I hate to be one of "those people" who complain endlessly about some supposed apocalyptic event that will surely destroy the games we love. But I have to admit that the launch of this so-called Real Money Auction House has me feeling deeply disturbed.
I don't think it will kill Diablo 3. I don't think it will signal the doom of the entire Diablo franchise or Blizzard as a whole. I do think, however, that it signals a shift towards the whole microtransaction business model that more and more games are starting to adopt.
Whatever happened to the good old days where you bought a game for a fixed price, and you got to play as much or as little as you wanted? Those of us who chose to invest more time in it reaped better rewards. Did you know that in Final Fantasy 7 if you spend hours upon hours to breed a gold chocobo, use it to obtain the Knights of the Round materia, then max it out, you can easily beat both Ruby and Emerald weapons? No gimmicks, no cheap work-arounds, and no need to purchase an additional "materia boost pack" from Square Enix for only $5.99. All you have to do is just grind out the work for days.
I'm digressing a little here, I just get very nostalgic about FF7, perhaps the best single-player RPG ever made.
The point is, that microtransactions operate under the principle - "free to play, pay to win", which I despise. It makes sense as a business model - the hardcore gamers these days are no longer teenagers who had to beg mom for $20 to buy the latest Mario game. They're working professionals in their 20s or 30s who have disposable income but little time, and wouldn't hesitate to spend an extra $10 here and there to streamline their gaming process.
Think about it - when you're a broke teenager, you don't mind spending 6 hours on a Saturday to get some crazy good item. When you're in your 20s those 6 hours on a Saturday are valuable, and you'd rather pay some extra cash to get that item rather than waste the day staring at the computer. Come Sunday, both the teenager and the adult have equal items, both paid for it in some way or another. But in the end, the teenager feels a little bit "cheated" out of the deal. Because let's face it, $10 doesn't seem like very fair for something you had to work 6 hours for. But as the adult sees it, it's as if he paid someone $10 to play video games for 6 hours, a task many happily do for free.
Does this make sense? I'm starting to confuse myself a little here. The point is that I see both sides of the argument. I see that it makes sense to charge people with disposable income for a small advantage and let the other folks grind their way towards the same goal.
What Diablo 3 does with the RMAH, however, is taking it a little too far, if you ask me. I know plenty of other games have the microtransaction model, but D3 takes it to a whole new level by giving players absolute control over the economy. It's not a matter of Blizzard selling you a few things here and there, it's a bizarre system in which players have the power to inflate prices, hoard gold and goods, and effectively coerce the "average" player into participation.
I don't want to into all the thousand little ways in which this happens. The big picture is that most people will eventually buy into it and end up buying a few things here and there for $10-20 rather than wait weeks, months, for a good drop they can actually use. I know I probably will.
And this makes me very sad. It's not that I can't afford it. It's the fact that I know the value of a $20 is much greater than some pixels on a screen that will help me kill digital monsters in a digital world. For $20 I can buy myself dinner somewhere, or go out to a movie with a friend, or treat myself to 5 smoothies at Jamba Juice, and as a rational adult I know that these things are just much more worthwhile activities/services/goods than an in-game frill. I know it, yet I also know that we all have that impulse to get what we want, right when we want it, without any actual effort.
And so when I see an amazing upgrade, reasonably priced, I know I will probably click "buyout", even as some rational brain cell in my head is screaming "DON'T DO IT! You could get half a tank of gas for that money!!!". And I know that after I've bought myself all sorts of things, I will probably beat the game very easily rather than struggle through every champion and elite pack as I do now. And after I've beaten the game, I will feel bored and sad.
Then I will probably go back to wow.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
Monk in your Trunk
Since wow seems to be on hiatus for the time being, I thought I'd write out some of my thoughts on D3. Why not, seeing as to how D3 makes me nerd rage just as much as wow did.
I signed up to play a monk with the expectation that it would play much like a rogue. I imagined a hard-hitting, fast-moving DPS machine, relying on high burst damaged and mobility to weave and bob my way through enemies and landing big combos.
