[MUD-Dev2] [REPOST] Value

[William Leader]

Brian Ayavaron Ross wrote:
> ********************************************************************
> *  REPOST
> *
> * Original Poster:  Brian "Ayavaron" Ross
> * ayavaron at gmail.com
> *
> * 11/20/2005 11:09 AM
> *
> ******************************************************************** 
>
> A topic that always came to mind to me when I played games was
> value.  I don't like it when I pay $50 for a game only to find that
> I couldn't get more than an hour into it due to insurmountable
> difficulty. When I pay full price for a game, I expect to be allowed
> to see all of the game regardless of my skill. It seems unfair that
> when I pay $50 for a game, I am only privy to 10% of the game.
>
> I think this is a problem with MMORPGs too. MMORPGs are more
> expensive than normal games because there is the additional
> subscription fee beyond the initial price of the purchase.
>
> But MMORPGs also do a lot to lock off people of lower skill. I've
> heard people mention it within this mailing list even. They talk
> about locking off content to lower level players as a way to help
> prevent quest vandalism and such. But it seems unfair as they're
> paying the same price as everyone else.
>
> But I've hared some MMORPGs don't really start until you're at level
> XX (Usually 20). What if someone doesn't get to level 20 in the
> first month and then decides to quit? That person will have invested
> $65 into something that they didn't get to enjoy.
>
> So I wonder now, do other people see this as a problem? Some games
> are designed around the idea of avoiding this type of thing (CoH and
> WoW) but why should some games require work before you can start
> enjoying them. That just isn't cool.
>
> Do other people have anything to say on the subject?
>
>
> _______________________________________________
>   
I've seem some games that automatically reduce their difficulty setting 
for players that do poorly. The basic concept is simple, adjust the 
difficulty to a players skill. This is perfectly fine for Single player 
games. Even in some multilayer games with a relatively small number of 
players (Say 8 or less) its even easy to set handicaps to compensate for 
player skill to allow a group to enjoy the game despite various skill 
levels. But How do you do this with a massively multi player game? I 
don't see how this can be reasonably done. If you take your average 
MMORPG and take one of your shards and somehow make it easier, whats to 
stop skilled players from playing on it. Or what if you suck at a game, 
but your buddy is really good, Then your choice is for one of you to 
play out of your skill bracket, or play separately. Of course if games 
were easier so you could experience everything, then people would 
complain that, they paid $50 and they only got to play for a few hours 
before beating it. (and who wants to replay a game that was that easy to 
beat?)

On the other hand lets compare to other non-video game multi-player 
activities. If a group of friends is playing poker, and one player sucks 
either they won't play for money and just play for fun, or the player 
that sucks will stop playing. So If it were an MMORPG, and a player i 
significantly lower than the average skill of other players, their 
choice becomes to suck it up, and play on, or to quit and play something 
else.

I'm not trying to flame here but what I find particularly disturbing is 
the sense of entitlement I felt in Brian's message. Your argument may 
hold true for a single player game since who would pay to be entertained 
by a movie, but only be able to watch all of it. You paid to be 
entertained by the movie, and you paid to be entertained by the single 
player game. However with an MMORPG, you pay to be entertained by the 
game, but you didn't pay so that you could experience all of it, rather 
you paid to participate in it. Consider a sports tournament, You pay 
registration fees, and  teams get eliminated. Now Two teams end up 
playing more games than other teams, one of them being declared winner. 
Do the loosing teams complain that other teams experienced more content 
(game play) than others? Surely if they did it would be considered bad 
sportsmanship.

I guess I would sum up my point by saying that the expectations for 
MMORPG's needs to change. It can't be the same as single player games. 
The expectation should be that you are paying to participate, and play 
by the rules. Players cannot expect they are paying for a certain amount 
of entertainment. The second expectation that must change is that not 
everyone can 'win' (or be Uber, or experience everything, or whatever.). 
This again is because it is paying to participate, and not paying to 
'win'. I must say that there are some games that I have never beaten. 
The original Mega Man, and Rygar come to mind. I have accepted this as 
fact that I will probably never beat either of those games, but I'm not 
bitter over it since each provided me with literally hundreds of hours 
of play. They certainly were good value.

I've read back over this and its not a coherent as I had hoped, and I 
don't really see how to edit it to make it better. I apologize.

-Will Leader