When I finally managed to reach 50 on Rift I ran straight to the main city and bought all of my final skills, and then sat their on my new level 50 mount... and than I thought, now what. So being the n00b I am I told my friend and asked him, now what? He said raid, complete instances and PVP, all much fun I'm sure, but even though i as tempted by better looking items it felt as my XP bar wasn't moving that their was no set goal for me any more. So all that was left was raiding, and being in a slowly dying guild I decided I had to find a new one. However after being rejected multiple times for not being a high enough tier, I quit.
To get a higher tier in MMOs the main idea is to raid, and bringing this post back to the original topic, to raid you must group up with a bunch of individuals to set up a time to raid together, unless you face the HUGE wait for the game to randomly match you. This is where it starts to feel as if it's dictating how and when you play, the jump in jump out slow grind that I as a casual MMO player was gone, I had to be a social gamer, which I am admittedly very bad at. And even if at times the grind felt like a chore, especially with the amount of times I died, due to my gear not being good enough, the game felt like a chore, like I wasn't doing this for fun, but to be able to say to my mates that I had reached a level cap in an MMO. And this is probably why I am not a big fan of MMOs even though I never say no to the chance to try out a new one, it just always feels like a grind but one I must complete.
To get a higher tier in MMOs the main idea is to raid, and bringing this post back to the original topic, to raid you must group up with a bunch of individuals to set up a time to raid together, unless you face the HUGE wait for the game to randomly match you. This is where it starts to feel as if it's dictating how and when you play, the jump in jump out slow grind that I as a casual MMO player was gone, I had to be a social gamer, which I am admittedly very bad at. And even if at times the grind felt like a chore, especially with the amount of times I died, due to my gear not being good enough, the game felt like a chore, like I wasn't doing this for fun, but to be able to say to my mates that I had reached a level cap in an MMO. And this is probably why I am not a big fan of MMOs even though I never say no to the chance to try out a new one, it just always feels like a grind but one I must complete.
The same thing can be said about social games like Zyngas Farmville, social gaming is becoming huge, and big companies like Ubisoft, and Activision are trying to get into this market. But these are other games that decide to dictate when we play, in Farmville you plant your crop than have to wait a few hours till you can "harvest" it, all for a few virtual coins. And yet this is one of the most popular facebook games out at the moment, the constant grind of planting, harvesting, and replanting is attracting thousands of people, when in reality it is the same repetitive task that you may do in your job for example. Perhaps the reward of seeing your coin pouch increase in size is just as exciting as getting your paycheck in at the end of the month? All though I see both of these examples as a constant grind I do see where the fun factor is, and all though for me it's not fun I'm sure there are thousands of you out there enjoying your "work". :)
No comments:
Post a Comment