Wildstar Launch Thread - Server: Stormtalon | Faction: Dominion

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Gecko_sl

shitlord
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Draegan_sl said:
Major difference was that the population of MMORPG players pre-WOW was incredibly small. Post TBC/Wrath it was much larger and much more diverse. Pre-WOW the majority of MMO players were hardcore. Not so much in 2009/10 whatever.
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I disagree. WOW still has a good chunk of hardcore people playing. I'd say the ratio is probably similar to the EQ days.

I think comparing then and now hardcore vs casual is absurd. Most EQ players were not hardcore. The vast majority played casually, but the no lifers are often focused on here. For every hardcore guild there were dozens of casual ones who enjoyed the game in moderation. Many of the people who played EQ could actually code and a good chunk had engineering or science degrees and were refugees from Compuserve. Most of those had jobs and lives and weren't the 18 year old hardcore stoners who by and large were the kids of said engineers and scientists that seem to get stereotyped on these boards.

Today with high speed 'net as the norm and the global market being astronomically larger, I doubt the ratio of hardcore vs casual is any different now that the average moron who has no idea how to solder can play any game with his Alienware and the PC world requires no actual technical knowledge. There just are a fuckload more people, which means a ton more subs for Blizzard.

The problem is a lot of sites like this are still focused on the same group of stoner hardcore types who now that they are older have moved into being the dirty casuals that their parents were. That doesn't change the ratio, it just means you grew up. You are now your Dad. Congratulations, or I guess condolences however you want to look at it.
 
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DMK_sl

shitlord
1,600
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Gecko_sl said:
I disagree. WOW still has a good chunk of hardcore people playing. I'd say the ratio is probably similar to the EQ days.

I think comparing then and now hardcore vs casual is absurd. Most EQ players were not hardcore. The vast majority played casually, but the no lifers are often focused on here. For every hardcore guild there were dozens of casual ones who enjoyed the game in moderation. Many of the people who played EQ could actually code and a good chunk had engineering or science degrees and were refugees from Compuserve. Most of those had jobs and lives and weren't the 18 year old hardcore stoners who by and large were the kids of said engineers and scientists that seem to get stereotyped on these boards.

Today with high speed 'net as the norm and the global market being astronomically larger, I doubt the ratio of hardcore vs casual is any different now that the average moron who has no idea how to solder can play any game with his Alienware and the PC world requires no actual technical knowledge. There just are a fuckload more people, which means a ton more subs for Blizzard.

The problem is a lot of sites like this are still focused on the same group of stoner hardcore types who now that they are older have moved into being the dirty casuals that their parents were. That doesn't change the ratio, it just means you grew up. You are now your Dad. Congratulations, or I guess condolences however you want to look at it.
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How can you say the ratio wouldn't be any different when back then to know about MMO's you pretty much had to have a passion for them or gaming. Now days MMO's are exposed to more people. It's like saying 'dance' music has the same ratio of 'passionate' listeners as it did before it became mainstream. There's just no way because the ingredients needed to be properly exposed to the activity have changed dramatically therefore the audience will change dramatically. It won't just expand.
 
Rangoth

Rangoth

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,571
1,721
The numbers are greater but the overall percentages are roughly the same. I wish I still had the link but both EQ and WoW put out stats at one point of how many accounts had zoned into various raids/had items, etc. It was really fucking low.
 
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bayr_sl

shitlord
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There was a shit ton of casuals in EQ. So many single moms and other weird shit, people playing with their children, etc. Did you guys actually play Everquest? I know Draegan didn't but likes to weigh in on what it was like as often as possible. The playerbase in general was much older than today's MMOs, or it seemed that way.
 
Bruman

Bruman

Golden Squire
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The problem is the terms casual and hardcore. It means different things to different people. Both casual and hardcore can describe people playing 60 hours a week in an MMO.
 
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DMK_sl

shitlord
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Whether the ratio's are the same or not it still doesn't change the fact that a different demographic of people were looking to play MMO's back then.
 
