I see this term on many topics and posts by people who seem like nostalgic players crying for thier perfect vision of, basically project 1999, but what are they even talking about?
It seems like an argument against conviniece.
Do you really prefer spending an hour of your game time everyday running around across 2 continents on autorun or autofollow? It may be fun the first 20 times, but day after day, week after week, for the entire duration of the time you play the game(maybe even a decade) gets really old, really fast. Is jumping on a portal and meet up with your friends in popular dungeons in 5-10 minutes just too fast?
Did you really have an awsome time killing 300 treants for sap, running for 20 minites to the ocean for salted water, then out to the local farmland for flour, and back to town to a bakery; where you dragged and dropped one item at a time, All just to make yourself some +1 hp pancakes that won't last you the amount of time it took to gather the resources? But having a baker sell water and flour where you can spend 5 minutes flipping some flapjacks that will last you 2-3 days, is a dumbed-down system?
That was probably fine when we were all young and spent 20 hours on a game over the weekend, but alot of people have families now an limited game time. To me game mechanics should be complex, engaging and above all, fun. Not long arduous tasks that are designed to waste your time. I think Eastern MMOs should be excluded from western standards, because there is a completly different culture and mindset behind them; doing the same task thousands of times to perfect it, is fun for them. Think DDR or Starcraft lol.
I think that a system can be a bad idea, or poorley executed and then streamlined and reworked as technology progresses, but that doesn't mean it's been Dumbed down. "Dumbing down is the deliberate oversimplification of intellectual content in education, ...meaning: "[to] revise so as to appeal to those of little education or intelligence""- Wikipedia.
There are other subjects and examples, but this is just a small rant of something that was bothering me for a bit right here on the forum. What are your opinions?
I think there are two quite separate things people refer to when they use that term. One would be of the actual systems. For example if a game has stamina and strength, then decides to combine those into one stat, maybe constitution(?), that could be viewed as dumbing down.
The other one is a bit more vague and it seems to be the one you're thinking about. Long travel times, large amounts of xp required for level etc. aren't exactly more cerebral or intelligent than their opposite. I don't think it has much to do with thinking but rather patience, perseverence etc. A lot of people would argue that they want to have fun all the time in a video game, otherwise there's no point to playing whereas others view the long trip, time investment, patience required etc. to be validating after reaching whatever point was the goal. Me today, I cleaned my whole house and now it looks really nice. It wasn't exactly fun but now there's a small sense of pride and satisfaction, that kind of thing.
If you're familiar with the Dragon Quest series of games, they're quite infamous for being grindy games, yet lots of people absolutely love them on the other hand. I remembered reading an interview with the creator Yuji Horii where he adresses this, I googled and it turns out it was on gamasutra: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6390/25_years_of_dragon_quest_an_.php?print=1
Q: You'll often hear American game designers often talk about theme park rides as a model of how games should play out and I don't think that Dragon Quest is Disneyland.
Yuji Horii: Agreed. It's like climbing up a steep mountain -- you have to keep climbing, climbing, climbing, climbing, and then at the end you finally get to the top of the mountain, and you see the beautiful view.
Horii doesn't seem very concerned with what is dumbed down or not, earlier in the article he talks a lot about streamlining. To him it seems to be about effort, patience and succeeding through hard work. I tend to agree with him, in fact the Dragon Quest series is one of my favourites.
I think a lot of people confuse 'time investment' and 'difficulty'. The two are not mutually exclusive, but often they are separate things.
It's surprisingly difficult to express exactly how I feel on this subject, haha. Early MMOs were pretty simple, just by nature of the genre being young, but most of them required a rather steep time investment to get places in, with relatively harsh consequences for fatal mistakes; gear lost, experience lost, lots of time lost. The actual mechanics and gameplay of the game, however, were fairly simple and lacked a lot of convenience.
I don't think that a simple game having harsh punishments is a bad thing, though. It's actually a fairly good balance, because it's relatively easy to not mess up, but when you do, the punishment is heavy. On the other hand, if a game is fairly complex, or has a 'easy to learn, difficult to master' style of curve, lesser punishments may be more fitting as the gameplay lends itself to mishaps much easier unless the player is nearer the skill ceiling.
Nostalgia is a pretty dangerous slope, honestly. It's easy to confuse things, and the window we view it through is often tinted by many things.
