[MUD-Dev2] Re: Activity Duration in MMOs (was: Spore andMMOs)

[John Szeder]

> And of those that do raid, a very significant percentage do it because
> that is ALL they can do at that level. It is the ONLY way to advance and
> enhance their character.

PvP is another way.
So is building faction (but what a grind!!).

> So you have a very small percentage of people who raid at all. And of
> those people, you have another percentage of people who actually enjoy
> it.
> 
> The final result is an absolutely miniscule percentage of people who
> truly ENJOY WoW style raiding.

They have instilled a desire for players to see it very well, perhaps that
is the magic. What is interesting to me is to watch how getting set up to
raid is tearing apart small and midsized guilds. I have been playing a short
time now to get a sense for the dynamics of their world and in the process
have seen a series of 3-4 guilds in the past month alone unravel because
half of the high end characters want to get keyed for instances, and the
other half just want to hang out doing the odd instance and help their
friends level.

> WoW succeeds in spite of its raid content, and because most people are
> doing other things and never even get to the point where raiding is all
> that is left.

It is a long time until the next expansion comes out! But what is sad to me
as an explorer is how hard it is now to get people together to go and do
stuff in the older instances. For paladins and warlocks looking for epic
mounts in particular it is pretty tough. Guess who has one of each? Koff
Koff.

> I am loathe to criticise the way Blizzard runs WoW, since they are a
> gigantic financial success. Also, they have brought more people to the
> MMO genre than any other company, and for that I am appreciative. But
> being hugely successful does not mean you are not doing things wrong
> (perhaps many things, and perhaps very wrong). AOL and MSFT are two
> examples of that.

Or perhaps they are spinning the data to keep some interesting statistics
out of the public eye. Here is a question, how many people own multiple wow
accounts? And how many of them are raiders? Maybe it is better to cater to
people who have multiple accounts for ROI reasons.

We will never know in the near term.