Raiding vs. tabletopping

[Destil]

As for the narrative aspect of MMOs, I think FFXI wins hands down. They have quests and missions with cut scenes that put you as one of the main characters. It used to be not very solo friendly, but they have changed that over the years. There's a raid in FFXI that a bunch of people tried to do, it took them 18 hours and they didin't kill it. (It's name escapes me ATM)

The Raiding in WoW has gotten easier and easier over the years. Thats why i quit. I was sick of everything getting easier.

Absolute Virtue, if memory serves, was over a 24 hour raid on the first kill. Not sure if that's who you're refering to. I quit FFXI a long time ago for such reasons, but there is plenty of story to dig into.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I am starting to understand why some groups have lost players to WoW. Sounds like fun.

It's interesting that perspectives can differ so much, because at literally the exact same moment that i read your post, I was thinking, "It's really interesting to listen to people talk about, but I'm not at all interested in playing."

I think I got my WoW fix back when it was text-only and called MUDding. I spent hours and hours a day playing (and then coding) on MUDs and roleplaying and coding on MUSHes. I loved it, but the lever-and-pellet doesn't hold any appeal for me nowadays, however it's prettied up. Other than Rock Band, I'm just not a computer-game kinda guy any longer.

But it really is interesting to read about. I have a housemate whom I literally don't see for days at a time sometimes -- and on a couple of occasions it's been weeks -- because she spends so much time on MMORPGs. This provides insight.

 

[James Jacobs]

To me, Warcraft scratches an entirely different itch than tabletop gaming. Both are fun, but I itch from both so it's not really a choice for me to abandon one for the other.

Anyway, my take on raids in Warcraft or any MMORPG is this: They're like sporting events. When you play football, you're always playing on the same field. There's no real element of exploration or surprise as for what the field has in store for you (with the exception of the first time you see a football field and play the game). The enjoyment you get playing football isn't the discovery of the storyline or seeing new areas, but working with a team to accomplish a set goal against an opposing force.

In a raid, the dungeon's always the same. The bosses and monsters are always the same. Just like in football. (Of course, in football, the "monsters," aka the other team, have human intelligence and aren't AIs... at least for most teams...) So you and your team are powering through the dungeon, honing your skills at working together and learning new tactics, and at the end you get rewarded with reputation increases and treasure and gear and all that.

 

[Jeremy Ackerman-Yost]

What tools are you referring to?

The biggest one was the streamlining of the buff system. But there are many things that contribute: Multiple raiding modes, the new LFG tools, increased gold flow in the "economy" relative to repair and maintenance costs, the complete and utter mechanical underplay of faction reputation relative to BC, dual spec, dungeon achievements that function as an additional difficulty level, alternative gear sources through various tiers of badges, legitimately story-driven quests and events, downplaying of resistance gear (and craftable options available when it is needed), guild banks for resource sharing.... I could go on.

A lot of these aren't removal of grind, but they are grind decreasers and alternative grinds. Jumping onto a different track periodically definitely refreshes the experience. There are multiple paths toward character improvement that you're on simultaneously. It's an MMO, so there's always a grind factor to it. That's straight up part of the business model: "Keep them paying their monthly fee." However, the content is more dynamic, your character is more dynamic, your options for improving your character are more dynamic, and there are fewer time sinks required for good in game performance.

Nowadays you can see at least some version of all the content playing once or twice a week if you have a rational guild full of adults who don't treat it like a job. That's not a taxing "treadmill." Compare that to Vanilla, when the majority of guilds never beat Blackwing Lair and guilds who did often got cherry-picked into oblivion by guilds at higher tiers. If you want to put in 2-3 days a week and those adults actually pay attention, you can do the hard modes, which are just as demanding of skill as the old raids. More actually, than anything in vanilla WoW besides maybe Naxx and the tail end of AQ40. And you

People who claim the raids are way easier than they used to be aren't doing hard modes.

You don't need to farm up a hojillion reagents for different buffs because the new buff system simplified the heck out of that back in BC. In vanilla, you were heavily encouraged to spend 20 hours a week raiding and an additional 10-20 just farming up the stuff you "needed" to do so. Almost all of that crap was deliberately stripped out so that time spent outside raid didn't bring so many improvements that it was seriously affecting in-raid performance more than actual skill.

Skill is what makes hard modes doable. Skill actually matters more than time spent now at the high end, if your goal is simply to see challenges defeated. If your goal is to have the best gear.... yeah, that's still going to require time. That's simply how these things work.

 

[Herobizkit]

For me, the ability to play "and not have to DM" is a major draw. By not having to DM, I don't have to do all of the tedious die-rolling, balancing combats, or coming up with fresh dialogue or story points. I plug in, I pick a character, and then I'm off wandering around an area killing monsters and looting. While it's definitely not the same experience as playing with a group of real-life players, it can get close enough for me that I'm willing to put in the time to play.

Also, the ability to jump on and start playing without juggling 3-4 player's schedules is fantastic.

I was a rabid fan of WoW for roughly two years. During that time, I've played every race and experimented with every class. I even had some of my old gasming buddies from elementary school join in and play together for a time. However, they had more time than I to dedicate to the game, and they soon out-levelled me. Combine this with two of my old friends butting heads over sharing money in our guild, causing one of them to quit the guild and play on his own.

Ultimately, my highest level character got to 70, and then the xpac was released to up the level cap from 70 to 80 with all-new content. Excited, I played the xpac for a bout two weeks, and then I quit.

I found that the game was simply TOO LARGE for me to expect to see everything. When the guild eventually fell apart, the other players had stopped playing as well. I became disenfranchised, and as I went LFG (Looking For Groups), all people kept saying was "no one will want you on a group with the gear you have". The only way to get better gear was to participate in raids and area play, which I seldom enjoyed, because I didn't have sufficient gear to compete on any decent level. Also, I lacked the patience for farming for gold (most often by farming materials for crafting, an arduous quest in and of itself when you compete with ~1k players who may be looking for same), which meant I could never get my crafting to epic levels... which made the skills nigh useless.

In short, I couldn't keep up with the hardcore players, and I got lost in the wash.

Now I play Runes of Magic... which is for all intents and purposes mechanically identical to the WoW game engine. And it's free. All the time. And I don't feel pressured to excel or die.