Getting right to the discussion of transient matters

[cuddlefish]

I think there should be laws controlling how much money it costs for hapless consumers of games to get what they paid for. For instance, the theory goes that in official RO it takes about 3 months to get a normal character from level 1 to level 99, and that's with a bare minimum of sleeping/eating/bathing/defecating. You can't do it and have a job or anything that takes you away from the computer for more than a few hours every day. A person who plays maybe 10-15 hours a week is going to need more like a year or two for the same reward. That's like $300 in subscription fees, plus the cost of a computer, plus the cost of an internet connection, plus the cost of whatever junk you bought from the online store. This is me noticing that $400 is just a touch more than the $50 most people pay for a console game.

One might argue that it's okay because with online games, you don't pay as much per hour of entertainment. Tales of the Abyss cost about $60 when it came out, and if you played the whole game and did all the fun extra stuff you might spend 60 hours on it, but every one of those hours would be busy. Compare with an online game where you spend much, much more of your time killing the same monster over and over again and talking to your friends. There are lots of hours spent on RO, but everybody knows that 90% of them are in between "boring" and "fucking torture." Oh, and of course, when you turn off the computer and go do something that is not Gravity-provided entertainment, your subscription keeps ticking. You end up paying for nothing.

The final answer is to just quit playing until Gravity, or any other company that sells an online game, gets their shit together and starts selling a product that's worth the money consumers pay for it. We all need to get over our addictions and learn to turn off the MMO faucet for a while. But there's a problem with that---just withholding money and saying you won't play will never ever ever

ever

work. No. You can't get through like that. Not to mention it sucks to have to go through a divorce with a game like that, and be reminded that you don't really have any power at all in something that got your money, love, and devotion. (I'm not going to say it's just a game, and therefore nobody should be devoted to it. Games are made to be sexy, real, capable of evoking emotions, and fun. I'm attached? Yeah, no kidding.) Why can't I have more power over how I play a game? And I don't want the power to whisper in Namco's ear that Kyle is a fucking moron---no, wait, I really want that power! Let's change it :| Er, that they need to give Reala giant bazangas and an even more see-thru babydoll!!! Supposing that was what I wanted (and it isn't) other sensible people, like me, who find that revolting, would be displeased! I'm talking about rules and guidelines for all games, from which all sorts of gamers (consumers) would benefit.

Actually, I want rules governing how long it takes to "finish" a game, but that's at least as unlikely as the establishment of basic rules for how much someone can charge for a PC game sooo... (≡ー≡)

tl;dr the world will always take pleasure in taking money from geeks and it will never happen and I am immoral/stupid/entitled/addicted

Comments

[xephyris.livejournal.com]

That's just inferior endgame design on RO's part. The MMORPG revenue generation model requires that their players have something to do for a long time, and in RO's case that is the grind.

It doesn't have to be that way.

Games like Team Fortress 2 don't have a grind, and people come back and keep playing. I have friends on my Steam list and we've all been playing since it launched a year and a half ago. The issue is actually designing something fun and non-repetitive that players can do forever. Pangya is the same way. Some guy made chess many centuries ago and look at how long people have been playing that.

But, the real crux of the issue here is: You like some parts of RO. It's got spirit! So it's difficult to speak with your wallet, but even then I don't think governing games is the solution. What to do... private ser(ry

[moumusu.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I was hoping you'd comment X3

I used Gravity as the company I mentioned the most here because I know the most about them and I've spent the most time with RO, but I really mean every company selling a game that only brings poor horsie to yummy carrot with a long and expensive wait.

My terrible affair with RO has partly been fueled by the opportunity to make my characters look different. I don't expect to take several months to change my clothes or hairstyle, so in fact I do use a private server where I don't have to grind for what I want. I'm very fond of it---I keep going back, so at least for me, what you say about games without a grind are the truth.

The only argument I would make for grinding is if the low levels are just as charming and fun as the endgame content. I find it bewitching that in RO you can play a female swordsman with a long skirt who lives off of potatoes and milk and goes on adventures to the Prontera sewers or where bunches of Yoyos live. (I fantasize about a server where nobody can go beyond the first class (’Д‘)

Private servers are nice, but they're not the final solution. I've never found a private server run by sensible or trustworthy people. If you don't you don't like something, you're generally expected to go to a different server. I've been on a server where the guy running it was a predator RL and just evil, and obviously I had to leave, but it meant that I lost everything I had there because someone was an asshole. I felt defeated. It sucked. At least in an official game, when an employee tempts a girl to have sex with him for in-game items, you get scandal, uproar, magazine articles, etc. On a private server if you get upset about losing something you get called a carebear and have to leave.

