Plat/PLing for cash... Can it be stopped?

[Cromcruaich]

Firstly let's look at the playerbase. I'm pretty sure that If I asked any random player ingame or on a forum (especially on a forum) what the majority of players spent their time ingame doing I'd get the answer 'RvRing or preparing a character for RvR'. This is actually false. There are a huge number of players, who are mostly invisible to the hardcore RvR crowd, who spend all their time levelling a character, getting a few easy artifacts and MLs etc, then starting another one. These players don't PL, they very rarely venture into RvR and they don't have many aspirations in game beyond getting their latest project to 50 and perhaps getting a nice piece of kit from a FFA raid. These are the staple players of the game and the ones that Mythic need to keep happy with content patches. The hardcore RvR crowd are a tiny - albeit highly vocal - minority ingame and pandering to their wishes at the expense of the vast mass of casuals will lose Mythic/Goa more susbscriptions than if every single VN or FH warrior quit instantly.

Are you really sure this is true, i'd take issue with this as a description of the situation on the pryd/excal cluster at least. Ofcourse it could well be the case on the other servers.

[Requiel]

Are you really sure this is true, i'd take issue with this as a description of the situation on the pryd/excal cluster at least. Ofcourse it could well be the case on the other servers.

It's absolutely true on all servers including the English cluster. You are an established player, you have a circle of people you notice - people in your guild, your alliance, regular RvR allies and enemies, people you discuss with on forums etc. Beyond that are a vast mass of players who you won't even notice. They log in once or twice a week so you don't recognise their names, they play well below your power level in PvE and RvR so you don't usually come across them in your regular playing, many don't have a 50 yet, most have little to no interest in RvR apart from perhaps a brief foray into the battlegrounds. They are the people running around doing quests in Catacombs, RvR missions from DL, farming in the quiet spots of Hy Brasil etc. I talk to these people every day via RightNow and ingame so I know they exist. Otherwise they'd be entirely outside my frame of reference as a player too.

[Xest]

Think of it another way, without the revenue that bb accounts have generated the plug could already have been pulled on the prydwen server.

Yeah but if bots weren't needed I'm sure the playerbase would be at least twice as high, one of the main reasons I've seen people quit over the years is due to having to have a BB.

The game rewards time invested, the more time you can invest, the greater the reward. If you can only invest a trivial amount of time (half an hour a week) then I'd suggest that a game like DAoC is not the game for you, technically it's possible but realistically your game experience is going to suck. If you can only play for a limited amount of time then you have to accept that you aren't going to get the same reward as someone who can play more than you

Isn't that bad game design though? Making time the factor that determines success? It puts students and the unemployed as the most likely to succede and disadvantages the majority population - the working class.

[Cryn]

I know this is true both in DAoC and in other games, but I'd be willing to bet a large number of those players just leveling one character after another are not actually enjoying doing it.

MMORPGs, and also single-player CRPGs before them, typically offer this carrot of level gains, and it plays upon something about the human way of looking at the world. It offers an apparent goal, and players live in anticipation of achieving it. My experience is that the goal is a false one. There is little or no sense of achievement reaching a new level and rather than enjoying the experience of attaining the level, the thing that keeps you going is the promise of the NEXT level. When you max a character, the promise is that maybe your next alt will be better/more enjoyable.

What the statistics about these players are not telling you is what the players would say if you were grouped with them. All you hear is people complaining about how dull it is "but I can't wait to get to 50", how frustrating it is and people wishing there was some better alternative. This is not what you hear when you talk to people playing games they actually enjoy.

MMORPGs win because of human nature and modern lifestyles. People stay in them for want of a better alternative, and are often not enjoying any aspect of the game outside the socialising.

[Requiel]

Isn't that bad game design though? Making time the factor that determines success? It puts students and the unemployed as the most likely to succede and disadvantages the majority population - the working class.

DAoC is not a zero sum game. You can't 'win' at DAoC. Someone with more time than you wil achieve more. The key is that with a reasonable amount of time invested, you can achieve the same things, it will just take you longer. As long as the main game rewards are achievable with a realistic amount of invested time it's not a problem. If you couldn't get a template unless you played 24 hours a day for five days straight, that would be wrong and would make the game inaccessible to anyone who worked for a living. Happily that's not the case. You can achieve the same objectives as someone who never leaves their computer, it will just take you longer. Most people are in the middle of the bell curve, some are ahead of the average and some are behind. The vast majority of you however who play competitively are roughly in the same situation regarding available time. Seems fair to me.

Essentially what you are saying is that 'is it fair that the game rewards you for playing it?' to which I answer unequivocally 'absolutely it is'.

[Requiel]

I know this is true both in DAoC and in other games, but I'd be willing to bet a large number of those players just leveling one character after another are not actually enjoying doing it.

What the statistics about these players are not telling you is what the players would say if you were grouped with them. All you hear is people complaining about how dull it is "but I can't wait to get to 50", how frustrating it is and people wishing there was some better alternative. This is not what you hear when you talk to people playing games they actually enjoy.

