I'm going to rant about MMORPG communities here

[Arcana]

/livejournal mode

I'm trying to think about how to express what's annoying me right now.

So as some of you might know there's this game called "Aion" that's released in North America now. The art is pretty and the game is new and my girlfriend wanted to try it so I decided to sign up for it with her and play it. We both used to play WoW, it was my first MMORPG and I used to play it quite a bit, probably 15-20 hours a week (which is something like the amount of hours the average MMORPG player puts in a week).

Anyway, Aion is neat. It's not as fun or as addictive as WoW was, but it's not bad and it's interesting and it's a new game to try out.

But I think what's killing it for me is the community. The forum community especially.

See, Aion is a game designed by Korean developers, and there are a few differences in the way that so-called Western developers and so-called Asian developers make their MMORPGs. I'm going to describe this with my intense amounts of bias right now because this is my own rant thread and as a result I get to twist the argument how I want. In any case, let's outline some of the qualities...

Korean MMORPGs:

- Meant to be more time-sink oriented

- Money is very valuable, lots of money gets you ahead

- Botting is acceptable, as it's one of the ways to get you ahead of others

- Levelling is "grind" oriented. What people like to call the grind where you simply kill the same few mobs repeatedly in order to get a level

- Death is punished severely

- Very pretty and customizable

- Usually somewhat linear and story-focused

Western MMORPGs:

- Player friendly

- Measures are put into place to prevent gold from being so valuable that someone who gets it (or buys it) is able to get ahead

- Leveling is usually quest and objective oriented

- Very focused on small steps

Anyway, this ends up boiling down to World of Warcraft vs. Aion.

One thing I've learned now from playing a bit of Aion is that WoW is a very, very, very solid game. They've done a lot of good things (and some bad) in WoW to make it a game that you want to play. It's very casual friendly, it invites you to come and make mistakes and not punish you for it, it gives you a carrot that keeps luring you a little bit forward every day so that you never really want to quit. There's a ton of content and a ton of stuff to do.

Also, I have come to realise just how bored I am of WoW. It didn't really come to me until I started to play some Aion but WoW is... well, I've been playing the game for 3 years or so and now I'm bored of the same raids and the same dungeons and I guess it just took playing another game to make me realise it.

So I go play Aion and I go to one of their forums and look around so I can learn a bit more about it, learn more about the game and what it's about and how to play.

So if you know WoW's forums, WoW's forums are pretty terrible as was alluded to in my first thread upon my brief OCR hiatus. They're hostile, people troll each other a lot, people call each other bad and are downright mean to each other. You cannot really get worse than WoW forums.

... or can you? I think I've come to the conclusion that the Aion forums are just as terrible and it makes me wonder if this is common to all MMORPGs.

There are a few prevailing complaints in Aion. Outside of the many technical issues there are two issues that are getting to me.

First, it's the idea of "grind". Someone complains about how the game is too "grindy". Invariably someone else says, "I like the grind" or "Well, game XYZ is more harcore than Aion, Aion's grind is easy." or "You should work for it" or "Did you come from WoW you stupid lazy shit?" However, people keep coming back and keep coming back to complain about the grind.

The second is the idea of death penalties. Aion's death penalty involves four things.

First, you lose 1% of the XP for that level you gained permanently.

Second, you lose 2% additional XP, which can be "bought back". This starts cheap but gets gradually more expensive as you level up.

Third, you get to res at a "home point" that you choose to set (it costs money to do this).

Fourth, you lose a bunch of stats and start at half life/mana and run at half speed (if you opt to buy your XP back, it'll clear this debuff too).

Note that, as a "money sink" this is relatively ineffective because at maximum Level you don't have any XP to lose and therefore no money to pay.

I, among a bunch of other people, think that this death penalty sucks and that permanent XP loss AND moneysink AND having to walk all the way back to where you were questing (which can take a long time) AND getting a debuff altogether adds up to too much. My rationale is that dying sucks, yeah. But when you die, you know you screwed up. You know you are going to waste time running back and healing yourself and redoing your buffs. You know that you'll have to pay money.

The problem I see is that by taking away XP and exhuberant amounts of money, the game is basically kicking you when you're down and then teabagging you while it stomps on your nuts with stiletto heels. When you die you feel terrible and the game rubs it in your face.

Someone recently posted saying that dying sucks and immediately you get a bunch of people who say things like, "Death should hurt" and so forth. "In this game, death is nothing; in XYZ game we DE-LEVELLED IF WE DIED!!!" and "If you're dying in a group, stop grouping with idiots. You should have checked the other group members' gear before you joined them." When I quoted a number of magazines that stated that permanent XP loss on death is an outdated mechanic, someone told me "Well then if your dad told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it too?" He totally misused that analogy.

It's not the fact that they disagreed. It was the fact that everyone's so hostile about it and are ready to hop on the asses of people who think that permanent XP loss on death is an outdated mechanic and call them crybabies and claim that they're not hardcore enough. It's not the internet arguing (because we all know that getting butthurt over Internet arguments is really no way to get around in life) but the fact that there's so much elitism over things that are so absolutely insignificant. Great job, you don't die much in an MMORPG and can call people who die bad and deserving. It doesn't change the fact that dying in a game isn't fun, and it sure isn't fun when you realise that you have to pay assloads of money and permanent XP loss when you just wanted to try to relax and have a good time.

