, was no longer viable. Thus started my nomadic gaming style and the focus on enjoying a game rather than ‘beating’ it."

The freedom of F2P becomes clear when one stops trying to 'dominate' a single game and opens up the option of playing other games at the same time at a lower intensity. F2P, with it's choice of not paying until you feel like it, allows people to sample and try more variety in games than the would if they had to pay 50$+monthly fee to get anywhere in each title. It truly is a 'buffet' style experience, and for many people it works quite well and helps stave off the dreaded 'burnout' that happens when your primary MMO becomes more of a job than an enjoyment. I think if more people were open to at least trying out a few of the literally hundreds of different F2P titles out there, they would learn that the old stereotype of 'F2P = bad game' is really completely false. Which is good news for those of us who love MMOs, because there more choice and freedom to play how we want, when we want, and for how much we want with no strings attached.

I think too many MMO players stick to one game exclusively to the point where they burnout completely and begin to hate what they once loved, which I think can be prevented if you're open to trying something new by trying out a F2P MMO now and then. It costs nothing to give them a chance, after all!

[Keeping the Glass Half Full]

It's been a few days since I've come back to WoW, and I realized that I really need to outline to myself what aspects of the game keep me coming back, and what aspects keep disappointing me. I've decided that I need to come to terms with what the game IS and what it ISN'T and dwell on the parts I like rather than always on the weaknesses of the game. Because it's too easy to always see the glass half empty, which I think is unfair to the game.

I think I need to take a page from Beau's book and learn to let go and not treat 'fun' like such serious business.

So I narrowed down the things I like most in WoW:

1. The story/world (including quests)
2. My character and developing her (so far, that's been solely by gear and achievements)
3. 5 man dungeons
4. Collecting fluff (pets, mounts, titles)
5. Playing and socializing with my guild/friends ingame.

From now until Cataclysm, I'm going to try and get the most out of those aspects of the game. I'm going on hiatus from the gear treadmill and raiding all together, and I'm even considering moving to an RP server/guild, at least on one of my characters. It's harder in WoW than in some other MMORPGs to find things to do outside the gear/PvP grind, but I really feel I need to start focusing on that or else I'm just going to fall into burnout mode again for the umpteenth time.

[A World or a Lobby?]

I've come back to WoW after having been gone for around 6 months or so. There are many new things added since I've been away, not the least of which is the much-touted 'Dungeon Finder' cross-server LFG tool. Since I wanted to get the achievement that gives a pet Pug, I've been using the Finder pretty much constantly for the past two days.


Now, when the cross-server LFG was first announced, my first feelings about it were mixed. On the one hand, I understand how hard getting a group can be depending on a server's population and class balance. But also, I worried that it would erode the already tenuous community that WoW servers have. When you're instantly teleported from anywhere in the world into a dungeon with 4 people from different servers that you'll most likely never see again afterward, it's hard to justify the effort to get to know them, talk to them, or to even have patience with the slightest mistake. I observed people leaving after one bad pull (and why not, when many can easily get another random group via the Finder). There's no incentive to really care about the people in the group other than as efficient loot farming aids. And there's no way to blacklist the asshats.

Whereas an unsocial attitude was present in many cases even before the Dungeon Finder, whenever you found a 'cool' person when pugging you could friends them and build groups via the Friends list (the original purpose of the list). In BC, I had a long list of cool non-guildies I knew on the server, and could put together groups rather regularly. But there's no need for that kind of effort now. There's no need to even walk to a dungeon's physical location anymore. They've been basically severed from the game world. The 'world' of Warcraft is now just a graphical lobby you hang out in to pass the time while waiting for your insta-port into a dungeon with people you have no incentive to ever get to know. For PvP I can understand the benefit of such a system, but for 5-man instances I think it does more harm than good. I mean, sure it's now simpler and faster than ever to 'grind badges for loot'. But I think making that process even more mechanical than it already was, is a step in the wrong direction. It's easier and faster, but not better ('Better' would be adding some variety in content to the game besides loot treadmills). Has Blizzard's goal of increasing the efficiency and speed of gear achievement finally trumped the gameplay and original premise of the game as an RPG? How far does a game have to go before it totally loses any semblance of the 'RPG' aspect of 'MMORPG'?

Though honestly, I don't know how else (barring server transfers/mergers) to solve the problem of difficulty in forming instance groups. But even so, I still feel like this latest development has diminished even more of the 'world' in World of Warcraft.

[Windosill and Small Worlds]

Yesterday I came across two little indie gems; Windosill, a toylike puzzle game from Vectorpark and Small Worlds, one of the 'Exploration' themed entries in the Casual Gameplay Design Competition #6.Small Worlds plays on the desire many people have in games to uncover every area of an ingame map -- making it the entire goal of the game, while Windosill encourages creative interaction with strange objects found in various rooms in order to progress. Both games are brilliantly simple and interesting, as well as fun!

[Vintage Newsweek Fail]

A fun article from Newsweek magazine in 1995, scoffing at the idea that the internet could be anything more than a passing fad:

How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.

But seriously, the advance of technology in this generation was so rapid, no wonder even the 'experts' were blindsided. We've come a long way in 30 years!

[Is the Traditional MMORPG Obsolete?]

Raph Koster has an interesting post on his blog speculating that the 'virtual world' MMORPGs where immersion and roleplay were the ultimate goal is a thing of the past. I think he's right -- it seems that more 'game-y' MMOs (often called 'theme-park style games) are the new norm.

I think this is plain in the generation gap that is visible among MMO players nowadays -- the 'oldschool' player who wants an MMORPG with deep lore to follow, and a world they can lose themselves in and feel a part of. These types are largely derided by the 'new wave' of theme-park gamers who scorn those that RP, or care about lore, or who express a desire for more 'immersion' and game mechanics that encourage a 'fantasy life' experience. The oldschoolers want avatars that are detailed and highly customizable so that they can create a representation of themselves that has a deeper personal meaning; the new generation sees avatars as simply 3D mouse cursors that are used to interact with the game environment.

The oldschoolers scorn the entire idea of a 'themepark ride on rails' with 'shallow worldbuilding'. They are disappointed in most modern MMORPGs because the concept of a 'virtual fantasy world that you can pretend to live in' is not what the modern MMORPG is about.

Related Link: The rise of RMT and the decline of RP in MMORPGs