MMORPGs win because of human nature and modern lifestyles. People stay in them for want of a better alternative, and are often not enjoying any aspect of the game outside the socialising.

A very large number of those players are enjoying the experience of just playing. The levelling is secondary to many of them, they just enjoy playing their character. I don't think you understand this mindset of the ultra casual gamer, which is understandable as you come from a very different game experience. These people play the game for the sake of playing the game.

[Cromcruaich]

It's absolutely true on all servers including the English cluster. You are an established player, you have a circle of people you notice - people in your guild, your alliance, regular RvR allies and enemies, people you discuss with on forums etc. Beyond that are a vast mass of players who you won't even notice. They log in once or twice a week so you don't recognise their names, they play well below your power level in PvE and RvR so you don't usually come across them in your regular playing, many don't have a 50 yet, most have little to no interest in RvR apart from perhaps a brief foray into the battlegrounds. They are the people running around doing quests in Catacombs, RvR missions from DL, farming in the quiet spots of Hy Brasil etc. I talk to these people every day via RightNow and ingame so I know they exist. Otherwise they'd be entirely outside my frame of reference as a player too.

I'm quite surprised at that - surely people without 50's are simply renegades from other servers? Ive had the impression that for a long time there has been very little true new blood. Would be interesting to do a /who by class and just as those people what they are up to - by your reckoning the majority at anyone time would fit into your stated demographic. Would you be willing to put a wager on the % of people who's activities are aimed at getting an rvr competitive player (ml's, artis, arti levelling, item farming) and those that are just enjoying the pve?

Other point to make - could more be done to promote the rvr experience and the communities that are found at fh, pryd.net and guild websites such as http://www.nafiannadragun.co.uk to these poor lonely souls, just think of all the fun they are missing out on!

Agree with your position on bb's and real life trading for ingame commodities. BB's may be seen as an evil by some people (personally I think they are great) but in comparison to the hell that commercial exploiters could wreak on the economy are nothing. Remember what it was like trying to get artifacts? Imagine what that would turn into if people made real life money from doing that? You'd end up having to pay for every aspect of the game, even quested items could be camped by outfits killing bosses. The potential for damage is a million miles away from a buf bot. And lets be honest - make a friend with a guildie who has one and you are sorted.

[Ovi]

A very large number of those players are enjoying the experience of just playing. The levelling is secondary to many of them, they just enjoy playing their character. I don't think you understand this mindset of the ultra casual gamer, which is understandable as you come from a very different game experience. These people play the game for the sake of playing the game.

I certainly agree that it is possible to enjoy levelling more than one character. Personally I didn't enjoy levelling in DAoC so much though. Other than my first character the only 1 I enjoyed levelling was my Vamp, mainly because I didn't have to worry about 2 accounts.

I have recently achieved my 4th level 60 character on WoW, and I can say I have enjoyed all 4 even though 2 of them are the same class. Why did I enjoy them more than levelling in DAoC? Because I could do it at my own pace and not have to juggle 2 accounts.

[Cryn]

A very large number of those players are enjoying the experience of just playing. The levelling is secondary to many of them, they just enjoy playing their character. I don't think you understand this mindset of the ultra casual gamer, which is understandable as you come from a very different game experience. These people play the game for the sake of playing the game.

The number of these players surely is not high? At least in DAoC at the moment. I've never been part of a closed or RvR-focused guild, so I would have thought I would have met a fair number of them if they were a significant part of the player base.

However, even accepting that there are reasonable numbers of casual players who enjoy the PvE (because their limited time online has not forced them to repeat content so much, I would guess), there is still a large proportion of the player base who do not fall into that category. Are you suggesting that the game is only expected to be enjoyed on a casual basis? If not, then the issue still exists of how to provide entertainment for players for whom the PvE content rapidly becomes stale. Going back to my original suggestion, you could serve BOTH types of player if you ran an additional "straight to end game" server type. It would not stop casual gamers enjoying PvE and it would provide less casual gamers a way to bypass the bits of the game that have become dull by repetition.

I have to say, my experience of the MMORPG market at the moment is very clear on this subject. Outside of WoW the message from MMORPG players is a definite "We want something better!" I would be extremely surprised and disappointed if the games creators and operators really do have no recognition of this. Even in WoW it is the breadth of content that keeps people entertained, and as soon as they enter the repetitive phase enjoyment drops rapidly.

It doesn't seem to me (though I may be missing something) that there should be any difficulty accepting this notion for anyone. Content-based pursuits are all the same in this respect: the movie industry, literature, music, theatre, TV all churn out new content in an effort to keep people interested.

Computer games are a halfway house - they CAN retain interest purely on excitement of the gameplay, but in MMORPGs this does not seems to have been achieved outside of PvP, and PvE gameplay is often simplistic and sedate, relying on content to engage the player.

[<ankh>]

Isn't that bad game design though? Making time the factor that determines success? It puts students and the unemployed as the most likely to succede and disadvantages the majority population - the working class.

It sure does - but at the same time atleast I think you should get rewarded for putting loads and loads of time into the game.

/Ankh