Games themselves are a waste of time. I learned to love the grind long ago. After you run out of content for the umpteenth time anything that gives me incentive to log in and improve my character is greatly appreciated.
Grinds, time sinks, long drawn out quests that I can work on for a year or more? Yes please! I appreciate stretching out the content.
I'm not planning on playing for only a couple years. Ill be here awhile. Make it last.
If I know I will be questing in a certain area that may be far away from my home area, I pack up everything I think I will need and head out for the long hike.
I'm not a fan of instant teleportation to a dungeon's doorstep. Maybe to a well-known town in the vicinity. I don't want to *poof* around the map easily. Sometimes getting there is half the fun. Once there, I may not leave the area for a week as I quest, explore, and forage. If I only have a couple of hours, the first day may just be spent getting to the area. And that's okay. Then I'll try to remain situationally aware as I roam, hoping I don't "Oops" and get sent home to my bind. Maybe, if I was lucky, the local town had a place I could bind to to make the return easier. And a place to trade if I overload my bags. Maybe I'll come across someone who can buff my run speed, help me get there a little faster. Or maybe there is a quest to help a farmer who loans you a steed for a time.
It's not nostalgia fuelling me. I only played original EverQuest for a few months, just after Kunark released. Dark Age of Camelot a few weeks. Star Wars Galaxies half a year... each game getting more travel friendly as they released. EverQuest 2 in the beginning didn't have teleportation beyond Cleric's being able to send you home and some classes could summon you to them or evecuate to a safe spot, yet when you died, you revived at a nearby in-zone bind point. No more ressurrecting all the way back at your home city. Then they eventually added wizard spires and druid rings. (Don't get me started on how that convienence made so much pvp zerging possible.)
The world didn't feel as large with all the teleportation available. Maybe there will be world events to create special teleportation spires in places. That would be interesting. I'm okay if someone already there, in the zone with you, summons you to them. But, please, I want getting to dungeons to be harder than just pressing a hotkey or queueing up.
The controversy here is basically : If you don't have time playing games, why would you want to ?
As philo stated, a game is basically a waste of time by itself, there is no practical reward except satisfaction and/or good times. In our current ERA, there are a lot of mmo's that offer "satisfaction" with little to no investment. You can spend a few hours and get a few things, not hard, not long and not even tedious.
But are you really satisfied ? Is changing your items slots three times a week a rewardfull accomplishment ? Where is the worth of what you earned here ?
Obtaining satisfaction is one thing, obtaining it at great cost is however, what makes satisfaction greater. And that's the reason why what people started calling "Timesinks" are a necessary evil to a rewardfull game. It's a popular vision that started a decades away, that games should not waste our time with timesinks, while beeing wastes of time by themselves. The line is thin, because the more you adapt to extreme casual players, the less you offer to regular players, even the less to hardcore ones, but is it really satisfying in a game to log in two hours a week and get instantly rewarded with gear / experience / Levels ? Can you even considerer yourself worthy to just be rewarded by connecting and doing a few things ?
I don't think a great world is a timesink, because it's worthless to make it great at first if it's to add fast travels. While wow was decent at first with travelling, the constant use of portals and shortcuts with each expansion coming made the world shrink at the same time it expanded, making the feel of grandeur even less than what it was at start, now more than 12 years after it's launch.
Short answer : No game is satisfying when it's shrunk, fast, and rewardfull with no investment. While investment is depending how long you can play, it should still bring the same requirements even if you have less time to play.
wanted to embed it but couldn't figure out how
I try not to use words like "dumbed down" unless I'm referring to a situation where mechanics have deliberately been changed to require less thought by players or to remove meaningful choices :). It's one of those phrases that can be taken a different way than it was meant.
That said, I think Spluffen pretty much nailed it.
I do want to add though that I think convenience is sometimes our enemy. The OP talked about why removing tedium shouldn't be viewed as such a bad thing, but I'd also submit that many, many games have made things so quick and easy that they are no longer meaningful. Travel is a great example. Back in the olden days of EQ, we players complained constantly about how long it took us to cross the world. In response, the developers added more and more ways for us to travel quickly or instantly. Initially, everyone thought this was a great idea.
It was only later, when we started to realize why things didn't feel as fulfilling anymore, that we all realized... maybe things had gone too far.
