Future MMO Prospects

[Ignacius]

What I mean by "F2P dominance" isn't that they're making the most money or have the most customers, but that there are almost no options if you want to avoid F2P games.

 

I like XIV okayish. It's not bad. It's fine. It's not terrible. I mostly play because of my FC; if it weren't for them I would have quit a while ago. I don't care for WoW because I don't like the player character options or the art style, and it has a cash shop now. I don't care for EVE because zzzzz. I don't care for FFXI because it's a trainwreck, having the worst parts of both EQ1 era games and modern MMOs. I don't care for ESO because roflroflroflroflroflWHAT. I don't care for Wildstar because I don't really care for the art style and the combat is just a slightly better version of GW2's without the circle strafing.

 

So right now, I don't really like any of the P2P options. I don't have any other options. There just aren't any if I want to play something different, so I'm settling for XIV. I don't love it, but what are my other options? Games I dislike far more and games that are F2P.

 

I don't like F2P games. The only one that I consider even halfway decent is RIFT, and I don't really like RIFT's art style and the combat system is just as dull as XIV's (though at least there's more stuff to do). I'd probably happily trade XIV for RIFT if my whole group followed me there, but other than that the main differentiating factor is that the people I like playing with are in XIV and my character is super cute, and I can't make a character in RIFT that really resonates with me (though my RIFT!Aeriyn does come close... ish).

 

So what am I left with choice-wise? A massive mess of F2P games. I don't like F2P; I don't want a game nagging me to buy stuff. I want to pay for my use of the game resources and that's it. I don't want to see ads for "sales on bullshit in the cash shop" every time I log in. I don't want to see other players running around with shit I can't get unless I spend real-life money. I don't want to deal with the possibility that PvE endgame progression is solely dependent on how many times I swipe a credit card. I don't want to deal with trolls, botters, futa elins, hackers and griefers. P2P MMO communities are bad enough; F2P communities are typically a cesspit.

 

So what are my options? Play a game I don't really like from the list of P2P Endangered Species, or don't play MMOs at all. If it weren't for the social aspect that I don't get in my actual life due to being poor, I'd probably choose the latter...

 

Look, let's be fair, subscription games aren't an endagered species.  There SHOULDN'T be a lot of them out there.  F2P MMORPGs suck for a reason; the companies that develop them really have very little reason to keep you playing.  Like traditional games, they make money selling the product, so once you buy it they make another product.  Subscription MMORPGs NEED you to continue to play month after month to make the rent.

 

With that said, how many games can any developer continue to develop at a high level of quality for years on end?  MMORPGs aren't like normal games that are sort of one-and-done, then you move on to the next.  A good MMORPG can fund your company for over a decade if you do it right.  So I'd say any company can maybe keep one going at a time and only the best of developers can maintain that standard for very long.

 

Given those two factors, it's a small wonder that there aren't many that remain; most developers simply do not have what it takes to keep up and many of the developers that do simply aren't prepared to commit yet.  It used to be that there were more subscription MMORPGs, but even companies with as good a track record as Bioware couldn't pull off what Blizzard pulled off.

 

As it stands, we're probably looking at a sort of caste system, with F2P games sort of absorbing people with less money who simply can't pay for subscriptions (but can drop a few bucks every now and then for P2W gear) while people with more regular income will play the better subscription games.  The trouble is that you'd better be damn sure you can hang with the big kids on the playground if you want to go that route, because subscription MMORPGs are resource hogs and you're trying to slug it out with Blizzard and Square.

 

Of the games out now that are subscription only, I've played WoW, EVE, XIV, and I'm beta-ing and have pre-paid for Wildstar (which I'll probably relate the rest of my experience with at the end of beta).  I've had fun in them all to some degree or another, but it isn't like I'm going to pay sixty dollars a month to play them all (or not, considering how much free time I actually have).  I limit myself to two, which at present is going to be XIV and Wildstar (until Warlords of Draenor comes out, in which case I will probably swap whichever one is less interesting for WoW again).

 

Then again, maybe that's just a bias.  The F2P games I've at least tried out over the years haven't been all terrible, but they dry up quickly.  I simply see that a game is free to play and have my usual cynical reaction.  "Nothing is free.  How are these people going to try to get my money?"  That might not be fair, but it's simply an ingrained reaction from having played a few F2P games and instantly getting the idea that you need to spend money to have fun rather than have skill.

 

But I asked the question a while back in this thread.  What development companies out there have the juice to make a high-quality MMORPG and develop it for years that aren't already in the arena?  From Software?  Nintendo?  Rockstar?  It's not a long list of people that could make a great MMORPG that we could feasibly play for years.

 

Everyone else might as well not even try; most people can't afford more than one subscription at a time and most companies can't really hope to make a game better than World of Warcraft for any length of time.  So subscription games might have to fill niches, with EVE filling their own small corner of the market, Square getting their Japanarpeegee people together, and Wildstar looking to be the game that scoops up the disaffected hardnosed leeters WoW shed when they went a lot more casual in Wrath of the Lich King.  Lord only knows what cracks in the pavement there are left to fill; and everyone else might as well sit back and wait to see how it plays out.  It looks like WoW is going to finally disappear not due to a WoW-killer, but simple time and erosion.

 

Maybe, with Titan being sort of hinted at turning away from an MMORPG and with WoW probably on its last expansion or two, another company can make a play for the top spot.  Then we can all hate them instead of Blizzard.

[FreelanceWizard]

I am going to straight up say that I loathe FTP with every fiber of my being. (...) The day the subscription model dies is the day I'm quitting MMOs.

 

I quit Champions, SWTOR, and EQ2 when they went F2P. In fact, I was enjoying SWTOR but quit specifically because it went F2P. IMO, F2P brings two horrible things: a desire for monetization at all costs, and a terrible community. The first is pretty easily seen by looking at the Champions and especially SWTOR cash shops. Both games swore subscribers would never need to lay out actual money to get new content, but both games have carefully calibrated their "subscription credits" so that you ultimately need to plunk down cash if you want to get content as it's released. While EQ2 has resisted this, it has a pay to win element (XP potions) that rubs me the wrong way. In the end, the game gets a variety of roadblocks designed to annoy you into paying money (SWTOR's limit on hotbars, anyone?) -- even if you're a subscriber.