Instead, as I progress further into inferno mode, I find myself more or less a tank-type character. I stack defensive stats and abilities and I sit there spanking a mob to death. Ever so slowly.
Compared to ranged classes such as a wizard or those completely imba demon hunters, my DPS is pathetic. On average I'm doing only about 30-40% of what my ranged counterparts are doing in terms of pure raw damage. My HP and defensive stats vastly dwarf theirs though, and I can take quite a few more hits and stand in a lot more ground effects than they can.
The problem is, though, that this still doesn't create a fair play situation. Think about it: you run into a swarm of champion enemies who hit like trucks and put down fire patches everywhere. A monk has to be able to take those mack truck hits and occasionally step through fire patches just to be able to hit the mob. A ranged character, however, drops dead as soon as they take a hit or stand in fire. But this is a non-issue as ranged characters never need to put themselves in that situation. As long as they keep their distance, which they do, they can just keep running and shooting, running and shooting, kiting their way merrily until the mob is dead. And mobs die much much quicker when they can rock 40-50k DPS too.
So there I am, cycling through my cooldowns and heals, stepping gingerly around fire whenever I can, getting smacked around by 4 elites while trying to regen enough spirit just to spam my heals, while a DH or wizard runs around in a circle, never taking a hit, and killing the mob in a fraction of the time it takes me.
Of course kiting isn't an easy task and it takes a lot of coordination to be able to do this. And there are some situations where kiting isn't effective at all (jailer mobs, frozen, narrow corridors). But overall ranged have a huge advantage in that they never really have to worry about their defensive stats. They are literally glass cannons that dish out huge damage but can never afford to be touched by a mob. Monks and our poor sad cousins, the barbarians, have to beef up our health and resistance and armor, often at the sacrifice of our DPS which explains why it's so pitifully low.
Another very unfair advantage of wizards and DHs is their passive resource regen (not sure about witch doctors, never played one). Wizards regen mana fairly quickly, and DHs can regen their hatred simply by shooting arrows, regardless of whether it hits a target or not. Monks on the other hand, must have an active target in order to regen our spirit. Which means that if you're on the run from an elite pack and you have no spirit left, you must somehow be able to get near them and hit them to be able to use your abilities. In some situations this is just a no-go. If I can't get near a mob I can't use my mitigation abilities, and I can't use my mitigation abilities unless I can get near a mob. I think this is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed.
Not to say that playing a monk isn't fun - it is. It's just not what I expected, and perhaps my expectations were flawed. I do enjoy my monk, and now that my gear is up to snuff Act 1 inferno is a breeze. I can farm the Butcher and punch my way through any combinations of champion packs (yes, even the ones with multiple ground effects + fire chain).
The other night during a 3 person co-op game I was able to solo the Butcher down from about 25% HP remaining - AFTER the fire enrage. After all my party members dropped from the fire, I sat their dodging his hits, rotating my CDs, and slowly whittling down his HP. Did the fire hurt? Yes. Was I standing in it the whole time? Yes. Did my HP ever drop below 50%? No. Is this how I imagined playing a monk? No, but was it freaking awesome how I soloed the Butcher after a hard enrage? Yes.
Act 2 inferno, however, is a different story...that might have to wait until the nerf.
I signed up to play a monk with the expectation that it would play much like a rogue. I imagined a hard-hitting, fast-moving DPS machine, relying on high burst damaged and mobility to weave and bob my way through enemies and landing big combos.
Instead, as I progress further into inferno mode, I find myself more or less a tank-type character. I stack defensive stats and abilities and I sit there spanking a mob to death. Ever so slowly.
Compared to ranged classes such as a wizard or those completely imba demon hunters, my DPS is pathetic. On average I'm doing only about 30-40% of what my ranged counterparts are doing in terms of pure raw damage. My HP and defensive stats vastly dwarf theirs though, and I can take quite a few more hits and stand in a lot more ground effects than they can.
