One of my recurring problem with MMOs is the "this is fun" statement that defends a change based on how much fun it provides. Death penalty is not fun, minipets are. Now I'm not trying to claim that ones fun is nuisance for others, nor that some forms of fun don't belong to MMOs but to other type of entertainment.
Now I challenge the fun statement itself, based on Mists of Pandaria. I really like this new WoW expansion and it worth all the money I spent on it. I clearly play much more WoW than EVE now, which isn't what I planned. Don't worry, it won't last, exactly because Mists of Pandaria is fun.
Monkey gives laxative to sad pandas? Hahaha.
"Hozen party animal" being a real name of a trashmob? Muhahaha!
Rabbit-like humanoid mobs steal farm equipment and try to grow them? I laughed so hard!
Alementals? You got it, ALE-elementals?! Hahahahahahaha.
Yak-wash? God I rolled off my chair!
In MoP every second quest is a comedy which makes MoP questing addictive and funny. You don't want to miss the next joke, you read over the quest text looking for a hint, try to figure out who will end up locked in the outhouse, covered in manure, tarred and feathered, turned into rat or simply show himself a total idiot.
Same thing second time? That's lame. The main problem with "fun" is that it's based on novelty. The old joke isn't funny. An old joke is annoying. Without laughter over virmen there is nothing left but annoyingly fast-repopping mobs blocking my way from the quest objective. When you can no longer laugh on the "hozen party animals" all that's left is dancing between barrels.
The cinematics, the linear questing, the "story" is fun itself, even if not on the "hahahahaha" way. But second time it's simply awkward. That wall was broken long ago and even the wall-breaking beast was killed by a kung-fu master who could press literally one button. Why am I back where I was weeks ago? In old WoW the static World made sense: the actions of one warrior made little difference. Yes, you killed 10 wolves and you got paid. You helped that little farm with the wolf problem, but you know that there were more than 10 wolves, right? You saw them yourself. There are enough wolves for the next warrior. Now, in the story-based MMO you aren't one warrior who does his part. You are the hero who saves the World from all kind of terrors. You see the world changed (phasing) by your actions. The next guy should see the consequences of your actions. But he doesn't, he is the same hero on his own story and will kill the same epic evil I killed weeks ago. Funny that I wrote about this problem 4 years ago. Shame that Blizzard did not understand how is it a problem and choose to fix it by simply hiding it from our eyes by phasing. It's the ultimate alting-killer: you can pretend that the other players don't exist and you are a hero, but doing the very same stories as your alt is pretty dull.
The "fun-hahaha" and the "fun story" made Mists of Pandaria a fun game. But totally killed replayability and grindability. On the fourth month still fighting against the burning legion felt much more epic than still clearing rabbits and drunken monkeys from the same stupid brewery. A world must take itself seriously if it's meant to last. Fun games simply don't. You pick them up, you have fun with them and move on. MMOs want to last, so MMOs shouldn't be fun. Just check out EVE or vanilla WoW. They aren't much fun, but they last for years and kept collecting subscribers instead of losing them.
I love MoP and I'll totally going to buy the next WoW expansion. But I see absolutely no reason to keep my subscription in between. OK, maybe for one month a year from now to do the patch contents.
I made my very first nullsec trade adventure. I bought Drug manufacturing books seeded by null NPCs (for example Guristas) and hauled them to Jita. Since the neighboring nullsec is blue, it wasn't that hard in a cloaky frig. I bought them for 20M and selling for 25M. That's 5M profit on a book. Not much. On 100 books on the other hand that 0.5B. Just be careful, getting killed in a frig with 2B cargo can make you be famous!
For EVE trade and industrial discussions join Goblinworks channel.
If you want to get into nullsec, go to the official forum recruitment thread and type the name of the alliance you seek into the search and start reading. I'm in TEST by the way.
Thursday morning report: 170.4B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)
Now I challenge the fun statement itself, based on Mists of Pandaria. I really like this new WoW expansion and it worth all the money I spent on it. I clearly play much more WoW than EVE now, which isn't what I planned. Don't worry, it won't last, exactly because Mists of Pandaria is fun.
Monkey gives laxative to sad pandas? Hahaha.
"Hozen party animal" being a real name of a trashmob? Muhahaha!
Rabbit-like humanoid mobs steal farm equipment and try to grow them? I laughed so hard!
Alementals? You got it, ALE-elementals?! Hahahahahahaha.
Yak-wash? God I rolled off my chair!
In MoP every second quest is a comedy which makes MoP questing addictive and funny. You don't want to miss the next joke, you read over the quest text looking for a hint, try to figure out who will end up locked in the outhouse, covered in manure, tarred and feathered, turned into rat or simply show himself a total idiot.
Same thing second time? That's lame. The main problem with "fun" is that it's based on novelty. The old joke isn't funny. An old joke is annoying. Without laughter over virmen there is nothing left but annoyingly fast-repopping mobs blocking my way from the quest objective. When you can no longer laugh on the "hozen party animals" all that's left is dancing between barrels.
The cinematics, the linear questing, the "story" is fun itself, even if not on the "hahahahaha" way. But second time it's simply awkward. That wall was broken long ago and even the wall-breaking beast was killed by a kung-fu master who could press literally one button. Why am I back where I was weeks ago? In old WoW the static World made sense: the actions of one warrior made little difference. Yes, you killed 10 wolves and you got paid. You helped that little farm with the wolf problem, but you know that there were more than 10 wolves, right? You saw them yourself. There are enough wolves for the next warrior. Now, in the story-based MMO you aren't one warrior who does his part. You are the hero who saves the World from all kind of terrors. You see the world changed (phasing) by your actions. The next guy should see the consequences of your actions. But he doesn't, he is the same hero on his own story and will kill the same epic evil I killed weeks ago. Funny that I wrote about this problem 4 years ago. Shame that Blizzard did not understand how is it a problem and choose to fix it by simply hiding it from our eyes by phasing. It's the ultimate alting-killer: you can pretend that the other players don't exist and you are a hero, but doing the very same stories as your alt is pretty dull.
The "fun-hahaha" and the "fun story" made Mists of Pandaria a fun game. But totally killed replayability and grindability. On the fourth month still fighting against the burning legion felt much more epic than still clearing rabbits and drunken monkeys from the same stupid brewery. A world must take itself seriously if it's meant to last. Fun games simply don't. You pick them up, you have fun with them and move on. MMOs want to last, so MMOs shouldn't be fun. Just check out EVE or vanilla WoW. They aren't much fun, but they last for years and kept collecting subscribers instead of losing them.
I love MoP and I'll totally going to buy the next WoW expansion. But I see absolutely no reason to keep my subscription in between. OK, maybe for one month a year from now to do the patch contents.
I made my very first nullsec trade adventure. I bought Drug manufacturing books seeded by null NPCs (for example Guristas) and hauled them to Jita. Since the neighboring nullsec is blue, it wasn't that hard in a cloaky frig. I bought them for 20M and selling for 25M. That's 5M profit on a book. Not much. On 100 books on the other hand that 0.5B. Just be careful, getting killed in a frig with 2B cargo can make you be famous!
For EVE trade and industrial discussions join Goblinworks channel.
If you want to get into nullsec, go to the official forum recruitment thread and type the name of the alliance you seek into the search and start reading. I'm in TEST by the way.
Thursday morning report: 170.4B (5.5 spent on main accounts, 4.8 spent on Logi/Carrier, 3.2 on Ragnarok, 2.7 on Rorqual, 2.4 on Nyx, 2.8 on Dread, 17.4 sent as gift)
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