And even though the WoW forums sucked ass, I think part of the reason they were somewhat amusing is that you don't realise who's telling other people that they suck ass quite as clearly as you can see on the AIon forum... so you get kind of this illusion of general asshattery going on without connecting it to faces. I think on this Aion forum (where people have custom usernames, sigs, and avatars) it's easier to attach a face with assholes and when you start realising that it's the same 15-20 asshats who are being mean to newcomers, you start to wonder if there's any hope in the world.

And before you ask, I don't know if I plan to keep playing Aion, I think I'll play it if my girlfriend is having a good time (it's fun playing with her) but I probably will avoid doing any soloing in the game. And yeah, the forums suck and I'm going to start staying away from them because reading the opinions of dense, idiotic morons who can't ever see the other side of an argument is beyond infuriating.

So I don't know exactly what you guys at OCR will tell me. In a way it's kind of the wrong place to complain (I should have used my Livejournal LOLOLOL!) but on the whole, I have really really high respect for the people on OCR because even the worst trolls here are more intelligent than the average person on other forums. Even the most hostile people here (even in the old Unmod days) at least had some sense of respect for someone out there in the world.

Okay I'm done.

/livejournal off

TL DR version: MMORPG forum posters suck because they can't possibly see two sides of an argument for the life of them.

[Nekofrog]

short answer: play everquest 2

[Arcana]

Would it make me look back and think, "The rest of the world is sure damn nice" or do you think it would actually be any fun?

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Were you expecting a nice conversation about the intricacies of the online gaming medium over a cup of black tea with your local MMO community and forum members?

Welcome to the socially reclusive/inept and/or 13 year-old infested internet, my friend. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.

[liquid wind]

my brief experience with maple story taught me the same thing except it was inverse of this, forums were generally nice and people were complete assholes in game...but yeah, the entire point of a MMO is kind of ruined by the people that typically play it, most internet communities are full of retarded 13 year olds and trolls.

(although MS was tolerable when I got off of global and did private servers for a while)

[Wina A. Kamlongera]

Have YOU been teabagged yet?

Seriously though, it's kind of expected I guess. Where else can socially inept 13 year olds feel on top?

Kind of makes you want to walk right on when that little dude's getting beat on in the hallway.

Btw, that Dad/Bridge line...any idea how old the dude who said it was?

[lazygecko]

The more popular a community is, the more shitheads you're gonna get. Aion is enjoying a burst of popularity right now because it's new, it'll diminish later like every other competitor to WoW.

I've played a bit of Everquest 2, has a relatively small userbase but they are generally very kind and helpful.

[Doulifée]

the usual Hardcore Vs Casual player rent thread.

[Schwaltzvald]

the usual Hardcore Vs Casual player rent thread.

You're saying one side pay a higher rent than the other? I thought the Hardcore players usually pay a minimum of $670 with the utilities included where as the Casual players only pay something like $345 with no utilities but free cable.

[Gollgagh]

ffff I was just gonna post that

[Schwaltzvald]

ffff I was just gonna post that

I wouldn't blame you considering I'd hate having to pay rent to live in a dump with no utilities; not to mention I've heard of places that when they say they provide free cable, they even throw in cable internet, though no phone service which does and doesn't make much sense to me. Nonetheless it's cheap, how ever the utility companies fuck things up with price gouging.

On the flip side paying something twice as much as a Casual player poorly shows benefits on account of no cable tv or internet for the Hardcore player. Seem more suited for the casual player who can go by with just dial-up and basic digitelly.

[Arcana]

I think I was secretly hoping that Aion's community would be nicer than WoW's community and could at least form an intelligent argument or accept that other games are other games and just go play Aion.

BTW Aion's not that great.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

BTW Aion's not that great.

Surprise surprise.

[Nekofrog]

Would it make me look back and think, "The rest of the world is sure damn nice" or do you think it would actually be any fun?

It is very fun. I miss it, Ash misses it, and when we can afford it we'll be returning.

Helpful community, great character progressions, etc. Just an all around good game.

[Arcana]

Surprise surprise.

Well, it's not a bad game really. I'm not being fair to it by saying it's not that good. But in its current form, Aion is a fun but forgettable experience. It's not solid enough to be widespread, and it's not alluring enough to be frighteningly addictive.

It has amazing art, really nice landscapes, and an interesting backstory. The game mechanics are good, for the most part. I like how they handle weapons and armor and I love the graphics.

What's not fun are the technical problems, and then the little nails in the coffin are the rather long grind (I'm not facing it now really but I dread it when I hit 30) and the lack of consistent loot drops, as well as the boring crafting system. It's a good game marred with just enough frustrating elements that relegate it from good to mediocre. I think the worst part is that I really wanted to like the game too and to be involved in it, but now I'll probably just play with my girlfriend. The game's three times more fun in a group anyway.

EDIT: oh shit who moved this thread into General Discussion?