We can debate endlessly about where the sweet spot is for things like travel, harvesting, pace of progression, rarity of drops, and so on. But I'd submit that making something too easy to obtain or accomplish is worse, in the long run, than making it difficult or time consuming. If something is difficult or time consuming, most of us gamers will still do it, even though we'll complain along the way. When we're done, we'll feel proud of what we accomplished, precisely because we put so much effort into it. If it's too easy though, we'll still do it - and then wonder, a relatively short time later, why we aren't really all that interested in or invested in this MMO we were so hyped for originally.
I'm not saying that things need to be extreme, but I would rather that Pantheon err a little bit on the side of difficult/challenging/time-consuming than go the other direction. Even if that means that we as players might have to plan and coordinate a little more to achieve our goals, it's preferable to not having meaningful experiences.
You are on to something Silky.
Many think that Never gaining access to fast travel is a good thing.
Many think Naked Corpse runs are …. Fun.
Many think that ANY modern convenience Dumbs down said game.
I am seriously considering being a wizard PURELY because in the description posted today shows that they will be able to “port” (gatewalker)
I really don’t want to spend 2 hours (exageration) running across zones to get TO a group that will likely quit 20 minutes after I make it to them.
Zones in EQ were SMALL. I could run from Lava Storm to Lower Guk in 15 min. 12 min if I had SoW the whole time.
A Quick port to Oasis/SRO area and I would be there in 5 min.
Pantheon Zones are going to be MASSIVE in comparison.
Using Pantheon Map as an example: if zones are as big as they keep saying they are, If I were in Thronefast LFG and someone said, “come to The VAE WOOD or The Seven Locked Door”
I would have to say, well I will start running, but it will take me 30-40 min to get there. (without a port or fast travel) (fast travel should be an option AFTER you have been there once by walking it)
And don’t forget. Pantheon will also have some areas Blocked by Climate that you are not acclimated to, meaning you have to take the LONGEST way possible around those areas.
I am not saying, add dungeon finders and flying mounts to the game. I am saying be careful what you wish for. I would rather have large EXP loss as well as LEVEL LOSS vs Naked corpse runs.
rose colored glasses are dangerous.
sorry for formatting. I copied from google docs and it won't let me fix it.
Here's an example of dumbing down.
Blizzard Corporate, circa 2001.
"We need to get into this MMO business, it's the future!"
"Yeah, all we need to do is copy all the good stuff from those other MMOs out there right now like AC, EQ1, DaoC, etc."
"But those MMOs are too hard. We need to appeal to the broadest audience as possible and tap into this growing market of tweenies playing online."
"What we'll do is copy everything and remove all the hardest part's, were gonna dumb it down."
"Make leveling super easy? Obviously, thats step one. Let people level fast, with barely any deterents."
"Lets get rid of corpse runs, those are the worst. Lets make it so people can just easily run back to their corpses with zero difficulty."
"And lets make experience loss nonexistent, so players get zero penalties for dieing. Who cares if it takes the skill out of the game. we just want to pack servers with as many rubes as we can."
"And let players solo to max level, so they don't have to look for other players. Yeah thats a great idea."
"Oh, and lets make quests stupid-easy, to find and do. No more searching out mysterious npc's and having to actually question them for clues, we will just put a huge flashing beacon on questgivers and make the quest dialog unecessary. The kiddies can just click on them and run off without worrying about actually figuring anything out. Easy peesy".
"What about those crazy monster trains in dungeons and other places that cause chaos and kill tons of players? Oh forget those, we don't want people dieing much it slows down leveling, we will make it so npcs do not really chase players and will not bother anyone else, making it easy to run away and avoid any danger.".
"What can we do about combat? I always get confused which attack to use for whatever I am fighting. Great question, we can make all attacks similiar and remove complexity. We want the kiddies to be able to fight just spamming a couple keys."
"Oh and lets instance everything. That saves us a bundle on servers and technology; and essentially removes the M and M from MMO. People will never realize they are just playing with themselves. No more challenging them with a persistent world to immerse themselves into."
"And how do we get as many of those tweenies to play as possible?"
"I know, we steal a page from RJ Reynolds and their scheme to use Joe Camel to entice children to smoke. So we just make the most garish, cartoon looking characters to play and the children will flock to our game."
"Won't this be a horrible game? We will be taking any challenge out of everything. Naw, only people that actually played real MMOs will realize it. The kids will never figure out Soylent Green is people."