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Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
3
bayr_sl said:
There was a shit ton of casuals in EQ. So many single moms and other weird shit, people playing with their children, etc. Did you guys actually play Everquest? I know Draegan didn't but likes to weigh in on what it was like as often as possible. The playerbase in general was much older than today's MMOs, or it seemed that way.
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You can not compare the people playing an online RPG in 2002 to the online player of 2009/10. It's just a whole different demographic. Whether or not they were casual or hardcore players, they were all hardcore nerds to some degree. Flash forward 8 years and the typical online player comes from a much broader group of players.

Anyway, it's a demographic thing in my opinion.
 
Dandai

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>
<Gold Donor>
5,907
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Draegan_sl said:
You can not compare the people playing an online RPG in 2002 to the online player of 2009/10. It's just a whole different demographic. Whether or not they were casual or hardcore players, they were all hardcore nerds to some degree. Flash forward 8 years and the typical online player comes from a much broader group of players.

Anyway, it's a demographic thing in my opinion.
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For the casual observer, he just said that he is not a "hardcore nerd." He belongs to the "much broader group of players." Sexy chic? Fallen jock? Hard to say.

Oh and he implied thatweare all the hardcore nerds. You know, the "EQ people."


Ok, I'm notthatsalty about it, but it was humorous. How often does Draegan point out that he never played EQ?
 
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Draegan_sl

2 Minutes Hate
10,034
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Where did I say I belonged to any group? I belong in the group that spent the majority of my teenage years playing a text based MUD that inspired Everquest in the mid to late 90s. You may now place any label on me.

I played EQ in the beginning but it was a buggy as shit game so I went back to playing MUDs. Then work and school took away most of my gaming time. This was a black hole in my gaming history.
 
BigDirty

BigDirty

Security Director of Crisis and Weather Management
<Bronze Donator>
342
139
i like the ability to chose to be matched with just people form your own server, i think this is a step in the right direction , in my ideal world being able to chat cross realm would be the only cross realm service. and servers with suffering populations would get merged despite PR concerns.
 
Mr Creed

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,380
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It feels like a pretty huge step backwards from how GW2 handles these things. It also sounds like names can be re-used on different servers? I always hated getting X'd once the inevitable merges happen, and getting stuck with the server name is equally stupid (WoW BGs etc). Just allow longer multi-word names and make them unique game-wide.
 
Mr Creed

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
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Probably because currently to get an MMO greenlit you pretty much sell it with features that would be a shame for B5. Just imagine this project using the franchise, it would disgrace the show more then the shitty crusade spinoff did.
 
Quaid

Quaid

Trump's Staff
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Mr Creed_sl said:
Probably because currently to get an MMO greenlit you pretty much sell it with features that would be a shame for B5. Just imagine this project using the franchise, it would disgrace the show more then the shitty crusade spinoff did.
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You're so right... I'm just so in love with the B5 universe that it blinds me to the truth some times
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Cantatus

Cantatus

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,437
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I won't mind going back to server specific markets. The one thing I noticed in GW2 was, when you have hundreds of thousands of people using the market to sell things, the market gets so flooded that the only way items can have any value is either by beingextremelyrare, being time limited, or by being needed in such large quantities for recipes or whatever. Splitting the market up some might prevent supply from far exceeding demand, though it sounds harder for them to manage.

Not really sure I understand why you can't group cross-server in non-instanced area, because I don't buy that it would cause "overcrowding". If I have a friend guesting on to my server, chances are there is someone from my server guesting to another. Or if a friend and I want to group together, just put us on whichever server is less crowded. I'm guessing it has more with them wanting to establish communities, but it seems to me you go one way or the other: Allow cross-server grouping or don't. Straddling the line like this doesn't really solve the "frustration" they speak about.
 
Mr Creed

Mr Creed

Too old for this shit
2,380
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Market splitting I could live with, it's more work to gain an edge over GW2s global market then it was in WoW, where I could comfortably exploit the lazyness of my peers. You can still do that in GW2 but it actually takes effort. But I dont want artificial barriers to playing with others, at least on the PVE side of things. But server markets are hamstrung if you allow players to across server boundaries without disabling trade. Disabling trades is stupid and artificial, if I can play with the guy why cant I give him this potion? So in the end imo a global system makes more sense.
 
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