In Ravages of Time (manga), there's a scene where Xiahou Dun's soldiers are pillaging and burning down a village, and his soldiers asked him wouldn't this lower people's support, and he answered that people have no dignity, and if you want popular support back just give them some money later and it'll be no problem.
Well, this seems to apply equally to gamers in MMORPGs. Recently EQ is going a reduction in max raid size, and like when WoW did this you hear about how this will destroy guilds, people want to raid with their friends, and all that good stuff (I think there's a second round of this in WoW right now with the move from 25->10 in WotLK). Well, what's friendship worth in EQ? It's about 1 suit of Crystallos (equivalent of say, Sunwell) armor. The top guilds of EQ raid with 60+ people, which easily exceed the 54 limit, but why stay with your old guild when you can sit out and wait for your turn for loot when you don't even have to contribute?
In WoW you see people trying to lose certain battlegrounds as fast as possible, as this maximizes the number of medals you get in that battleground. For $40 or whatever WotLK costs, you'll probably be able to solo some quest that drops gear better than Sunwell stuff, so all the blood and sweat people put into this year to be the best is meaningless the next expansion, minus a small head start.
Indeed Blizzard probably understands this better than anyone else. Any horrible crimes can be forgiven with promise of free loot. Got an imbalanced server population? Just give the loot for losing. Got raids that are inaccessible to most of the population? For $40 you can get those same stuff the next expansion that used to require 25 people. Heck you can get them now as long as you find 4 other guys to lose 10 games a week in Arena as long as you keep it up. You won't get the very top items as those have a rating requirement, but you sure can get some pretty decent stuff for just losing 10 games a week.
So far in WotLK I see nothing that indicates any drastic changes will be in the expansion, not that it is necessary. I see a ton of posts on boards like 'Yeah WoW sucked and I quit X months ago, but now I'm ready to come back!' And I can bet you this is not someone who has seen everything there is to be seen in WoW, done all that can be done, and decided that the game is too flawed to continue playing. These guys are almost certainly no name 5th string raiders who never amounted to anything significant, but now they get a chance to live out their uber dreams since everyone knows you'll easily surpass pre WotLK gear level at level 80. Of course in a few months the usual real hardcore guys will still pass them up, and the same guys will realize they're nobodies again and quit again, and probably post about why WoW has totally failed and is about to die a horrible death because he and his 5 million friends are quiting, at least until the next expansion comes out.
I'm not sure what's the point of this. I guess MMORPG turns out to be a good social experiment after all, that most people are quite willing to sell out their friends or their own integrity for the Greater Sword of Doom. Most guys who have any position of power in an uberguild in any MMORPG tend to think of rest of their guildmates are worthless dirtbags who are not worthy of their presence, but you know what, these guys still stick around because 1 guy can't get the Greater Sword of Doom by himself. I know this because I talk to a lot of these guys. What binds the players together in a MMORPG is not loyalty or diginity, but rather loot. Is this a sad state of affairs, or is it just a mere reflection of human nature?
Well, this seems to apply equally to gamers in MMORPGs. Recently EQ is going a reduction in max raid size, and like when WoW did this you hear about how this will destroy guilds, people want to raid with their friends, and all that good stuff (I think there's a second round of this in WoW right now with the move from 25->10 in WotLK). Well, what's friendship worth in EQ? It's about 1 suit of Crystallos (equivalent of say, Sunwell) armor. The top guilds of EQ raid with 60+ people, which easily exceed the 54 limit, but why stay with your old guild when you can sit out and wait for your turn for loot when you don't even have to contribute?
In WoW you see people trying to lose certain battlegrounds as fast as possible, as this maximizes the number of medals you get in that battleground. For $40 or whatever WotLK costs, you'll probably be able to solo some quest that drops gear better than Sunwell stuff, so all the blood and sweat people put into this year to be the best is meaningless the next expansion, minus a small head start.
Indeed Blizzard probably understands this better than anyone else. Any horrible crimes can be forgiven with promise of free loot. Got an imbalanced server population? Just give the loot for losing. Got raids that are inaccessible to most of the population? For $40 you can get those same stuff the next expansion that used to require 25 people. Heck you can get them now as long as you find 4 other guys to lose 10 games a week in Arena as long as you keep it up. You won't get the very top items as those have a rating requirement, but you sure can get some pretty decent stuff for just losing 10 games a week.
So far in WotLK I see nothing that indicates any drastic changes will be in the expansion, not that it is necessary. I see a ton of posts on boards like 'Yeah WoW sucked and I quit X months ago, but now I'm ready to come back!' And I can bet you this is not someone who has seen everything there is to be seen in WoW, done all that can be done, and decided that the game is too flawed to continue playing. These guys are almost certainly no name 5th string raiders who never amounted to anything significant, but now they get a chance to live out their uber dreams since everyone knows you'll easily surpass pre WotLK gear level at level 80. Of course in a few months the usual real hardcore guys will still pass them up, and the same guys will realize they're nobodies again and quit again, and probably post about why WoW has totally failed and is about to die a horrible death because he and his 5 million friends are quiting, at least until the next expansion comes out.
I'm not sure what's the point of this. I guess MMORPG turns out to be a good social experiment after all, that most people are quite willing to sell out their friends or their own integrity for the Greater Sword of Doom. Most guys who have any position of power in an uberguild in any MMORPG tend to think of rest of their guildmates are worthless dirtbags who are not worthy of their presence, but you know what, these guys still stick around because 1 guy can't get the Greater Sword of Doom by himself. I know this because I talk to a lot of these guys. What binds the players together in a MMORPG is not loyalty or diginity, but rather loot. Is this a sad state of affairs, or is it just a mere reflection of human nature?