I have to say I'm not positive that government control of video games is the way to do things. When I wrote this entry, I kind of found myself wishing there was a better way. I think industry standards might be better. Also, let me say that I really despise the idea of taxing online game consumption like cigarettes or alcohol, but when I say that the world will always take pleasure in taking money from geeks...I mean that it's perfectly possible that someone in charge will decide that MMOs ought to be controlled by punishing the players. (It would be bad business to punish the companies for having a product everybody wants! Yes!)

[xephyris.livejournal.com]

I wrote a long response and then LJ ate it by saying no POST info or something so here's the TL;DR:

A lot of games are the same way as RO, even the much fabled WoW. It's just really well hidden.

Mythic tried to make a game where you played the endgame right from the start and the players still rushed to the end. Sometimes, it's not the game's fault, it's the people.

Private servers can be like that. I think this is part of the misery of the human condition (lol internet) and it makes me sad.

I also think the solution lies not just in communication between players and developers, but also have strong competition between not only the developers but the players as well. You should have to earn your privilege to play a good game. That'd weed out the trash both ways, don't you think?

[moumusu.livejournal.com]

I kinda don't get it. What would earning your privilege to play a good game involve? Goodness? Money? Would it be more like the game chooses the player, instead of the other way around? Should games require more skill so that you have to have some skill to prosper? Or maybe more maturity and kindness, so that I don't have to play alongside poorly-formed, woman-hating teenage scabs who think the point of an inherently social game should be antisocial activity like PvP (yes! Bitter carebear! moving on).

Even Tales puts the hysterical sidequests and costume-getting in events that occur after you start the last dungeon. I think the difference is that Tales is calibrated to have much, much more fun stuff and less grinding before you get to what is arguably the endgame content. (Except in CERTAIN INSTALLMENTS where the first half of the game is an awesome romp around the world where the hero has more subtext with another guy than the heroine, and the second half of the game is suddenly like 6 dungeons in a row, and the hottie is dead >:|)

ARR INTERNET SO MISERABLE T_T I've started avoiding people I don't know every time I play a private server...when they know I'm a girl they hit on me in awkward ways, and when they don't I still end up learning more than I wanted to about corrupt GMs >:| i r elitist y/y

[xephyris.livejournal.com]

The privilege model should ideally involve other players as well. There should be several "tiers" of the game, and playing at the "top" tier should be something players have to work towards both in terms of achieving something and also with their peers reviewing them at the same time. Players reviewed poorly get put down a tier until they're in the bottom tier, and while players from upper tiers should be able to interact with every player, players from the bottom tiers can only perhaps be afforded with very little interaction. The details have to be worked out, of course. This will, I think, work even in PvP games, depending on implementation (for example, a simple model would place everyone on equal footing until they are blacklisted with a high confidence).

This flies in the face of "equality" and political correctness and I am almost certain that it will not be a popular model so...

With single player RPGs the reason for a 'grind' is almost always different from an online game where they're depending on it for income. Arguably, the 'grind' in single player RPGs is supposed to be fun (and it is! see PSO, Diablo, etc) and isn't supposed to be there just to keep you playing (although it does).

I'm not sure what you can do about nasty people except ignoring them (which I know can be very difficult :(

[moumusu.livejournal.com]

Oh, nono, ignoring people is like 90% of what I do in online games these days 8D It is too bad, but I have friends to bring along.

Wouldn't a review system make it possible for someone to get into a big group/guild/clan that wants to have everyone at the upper tier, so they all give each other good reviews all the time even if they're all idiots?

I've kind of entertained fantasies of games where, instead of towns being minded by high-level NPCs that attack characters with the PK label, players would be required to take turns being guards or reviewing character demotions or promotions etc. There'd have to be people paid to manage the game at the top, but maybe they could also charge less for a subscription for people who behaved better? That's really REALLY not equal (GO ME), and from here it sounds really great. I get what you mean.

It's funny, because I have enough of an appetite for RO grinding to stay on a low-rate server until I got a Sage to level 96, and I'm still playing! But I don't want to pay for it. I think if I paid for it I'd want to actually have the character I paid real money for and then I could choose whether or not I played with it etc.

[xephyris.livejournal.com]

Of course social engineering is possible (it always is!) but ideally the system should weigh the reviews of everyone equally (which is to say that a guild will count for nothing unless it is larger than the rest of the server). It's somewhat like the confidence model for auction sites - you can always look at a rating and decide if you want to interact with the player or not.

I put 500 hours into the original PSO so I know what you mean!