 

The community aspect is rather more subjective, but in my experience, F2P games have particularly ugly communities, both in and out of game. Since there's no barrier to entry to play, players have basically no "skin in the game," so to speak. If their account is banned, they'll just make a new one. They have little attachment to the game, so they troll and otherwise act horribly, feeling that the game's but a trifle. Not all players of F2P games are like that, certainly, but in my experience, it's enough to make the games no longer fun to play. The increased activity of trolls and the reduced support free players get also seems to wound the RP community. As bad as it sounds, subscription fees keep out the riff-raff.

 

That said, I'm not opposed to cash shops for appearance items only. I think TSW did that quite effectively. In fact, I think TSW actually has one of the better business models from a player's perspective. You have to invest in the game, ensuring you have at least some commitment, but if you subscribe, you get all content at release "for free" (i.e., from your subscription token credits) and usually have spare credit available for other purchases. I can't speak to how effective the model is at funding the game itself, however, though as I periodically get e-mails from them announcing new content, it must be working fairly well.

[synaesthetic]

Most people can't afford more than one subscription, they bitch about it being $15 a month...

 

... and then they go blow $60+ per month in the F2P game cash shop on sexy outfits and power boosts.

 

Sorry but I find the usual arguments against subscription games to ring quite hollow.

[Zyrusticae]

Going away from the usual business model discussion for a bit, I thought this looked promising, so I'm posting it (though as an instanced action RPG it technically doesn't qualify as an MMO, I'm pretty sure nobody cares to make that distinction anyway):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc08kd29n4I

 

This is the closest thing to a Cuhraaazee (i.e. Devil May Cry, Metal Gear Rising, God of War, Bayonetta et al.)-style action RPG I've ever seen. Most action RPGs have this sort of plodding pace ala Tera or Dark Souls - even Dragon's Dogma has a much slower pace than a lot of those kinds of games, and it was made by staff that worked on Devil May Cry. The emphasis on fast action and crazy-high combo chains really feels like a character action game.

 

Granted there's a lot of games I've never touched (like C9 or Dragon's Nest), but even from second-hand footage it's plain that they have a lot of janky elements, which Black Sheep does not appear to share (also, what is with Korean games and using Black in their name somewhere? Black Desert, Black Gold Online... Heh), at least at first glance. Looks like a more refined version of Vindictus, really.

 

Man, so many neat things coming out of Korea that I won't get to touch for years. Dammit all. Sometimes I really do feel like I was born on the wrong side of the planet.

[synaesthetic]

tbh I like the "plodding pace" of TERA, Monster Hunter and Dark Souls because it places a lot of emphasis on avoidance, observation and skillful tactics rather than quick combo mashing. Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

 

Humans just can't really react that quickly, so the avoidance mechanics are downplayed in favor of swarming the player with zillions of monsters to slaughter, but you aren't going to get oneshot by them.

 

Games like DMC or MGR Revengeance have a lot more in common with tab-target, even though they "feel" faster and more dynamic, they really aren't. They're rife with lock-on, auto-aim-assist, juggle combos that the computer basically does for you, and it's not about dodging so much as it's about killing everything before it overwhelms you.

 

They can still be fun, but I definitely prefer the deliberate avoidance-based games. Anyone remember Bushido Blade? That game was awesome. It felt incredibly slow compared to Street Fighter style tournament fighters, but it was much more skill and tactics based, when a single hit had a very high chance of killing you.

[TheLastCandle]

Hell, I still pull out Bushido Blade II now and then. My yari-armed Kaun was unstoppable back in the day. I wish there was another game like it today.

[Ignacius]

Most people can't afford more than one subscription, they bitch about it being $15 a month...

 

... and then they go blow $60+ per month in the F2P game cash shop on sexy outfits and power boosts.

 

Sorry but I find the usual arguments against subscription games to ring quite hollow.

 

Holy shit, are people dropping that much money in those games?  How frequently are they doing that, do you think?

 

I mean, yeah, in that case, if you're bitching about subscriptions yet tossing more of that into a F2P game for gear, you need to reevaluate your reasons for playing.  F2P games have one and only one advantage over the subscription games I've played: they're FREE-TO-PLAY!  If you're actually dropping more money in a F2P game than 15$ a month, you've somehow missed the point.

[Ignacius]

tbh I like the "plodding pace" of TERA, Monster Hunter and Dark Souls because it places a lot of emphasis on avoidance, observation and skillful tactics rather than quick combo mashing. Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

 

Humans just can't really react that quickly, so the avoidance mechanics are downplayed in favor of swarming the player with zillions of monsters to slaughter, but you aren't going to get oneshot by them.

 

Games like DMC or MGR Revengeance have a lot more in common with tab-target, even though they "feel" faster and more dynamic, they really aren't. They're rife with lock-on, auto-aim-assist, juggle combos that the computer basically does for you, and it's not about dodging so much as it's about killing everything before it overwhelms you.

 

They can still be fun, but I definitely prefer the deliberate avoidance-based games. Anyone remember Bushido Blade? That game was awesome. It felt incredibly slow compared to Street Fighter style tournament fighters, but it was much more skill and tactics based, when a single hit had a very high chance of killing you.

 

I think I brought that up a few times earlier in the thread.  I loved Bushido Blade, not just because of the pace, but because of the finality of the fight.  It was great knowing that, even when your opponent was down, one false move could kill you instantly.  So you had to be wary at all times even in combat.  You know, like in a real sword fight.

 

Another game I liked for something of the same reason was Tenchu, a ninja game series by From Software a long time ago (I think PS1).  Tenchu wasn't a ninja game like Ninja Gaiden.  You were pretty worthless in a straight up firefight, especially against the enemies you were up against.  So the game focused heavily around stealth mechanics and ambushes.  You had to infiltrate castles by climbing the walls and avoiding detection, hiding in shadows, and silently dispatching your enemies.  You know, like a real ninja.

 

I think that's why I liked Steel Battalion so much even though I still think Armored Core was a better made and more fun game.  Steel Battalion had a massive control panel for a controller, the mech you piloted felt massive.  Turning too quickly destabilized you.  Your windscreen could be cracked and dirty, forcing you to wipe it off.  Components of your mech would be damaged, forcing you to shut them off and do without.  Mechs aren't real, but I imagine that's what really being in a mech would be like.

 

Not entirely sure how concepts like that would work in an MMORPG, where latency is such a big issue.  Bushido Blade-style vulnerability might not be possible until the whole civilized world is connected by fiber optics.

[Parth Makeo]

 

Holy shit, are people dropping that much money in those games?  How frequently are they doing that, do you think?