That's Dumbing Down!
(updating with new dumbing-down aspects people add below)
Rokuzachi said:I think a lot of people confuse 'time investment' and 'difficulty'. The two are not mutually exclusive, but often they are separate things.
It's surprisingly difficult to express exactly how I feel on this subject, haha. Early MMOs were pretty simple, just by nature of the genre being young, but most of them required a rather steep time investment to get places in, with relatively harsh consequences for fatal mistakes; gear lost, experience lost, lots of time lost. The actual mechanics and gameplay of the game, however, were fairly simple and lacked a lot of convenience.
I don't think that a simple game having harsh punishments is a bad thing, though. It's actually a fairly good balance, because it's relatively easy to not mess up, but when you do, the punishment is heavy. On the other hand, if a game is fairly complex, or has a 'easy to learn, difficult to master' style of curve, lesser punishments may be more fitting as the gameplay lends itself to mishaps much easier unless the player is nearer the skill ceiling.
Nostalgia is a pretty dangerous slope, honestly. It's easy to confuse things, and the window we view it through is often tinted by many things.
Let me take a stab at it.
MMORPGs are worlds designed for people to exist in for years, and if done right, decades. As such a few things tend to hold true if you want that to be the case:
1st: You can't give everything to the player quickly and easily. The reason hitting level cap in EQ was a big deal at the time was because it took a good long time to accomplish. When you heard that long-awaited "Ding!", you knew you'd just went up a very slow notch in power. It was grindy sure, but there's nothing wrong with grindy if there's a payoff. As an example, for casters, getting that new set of spells every 3 or 4 levels was a big payoff. Now if you've played earlier EQ, compare in your mind that slow trod through those 3 or 4 levels and how happy you were to get those spells to virtually any other MMORPG post 2004 that pretty much flails them out at you every level like candy out of a piniata, rapidly filling up your multitude of hotbars where you could easily load them all up at once without having to choose carefully from the limited 8 spot spell gem, which kept you mindful of what you needed to load and use at all times.
So with that - Slow to power versus rapid fire leveling and can be an example of dumbing down. As can giving you unfettered access to all of your spells and abilities without limiting the choice through something like a spell gem.
2nd: Questing: This may be the most popular example of dumbing down an MMORPG. Older MMORPGs had quests but they were not necessarily the primary means of advancement. And doing them required a bit of thought, puzzle solving, mind-bending riddles, and often times more people than just you. Just about every MMORPG of the modern era releases with a multitude of very easily soloable quest hubs that start out with a big ol' ! over a character's head that lead you to the objective that often times has a big ol' ? over its head. That or a big glowing gold circle on the map where you need to find or kill stuff. In some cases, there ahve even been the golden fliggity floop line that lead you to your goal. You'd do this from one quest hub to the next until you pretty much soloaed your way to level cap without ever needing to touch a dungeon...I mean why would you? The mentality of these games is that the real fun begins at level cap. This is what led an old friend of mine to dub that the genre had become a collection of Massively Single-Player Online Games.
3rd: Death Penalty - Now I don't know if in this day and age full loot loss corpse runs are the ebst idea, but I do most certainly support harsher death penalties. Something along Vanguard's seems good with XP loss and if we don't go level loss, debt accumulation once you drop below the level threshold. That said, there is no punishment for death in most modern MMORPGs...like at all. In WoW you do the ghost run, STO your ship or crew "might" get a little damage that's easily fixed. But if there's a penalty at all these days it is usually some gear damage. Harsher penalties do install that Risk vs Reward mentality. There's a risk to getting that awesome loot deep within that dungeon. Do you want it bad enough to chance losing a level?
Now I'm going to combine a couple of things here and it's going to be the rarity of loot and the threat of death. What's great about risking death and loss as you delve deep into that dungeon is that you might die and you might lose. And if you lose, you don't ghost walk it back to try again, there's a process that may involve sneaking, it may involve fighting, or it may involce getting some help. You messed up, and now you're paying for it.
On the flipside, let's say you succeed. You get that new piece of weapon you wanted. It's a +10% Haste sword with a chance to proc Banish Undead. It even has a blue aura glow with a blackened center, giving it a distinct look. And when it procs, a holy light flashes and engulfs an undead enemy. You went through hell and back to get it. You paid the price and it paid off. You're one of the few people to get it because it's a rare item. So in this world of similar characters, you stand out a bit. Now, instead ofwhat I just said, take another MMORPG that removes that penalty and danger while operating like a loot piniata and imagine that everyone else in that same town also has that same cool looking sword. Sparkles a bit less doesn't it?
