[MUD-Dev] SOC: Will company sanctioned cheating hurt the MMOcommunity?

[Michael Hartman]

John Buehler wrote:

> Because you've got a supporting anecdote, I'll offer a tempering
> one.  I despise the grind in these games, and going on raids was
> fun for me.

Neither I, nor Darkwolf, said raiding is never fun. Some people like
it. That's great. But the current MMO design "rule" is that 100% of
end game content is raiding. That is totally out of whack.

>   1. It's different.

It is different once. When you have to raid the same dungeon 50
times for the gear you want, it is not different any more.

>   2. It's a dungeon crawl.

> The raids that I go on are invariably built as dungeon crawls.
> The groups work their way through a series of monsters, meaning
> that the groups are always on the move.  This keeps things
> interesting because I'm not looking at the same pixels on my
> screen for hours at a time,

See above. :)

>   3. Strange things happen.

> Unexpected stuff happens all the time because of the number of
> moving parts involved with a raid.

Again, see above. After the first time, strange things don't happen
any more.

> My raiding experience was entirely in Dark Age of Camelot, and I
> enjoyed it.  There was the realm versus realm stuff,

RvR in DAoC was truly awesome (when they weren't busy nerfing the
heck out of crap, or adding in the absurd Trials of Atlantis grind
requirement). I would not compare RvR to any PvE raiding in WoW, EQ,
etc.

> After doing the same raid 10 or 20 times, I could see how I'd come
> to despise raids as much as I despise camping monsters.  "Same old
> same old" is what drove me away from the games.

Precisely.

It is important to remember that I am not saying raiding is lame,
don't put raids in games.  My stance is that raiding should not be
100% of the end game content. There should be ways for single groups
to obtain the same quality end game gear (maintaining the same time
- # of players - amount of loot ratios, for balance) as
raiding. Raiding should be done because you enjoy the experience,
not because it is the only way to obtain gear at the end game.

Since gear is truly the only type of "levelling up" once you hit the
level cap, making raiding the only way to obtain the best gear would
be like saying at level X, the only way to earn xp and gain levels
is on raids. People would flip out if the situation was presented as
clearly as that. Having to raid for gear is no different.

--
Michael Hartman, J.D. (http://www.thresholdrpg.com)
President & CEO, Threshold Virtual Environments, Inc.
University of Georgia School of Law, 1995-1998
Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, 1990-1994
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