 

I mean, yeah, in that case, if you're bitching about subscriptions yet tossing more of that into a F2P game for gear, you need to reevaluate your reasons for playing.  F2P games have one and only one advantage over the subscription games I've played: they're FREE-TO-PLAY!  If you're actually dropping more money in a F2P game than 15$ a month, you've somehow missed the point.

 

There is an explanation though. Ever heard of the Less is More Idea?

Let's say FTPMMO1 has the following average of items on the shop.

5$ Boosters that last a week for 30% increase.

2.50$ crate keys to unlock lock boxes.

1$ per ingame like token to "gamble" on lottery styled boards with odds never in your favor

and cosmetic items ranging from 5$ for one item to 50$ for a whole set.

 

Now because the ingame store restricts the items to only be available on the store (With small exceptions of games that offer minor versions of exp boosts and such) people feel compelled to buy them at random times. Made worse by the fact that some items can only be obtained though the lottery system...made even FAR WORSE that those said items in boxes and lotteries are only around for say....2 months only before being replaced. Making them EVEN HARDER TO GET AND FORCING PEOPLE TO BUY MORE TO GET IT!

 

In time they can gamble anywhere between 25$ to 150$ alone. And no, the items in boxes and lotteries usually have no counterpart to obtain in the cash shop. the next example is Elsword's Ice Burners.

http://elwiki.net/w/Ice_Burners

You will see that a lot of the sets can't be obtained anymore and the entire ice burning thing is more or less a lottery with the starting price is 1$ per burner. The odds of obtaining a certain armor piece for the character you play is about 1/5 on top of the ludicrous RNG it has. 

 

These free to plays are only masking the hideous forced buying through manipulating people's "drive to obtain all the lewts" mentality. The core essence of an RPG is to kill a monster and grab it's loot (which is another reason why FF13 sucked hard...) which then you use to kill stronger monsters for stronger loots.

in an MMO some of those loots are cosmetic and not so much needed but a "want" because it either looks pretty or it is only here for a limited time (See the Mists challenge mode armor.)

 

So when people say 15$ a month is too much, they are masking their shame of spending 55$ a month on useless shit and they know it. Plus most of the people who said that as well just feel like they NEED to play 15$ worth of a game to get the full experience....which is false. I pay 12$ a month for the FF14 game and i still think i got my share of content for what limits it has for characters.

 

People just are stupid to realize they spend more when no limit is given to them on a "store".

[Ignacius]

So a F2P game is like an Indian casino?  There's no cover charge to get in and you don't have to gamble or buy anything to be in there, but once they hook you in, they get to you gamble and charge you way too much for drinks that you think you'll be able to pay for with your winnings that you'll actually never get because you can't count cards reliably in a six-deck shuffle at the blackjack table and those slot machines are ALWAYS sure they take in more money than they pay out?

 

I mean, I'm assuming.

[synaesthetic]

That's actually a really good analogy.

[Zyrusticae]

tbh I like the "plodding pace" of TERA, Monster Hunter and Dark Souls because it places a lot of emphasis on avoidance, observation and skillful tactics rather than quick combo mashing. Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

 

Humans just can't really react that quickly, so the avoidance mechanics are downplayed in favor of swarming the player with zillions of monsters to slaughter, but you aren't going to get oneshot by them.

 

Games like DMC or MGR Revengeance have a lot more in common with tab-target, even though they "feel" faster and more dynamic, they really aren't. They're rife with lock-on, auto-aim-assist, juggle combos that the computer basically does for you, and it's not about dodging so much as it's about killing everything before it overwhelms you.

 

They can still be fun, but I definitely prefer the deliberate avoidance-based games. Anyone remember Bushido Blade? That game was awesome. It felt incredibly slow compared to Street Fighter style tournament fighters, but it was much more skill and tactics based, when a single hit had a very high chance of killing you.

I absolutely cannot disagree any more than I do.

 

These games all have their own unique skillsets. You are patently wrong about Metal Gear Rising, for one example - being able to parry is ABSOLUTELY required if you want to be able to S-rank the game. Button mashing will get you nowhere. You have to be able to utilize Zandatsu effectively, know your enemies' movesets basically by heart, and be able to react on a moment's notice all at the same time. Trying to no-damage Monsoon is possibly one of the single most difficult things you can do in all of gaming, simply because of how good your timing must be with your parries.

 

Devil May Cry, meanwhile, puts a heavy, heavy emphasis on making the most of your entire moveset in order to bring up the combo score multiplier, something that is most definitely NOT a simple matter, in addition to your usual avoidance mechanics. Trying to argue that it does not require 'skill' just because it has less emphasis on simply dodging attacks is foolhardy AND false. To actually get a high score you essentially have to never be touched; you might not LOSE just because you got hit once or twice but for players who are trying to actually be, you know, good at the game, a single hit can warrant a restart at the last checkpoint.

 

It's a very different skillset from Dark Souls or MH (where your success is determined heavily by your ability to decide when to attack) and Tera is its own ball of wax since it mixes up action game-style hit detection with standard MMORPG elements. If anything, these games are much easier and simpler to play, especially once you know the movesets of your enemies, as it becomes a very simple matter of "avoid attacks; can I attack now? y/n" as your overall moveset is very small. Dark Souls in particular is exemplary of this as, once a player understands the game, there is essentially no challenge left, hence why they do all these crazy challenge runs like the Soul Level 1 run, the No Deaths/No Bonfire runs, and stuff like that.

 

And while Bushido Blade is indeed a very nice concept fighter, trying to say it requires more skill than Street Fighter is raw bullshit. Street Fighter has its own set of required skills and tactics that are very different from Bushido's. They are different, but they are in no way lesser. It's an especially absurd statement with regard to fighters as most of what determines how much skill you actually need is created by other players, hence the skill ceiling is literally determined by how strong your opponents are. Such a statement betrays a level of bias that is completely beyond rationality. You might prefer those kinds of skillsets but that doesn't suddenly make those other skillsets you do not prefer any less valid.

 

So, to summarize:

It's one thing to say you prefer things a certain way, but you should not apply a value judgment to things that are inherently subjective. Doing so invites ridicule and criticism from others who hold the very opposite of your values and doesn't help your points stand any stronger. (And before someone calls me a hypocrite, the F2P vs P2P argument is one that is couched inherently in real-world finances and can be qualified with money, player spending habits, and developer patching habits.) What qualifies as "skill" (or rather, what you consider "skillful") is most certainly one of those things.