Now there's a ton of other stuff people find dumbing down like maps, which I really don't ascribe to that one. Regeneration, which is often way too fast in modern games and thus removes the use for any mana regeneration buffs or gear. That is also a big part of the classic enchanter class along with its crowd control. Gutting the need for both of those with rapid regeneration and the ability to flatten groups of mobs that outlevel you with AoE bombardments easily in more recent MMORPGs is probably why we haven't seen much by way of its incarnation as a class in more recent games.
Now there are old school things I highly ascribe to making a return of and some I'm not so fond of. But tweaking difficulty, a stinging death penalty, more focus on grouping, slower leveling, downtime for socialization, and keeping gear useful for more than one or two levels. But I tend to be flexible in some of my thoughts.
I can't say that I have the right balance for all of this. There are certainly things Pantheon could benefit from by going old school, while others need to be tweaked a bit and reinvisioned for a modern era without going too simplistic or too draconian. There's a balance that's just right, and finding that is the tricky part. But that's just a few observations from an old gamer. And you certainly don't have to agree with my opinions. :)
zewtastic said:Here's an example of dumbing down.
Blizzard Corporate, circa 2001.
"Won't that be a horrible game? We will be taking any challenge out of everything. Naw, only people that actually played real MMOs will realize it. The kids will never figure out Soylent Green is people."
That's Dumbing Down!
This guy knows!!
What he wrote was an exact example of the history of MMO's.
To me, dumbing down is adding dailies/weeklies to a game that you are kind of forced to log in and do in order to keep up with everyone else. WoW is a great example of that. I don't mind working for things. But they gave you a "grind" and then put a cap on how much you can earn in a day/per week. That's their way of stopping people from reaching end game, because their game is so damn easy.
I'd rather grind out a certain mob until something I want drops. Sounds like a pain in the ass right? The idea with Pantheon is there will be other options. You can farm mats and create something for yourself instead, go into dungeons and get better loot, or farm gold and just buy it. When people can reach max level in a game a week after the release... It's too easy.
And you'd be surprised by how many "casuals" will take a week off work just to grind it out and be the first. But also be that person to say "I don't have enough time in my work week to play a game as difficult and time consuming as Pantheon."
Yea, the time it will take to get across continents will take time. But that's what also makes a game last as long as it needs to until new expansions are ready. You have a whole world to explore. And it only makes sense that it takes time to get there. Eventually, maybe we could learn a faster way to get there or train mounts or whatever.. but you're new to the World of Terminus. You shouldn't be able to just teleport to a certain area just because you want to. You haven't even been to that side yet, how do you know there's anything even over there?
I think mist people know the issues, but the degree to which they are 'for' or 'against' those issues that arguably 'dumb down' the MMORPG genre varies.
Some are utterly against anything that seems convenient because it will bring about the fall of man, never mind the ruination of the genre.
Some can't stand anything that is the slightest bit arduous.
I like to think most are in-between. In this audience, mostly leaning toward the 'against convenience' since people supporting pantheon tend to be wanting a return to 'old-school' MMORPG values.
To me, dumbing down isn't as simple as certain features and mechanics being in the game, but the way they are used.
Some common 'dumbing down' issues: -
Instances
Some will say any instancing ruins the game as without competition and contention there is no challenge and it makes multi-user pointless.
Some will say limited instancing is essential to avoid pointless grief and inconvience.
I think to think that instancing is a useful tool for small story-line driven encounters, but should be very limited, as, yes, open world is better (but not for contention purposes - just for shared space having more opportunity for cooperation and interation).
The dumbing down argument would be that instances make encounters easier because no one else can interfere.
Fast Travel
Some will say any fast travel ruins the appreciation of the size of the world and is akin to content skipping
Some will say fast travel is to avoid the tedium of doing the same trips over and over
I think that if fast travel is limited and just between certain points and has some 'cost' that makes you plan for it and it not be a trivial matter, then it's a good idea.
The dumbing down would be that dangerous journeys may be avoided and the vastness of the world is trivialised.