The problem is, though, that this still doesn't create a fair play situation. Think about it: you run into a swarm of champion enemies who hit like trucks and put down fire patches everywhere. A monk has to be able to take those mack truck hits and occasionally step through fire patches just to be able to hit the mob. A ranged character, however, drops dead as soon as they take a hit or stand in fire. But this is a non-issue as ranged characters never need to put themselves in that situation. As long as they keep their distance, which they do, they can just keep running and shooting, running and shooting, kiting their way merrily until the mob is dead. And mobs die much much quicker when they can rock 40-50k DPS too.
So there I am, cycling through my cooldowns and heals, stepping gingerly around fire whenever I can, getting smacked around by 4 elites while trying to regen enough spirit just to spam my heals, while a DH or wizard runs around in a circle, never taking a hit, and killing the mob in a fraction of the time it takes me.
Of course kiting isn't an easy task and it takes a lot of coordination to be able to do this. And there are some situations where kiting isn't effective at all (jailer mobs, frozen, narrow corridors). But overall ranged have a huge advantage in that they never really have to worry about their defensive stats. They are literally glass cannons that dish out huge damage but can never afford to be touched by a mob. Monks and our poor sad cousins, the barbarians, have to beef up our health and resistance and armor, often at the sacrifice of our DPS which explains why it's so pitifully low.
Another very unfair advantage of wizards and DHs is their passive resource regen (not sure about witch doctors, never played one). Wizards regen mana fairly quickly, and DHs can regen their hatred simply by shooting arrows, regardless of whether it hits a target or not. Monks on the other hand, must have an active target in order to regen our spirit. Which means that if you're on the run from an elite pack and you have no spirit left, you must somehow be able to get near them and hit them to be able to use your abilities. In some situations this is just a no-go. If I can't get near a mob I can't use my mitigation abilities, and I can't use my mitigation abilities unless I can get near a mob. I think this is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed.
Not to say that playing a monk isn't fun - it is. It's just not what I expected, and perhaps my expectations were flawed. I do enjoy my monk, and now that my gear is up to snuff Act 1 inferno is a breeze. I can farm the Butcher and punch my way through any combinations of champion packs (yes, even the ones with multiple ground effects + fire chain).
The other night during a 3 person co-op game I was able to solo the Butcher down from about 25% HP remaining - AFTER the fire enrage. After all my party members dropped from the fire, I sat their dodging his hits, rotating my CDs, and slowly whittling down his HP. Did the fire hurt? Yes. Was I standing in it the whole time? Yes. Did my HP ever drop below 50%? No. Is this how I imagined playing a monk? No, but was it freaking awesome how I soloed the Butcher after a hard enrage? Yes.
Act 2 inferno, however, is a different story...that might have to wait until the nerf.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
The real wow-killer
Every time a new big-name MMO comes out, everyone on the battle.net forums are abuzz with speculation that the new game will finally be the "wow-killer". Ever since WoW has been out, it has pretty much dominated the entire MMORPG scene. Perhaps it would be more apt to call wow the "MMO-in-general-killer".
I've played my share of MMOs back in the day, but until wow came out on the market, there was no real big-name MMO. Sure, there was a huge Lineage following in Asia and there were some rabid Everquest and Ultima Online players in the US & Europe, but even in their heyday EQ/Ultima had nowhere near the number of subscribers that wow did. Over 10 million - no other game has come even close. No one else even had a chance when Blizzard, a household name in the PC gaming world that draws a huge fan base with just its logo alone, decided to enter the MMO market.
When Rift came out, everyone called it the wow killer. They even attempted to advertise themselves as such. Rift came and went, barely breaking 1 million subscriptions. Bioware tried to do what Trion couldn't do and pushed big advertising dollars into its Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. SWTOR lost 25% of its players within the first quarter, only reaching about 15% of wow's playerbase at its peak.
Even another renowned Blizzard game, Starcraft 2, couldn't kill wow. But I think that was mostly because SC2 was designed for an entirely different fan base compared to wow. SC2 is for the hardcore, as SC1 was. Once you play through the campaign modes, all that's left is content suited for the hardcore gamer: it's all about APMs and ladder rankings and high-pressure matches, which doesn't appeal to the more casual players of wow. I know a lot of people who did pick up SC2 when it came out, played through it once and came back to wow within a couple weeks.
