[MUD-Dev] Interesting EQ rant

[Tess Lowe]

> According to Vincent Archer:
> > I find the phrase "The designers have been mesmerized by the hard
> > core gamers" highly representative. It's also a complaint that's
> > starting to be raised against Asheron's Call.

Brad McQuaid replies:
> I guess this could now branch into a huge debate on what a hard core
> player is, what a casual gamer is, and whether there are other
> identifiable player classifications in this context (and I believe
> there definitely are).  But let's just say that if we're mesmerized
> with the hard core gamers, then the vast majority of our players must
> be just that, given both our growth and retention rates.  (Although,
> in reality, I don't think the majority of our players are that hard
> core, and I believe we are targeting the majority of our players with
> our focus on enhancing and expanding the game).

I must confess that after about 16 months of resisting the temptation to
join most of my RL friends as dedicated EQ players, due to my desire to find
a more roleplay-oriented game, I finally admitted defeat and started playing
EQ a while ago.

What has surprised me most of all is that I have found myself in a
comfortable and enjoyable place somewhere between 'hardcore gamer' and
'casual gamer'.

I always used to associated 'hardcore gamers' with those who had been hooked
by the 'community'. Ie, the *people* had become more important than the
*game*, and it was the people who caused the intense addiction (whether it
be a need to beat them, kill them, befriend them, love them or whatever),
not the game itself. For players who see the community as the reason they
play, the game environment is probably inevitably going to frustrate them.
They feel like they *are* the 'world', and that the 'gamers' are ruining it
by not respecting it.

But then of course there's the hardcore gamers who are only into the game,
the loot, the levels. They have the other sorts of frustrations - about
whose class is better, about which guild gets to camp the ubermobs, overcrow
ding, nerfing, etc etc.

So, two lots of hardcore players, two sets of issues born of 'excessive'
attachment to the game, or to the community.

With EQ I find myself pleasantly in the middle. Unlike other MMORPGs I've
played recently there is no immediate community to obsess me. In most cases,
this lack would lead me to lose interest in the game. But EQ is different.
It has LOOT. Loot is compelling. Loot is what led me to play roguelike games
such as Nethack for hours and hours even though they are single player games
with ascii displays.

So I play in a much more casual way, making new adhoc friendships each
time - even (shock! horror!) with people who use abbreviations like 'u',
which I used to abhor beyond all reason! And knowing that the next mob might
drop something interesting, or around the next corner there might be someone
on the verge of death whom I can save with a spell just in the nick of
time... This is just plain fun.

I can certainly see how EQ would annoy the hardcore gamers, but as a
'detached', 'casual' player, I find it refreshingly, simply, fun.

Maybe I just haven't played for long enough *g*. After all, I do still
remember how I used to rant against Dark Ages for pandering to the
'powergamers' and ignoring we community/rp-obsessives.
(sorry Dave)

~Tess Lowe


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