Auction Houses
Some will say that any automated sales at all will ruin the economy and remove vital socialising
Some will say that 'manual' trading is a tedious chore not a social opportunity
I think that not having some kind of searchable/filterable for sale list and some sale brokerage function would indeed lead to some tedium, but the system should be limited in automation (maybe just putting the two parties in touch) and heavily taxed to encourage person-to-person interaction at least once a buyer-seller match is made.
The dumbing down argument comes when you can put hundreds of items for sale and they are magically delivered and no one has to talk to each other at all, you just 'play' the trading UI.
Questing
Some will say questing should be limited to be special and to have reward match with risk.
Some will say they like everything to be quest-related and be able to level up with just questing.
I think that "kill 10 rats" quests giving significant XP is too much and that quests should indeed be special. You shouldn't be able to level up just wandering from quest-hub to hub clicking NPCs with ! over their heads and running around doing trivial things.
The dumbing down argument comes from some games turning 'questing' into clicking a glowing NPC, following a glowing line, killing a simple monster or two and clicking the NPC again. It's barely interesting never mind a challenging mission.
Soloing
Some will say they want to be able to solo the game end-to-end. They should be able to experience all the game has to offer without needing friends
Some say everything should be group content and that there are plenty of soloing games around
I think that Everquest did it well. Most content was for groups, especially the rewarding stuff, but if you were waiting for a group or stuck on your own for a while you could solo some limited content. If you were * really* good you could solo quite a lot of the content.
The dumbing down comes because if you target solo play as soon as you play with anyone else everything is trivial and unchallenging. By making everything soloable, you make nothing worth grouping for. Games that have tried to scale for both have failed. It's a fundamental design choice of a game to be group oriented. There *are* plenty of soloable (or even single-player) RPGs. There are few good group RPGs.
Grinding
Some will say they want grinding. They want persistence and time invested to be rewarded. They want some content to only be doable by people prepared to invest significant time.
Some will say thay grinding is pointless and that 'skill' is what should be rewarded, not time invested.
I say both can be rewarded and that there should be ways to achieve similar reward by shorter-term very challenging content and by longer-term time-invested efforts. In life, people expect to be rewarded for the time they put into things. Extreme performance gets you a bonus, but you get paid for doing the task. The most rewarding encounters should probably take some time to even reach and then be challenging skill-wise when you reach them.
The dumbing down comes when things like the dungeon finder in WoW teleport you to a dungeon, allow you to rush through just the cut-down core of an 'adventure', reap all the shiny stuff and then teleport you back to where you were. You can then repeat and repeat again and again whenever you like doing it faster and faster and overloading yourself with awesome treasure.
One thing VR have said many times is they appreciate that even the old-school grinders tend to have more responsibilities and less free time than we did, though and are designing around being able to always make meaningful progress in 2 hour time slots.
Corpse Runs
Some will tell you without severe and painful death penalty you remove the thrill of the fight
Some will say that death is not fun and punishing you for trying dangerous stuff is just dumb
I say that, yes, without a sting of death there is no thrill in life, but indeed, if that sting is too harsh people will only ever tackle content when they know it is going to be easy. VR will need to do much tuning and may well need to mitigate the extremes of corpse runs, even if those mechanics are costly (like you can summon your corpse, but can't fight for a long time afterward).
The dumbing down comes from games that trivialise death to the extent it is a mere inconvenience, not something that is feared enough to make life exciting. Some even remove the inconvenience and it becomes a minor time and coin sink. No, death penalty isn't 'fun', but removing it isn't the answer.
Inventory management, banking management, multiple hotbars, multi-ability macros, 3rd party helper add-ons... I could go on, but you probably get the idea.
Some things that seem like simple conveniences to avoid drudgery actually have profound effect on the core challenge and fun of the game.
Some companies are guilty of 'dumbing down' in some or all of these areas because they want the widest audience possible and they think they are better producing something everyone can 'stomach' by making it really bland.
VR have a hell of a job deciding what to do in each of these contentious areas and, yeah, we have our own viewpoints and argue quite regularly (for years now!) and often heatedly. I trust that VR have a LOT of experience and seem to have sensible thoughts on the degree some of these old-school mechanics and designs should be adopted.
Dumbing down is when you 1) remove the need for the player to actively make a decision or choice either through automation or by removing the need for the decisions/choice in the first place, and/or 2) remove or significantly reduce the consequence for making a bad decision or mistake.
