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[Jace]

It functions much in the same way that other forms of entertainment do - it's not unique to video games. Recall the obsession over "what's going on, zomg can't wait for next week" when Lost was a big deal on television. It is the same thing, just not quite as perfected as MMOs.

[Arista Shahni]

Likely, as a "perfect result" isn't someone losing their job and no longer seeing their real life friend for an episode of Lost, which was pretty common back in EQ1 days.  (i knew at least three people who called out of work enough times to lose their jobs for raids etc, or were too tired after raids, etc.) 

I was in the gaming subcommunity (ie going to gaming conventions to play tabletop games, etc) - those are nearly gone now as well, all the people who would go to them play MMOs instead. Bad? Good?  Winning losing different, I don't know how I'd define it.

As I can't even think how to define normal in a situation so in flux, perfection would be even harder to define, yup.

Unsurprisingly, I've never even seen a single episode of Lost.

 

[Jace]

I never got into it either, but I certainly was surrounded by enough people who's speaking moments were inordinately possessed by the show to realize the effect it had on them. But this goes for people I've known who have fallen into the rabbit hole of certain reality shows, as well.

And obviously, "perfected" was a hyperbolic term. I was just meaning to relay that shows (currently) have limited feedback potential (either in interaction with the show being limited to once a week, or the viewer being primarily passive) and thus probably don't reach the level of potential obsessiveness of MMOs. But the principles the writers/producers try to facilitate in the creation of their show is the same. This is also where you see similarities between shows that went on way too long by creating more and more unknowns to try to keep the audience "hooked," and MMOs that reach their sale-by date of interesting content.

[Kala]

People are as much a part of an MMO as the code

Very much this (for better or worse).

[Arista Shahni]

Or in the case of F2P's, content that specifically prey's on natural weaknesses or possibly real addictions - they call all those silly things in the cash shop "gamble boxes" for a reason.   And a young kid playing a F2P game is suddenly allowed access to the mental equivalent of a casino site.  That there may be laws against gambling in that kid's location or what kind of effect it might have on them as they grow up isn't even cared about of course.

Because buying a card at the store that turns into special "game money" (opposed to the stuff dropped by monsters) somehow makes it all okay

[Jace]

All of this is why I think we will see further merging between entertainment methods. While the Defiance MMO is a failure, I think that concept will be developed on in the future. Combine that with games like Heavy Rain, the possibilities for MMO-style entertainment spreading to other mediums is fairly open-ended.

[Arista Shahni]

I know for a fact they mad a chance with the Defiance thing, cause for the first time ever, my friend Michelle installed an MMO.

She had to give up on it though.  She couldn't figure out how to make her character move.

[Jace]

My impression is that it is one of those "right concept, wrong people" situations. I enjoy the show despite it's, well, yeah. Issues. But I never tried the game.

[Vic Van Meter]

Again, though, time consuming does not equal hard.  Plenty of games have been hard but aren't necessarily long, plenty of very long games are very easy (and yes, I'm looking at you, most recent Final Fantasy games!)  To be fair, I don't think MMO developers got that memo, or at least they haven't been doing it that way for a long time.  I don't necessarily need something to take a long time, in fact that might hurt me considering my job and the need to go back to grad school.  But I don't want the game to be a relatively easy chore to carry out so I can get a trophy.

I want the game to be trying its levelheaded best to stop and kill me.  Too often, I feel like modern games are playing teeball with us the whole way through so that we don't get frustrated.

[Jace]

Right, but as Arista said, the purpose of making it long but easy is to keep subs going. If a game is short but difficult, it makes less money - either because you finished and are done, or because people get frustrated and leave.

This is also part of the reason why games like Eve have the mind-numbing anti-carebear attitudes - people feel the only relative difficulty comes from PvP, and everyone else are wimps by accepting the status quo of easy gameplay.

[Vic Van Meter]

Right, but as Arista said, the purpose of making it long but easy is to keep subs going. If a game is short but difficult, it makes less money - either because you finished and are done, or because people get frustrated and leave.

This is also part of the reason why games like Eve have the mind-numbing anti-carebear attitudes - people feel the only relative difficulty comes from PvP, and everyone else are wimps by accepting the status quo of easy gameplay.

I guess if I hadn't played so much FFXI, I'd agree.  That game was both ridiculously long and hard, yet kept subs going forever.  I think maybe because so much of the playerbase was Asian, and that market goes for the long and hard route.  I don't think there's anything stopping game developers from being able to make a game relatively difficult but also flexible with people's time, while still being deep enough to keep people interested for a long time except their own lack of creativity.

Probably the answer lies in a flexible environment, something you have to constantly struggle against and that can change over time.  Where the player is actually less important and is part of a working ecosystem where he is both hunter and hunted.  Then, you won't know what's coming from day to day as you move towards the end, only that even surviving is a success as you slowly work your way through the game content.