I have always said that the only true wow killer will be World of Warcraft 2: [insert catchy title here]. The day that wow servers would be truly empty and dead would be the day that a bigger and better version of wow made by Blizzard hit the markets. Only time will prove whether I'm right or wrong. But in the meantime, I think we do have a very strong contender for the title of "wow-killer".
On May 15th, Diablo 3 hit the market, and it seems as though almost everyone I knew who played wow has taken up D3. It makes sense - D3 is more "like" wow than SC2. It's kind of like a more action-adventure version of wow. There's no set class roles, no real need for cooperative gameplay, and not as much depth as wow. But at the same time it's fun, it's fast, it's "clicky" and "smashy", if that makes any sense. In wow you click on a monster and your character will swing a sword and you see the monster chirp and die. In D3, you click a monster and you smack it hard in the face with burning fists and the monster explodes all over the screen and dies. It's more visceral, it's more gory, it's ultimately satisfying in a cheap-thrills kind of way.
It's too early to tell whether D3 will retain a permanent hold on the once-devoted wow players. The game has been out for 3 weeks today. When I logged into wow this morning (for the first time in 3 weeks), I was overjoyed to see 6 friends online! Until I looked at my friends list and realized that they were simply my RealID friends who were logged onto D3.
I could see myself going back to wow eventually once I've worked my way through 99% of D3. This could take a while. Let's just hope there are people left to play with when I get back.
I've played my share of MMOs back in the day, but until wow came out on the market, there was no real big-name MMO. Sure, there was a huge Lineage following in Asia and there were some rabid Everquest and Ultima Online players in the US & Europe, but even in their heyday EQ/Ultima had nowhere near the number of subscribers that wow did. Over 10 million - no other game has come even close. No one else even had a chance when Blizzard, a household name in the PC gaming world that draws a huge fan base with just its logo alone, decided to enter the MMO market.
When Rift came out, everyone called it the wow killer. They even attempted to advertise themselves as such. Rift came and went, barely breaking 1 million subscriptions. Bioware tried to do what Trion couldn't do and pushed big advertising dollars into its Star Wars: The Old Republic MMO. SWTOR lost 25% of its players within the first quarter, only reaching about 15% of wow's playerbase at its peak.
Even another renowned Blizzard game, Starcraft 2, couldn't kill wow. But I think that was mostly because SC2 was designed for an entirely different fan base compared to wow. SC2 is for the hardcore, as SC1 was. Once you play through the campaign modes, all that's left is content suited for the hardcore gamer: it's all about APMs and ladder rankings and high-pressure matches, which doesn't appeal to the more casual players of wow. I know a lot of people who did pick up SC2 when it came out, played through it once and came back to wow within a couple weeks.
I have always said that the only true wow killer will be World of Warcraft 2: [insert catchy title here]. The day that wow servers would be truly empty and dead would be the day that a bigger and better version of wow made by Blizzard hit the markets. Only time will prove whether I'm right or wrong. But in the meantime, I think we do have a very strong contender for the title of "wow-killer".
On May 15th, Diablo 3 hit the market, and it seems as though almost everyone I knew who played wow has taken up D3. It makes sense - D3 is more "like" wow than SC2. It's kind of like a more action-adventure version of wow. There's no set class roles, no real need for cooperative gameplay, and not as much depth as wow. But at the same time it's fun, it's fast, it's "clicky" and "smashy", if that makes any sense. In wow you click on a monster and your character will swing a sword and you see the monster chirp and die. In D3, you click a monster and you smack it hard in the face with burning fists and the monster explodes all over the screen and dies. It's more visceral, it's more gory, it's ultimately satisfying in a cheap-thrills kind of way.
It's too early to tell whether D3 will retain a permanent hold on the once-devoted wow players. The game has been out for 3 weeks today. When I logged into wow this morning (for the first time in 3 weeks), I was overjoyed to see 6 friends online! Until I looked at my friends list and realized that they were simply my RealID friends who were logged onto D3.
I could see myself going back to wow eventually once I've worked my way through 99% of D3. This could take a while. Let's just hope there are people left to play with when I get back.
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