[DragonAvenger]

Most people covered the points I was going to say, but I'll reiterate that in a group where anyone is allowed to post without restrictions, you're going to get the dredges of the internet. The thing I found typical (while still very annoying) is it is the 15-20 people who are really ruining it for you. Are the rest of the people generally nice? It's the loudest people who are heard (usually unfortunately).

I've played two korean MMO's lately, Secret of the Solstice and Ether Saga Online. Both are just as you put it: grind fests with halfway decent stuff to make it enjoyable but not amazing.

I only really hung out in the forums for SotS, but it had pretty much the same community. Uninformed people who make nothing but ridiculous and unneeded posts and the people who jump down their throats calling them stupid and whatever. However, lurking in the masses were some generally intelligent people who you could have a decent discussion with. Sometimes it took a lot of searching, though. What I ended up using the forums for were the guides that people had made up which were pretty decent. After that I hadn't really been to the forums since.

By the way, in SotS you lost 7%, which sucked when generally monsters who conned red only would give you .05% (at most!)per kill. That is, of course, unless you used the cash shop items that would prevent exp loss. That's what bugs me the most about the game.

[SoulinEther]

Are there more hours per day in this Korea place? ...

[kitty]

I play Perfect World International (apparently gm'd by the same company that does Ether Saga Online) and I say that PWI's community makes WoW's community look like a cute puppy dog (excuse the analogy type that you oh so hate).

Honestly, I view trolling as part of the game. Most people in my game get butthurt and shittalk over everything. People pay 10 cents to chat in World Chat for every message but they do it to troll. Just remember none of this is serious business and find a nice guild to play with. You'll end up having a good time regardless of the assholes.

[Scufo]

By the way, in SotS you lost 7%, which sucked when generally monsters who conned red only would give you .05% (at most!)per kill. That is, of course, unless you used the cash shop items that would prevent exp loss. That's what bugs me the most about the game.

This is the worst part of many Korean/Whatever Other Asian Country games.

If you're gonna charge people to play online, charge people to play online. Don't let everyone play for free, then whip out this micro-transaction garbage where paying gives you a clear advantage over everyone else.

[Arcana]

This is the worst part of many Korean/Whatever Other Asian Country games.

If you're gonna charge people to play online, charge people to play online. Don't let everyone play for free, then whip out this micro-transaction garbage where paying gives you a clear advantage over everyone else.

I don't care about micro transactions, it's just another way to make money especially if the game is free-to-play otherwise. But, many of these games are designed to make you play the most hours, rather than to have the most fun.

Dungeons and Dragons Online was a subscription-based game, but no one played it, so they released it for free instead and are charging microtransactions for new "content packs".

That's the thing that gets me is that people who defend things like "the grind" are saying things like that will keep casuals from wrecking their experience, as if somehow their community is great or something.

Edit: I feel somewhat vindicated that the administrator of the webhost that hosts the AionSource forum wrote a post that flat-out said that they should smooth the levelling curve and make it less painful - Letter to NCSoft Korea. Of course the same people are saying that the AionSource community are sucking up now by posting his post on the front news page when his views aren't much different from the other QQers on the board.

[OverCoat]

Nexon uses micro-transactions because it worked so well for them with Combat Arms

Meanwhile, don't mind me just playing EVE Online for free... We just added some awesome people to my alliance too

BTW Haven't seen you on lately, Schwaltzvald... maybe just because I haven't had much time to play myself...

[Native Jovian]

Meanwhile, don't mind me just playing EVE Online for free...

wait what EVE online is free?

[ZealPath]

Elitism in MMO communities is definitely very common, you'll see a ton of it on most FFXI forums. I actually have to agree that it was somewhat less common on most EQ and EQ2 forums, something about those games just seems to have attracted more mature people for whatever reason.

The hardcore versus casual argument is a classic every time a new MMO comes out. My favorite example of this was probably during the Vanguard Beta, where a game that was originally being designed to be old school like EQ1 was slowly but surely morphed into a modern, quest heavy, EQ2/WoW style game. The drama from the people who wanted it to continue to be grind heavy and unfriendly, with stiff death penalties (more people out there that want this stuff than one might think) versus the "If it isn't a clone of WoW I don't want to play it" type people was incredibly intense.

I don't play Aion but my brother has been giving it a shot and from what I've seen, it looks like it at least has a good chance to last longer than some other recent MMO releases, and maybe fall somewhere around where FFXI is as far as having a decent fan base. Being a Korean game, I would accept the grind sooner rather than later though, and the community that comes with it, who cares about them once you find the right guild and friends anyway.

[Schwaltzvald]

wait what EVE online is free?

If you and a bunch of buddies earn enough ISK, you can trade that ISK for game time last I remember. Personally I never earn enough to do that and I tend to blow my ISK on special projects.

[Blake]

I guess I'll piggyback on this topic and say that I have a problem with meanies on Left 4 Dead. I'm not the greatest player, but by no means am I retarded in game. But in quickmatches, apparently I'm bad enough to the point where people constantly swear me out and attempt to votekick me. I don't know what about my play classifies me as terrible. All I know is people are completely unwilling to help each other out in game and everybody seems to have the game down to a science.