[Ildur]

Clearly achieving a high rank because of combos or whatever requires some form of skill, but isn't it an optional part of the game? If I go play DMC right now, do I need an S rank to beat all the bosses and finish the game?

 

Meanwhile, in games like Dark Souls you do need to learn the patterns and when it's a good idea to attack with your character's current setup of weapons/spells. It's not an option between "you can mash the button and proceed" or "you can carry out a complex chain of hits in a particular order in order to get a bigger rank!". You either learn to deal with the attack patterns or you get stuck.

 

Which I think is what Aeriyn was saying: you don't need much skill, in any of its many shapes, to 'beat' the game. Unless you do. I have no idea how DMC and the like work. Maybe if you don't have full S ranks on all stages you get the Very Depressing Ending or something.

[Ignacius]

Having played these games, I can definitely say that Devil May Cry takes far less skill to complete than any of the Dark/Demon Souls games.  Even after you learn attack patterns in the latter games, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll time it all correctly.  It's much less forgiving than Devil May Cry.

 

To be fair, though, Devil May Cry is meant to be far more forgiving; it's essentially meant to be half spectacle.  Capcom weren't trying to make an intentionally difficult game the way From Software was, Capcom just made a relatively difficult game for their time period because they're Capcom and they have a tendency to make games a smidge more difficult than what's out there.  From Software were, intentionally, making a hard game thus it is harder, a bit like when Treasure made Ikaruga.

 

Bushido Blade is a very difficult game and requires a lot of skill simply because, in the end, there is almost zero forgiveness.  The skills may be different, but Street Fighter's series is definitely easier than Bushido Blade, mostly because if you screw up in Street Fighter, you can fight your way back (usually).  In Bushido Blade, screwing up generally occurs a split second before you lose, because you only need to screw up once.

 

On the other hand, that analysis is a little more flawed, mostly because Street Fighter and Bushido Blade are built on PVP, and PVP is by definition hard for about half the people playing.  Of the two, Bushido Blade took longer to learn to be successful, but it's hard to judge the difficulty of PVP games because all you have to do to make the game easy is to get halfway up the curve.

 

Still, in the end, while a lot of things can define how hard a game is, ease of gameplay boils down to one, single, absolute value:  forgiveness.  The less forgiving a game is with your mistakes, the more difficult it will be.  While different games may be more difficult in different ways, there is an absolute value of easiness.  So yes, because Street Fighter and Devil May Cry will allow you to advance in the game with a greater amount of mistakes, they are pretty definitively easier to beat.

 

That's not to say they're not good games or successful at what they do.  A game being harder to beat doesn't necessarily make it better.  It isn't like Capcom tried to make a pair of the hardest games ever made and failed, they intentionally designed them to be precisely as difficult as they are.  Dark/Demon Souls can become a somewhat joyless and mechanical process; Devil May Cry had an intentionally built-in factor of "Ooooh.... Ahhhh...."  And I don't think anyone here is going to say Street Fighter wasn't a good game because you couldn't die in one hit; that simply wasn't the point of the game.

[Zyrusticae]

Clearly achieving a high rank because of combos or whatever requires some form of skill, but isn't it an optional part of the game? If I go play DMC right now, do I need an S rank to beat all the bosses and finish the game?

[snipped for length]

This is almost entirely besides the point. I was particularly responding to this:

Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

Bolded by me for emphasis.

 

This is simply a patently false statement. Whether or not the game requires it is immaterial; the game is STILL more than capable of possessing the same level of skill-based challenge and even more so because the mechanics are actually deeper. It's even false to suggest that Dark Souls is less forgiving; certainly at its base level it is less forgiving for actually getting through the game, but trying to S-rank a Platinum game or DMC is easily a match for a Souls games' level of challenge.

 

The rules change when you make such an attempt: you can only make so many mistakes before you just have to start over. You have to have a level of systems mastery well beyond that which is required to simply 'beat' a game, and to say that the games are easier or cannot have as much skill-based challenge because that baseline exists is simply disingenuous. The Souls games essentially force a rule on the player that says "you can only make this many mistakes before you die" while removing any semblance of 'difficulty settings'; trying to S-rank a character action game is essentially the same thing, only without the sudden death (and even then, there are difficulty settings designed to kill you very, very fast).

 

To put it another way: if you put the same limitations on the player between a Souls game and a character action game (you die in 'X' amount of hits), the latter will easily breach the former in difficulty simply because there are so many more game elements to keep track of, both in terms of the player toolset and in terms of what the enemies actually bring to the party. A lot of Dark Souls' difficulty, for example, comes from the player actually being limited in what they can do. Your weapons only have a handful of attacks; most of these attacks have lengthy windup and recovery times; your roll has a limited number of invulnerability frames; EVERYTHING you do costs you stamina.

 

That's one aspect of difficulty, and it's perfectly valid, but a character action game derives part of its difficulty from the fact that the player has a HUGE toolbox and must learn to utilize it effectively. A Souls game effectively hamstrings the player off the bat in the name of making things difficult (which itself is only a means to draw the player into the world further), which is simply not what a character action game is designed to do. It's because of this that Dark Souls fails to retain any semblance of challenge once a player has attained systems mastery; it's not actually a particularly deep game mechanically, it just does a good job of limiting the player to make things difficult and unforgiving.

 

Anyway, I hope that helps bring across where I'm coming from. From where I'm standing I just can't bring myself to agree with such an absolute statement. Such games can and do have an incredibly high level of skill-based challenge. Perhaps you have to actively seek it to find it, but you can't just deny that it exists.

[Ildur]

It's because of this that Dark Souls fails to retain any semblance of challenge once a player has attained systems mastery

 

Isn't this true for DMC too? Or any other game? DMC must have some ranking system, else you wouldn't be able to get a rank of any sort. If there's a system in place, then you can attain mastery of it. What does DMC have that allows it to retain the 'semblance of challenge' even after you become a 'master' of it?

[Ignacius]

Clearly achieving a high rank because of combos or whatever requires some form of skill, but isn't it an optional part of the game? If I go play DMC right now, do I need an S rank to beat all the bosses and finish the game?

[snipped for length]

This is almost entirely besides the point. I was particularly responding to this:

Very fast paced hack-and-slash games like DMC don't have (and can't have) the same level of skill-based challenge that games like DS or MH, or even TERA to a degree.

Bolded by me for emphasis.