[Jace]

Then, you won't know what's coming from day to day as you move towards the end, only that even surviving is a success as you slowly work your way through the game content.

I think this is the main concern regarding the current playerbase. Today's gamer doesn't want to just survive, they want something to brag about. They want the trophy, the gear, the killboard. Making things difficult reduces the amount of those things they can get as well as the frequency at which they get them.

This is why, in my experience, MMOs are continually heading more and more towards a PvP-oriented outlook when thinking of difficulty. Other players provide the difficulty, thus allowing gamers to continually achieve more and more on their own time in an easy and predictable manner to fulfill subscriptions, while relegating the "hardcore" gamers to PvP. So when someone can't achieve the bragging rights they want in PvP, they can always head on back to PvE and achieve something anyway.

[Vic Van Meter]

Then, you won't know what's coming from day to day as you move towards the end, only that even surviving is a success as you slowly work your way through the game content.

I think this is the main concern regarding the current playerbase. Today's gamer doesn't want to just survive, they want something to brag about. They want the trophy, the gear, the killboard. Making things difficult reduces the amount of those things they can get as well as the frequency at which they get them.

This is why, in my experience, MMOs are continually heading more and more towards a PvP-oriented outlook when thinking of difficulty. Other players provide the difficulty, thus allowing gamers to continually achieve more and more on their own time in an easy and predictable manner to fulfill subscriptions, while relegating the "hardcore" gamers to PvP. So when someone can't achieve the bragging rights they want in PvP, they can always head on back to PvE and achieve something anyway.

You don't see that as a complete cop-out, though?  It used to be that developers could make games both difficult and addictive, now the choice is to not make the basic game entertaining or challenging, just outsource the difficulty curve to the players?  If all the content is generated by the players, as in EVE, what exactly are we paying CCP a subscription to provide us monthly?  It can't take more than a few dollars a player to run a server and the expansions they give us aren't exactly packed with new content.

In the end, I think that's what kind of irks me about that model.  We're paying regular fees to play games that the developers are essentially counting on us to keep each other engaged in.  I don't think we should go to a FTP system, I just think developers should go to work everyday and earn their money.  I paid to play an ever-evolving game to conquer with complete strangers, not to be given some ships and say, "Now go play, we're going to watch TV and think about buying you a new matchbox car."

[Jace]

Well, Eve has never been about conquering. It is a "now go play" game. That being said, I do absolutely agree that more content should be developed and released. You'll get no argument from me there, I 100% agree that CCP should be releasing more content each year - and not even just expansions, but world news, etc. I mean, even the number of clothing that is in-game but not in-game is a good indicator. Everyone said, oh, it will be a Christmas present. Well, how many years have gone by without being able to actually use that stuff? Obviously clothing isn't very important in the grand scheme of things to non-RPers, but it is a nice microcosm of some issues.

But as far as difficulty and the rest of it, that's the price gamers pay for gaming going "mainstream". We can't argue that we aren't the geeks in the basement anymore then complain when the games start catering to a wide non-gamer audience.

[Vic Van Meter]

Well, Eve has never been about conquering. It is a "now go play" game. That being said, I do absolutely agree that more content should be developed and released. You'll get no argument from me there, I 100% agree that CCP should be releasing more content each year - and not even just expansions, but world news, etc. I mean, even the number of clothing that is in-game but not in-game is a good indicator. Everyone said, oh, it will be a Christmas present. Well, how many years have gone by without being able to actually use that stuff? Obviously clothing isn't very important in the grand scheme of things to non-RPers, but it is a nice microcosm of some issues.

But as far as difficulty and the rest of it, that's the price gamers pay for gaming going "mainstream". We can't argue that we aren't the geeks in the basement anymore then complain when the games start catering to a wide non-gamer audience.

I kind of miss being in my basement sometimes.  The wife's a geek, my friends are geeks, my family is made up primarily of geeks, all the mainstreamification of games has done is given us a lot more to bitch about.

I guess CCP could use some focus.  It is kind of funny that you spend so much time customizing this character, then you snap a still shot and that's what you have.  They want us to walk around the stations and see each other, but they never got around to figuring out how it would work.  As such, all the customization in the face, the costumes, the colors, you can't even see it in-game.  On the same token, the ships we actually do see are fairly similar.  I was kind of surprised to see an expansion come out that added just three ships, especially considering they don't have to change color or style.

But maybe the bigger reason they don't add much is the way they've set up their setting and the gameplay.  EVE space is fairly empty and EVE ships essentially fly themselves.  Since we don't ever get to visit the planets and space isn't hurtling asteroids and comets our way or forcing us to manage oxygen or fuel, there's just not much there to expand on.  It's trite but true: for the most part space is an empty place without much to do in and of itself.  Most Sci-Fi games involving space have a lot going on inside ships or on planets, moons, and space stations.  EVE is very much focused on the ship-to-ship interaction, which is limited to shooting at each other or not shooting at each other.

Maybe they just can't think of much to actually do.