SilkyWhip said:I see this term on many topics and posts by people who seem like nostalgia tards crying for thier perfect vision of, basically project 1999, but what are they even talking about?
I am one of those "nostalgia tards" as you put it. FYI: you will find a lot of people from Classic EQ, Vanilla WoW, and P1999 here. What you will also find is much of this community (including myself) describing EQ-Live, WoW-Live, and other games as "dumbed-down" for lack of a better term. It is like the stigma associated with them (in their modern form) and that is pretty unlikely to go away. This term surfaced when Everquest and WoW gradually became easier via expansions. "We" would also say that these games ultimately became lame and "stupid." For example, original Everquest and vanilla World of Warcraft were quite challenging at release. Now, those games are ridiculuously easy (in our opinion) via their expansions. Heck, even Blizzard has officially announced that they are bringing back Vanilla servers. Why? Because there is a demand for it. Why is a game like Pantheon being made right now? Because there is a demand for it. To answer your question, yes I do miss spending hours on killing mobs and running around and yes, I do miss death penalties and rewards that are quite challenging and meaningful. To say that only "kids" played for hours and hours back in the day is really inaccurate. There were plenty of adults who played Classic Everquest back in 1999-2002, and I recall classic guilds that discouraged people who were under 18 years of age from even joining, most likely because they didn't want to deal with some kids who may have been immature. I truly mean no offense to you, but for anyone who does have a problem with the grind and travelling long distances etc, then there are two games that are currently available that are less time consuming. They are called Everquest and World of Warcraft. For those who are nostalgic for challenging games again that *can* be time consuming, then we are anxiously awaiting Pantheon. What Pantheon provides is an option for people who want the latter since a game like that is currently absent from the MMORPG market. In time, more classic EQ/vanilla WoW players (some who long for a challenging game again) will find their way to Pantheon. Of that, I am sure of. The devs have made very clear what their vision of Pantheon is, and a lot of it can be found in FAQ. #communityreallyreallymatters.
Vandraad said:Dumbing down is when you 1) remove the need for the player to actively make a decision or choice either through automation or by removing the need for the decisions/choice in the first place, and/or 2) remove or significantly reduce the consequence for making a bad decision or mistake.
Yes, well said.
OK, first, you started a thread by calling people "tards" which in itself is offensive
The argument about convenience suggests, falsely, that the only purpose for the game is to experience combat and that combat is the sole value within the game. Modern MMO's have devolved to this experience of instant gratification, where all the trappings of a virtual world are removed for "convenience". In that experience, players can log in, instantly start combat and log out. There is a huge population of players that want to play that way. There is also an orphaned population (Brad's term) of players who don't want that and for whom the game is not only about combat. For those players, living in the virtual world and being immersed in the world is the purpose and combat is simply the most popular activity in the virtual world.
When you put a map that points a player to a location, they do not have to experience the travel and exploration within the virtual world. Instead, they are not living as their character, they are the real-life human simply driving the controls on a video game. There is a very substantial difference.
This argument continues for everything from punctuation-over-NPC's to auto-looting, to fast travel.
Travel is a very special example of this:
If your goal in the game is to experience combat, then travel gets in the way of that and you will want it removed.
If you goal in the game is to experience a virtual world, then travel enhances that and is a path you follow to GET to combat.
Let's say there are two players, A and B both play for four hours:
Player A spends three hours exploring the zone, traveling, finding their way, getting a boat, crossing a mountain range and meeting up with a group. They hunt for an hour and kill 20 mobs.
Player B clicks "auto-port" and lands next to a group. They hunt for four hours and kill 80 mobs.
Both players have had 4 hours of game time experience. Some players say that the former is a more meaningful and rewarding experience because they value living in the virtual world.
Other players only care about the combat and value four times the repetitive combat and do not value all the other experiences of the game world.
The flaw in your post (and every other post on this) is that it is a confessed "rant" because other players don't value what *YOU* value. You cannot tell people what their favorite color should be or what flavor ice cream they like. You cannot tell other people what they SHOULD like and appreciate and when you do, you are immediately wrong.
Furthermore, while there will always be a balance, VR has explicitly stated that their vision is to cater this world to those folks who want the challenging EXPERIENCE of the game world, not just the immediate gratification of a combat only game. There are plenty of games out there that already do that.
