The only thing I was opposing, which Profoky espoused, was the idea that there was one best type of game (in her opinion, open-world sandbox games) which everyone *ought* to like – and others opposed this argument by supporting their preferred type of game. This is silly and much of this thread seemed to be like two people arguing about Coke vs. Pepsi and then being stunned to see someone with a beer. :p

and again, you’re getting into the whole realm of ‘a game that I might not enjoy fully, but all my friends can enjoy so that makes it worth it’… :​P I don’t think anyone who seriously plays MMOs would have any reason to object to a game that DID have raiding, casual play, and PvP all in the same game.

That’s what WoW was like in the beginning after all, and why it became so successful… it still satisifies people who like all of those game types, but only a subset of people because of the emphasis on short-term item rewards instead of long-term story rewards and the complete inability of the devs to understand world PvP.

from an objective perspective, there are really only two things you can do at endgame, that you can’t do otherwise: raiding and PvP. The game motivations involved in both of these can be broken down into stuff like social/organizational challenges in the case of raiding, and social/competitive/’imposer’ motivations in the case of PvP. Neither of these motivation foci really require endgame at all… doing a 5-man instance in an MMO at 5 levels below the ’standard’ level is at least as hard as raiding, at least at the individual level not the organizational/leadership/’deal with lots of stupid people’ level; and PvP of course is fun at any level against a worthy opponent.

The only reason PvP becomes unfun at lower levels is because of level/gear imbalance and the effect that has on the perception of the ability to ‘win’. This can easily be accounted for with good design, making lowbie PvP, even against higher-level players, fun. You just have to understand PvP… which a lot of devs, including the esteemed Mr Bartle, really don’t.

The sucky thing is that even if they understand PvP, such as I’m sure the WAR devs (or at least some of them.. right?!) do, that doesn’t mean they’ll know how to design a game which works around the psychological landscape/assumptions that PvP is built on. Even someone with good intentions can fail, for a given definition of fail.

Make a casual leveling fantasy orc-killer MMO? There will be hardcore players who play your game and vocally demand that you add raid content because this casual crap is boring.

Make a hardcord PvP game? There will be people who insist you need to add PvE elements to make the game fun.

There will always be people who are hellbent on going against the flow.

“a game that is fun for everyone will sell better.”

I guess you either missed my point or stridently disagree with it – my point is that there is no such beast.

A game that is fun for everyone that plays it will sell better.

Fixed, happy? Rest of argument is the same.

I guess you either missed my point or stridently disagree with it – my point is that there is no such beast.

E.g., A well-designed FPS game will sell better than a poor one, but many people don’t like FPS and aren’t buying one at any cost.

Nobody can attract every customer. Success is identifying the customers you’re aiming for and producing the best product for them.

It is not a failure to choose to serve a smaller market intentionally. (For instance, Aces High serves a small flight-sim community of a few thousand and HTC makes a good living at it). Failure is expecting a large audience and attracting a small one.

Some games are well-designed and popular but still don’t attract *everyone*. For instance, I have zero interest in WoW, but obviously it’s silly for me to berate Blizzard for not making the game I want; they’re doing just fine making the game their customers want.

As for the Bartle thing: if it’s useful to the design you’re approaching, use it. As with all categories of anything, the tendency is to shoehorn new experiences into the old model, which is mistaking the model for the reality (zen parable finger and moon thing).

yeah…..it did…to paraphrase….

Pseudo intellectuals make bad video games, soccer moms should be banned from online gaming, some round-eye pundit is a communist, second life is all about furies and pedophiles, horde owns alliance, Prokofy Neva wishes s/he was William Burroughs, and internetz arguments are fun?

Did this thread have a point, I forgot

[…]

>And lastly some are just dicks

Or, it could all be the reverse of what you say, and you don’t know, do you? lol”

Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I’m a lawyer defending a major record company, and I’m talkin’ about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you’re in that jury room deliberatin’ and conjugatin’ the Emancipation Proclamation, does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

(lol)
(putting “lol” at the end of your statement is a sign of your worldly disdain of the intellectual trivialities of those that disagree with you….just ask my little sister… )

(and <3 to “Glen Colby”, as i thought i was the only one who noticed that….)

<—working for the communists…they pay me to flame you (does that make me a capitalist?)