And so you see the trend in modern games. ![]() In a actual RPG with people this might be a little easier, but it’s not very fun if you play a computer one with a set content that requires some minimal competence (in doing the tasks). Even if what comes up is a beggar covered in rags and without a leg. This means it’s all random and the “fun” is just to roleplay whatever comes up. You roll for your age, race, class, statistics, profession and so on. There are systems where you roll everything. In ancient times it was all about the dice. Most of the recent D&D versions give you a number of methods to create a character, and you can definitely see a general trend going from early RPGs to the late ones. Of course I thought about that, and of course it’s not a new problem, and classic RPGs all tackled it in some way. Spoony summarizes well why it’s not, watch from minute 19:35 to 24:30, where he actually talks about point allocation, “you are a bunch of pussies and coddled babies”, “THEY THINK THEY ARE BEING RETRO”: They try to fix the problem where you can potentially create a character that sucks. The specific argument here is character creation. Since I’m dealing with similar design issues let’s be polemic. I was reading how Pillars of Eternity revolutionizes RPG rules: People on the internet: “I really hope this sells a lot and publishers take notice of this and see the very presence of a large audience that doesn’t want/need focus tested, dumbed down games.”Īnd me? Pillars of Eternity is an example of modern design that dumbs down the games we loved.ĭON’T CROSS THE STREAMS. His answer: “Pillars of Eternity? Who cares. Me to my brother: “hey, there’s another game beside Bloodborne that got 93 on metacritic.” People WANT to play and love WoW, but what’s left of it is an empty shell.įor the record, another MMORPG also working hard to go backwards is now Guild Wars 2. The simple fact that the expansion brought back so many players, and none of them stayed, is the sign of how bad the game has become. Not only this game was unable to progress as every MMORPG is required to if it wants to continue to exist, but it went backwards. This to say: WoW isn’t leaking subscriptions because it’s old, or even because of (mostly shitty, if you exclude FFXIV) competition, but because the WoW of today is even WORSE than the original WoW. Cataclysm was a good idea, but all the good game design that the game had aplenty has been systematically siphoned out ever since. ![]() WoW has gone downhill in game design since after Wrath of the Lich King. So: the short-term good, long-term bad kind of design. That’s fine, as a way to try to keep retention, but this also means they reduced the game to JUST a formula. In particular they went for a busywork style of play that required you to complete a few daily tasks. I don’t follow WoW, but I had a passing interest in the expansion and followed just enough to realize it was doing very bad design mistakes on almost all levels possible. This follows a predictable high peak after the expansion release in November, but the news here is that in 5 months not only they completely lost all the subscriptions they gained, but they are also now at an all-time low since release, and of course there isn’t going to be an expansion to change things again anytime soon. I just noticed on twitter a report that WoW’s subs dropped substantially again.
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