 

This is simply a patently false statement. Whether or not the game requires it is immaterial; the game is STILL more than capable of possessing the same level of skill-based challenge and even more so because the mechanics are actually deeper. It's even false to suggest that Dark Souls is less forgiving; certainly at its base level it is less forgiving for actually getting through the game, but trying to S-rank a Platinum game or DMC is easily a match for a Souls games' level of challenge.

 

The rules change when you make such an attempt: you can only make so many mistakes before you just have to start over. You have to have a level of systems mastery well beyond that which is required to simply 'beat' a game, and to say that the games are easier or cannot have as much skill-based challenge because that baseline exists is simply disingenuous. The Souls games essentially force a rule on the player that says "you can only make this many mistakes before you die" while removing any semblance of 'difficulty settings'; trying to S-rank a character action game is essentially the same thing, only without the sudden death (and even then, there are difficulty settings designed to kill you very, very fast).

 

To put it another way: if you put the same limitations on the player between a Souls game and a character action game (you die in 'X' amount of hits), the latter will easily breach the former in difficulty simply because there are so many more game elements to keep track of, both in terms of the player toolset and in terms of what the enemies actually bring to the party. A lot of Dark Souls' difficulty, for example, comes from the player actually being limited in what they can do. Your weapons only have a handful of attacks; most of these attacks have lengthy windup and recovery times; your roll has a limited number of invulnerability frames; EVERYTHING you do costs you stamina.

 

That's one aspect of difficulty, and it's perfectly valid, but a character action game derives part of its difficulty from the fact that the player has a HUGE toolbox and must learn to utilize it effectively. A Souls game effectively hamstrings the player off the bat in the name of making things difficult (which itself is only a means to draw the player into the world further), which is simply not what a character action game is designed to do. It's because of this that Dark Souls fails to retain any semblance of challenge once a player has attained systems mastery; it's not actually a particularly deep game mechanically, it just does a good job of limiting the player to make things difficult and unforgiving.

 

Anyway, I hope that helps bring across where I'm coming from. From where I'm standing I just can't bring myself to agree with such an absolute statement. Such games can and do have an incredibly high level of skill-based challenge. Perhaps you have to actively seek it to find it, but you can't just deny that it exists.

 

There are hard parts of World of Warcraft, too, like challenge dungeons.  They ain't really for the weak.  I wouldn't say World of Warcraft is a hard game because you can find challenges if you hit endgame and look, it's not the meat and potatoes of the game.  Hell, you could play through Street Fighter only using light attacks and no specials and you would have, by definition, made the game more difficult.  The point is, you don't have to, so no, it doesn't really exist in a way we would give it credit for.

 

DMC wasn't made to be a skill-based game at its core, it's meant to be awesome™.  Dante was essentially a Japanese goth-metal version of Duke Nukem.  There are things you can do in the game that are harder than the base game, but they're not the base game.  So no, they may as well not be there.  If you couldn't keep track of a million things going on at once and survive, you wouldn't make it past the first level of Ikaruga no matter how many extra lives they gave you.  You could tell someone point blank how to beat a boss, and you'll still die repeatedly trying to get up enough skill to do it.  Both of these things are devastatingly difficult compared to Devil May Cry.

 

It's why I wouldn't patently say that WoW is harder than EVE even though WoW's endgame stuff is mindbendingly difficult compared to the F1 whoring in EVE.  WoW's basic gist of the game, its meat and potatoes, is almost coddlingly simple.  Even EVE's meat and potatoes, namely doing missions and cosmic anomalies, is at least more difficult than that.  It doesn't matter that the fight with Garrosh is a toothbreaker in a heroic raid, WoW is just plain easier because it's a lot more forgiving when someone screws up in the body of the game.

 

And, again, DMC isn't as heavily dependent on your skills to proceed because Capcom made that game to be experienced and enjoyed, not overcome.  Trust me, Capcom can make you weep blood if they feel like it.  They've made games where trying to complete ranks is a world away because the game difficulty bashes you on the head and makes you learn to play.  Hell, I'd say even Monster Hunter is harder than Devil May Cry on its own because it's ENTIRELY skill based and a helluva lot less forgiving.

 

So, don't get us wrong, it's not like we're saying Devil May Cry wasn't a good game.  It did exactly what it was supposed to do.  It was a brilliant fireworks display, but it wasn't meant to be a bludgeon the way some games are.  If it was supposed to be, it would be and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

 

On that note, though, I wonder how that Monster Hunter MMO Tencent is developing is coming along.  If Capcom will be damned for anything, it's not capitalizing on Monster Hunter by really pushing the series in the States and EU.  Still have to call it the best game series on the planet, and I'd pay good money for a subscription to an ever-expanding, ever developing Monster Hunter world.  They have every reason to, considering Monster Hunter IV was their best-selling title and their sole representative on the year-end top ten best sellers list last year.

 

God, I hate Capcom's business prick crust.  They're in any conversation to name the world's best video game developer and, because of their business wing that markets the games and directs funding, they're missing the open goals.  Lost Planet, essentially the Sci-Fi version of Monster Hunter?  Floundering.  Their Monster Hunter MMORPG?  Being developed by a Chinese company for China.  Their cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3 was a slap in the face to their loyal old-school fanbase that is still getting grumbled about whenever I bring the company up.  Their Resident Evil series, once important enough to have movies made about it, is now a magnet for accusations of racism instead of a font of horror.  They can thank God Dragon's Dogma turned out better than we thought it might be.

 

Capcom's business wing even admitted that it was their fault that the company missed expectations last year.  This year's agenda includes improving game quality by ending outsourcing to other development companies, actually releasing developers to put together some DLC, and retuning their mobile market.  It's like their business staff have been living under a bridge.  Did they miss the online gaming phenomenon, Steam, the sudden development of DLC on consoles, and the dramatic upswing in high-quality game titles in an incredibly competitive market?  Those developments only started in the early 2000s, I guess, so it's not like it's been a decade that they've somehow not grasped the changing nature of what video games constitute.

 

All I can say is that if their games lineup wasn't born of extremely strong proprietary IPs and that they genuinely seem to be able to develop gems in spite of themselves, Capcom would be tanking right now.  As it is, they finally saw profits fall and games miss sales targets.  They need to get serious.

[synaesthetic]

Right. I never said fast-paced hack and slash third-person action titles were bad games. There's a bunch of them that I really enjoy--I absolutely LOVE the Ys series, and they can be challenging games in their own right. All I'm saying is that there's a big difference in actual learned/practiced skill requirements in order to advance between these titles.

