Catering to the Majority

[busta]

We understand that most people wants an instant win button. But there is a niche of hardcore MMO gamers that demand a hardcore MMO. Eve Online is the only thing out there to satisfy these players currently. FFXI started off great but devolved too far over time. We want a game that feel like a virtual reality, not a simple button spam game where you win faster than some single player RPGs. We want a game where getting to max level actually means something and where there are real satisfying rewards and accomplishments. Modern MMOs are a joke.

That's not to say I hate FFXIV. I love it for what it is otherwise I wouldn't be here. I just hate the community and I hate SE giving into every cry baby demand.

[MadMacallan]

We understand that most people wants an instant win button...

That's not to say I hate FFXIV. I love it for what it is otherwise I wouldn't be here. I just hate the community and I hate SE giving into every cry baby demand.

I feel you. It's a matter of balance. I don't want the game to be a faceroll, but I also don't want it to be Dark Souls punishing. Right now it feels like the current perception of the majority is the latter. I could be wrong. This is all based on observation - but either way based on my actual death toll, it's very much a reality.

[Dsync]

but I also don't want it to be Dark Souls punishing. Right now it feels like the current perception of the majority is the latter. I could be wrong.

I doubt it. It's just that casual people seem far less likely to come on forums or spam a chat channel with things like "omfg SE! Stop catering to the hardcore!!". Yes you get the odd few, but most "casuals" don't care, or don't have time, to mingle with this community. They just want to relax and play.

There isn't just one group for each casual and hardcore style of play. I play a lot that I fall into a "Hardcore Casual" section.

[Trife]

That's not to say I hate FFXIV. I love it for what it is otherwise I wouldn't be here. I just hate the community and I hate SE giving into every cry baby demand.

I couldn't have said it better myself. I'm a casual player, but still expect to earn my way through the game, and not have everything handed to me on a silver platter cut up for me by mommy (or SE in this case). SE should have stuck to their roots. FFXI is a legendary MMO, all they had to do was take the concepts from that and improve on it and bring the platform up to date.

Instead we get this WoW clone made for A.D.D bearing kids... ERMERGAWD, I gotta earn my stuff! Who would have thought that a few years ago when I started hearing about this WoW game that was soloable, would ruin MMO's forever....... Why the hell did SE even try to be like that pathetic game? They did fine using their own concepts.

I remember when progress in these games meant something. Now it's just race to endgame the first week of release, and battle mechanics with no variety, or just a DPS race if you will. No skills chains, no magic bursts, just rotation fighting. Yay!!!! I mastered my one rotation! How mindless is that?

All I know is somebody, (I was hoping it would be SE with this title), would come out with a real MMO that could emulate the fun I had in FFXI. Forget what these kids nowadays want, they have proven that their demands aren't capable of producing a respectable game design. Make a real game, those people are only ruining gaming and lowering expectations to levels I never would imagine happening to gaming.

[Naberrie]

We want a game where getting to max level actually means something and where there are real satisfying rewards and accomplishments. Modern MMOs are a joke.

And a lot of these same people do speed runs, want the tomes weekly cap increased or disposed of entirely, and look for every possible glitch or advantage to get things as quickly and easily as possible.

Pardon me while I stop and admire the contradiction.

[Livilda]

And a lot of these same people do speed runs, want the tomes weekly cap increased or disposed of entirely, and look for every possible glitch or advantage to get things as quickly and easily as possible.

It's almost as if people want everyone else to play far less so that their own easily-earned accomplishments mean more.

[busta]

And a lot of these same people do speed runs, want the tomes weekly cap increased or disposed of entirely, and look for every possible glitch or advantage to get things as quickly and easily as possible.

Pardon me while I stop and admire the contradiction.

That's not a hardcore player, obviously. They are the crybabies I'm referring to.

[mr_wazzabi]

We understand that most people wants an instant win button. But there is a niche of hardcore MMO gamers that demand a hardcore MMO. Eve Online is the only thing out there to satisfy these players currently. FFXI started off great but devolved too far over time. We want a game that feel like a virtual reality, not a simple button spam game where you win faster than some single player RPGs. We want a game where getting to max level actually means something and where there are real satisfying rewards and accomplishments. Modern MMOs are a joke.

That's not to say I hate FFXIV. I love it for what it is otherwise I wouldn't be here. I just hate the community and I hate SE giving into every cry baby demand.

The masses sell dude. In the end, it's about the almighty dollar.

[busta]

The masses sell dude. In the end, it's about the almighty dollar.

There are these things called niche markets. Every person is a unique individual. Each person has their own values, preferences, tastes, etc. If you only focus on what the majority want, you are abandoning a MASSIVE number of people. But you do have to have a target audience. It can't literally be everyone. So some smart entrepreneurs out there attempt to fill that void in the marketplace and satisfy the demands of those people.

MMORPGs were born as alternate realities that you could live in. It could take years to have an incredibly well developed character in classic MMORPGs. MMORPGs have devolved into multiplayer versions of single player RPGs. They have become Call of Duty-fied. They are no longer massive worlds to get lost in. And I don't personally have a problem with that. I'm just waiting for some companies to come along to satisfy us hardcore players who enjoyed games like 2003 era FFXI and won't give into crybaby demands to make their game easier.

[Stryker]

SNIP

Nope not true. Only in the true theory of a niche market is every individual seen as unique, but the world has shown this not to be true. Niche markets are now groups of people. There is no such thing as a specialty store that caters to everyone because then that would become the masses. It's like true communism. It's completely different than the communism we have now comrade.

And by definition if you are catering the majority, you are not abandoning the MASSES unless you want to specify that the masses is actually a small group of people. Otherwise it just means you're not catering to the minority.

Many mmo's like this one will continue to offer a buffet style and continually tweak that until they can offer what WoW did. Before that many games were very niche based including FF11. Now that's not the case. Whether that's the best business decision for this game and for other games to come who knows. Maybe in 5 years the landscape will change and it will return back to more of a niche market. But this game needs a big win and that win being the almighty dollar.

Well in this economy it might be the BPS rather than the $.