 

We can use shmups as an example, too--games like Gradius, R-Type and the like can be challenging, but they're not even remotely close to the difficulty of Touhou, Mushihimesama, Ikaruga and other bullet hell shooters. Bullet hell shmups are so incredibly unforgiving that you're not going to get anywhere at all without considerable practice. Even with infinite lives, you'd never make it past the first stage without either extensive danmaku experience to begin with or lots of practice with the game itself.

 

Note they also tend to be far slower paced and place an emphasis on avoidance (and with the case of many Touhou titles, grazing enemy shots as a method of scoring) above racking up kills. This is similar to DS, Monster Hunter and the like.

 

tbh, I find DS to be too unforgiving, just like I find most danmaku titles to be too unforgiving. I get stuck and get bored. That's why I loved TERA so damn much despite its pre-F2P issues--the game had that balance between the slaughterfest hack-and-slash of Ys, GoW, etc (especially in the open world and easier endgame content) paired with the emphasis on avoidance and dodging of DS and MH in the bleeding-edge endgame. It had the best of both worlds and I haven't found anything else that really comes close.

[Parth Makeo]

They attempted to make games like DMC before.

S4 league and Gunz the duel for example. Some wall running, gunning and melee action pvp styled arena with "skill" involved...

 

And by skill i mean "Buy the most OP items on the stop for a couple bucks" kind of skill. Yeah there is a reason why those games are kind of meh. Games that revolve around skill should stay in the realm of single player games on consoles and lobby based shooters not COD wise (Tf2 has a bit of that but you need teamwork still)

 

MMOs are suppose to be more about Co-operation and a virtual world where one can "escape" to and be something else. There may be some skill but it's not like dodging skills so much. It's more involved with 75% gear and 25% predicting what your opponent will toss at you. Even if there is a "dodge" mechanic, you can't deny that PVP in some regards will still be imbalanced due to gear. It's why i avoid PVP for the most part. No sense when I can't fight back on equal level or terms like in Team Fortress 2 or Tribes Ascend. At least in those games when I make a mistake, it's because i fucked up a shot or ran into something. In PVP it will usually and always be the man with better gear unless you get EXACTLY the same level of gear as that person has.

 

 

Also...

"There are hard parts of World of Warcraft, too, like challenge dungeons."

...No man. Challenge Modes are too easy. Sure the gear is scaled down to raid entry levels but even then a lot of people can carry dead weight in those still. 

Not to mention the majority of those Challenge Modes is Skipping monsters with invisibility pots. The gist is you have to kill a certain number of enemies (you can go over the min you need but it's wasted time) and get to the last boss in a record time. Some makeups use druids for the stampeding roar+Invis pot combo (If you are a mage just use Greater Invisible perk) and any makeup is capable provided you take the time. With a new group it took us only four tries to get silver and eight to get gold in Scarlet Monastery, and that was suppose to be one of the harder gold medals right next to Shado-Pan which kills melee based classes. Getting bronze at all is just impossible unless you REALLY suck at wow...which is hard to do.

 

But the Challenge Modes are fun regardless. Only hard part is getting a Realm Best time now but even then all realm best titles like "Darkmaster" are getting removed and those who had at least one get "Mistwalker" title instead.

 

The hard parts of wow are heroic raids on the patch they were released and finding a stable guild that lasts for more than a year. PVP can also be hard because you need to find a team that will not mock you or kick you out as an excuse for losing one round of rated Battlegrounds. Not to mention the restrictions people put on applications like exact PC specs and even descriptive reasons why you want to join the guild (But that's mainly for the top 1000 guilds of the world really.)

----

Update

If you want some neat reviews of free to play games btw, i suggest MMOgrinder

http://mmogrinder.net/

He was the one who got me mainly into various games I tried. Though be forewarned some of those reviews are old only due to that specific game being no longer around.

[Ignacius]

They attempted to make games like DMC before.

S4 league and Gunz the duel for example. Some wall running, gunning and melee action pvp styled arena with "skill" involved...

 

And by skill i mean "Buy the most OP items on the stop for a couple bucks" kind of skill. Yeah there is a reason why those games are kind of meh. Games that revolve around skill should stay in the realm of single player games on consoles and lobby based shooters not COD wise (Tf2 has a bit of that but you need teamwork still)

 

MMOs are suppose to be more about Co-operation and a virtual world where one can "escape" to and be something else. There may be some skill but it's not like dodging skills so much. It's more involved with 75% gear and 25% predicting what your opponent will toss at you. Even if there is a "dodge" mechanic, you can't deny that PVP in some regards will still be imbalanced due to gear. It's why i avoid PVP for the most part. No sense when I can't fight back on equal level or terms like in Team Fortress 2 or Tribes Ascend. At least in those games when I make a mistake, it's because i fucked up a shot or ran into something. In PVP it will usually and always be the man with better gear unless you get EXACTLY the same level of gear as that person has.

 

 

Also...

"There are hard parts of World of Warcraft, too, like challenge dungeons."

...No man. Challenge Modes are too easy. Sure the gear is scaled down to raid entry levels but even then a lot of people can carry dead weight in those still. 

Not to mention the majority of those Challenge Modes is Skipping monsters with invisibility pots. The gist is you have to kill a certain number of enemies (you can go over the min you need but it's wasted time) and get to the last boss in a record time. Some makeups use druids for the stampeding roar+Invis pot combo (If you are a mage just use Greater Invisible perk) and any makeup is capable provided you take the time. With a new group it took us only four tries to get silver and eight to get gold in Scarlet Monastery, and that was suppose to be one of the harder gold medals right next to Shado-Pan which kills melee based classes. Getting bronze at all is just impossible unless you REALLY suck at wow...which is hard to do.

 

But the Challenge Modes are fun regardless. Only hard part is getting a Realm Best time now but even then all realm best titles like "Darkmaster" are getting removed and those who had at least one get "Mistwalker" title instead.

 

The hard parts of wow are heroic raids on the patch they were released and finding a stable guild that lasts for more than a year. PVP can also be hard because you need to find a team that will not mock you or kick you out as an excuse for losing one round of rated Battlegrounds. Not to mention the restrictions people put on applications like exact PC specs and even descriptive reasons why you want to join the guild (But that's mainly for the top 1000 guilds of the world really.)

----

Update

If you want some neat reviews of free to play games btw, i suggest MMOgrinder

http://mmogrinder.net/

He was the one who got me mainly into various games I tried. Though be forewarned some of those reviews are old only due to that specific game being no longer around.

 

Hey, I know it seems REALLY easy, seems harder to me than the rest of the game, though.  And I understand that, after ten years of playing, I'm very likely to under-value game difficulty.  I just take what I hear from newer players about what's actually difficult, and challenge dungeons consume players with a year or three under their belt.

 

I'm generally fine because I had to grind dungeons in vanilla.  That included CC and target marking, often not with the best groups; sometimes, you had to throw together a group with someone using and offspec.  I still remember doing the Ziggurat event in ZF, back when you needed to finish it to advance.  We died and failed despite brilliant warrior tanking from my brother because our priest decided to DPS and blew his mana pool.

 

Challenge mode dungeons might be easier than that, but it seems pretty difficult to someone who hasn't been playing the game for a decade.  It's definitely harder to get gold ratings on those for people who started post-WotLK, though.  I mean, I just assume that if you'd played DMC nonstop for ten years, S-rank just wouldn't be an issue if you were in any way competent at the game.

[Parth Makeo]

Kind of...I know some post WOTLK people who were at first put off by the challenge mode but once they got in they managed to get 6/9 gold in patch 5.1 and got the last three just before 5.2 launched. But i understand what you mean. If i was out of shape in wow i too would kind of struggle. 

 

But then again Wow is that game where it was made for a more casual audience with the learning curve and the extra bits are just there as a challenge.

 

But about that DMC comment. I think if you played DMC for 10+ years straight with training, S rank in that term would be a sign of sucking. You wouldn't settle for anything less than SSS if we are talking about legit 10 years of playing/trying it on and off ala Street Fighter Tournament Players 

[Ignacius]

Kind of...I know some post WOTLK people who were at first put off by the challenge mode but once they got in they managed to get 6/9 gold in patch 5.1 and got the last three just before 5.2 launched. But i understand what you mean. If i was out of shape in wow i too would kind of struggle. 

 

But then again Wow is that game where it was made for a more casual audience with the learning curve and the extra bits are just there as a challenge.

 

But about that DMC comment. I think if you played DMC for 10+ years straight with training, S rank in that term would be a sign of sucking. You wouldn't settle for anything less than SSS if we are talking about legit 10 years of playing/trying it on and off ala Street Fighter Tournament Players 

 

In that sense, it's kind of amazing that WoW has survived for 10 years on top.  They've had everyone competing with them, and they're suffering the atophy of time, yet they've survived.  It's kind of surprising, actually.  I mean, EVE doesn't really have any meaningful competition; companies have been trying to knock WoW off the pedestal almost immediately after it was released.

[Naunet]

It's definitely harder to get gold ratings on those for people who started post-WotLK, though.

 

Oh man. Did you seriously just pull the "wrath baby" card? Really?

 

Whether you started playing the game in 2004, 2007, 2009, or 2013 really has no real bearing on one's skill. WoW has changed so dramatically over the years that it's pretty much a completely different game - complete with new spell dynamics and intensely more difficult boss fights - than it was 5, 7, 10 years ago. Just going to put that out there.

[Ignacius]

It's definitely harder to get gold ratings on those for people who started post-WotLK, though.

 

Oh man. Did you seriously just pull the "wrath baby" card? Really?

 

Whether you started playing the game in 2004, 2007, 2009, or 2013 really has no real bearing on one's skill. WoW has changed so dramatically over the years that it's pretty much a completely different game - complete with new spell dynamics and intensely more difficult boss fights - than it was 5, 7, 10 years ago. Just going to put that out there.

 

Hey, when I was your age, we had to spend whole days farming consumables for the raid we'd inevitably wipe over and over on because our GM's wife was also the healing officer and was routinely horrible.  And we were happy with it!

 

Honestly, point taken, except the intensely more difficult boss fights.  Bosses now are definitely easier than in vanilla, though if you played a spellcaster that might be a different story personally.  I know affliction warlocks topped DPS charts while barely looking at the boss sometimes; you just had to run the rotation.  I was a CC/kiting hunter back in the day, and even I felt bad for the melee back then.  Overall, the game's easier all over.  I'd say you had to have a bit more skill, in general, to play in vanilla.

 

Now, with that said, in vanilla, you could carry some more worthless people with you because one bad apple wasn't quite so glaring.  So the bar has dropped, but if you're still below the bar, it's a lot more noticeable.

[Ignacius]

As promised, though, I stuck through Wildstar until beta closed.  Figured I'd share my thoughts on it.  A quick summary is that I've pre-ordered and damn well become a Facebook publicity campaign, and I hate being on Facebook.  It's that good as I see it.  But I'll give some evidence on why I think that.  I'm going to be speaking from the point that everyone's seen the videos on Wildstar's website or have basic knowledge of how the game purportedly works.  If you haven't, don't feel like watching, and want to ask a question, go ahead and ask me.  I totally get not wanting to wade through Carbine's promotional material for information or to try to sort through a forum full of trolls and fanbois.

 

Wildstar's all-star number 1 reason why I've cancelled my other subs is the combat, which is incredibly quick and fluid.  Most of all, it's very easily tailored, giving you no set way to do anything to maximize damage in any instance.  This was most easily demonstrated when I was playing my Spellslinger (sort of a gun-toting spell class).  I was playing a stun-and-gun strategy from range which worked for me.  During one fight, I noticed that another Spellslinger was literally right on top of the boss and was ducking around him.  He'd set up his abilities to have a bit more defense and was using a faster skillset than mine, but one that ultimately wouldn't work at range.  You can also heal from both ranges as a Spellslinger.  The guy I was talking about even told me he'd once had to tank an instance after the MT died (tanking is a much more fluid and a softer division than in other games).  That's a lot of variety out of one class that uses pistols.

 

Another thing I like is the extreme customization.  I'll not go over all of the stuff Carbine went over in their video except to say you can customize your armor color and visuals, completely customize your (basically free) house, put customized pieces on your mounts, and a few game types, like the mass PVP Warplot gametype, you customize your own environment.  More than that though, the game feels custom-fit straight through to your statistics and style.  It isn't just choosing and gearing as a tank/healer/DPS.  The medic class is actually a short-to-medium ranged healer AND/OR DPS.  Just about every class in the game has some utility between healing, tanking, and damage.  The engineer class seems perfectly capable of doing all three, for instance, and it's a pet class with heavy armor.

 

Aside from those things, mechanically, it's a flurry of speed and reaction.  It plays a LOT more like an old N64 or PS1 game than a tab-targetted MMORPG.  The red telegraph bubbles aren't just spheres and lines, they're flying all over the place in crazy geometric patterns as well as having quite a few other abilities.  More interestingly, you get used to looking for reactions to being stunned, disarmed, and otherwise CCed.  There's usually a way out if you're fast enough, so really good players never have to cry about being stunlocked for an entire fight.  That's good because PVP is fast and unforgiving.  I like the game's difficulty, which ramps up significantly once you hit levels about 10-15, but it might not be for everyone.  Suffice it to say, the difficulty of the game isn't tied up in the grind (at least not that I saw).  It's all about being quick on the draw.  Honestly, it's the first time in a long time that I was killing the same thing for, as I soon discovered, a half hour and wondered how long the quest had been done.  It's just addictively fun.

 

Negative items include me needing to buy a new video card.  While, for example, FFXIV is a bit ponderous but doesn't necessarily punish you for moving slow, Wildstar demands precision.  Which would be nicer if the game wasn't chewing your resources.  You can drop the graphics to a point where pretty much anyone can play, but don't let the game's setting and art style fool you, this game drinks your system resources.  I'm now packing a 3.0 GPU and an FX9590 processor on a Formula V Crosshair Z motherboard with 32 gigs of high speed RAM.  I can run flawlessly on ultra graphics, but before I put in the new card, the game chopped to 30FPS on my 1.0 card.  There are a lot of crazy particle effects, PSO style holograms and neons, and a possible draw distance that can make your eyes bleed.  It's not for a 10 year old computer or a netbook; you'll blow it up.

 

Another thing that bothered me was the UI.  Apparently, they redesigned the UI from an even worse one, and in the broad strokes it does what it needs to do.  Text, however, can be sometimes very hard to read in the default font.  Buttons on screen you use to access certain information are very small.  Quest tracking text on the right can sometimes be difficult to read.  This is a minor gripe, as many issues I had were fixed (probably all the people that complained) and because not only is the UI fixable through menus, but it has a WoW style addon engine.  Still, I don't like UI addons, so you'll need to play around with the UI so that it works for you.

 

On a side note, resource nodes can be annoying.  Generally, Carbine avoids the trap of making you resent other players by rewarding you for helping them.  Crafting is actually really fun, if a bit less intense than in FFXIV.  You get quest credit if you and someone else kill something, so you aren't fighting over mobs.  Given that, it's weird that mining nodes aren't instanced to the character as in FFXIV.  More than that, you can get a lot of ore from a node using a mining laser, but you can also melee it and break it up, then collect less resources without one.  That means you've got people who accidentally blow up your resource nodes while fighting (not their intention) even if they aren't collecting the stuff.

 

Things that I don't mind or don't care about that might bother/excite other people include the art style.  It's not quite as cartoony in tone as I thought it would be, considering what art presentations you see.  It's very often bouncing between being amazingly awesome, hysterically funny, and deadly serious.  I won't get too far into the story in case some people don't want spoilers, but there are genuinely heartfelt moments, one of which made my wife cry.  Luckily, from there, you're given immediate chance for revenge and your crazy narrator comes in to reassure you that someone is gonna pay.  It's a frenetic style that I absolutely LOVED TO DEATH!  I can see that it might seem annoying, but seriously give it a shot and play the free month before you condemn it.

 

Another thing people might like or not like, the FFXIV weapon-by-class system.  Armor falls into medium-heavy-light catagories (two classes per armor type) and is actually highly customizeable.  Bosses drop everyone individual boxes that may or may not contain loot and have low chance of epics, but there's no fighting or ninjaing.  You can make weapons look like other weapons of their class and play with their stats.  However, what you can't do is make your heavy-armored engineer look like he's wearing light armor through the costume system, and more importantly your weapon will always be of a certain type.  Warriors always use great-swords, Spellslingers always use a pair of pistols, etc.  Hopefully that will be changed eventually, that warriors might get axes and maces as well.  It's not a thing for me, I don't mind.  But it's been talked about negatively in beta, so be forewarned that FFXIV's weapon-by-class system is in Wildstar.

 

Character customization seems to be an ongoing issue.  I thought Wildstar hit a pretty good balance by making sure all the customization that was important was in the face, but having the body and other features easier to handle.  Some people thought it was too little, they wanted more sliders on the body, hair, et al.  I get that.  It didn't bother me and I got some great looks from what I had available to me.  Races are incredibly idiosyncratic and fun.  I was pleasantly surprised and felt satisfied, and I really got into the looks of my characters.  Some people might not be, though.

 

Another thing is the focus away from grinding by not giving you a lot of class experience for killing things, but for completing quests, dungeons, PVP, et cetera.  That shift in focus might annoy some people.  I like it and see where it was going.  Some people would rather get most of their EXP from the monster kill grind or individual kills

 

As a disclaimer, we didn't all have a chance to do everything.  There are things I didn't have time to do as I took most of the classes up a few levels and experimented with gameplay styles.  I only ran one dungeon to get a feel for it and only dueled.  I got no chance to try their top-end PVE or PVP endgame.  Reception on both of those has been positive from what I've heard, but not universally positive.  If someone ran to the endgame and can elaborate, please do.  While I tried all of the classes and paths (all of which I loved to play; they're all extremely entertaining), I did not have a chance to try all professions.  I only got to play with mount and house customization to a very minimal degree since I didn't make it to a capital city until later in the process when I thought I had a good grasp of the basics of all factions, races, classes, and paths.

 

So that's what I think.  As I said, I'm cancelling my other subs now and not planning on buying any other MMOs or expansions until I hear otherwise.  I'll probably be playing Diablo 3 until then.  I'll still be around here to talk about the games for a while and I may come back to FFXIV (who knows?  It's not like FFXIV is a bad game, I just don't like it as much as Wildstar).  If you want to stay in touch after that, send me a PM and I'll either give you my battle.net ID for Blizzard or a way to stay in touch until early start of Wildstar on the 31st of May (yes, if you preorder, you get to start the game on the 31st instead of the 3rd).

 

Again, if you have any questions, comments, or want my feedback or input, go ahead and ask.  I'm excited and really high on the game, but I'm somewhat cynical by nature.  I'll try to give you as straight an answer as someone with an opinion on the game possibly can.